The Benefits of Virtual Warehousing for Apparel and Fashion Brands

From the global apparel brand to the smaller, single-inventory retailer, all of them know: A supply chain is sporadic and can fluctuate at any given time for any given reason. Consumers are fair-weather, fickle and their needs can change at the drop of a dime. What this has meant for suppliers is that some inventory may be critical and in high demand in one geographic area in the supply chain but too expensive and slow moving for stocking in another location.

This variable behavior in product demand is the same reason we diversify our stock portfolios. It is also the same reason that more and more retailers are choosing virtual warehousing and omnichannel planning to meet the challenge of a constantly evolving product demand.

The internet has enabled a society of instant gratification and go-go-go!  Customers want their orders delivered to them as soon as possible. They will choose the business that can ship to them first, and they have proven that they are willing to pay for it! Just look at the success of virtual supply giants eBay and Amazon! The suppliers that are winning are those that have decentralized their supply chain to meet consumer demand! 

The truth is, more and more retail brands are choosing virtual warehousing coupled with a strong omnichannel supply chain system, no longer as an option but, as an imperative if they plan to compete in the 21st Century.

Virtual Warehousing 

So, what is virtual warehousing? Virtual warehousing allows for inventory to be physically housed anywhere – including a distribution center, a temporary facility, or the back room of a store – and distributed on an as-needed basis. 

With virtual warehousing, all of your supply chains work as a network, and this network is then considered for fulfillment. So when an order arrives, the network is consulted, irrespective of where the product is stored, to identify the best possible way to fulfill the order as quickly as possible. 

Omnichannel Planning for Virtual Warehouse Management

Of course, with any divergent system, there are challenges: with virtual warehousing, big-brand retailers face choosing the right system configuration to manage stock virtually; meeting the sudden cost of sporadic inventory transfers between channels; and/or the possibility of losing money and customers when the product is not readily available at specific channels. 

However, with the right omnichannel planning and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integration, big retailers can segregate inventory; provide transparent financial ownership and tracking; secure inventory availability per channel; and even share warehouse shelf space.

CGS’s BlueCherry Omnichannel Planning is a best-in-class, fully integrated solution with a powerful, comprehensive set of tools to manage your virtual warehousing by driving your merchandise planning, forecasting, brand management and inventory tracking and control. 

ERP for Efficiency and Tracking

Omnichannel planning coupled with ERP, allows apparel businesses to manage and automate back office functions through integrated applications such as electronic data interchange (EDI), logistics, warehousing among others. Choosing the right apparel ERP solution for your business can be one of the most important decisions you will make. 

BlueCherry’s omnichannel planning and ERP solutions provide powerful category planning capabilities and historical point-of-sale data tools to manage individual plans independently, or a company can merge it into a single, multichannel plan. These customizable options both provide accurate forecasting, which effectively reduces stock-outs and markdowns and significantly improves demand optimization. Assortment planning tools also enable cluster planning on a style-by-style basis -all the way down to the SKU level. 

Competing in the Virtual Warehousing Landscape

Ready to compete in today’s fast-moving technology landscape? To succeed, you need the right technologies, such as omnichannel planning, and the right ERP integrations for inventory visibility. BlueCherry solutions assist companies in building inventory in various locations while at the same time offers fast, efficient fulfillment cost-effectively. These solutions are fully customizable, allowing brand retailers big and small not only to emulate but fully participate and compete in the virtual inventory process.