Fashion presales in practice: What ‘good’ looks like

Presales once pushed risk away from brands and onto retailers, but as presales have declined, that burden has shifted back. Forecasts have to carry more weight; when they miss, stock builds up and margins fall. Long supply chains only magnify this pain.

Make no mistake, though, presales still offer clean signals amidst the noise.

Why presales still matter in fashion

Presales give a good indication of demand and support production planning by telling brands explicitly what material orders and capacity will be needed early on.

They also steady cash flow by giving finance the confidence to commit to core buys while keeping ‘trend buys’ flexible.

Since these indicators tell brands what specifically they will need, presales also help reduce waste, as the brand will only create what has been ordered.

This isn’t to say brands *should only run presales* as this would be unwise in today’s fashion climate. But they do offer substantial benefits.

Chiefly, the presale model helps establish predictable revenue since brands will know the demand for these pieces. Furthermore, it helps strengthen relationships.

Customers naturally feel closer to collections and designers when they’re bought into them before they become generally available.

All of the above might seem like relatively simple levers, but they matter when seasons overlap and timelines compress.

Wholesale, long lead times, and multi-seasons

Presales have declined largely due to the prevalence of fast fashion. Brands in this niche lean on history and replenishment and do not depend on presales in the same way.

But there are still many fashion players for whom presales are essential to the way they work.

Brands operating across multiple seasons, wholesale, or that experience long lead times need presales to gauge demand more accurately.

Wholesalers, for instance, rely on retailer commitments made months before production starts. Committed preorders inform size runs, capacity booking, and help to manage risk.

Brands that have overlapping seasons need presales to prevent capacity clashes across drops. (Just think: how disastrous would it be if you fell short on materials for both SS and FW?)

Any brand that deals with complex products demanding specialised raw materials is particularly susceptible since their lead times could be incredibly long. Planning that far ahead and across seasons is often non-negotiable, which is where presales are particularly invaluable.

What does the presales process look like?

Presales start before the first order is ever taken. The seasonal plan sets category targets, drops, budgets and allocation priorities.

From there, salesman samples are created so teams can sell the line. Pricing and commercial guardrails are also agreed. These steps help to avoid late friction.

Sell-in follows. Sales capture preorders in showrooms (or virtually) and flag them as ‘presales’ in the system. Ringfencing rules are applied to protect stock for key accounts, channels and markets. This single step prevents conflict later.

Those orders are then rolled up. Demand is compared with forecasts and capacity; the buy plan is tuned with step-wise logic, locking core buys early and holding back room for reorders.

It’s a deliberate pace that reduces expensive mistakes.

Procurement then turns intention into commitment. Planned orders and material requirements are generated based on presales quantities. Suppliers confirm their capacity and lead times, and CSR and compliance checks are enforced before anything is finalised.

Customers are subsequently kept in the loop with confirmations that go out with shipping windows, quantities and terms. Deposits can be recorded where needed.

Key to all this, however, is allocation, which bridges planning and fulfilment. Future supply is often pre-allocated to presales orders before production finishes. If demand shifts, allocations can still be adjusted while honouring the original commitments.

When stock lands, presales are fulfilled first, then general demand. Exceptions and delays are flagged early, and supply is rebalanced if sell-in exceeds the plan.

To simplify this, you can think of presales as a closed loop that spans sales, planning, procurement, and allocation. Buyer commitments drive production, and those priorities are carried through to delivery.

How do brands stay on top of everything?

Presales require a lot of moving parts. If any part breaks, the result is often stockouts, overstocks or markdowns. Meticulous attention to detail is needed to avoid this.

The obvious solution is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

ERPs connect all teams and data streams into one platform, so each department and person can see everything as it happens. There is a problem though…

The way they help varies depending on the specific ERP.

SAP S/4HANA for Fashion provides provisional sales contracts with call-offs, which maps neatly to seasonal commitments, though configuration is expected.

Oracle Retail OMS is explicit with preorder quotes and future receipts processing. Oracle CX Commerce adds preorder flags at the storefront and API layer. But neither are ERP, and must therefore be integrated with one, which comes with additional costs, overheads and headaches.

Oracle NetSuite doesn’t market a dedicated presales module, yet it does offer the building blocks like order reservations, webstore backorder options and allocation of future inventory to sales orders.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain and Intelligent Order Management support preorder/backorder policies and use order types, reservation, and allocation to mirror presales.

Infor CloudSuite Fashion (M3) also underpins presales with pre-allocation and group pre-allocation.

As you can tell, there are many, many options available in the market to support presales, but few truly cover what presales-reliant brands need.

Enter K3 Fashion

The trick is to find a vendor with a single purpose that builds fashion-specific solutions like K3.

We embed our solutions directly inside Microsoft’s D365 ERPs – widely regarded as market leaders – and turn them into powerhouse tools for fashion businesses.

For the IT folk, this means we avoid integration overheads, data silos and synchronisation latency. For the fashion folk though, read on…

Our approach turns presales from a flag on an order into a thread that runs through the whole seasonal engine.

Teams see the preorders from day one and are able to gauge demand based on the number of preorders placed and entered into the system. This information can be fed directly into the seasonal plan.

Ringfencing rules can be set early to protect stock for your VIP accounts and markets. The promise dates in the system reflect actual supply capacity as well – not wishful thinking.

Sell-in is handled without polluting the numbers. Salesman samples are kept separate via dedicated sample purchase orders, so presales do not interfere with bulk. Sales and merchandising work from the same plan, so assortments match margin and category targets.

Risk is managed in the buy. Step-wise buying allows you to lock in your core buys, i.e., raw materials, early and keep some capacity held back for reorders. Finance sees landed costs and margins before commitment, which helps validate presales-driven buys.

Allocation is also built in throughout. The priority-based allocation engine fills presales commitments first and respects ringfences and minimum delivery rules. When demand shifts, dynamic reallocation can adjust mid-season while respecting what was sold.

Perhaps most importantly, everything lives inside the same system as production, inventory and financials. Teams don’t need spreadsheets or manual re-keying, and sales can see whether preorders are on track for delivery.

All this results in a presales process that survives real-world pressure.

Want to see it in action?

Our position is simple. We embed presales at every stage, connecting it to planning, phased buying, allocation and fulfilment, all on the D365 Finance and Supply Chain platform.

For any wholesalers or brands operating with long lead times and overlapping collections, that combination is the difference between a plan on paper and a season that lands.

If you’d like to see our solution in action, feel free to drop us a line today.