Apparel

In recent years apparel has led the way in terms of the growth of eCommerce, omni-channel retailing and international fulfilment. The inherent nature of the fashion industry has resulted in constant product changes, ever shorter lead times and wider choice. All these points together have justified major investment in automated distribution facilities to handle the large volumes and high demand peaks and more generally help meet some of the end customers’ expectations.

To be able to effectively deliver solutions within this ever changing, and highly competitive market, flexibility and innovation are key. The end customers’ demands are always increasing, and any apparel retailer needs to be able to adapt, in a cost efficient way to meet them.

The Matflo product suite, has continually innovated, to help deliver efficiencies across the complete supply chain, particularly within the centralised automated distribution centres, and then the subsequent hand over to the courier for eCommerce driven sales.

Month on month the available customer offer is extended, offering later and later last orders for next day, or now even same day delivery. The delivery itself is now being scheduled to one hour time slots or less, offering the end customer ultimate convenience in delivery to home or click and collect offerings. The effectiveness of the IT supporting the operation is critical.

Any software solution provider within this sector needs to be able to understand and address issues such as:

• Complexities of handling multiple different style/colour/size variants
• Solutions around effective returns handling
• The vagaries of different batch pick and sortation driven solutions
• Handling of flat packed, hanging garments and footwear
• Features around order prioritisation based on delivery promise
• Ability to handle individual garments and as well as multi-SKU ratio packs