The latest apparel designs and styles look chic on mannequins in store windows. But each style represents hours of product searches by buyers who manually enter selections onto order forms; a single season can mean 600 or more files that buyers must juggle when ordering.
A new software-as-a-service (SaaS) product from Los Angeles tech company Black Closet has simplified this juggling act. Buyers at Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Neiman Marcus and other retailers are benefiting when sellers use brandboom’s SaaS web application. Amy Zhou, brandboom’s director of marketing, says it allows them to place orders faster and easier.
The SaaS app speeds work on the seller side, as well. “Sellers [can] spend weeks, up to a month, developing a list of products, and updating is a tedious process,” Zhou says. Retail sales forces using brandboom’s solution can complete the same process within one week. Sellers like Diesel add their proposal to brandboom’s website and a link is generated for buyers.
Fewer oversells
Sellers can maintain multiple product lines and brands with brandboom; buyers simply click on the brandboom link to reach a particular seller’s line, rather than downloading hundreds of files. The solution’s latest feature, real-time inventory, provides buyers with Available to Sell (ATS) information. Buyers can see how much stock is available for order by item and style, and sellers know when an item sells out so that there are fewer oversells.
Client presentations can be created in as little as five minutes using brandboom’s line sheets with color photos, which can also be e-mailed. Sellers can receive an e-mail from brandboom each time a buyer clicks the presentation link or places an order. “Sellers don’t have to waste time chasing buyers to see if they received a proposal,” Zhou says.
When a seller edits product information, the change is immediately visible to both the sales staff and buyers. Styles are easily found by entering a keyword in a search box; sellers and buyers can access and track the same order online simultaneously to eliminate confusion, Zhou says.
Automatically populating forms
Ordering is easier for busy buyers, Zhou notes, eliminating the need for catalogs. Buyers can place orders using a customized order form automatically populated with the products they have selected as well as images and information. Previous orders can also be viewed on the brandboom site.
According to brandboom, sellers can manage more buyer accounts simultaneously using the company’s software, freeing them to provide better service to buyers. The company’s website offers a view of each seller’s orders on one page (similar to a spreadsheet) to check status of open orders.
Studios in Los Angeles and New York City place brandboom close to the nation’s largest fashion and garment districts. The brandboom system has more than 250 brands, and more than 18,000 buyers currently use the system.
Zhou cites sales increases of 30 percent by brands using the brandboom; it also helps shrink travel- and printing-related expenses. Smaller companies — even start-ups — can afford to use brandboom, she says, because it offers subscription levels based on the size of a company’s buyer staff and/or product line.