5 ways fashion ERPs improve sample management

Fashion’s cyclical nature means timing is everything. Collections must hit the shelves at the right moment to capitalise on consumer demand and market trends. Missing these critical windows can mean the difference between a successful season and unsold inventory.

Development processes often involve multiple sample types (prototypes, size sets, photoshoot samples, salesmen samples, etc.), yet most ERP systems weren’t designed with fashion’s unique workflows in mind.

This creates a fundamental disconnect for fashion brands. While they rely on their ERPs to centralise data and enable cross-departmental collaboration, the absence of robust sample management capabilities makes it considerably harder to meet market deadlines.

What happens when sample management spirals out of control?

Without getting too deep into the trenches, managing samples presents significant logistical challenges. As samples move between designers, manufacturers, showrooms and marketers, tracking becomes increasingly difficult.

Brands operating without proper tracking systems often find their samples get lost or delayed, causing a domino effect of problems downstream:

• Marketing campaigns fall behind schedule
• Seasonal launches miss their market windows
• Budgets spiral out of control

All these issues compound, resulting in missed opportunities, frustrated teams and compromised product quality.

It’s a situation that undermines the very foundation of a fashion brand’s success.

Fashion ERPs are the missing link in brands’ product development chain

We mentioned that ERPs allow multiple departments to work from the same data but noted that most available systems are insufficient for fashion.

This is because the fashion industry’s processes are uniquely complex, and most general-purpose business systems don’t include support for sample management.

Fashion ERPs are designed specifically to give brands an alternative that understands the entire product lifecycle and offers support throughout it.

To help illustrate this, we’ve provided five examples below:

1. Simplified sample organisation

Tailored fashion ERPs allow brands to create custom purchase order types for different samples, be that prototypes, photoshoot samples, showroom pieces or something else.

Each purchase order type can have its own pricing structure and tracking to keep everything neatly separated from bulk production.

This approach offers several benefits like reducing confusion between sample orders and regular production, eliminating error-prone manual spreadsheets and providing clearer visibility of sample locations across warehouses and facilities.

2. Streamlined showroom management

No fashion brand is immune to last-minute changes that cause ripple effects throughout the sample management process. It doesn’t matter how well prepared they are; it happens.

With a fashion ERP, however, brands are much better equipped to handle unexpected changes. For instance, they can:

• Quickly order salesmen samples to populate showrooms with new collections
• Modify product variants (colours and sizes) while samples are still in development
• Update measurements and adjust orders easily as designs evolve

This level of flexibility is essential for responsive sample management but is rarely supported in general-purpose ERP systems.

3. Controlled sample budgeting

There are significant expenses associated with samples and this is yet another area where fashion ERPs really shine.

They offer myriad benefits to financial teams, such as the ability to set sample-specific pricing at the purchase order category level.

Fashion ERPs also track actual costs versus budgets for different sample types while providing visibility into sample budget allocation and expenditure.

These capabilities translate to significant savings and better forecasting for future collections, helping not just the teams charged with handling samples but other departments too.

4. Compounding and tangible benefits for all departments

When you consider all the above points, it becomes clearer how these benefits cascade throughout an organisation:

• Designers spend less time chasing samples and more time creating
• Merchandisers plan confidently based on accurate sample timelines
• Showroom managers always know which samples are arriving when
• Executives gain better cost control and smoother product launches

We meant it when we said that ERPs allow everyone to work from a single source of truth. This alone dramatically increases productivity and reduces costs across the business.

5. Enhanced quality control

Perhaps most valuable is how fashion ERPs help brands maintain their quality standards. This is important to note since many generic ERPs only accommodate quality control after production.

Given the costs associated with production in fashion, especially if an entire batch is produced with defects, it’s paramount brands maintain a tight grip on QC.

Fashion ERPs apply the same quality control measures to samples as to production items, with checks linked directly to measurements and specifications.

This ensures that the samples brands work with accurately represent the final product, helping to build trust with buyers while also keeping costs in check.

Fashion ERPs aren’t a cost, they’re an investment

It’s important to remember that in an industry where timing determines success, robust sample management processes aren’t a nice-to-have but a necessity.

Fashion ERPs, like our own K3 Fashion, provide brands with these critical capabilities that can make the difference when it comes to crunch time.

Our solution is specifically designed to address the unique challenges fashion brands face in bringing collections to market on schedule.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can support you, feel free to drop us a line today.