How do wholesale platforms improve assortment planning?

What is assortment planning in wholesale?

Assortment planning is the process of deciding which products, in what quantities and variations, to carry across different channels, seasons, and deliveries to meet projected demand. Assortment planning in retail varies depending on whether it’s executed by a retailer or a brand. When it’s a retailer, they’re strategically planning the most effective wholesale buys, when it’s a brand, they’re deciding which collections and individual SKUs to stock in which of their wholly owned stores. Either way, it’s important to plan as effectively as possible to close the gap between what’s been purchased or stocked and what customers ultimately buy. That’s where wholesale platforms come in.

How wholesale platforms improve assortment planning 

Explore the most powerful ways your wholesale platform can elevate your assortment planning.

Centralized, real-time data and predictive analytics

The best wholesale platforms integrate your POS, ERP, and eCommerce data into a single, live view. This helps you confirm what’s selling, and where, in real time. You can then use these rich insights to plan your assortments with greater accuracy, rather than via instinct and observation alone. You can also combine them with seasonal trend analyses, store-level insights, and industry-level insights to reduce risk even more.

Visual assortment building

Speed up your planning by using your assortment planning platform’s drag-and-drop tools. And build and organize collections to balance your categories, colors, and price points across deliveries via visual-rich representations that make them easy to both create and share with your teams. These powerful visuals also make it easy to spot duplicate styles and strengthen the cohesiveness of every collection.

Seamless B2B collaboration

When you use a wholesale platform, you can streamline communication between buyers, suppliers, and sales reps, with instant access to up-to-date availability. And brands can suggest optimized size curves and pre-grouped bundles so buys will be balanced from the start. 

Omnichannel planning and store clustering

The right platform can support your multi-plan scenarios too. Your teams can use it to segment buys by channel (such as wholesale vs. DTC) and cluster stores by performance tier. This can help you ensure that your high-demand locations stay well-stocked while your lower-tier stores won’t end up mired in overstock. 

Greater efficiency and speed

Wholesale platforms can also improve assortment planning by automating routine data entry tasks. It can mean the difference between having a minutes-long planning process instead of a weeks-long project. It’s a benefit that also frees up your team members’ time and energy to focus on more strategic buys.

"NuORDER has enabled us to remain connected and to collaborate with our buyers better than we ever have in the past. Now, more than ever, we are benefiting from buyers’ ability to quickly access our linesheets, lookbooks, and online ordering. The easy to use platform allows us to have an immersive and very personalized online sales experience for all of our customers." 
— the wholesale team at the fashion brand Chan Luu

Traditional vs. platform-driven assortment planning 

Here’s a great reference of the major differences between traditional assortment planning and planning with a wholesale platform.

Plan smarter with NuORDER

The best wholesale platforms turn assortment planning into a data-driven, collaborative process. That’s why NuORDER was specifically designed to mirror the realities of the wholesale business, while taking collaborative commerce to new heights.