Stepping into complexity: Overcoming footwear’s biggest back-office blockers

Footwear brands, synonymous with style, comfort, and durability, specialise in weaving intricate tales of design and craftmanship into their products.

Yet, these businesses face a myriad of back-office challenges that must be overcome to ensure their success.

In this article, we dive into some key obstacles footwear brands face in creating collections and potential solutions.

Item variants and customer satisfaction

One aspect of footwear shared with other fashion verticals is the need to create products in various colours, styles, and fits.

Accurate sizing information, coupled with robust inventory systems, helps to deliver products that consumers love and foster positive experiences.

Crucially, this mitigates the risks of additional problems like returns to further drive profitability and protect the bottom line.

Inventory management

With the vast array of products that footwear brands deal with, many companies encounter challenges in effectively overseeing their inventory.

In the absence of a streamlined inventory management system, brands frequently waste valuable time that could be redirected towards more meaningful tasks.

Brands can adopt a solution with prepack functionality, however, to resolve this issue. Prepacks are self-contained items encompassing multiple variants that serve as distinct products. They can be effortlessly packed or unpacked as needed, providing an enhanced level of flexibility and control over inventory.

Customisation challenges

In the era of personalisation, the item variant challenge is made worse because footwear enthusiasts desire customisation options.

Managing the intricacies of customised orders, from production to delivery, adds another layer of complexity to back-office management.

Dedicated fashion solutions are required to track and fulfil unique customer requests while maintaining the same production and operational efficiency level.

Supply chain efficiency

In the midst of dealing with forecasting demand, handling item variants and customisation requests, footwear brands face yet more complexity in managing their inventories and supply chains.

Efficient inventory management capabilities are pivotal to towing the line between meeting consumer demand and avoiding excess stock.

Striking the optimal balance between the two ensures greater cash flow since less inventory will be tied in up warehouses, leading to financial losses.

Channel management

While traditional store experiences are still favoured amongst many shoppers, online eCommerce channels and alternative business models like direct-to-consumer are undeniably important.

This challenge continues from the previous in that footwear brands must be able to seamlessly allocate and manage stock between various channels to ensure the right goods are available at the right time and place for customers.

Once again, robust industry bespoke solutions are paramount for footwear brands to navigate this challenge with minimal hassle.

Quality control and compliance

Much in the same way as other fashion brands, a footwear company’s reputation hinges on the quality and durability of its products.

Implementing stringent quality control measures throughout the production process is not a nice-to-have for footwear brands but a necessity.

However, there are solutions in the market that can support brands with these measures and allow them to move forward confidently.

What can footwear brands do?

To successfully stride into the limelight, footwear brands must resolve complex and multifaceted challenges.

Between balancing their inventories across multiple channels, accurately forecasting demand, and handling item variants, footwear brands have much to deal with.

Fortunately, there are solutions that empower brands to overcome such challenges.

K3’s Fashion Solution Portfolio, for example, offers a series of robust solutions seamlessly embedded in the Dynamics 365 technical infrastructures to enable businesses to handle their entire operations from concept to consumer.

If you’d like to learn more about how K3 can support you, feel free to drop us a line today.