How much of your volume is re-order today?

Some numbers on the pre- and re-order trend

Twice a year the whole industry meets. Premium, Panorama, CPD, CIFF, Pitti, Modefabriek - brands and retailers are on the road. To see what's coming, to meet, to share thoughts about the future. A perfect moment to find out how brands envision pre- and re-order developments. During the Berlin Fashion Week, we interviewed 75 brands and spoke to the head of sales (mainly) to ask for their opinion.

Whilst today’s average pre-order volume is around 71% of the total order volume, it's expected to decrease to 62% over the next three years. This number going down is not surprising, nor is it surprising that the main growth is expected to go to re-order volume. 76% of the participating brands have their own B2B portal, 16% are planning to launch one in the near future and 8% don’t plan to have a B2B portal for now.

Shifting to pre-order: We also asked participants about the tools they use to keep track of pre-orders. Whilst (online) B2B re-order portals are still quite often used to also enter pre-orders (26%) - users are asking for faster and more reliable tools. Imagining salespersons on the road it is not surprising that they would like a tool that works offline. Making the tool faster and more reliable instantly. When thinking about it: paper order sheets (27%) and Excel (4%) won’t fail on this point - yet provide cumbersome work once at the office. We would assume that the mobile order writer apps, now 31% (own developments 14% and third party solutions 17%) will grow. 

The main missing tool playing into the trend of growing re-order - is a solution for smart re-order suggestions. NOS articles have min-max automated re-order suggestions, but for fashion items there are currently no good solutions in place. Whilst re-order is growing, salespersons see their customers don’t have time to properly re-order fashion items. Checking dozens of B2B’s each Monday, searching for bestsellers that are sold out is a frustrating, time-consuming job - therefore not efficiently done. Sales representatives argue that with good tooling, they can perform this task more efficiently by suggesting customised re-orders.

Playing the re-order game well is very beneficial for both brands and retailers. We are asking questions to, listening to and learning from brands and retailers. Everything to find out how digital tools can support order processes. Please feel invited to share your thoughts on this topic with us!

>>> Find a Dutch translation of this article here.

>>> Find a German translation of this article here.