Using Calico to make speed your competitive advantage

$194k

12

Saved in
inventory costs

Months shaved
off time to market

"Calico was instrumental in redefining our production approach, allowing us to stay innovative and competitive in today’s hyper fast-paced fashion industry."

Background

Our customer, a rapidly expanding DTC brand, made its mark in the womenswear market with a focus on luxury details. The brand's initial success in online retail led to an ambitious expansion into wholesale. However, this growth phase brought forth a significant challenge. The need to release smaller, more frequent batches to keep their collection fresh was at odds with the high-quantity demands of their existing manufacturers, limiting their ability to test new styles and quickly respond to market trends.

The Challenge

The primary challenges faced by this brand included:

High Minimum Order Quantities: Their existing manufacturers required large production runs, hindering the brand's ability to experiment with new designs.
Limited Market Responsiveness: The inability to produce smaller batches quickly made it difficult for our customer to keep their collection up to date and take advantage of collaborations and limited drops to build more buzz around their brand
Risk of Overproduction: High MOQs increased the risk of excess inventory, especially for untested styles. This massively increased the risk of new launches and limited the ability for the design team to be creative
Profit Margin Concerns: Exploring new ideas, designs and materials always come with additional financial risks especially when these new ideas require new factory relationships.

The Solution

Leveraging Calico’s varied network of vetted factories provided them with a comprehensive solution:

Access to Specialized Factories: Our customer was able to explore a variety of materials. techniques and styles with a network of factories capable of producing smaller batches at the right price point.
Enhanced Flexibility in Production: This new manufacturing approach allows our customer to to test new styles and launch smaller production runs. This added flexibility about our customer to launch 2 high profile collabs in 2023 that drove a whole new audience to the brand.
Streamlined Production Process: With detailed profiles and a vetted network, the average time to find a factory and make a production decision went from 6 months to 4 weeks. Our customer was able to turn a historical bottleneck into a competitive advantage.

Results

The partnership with Calico marked a pivotal moment in our customer's growth trajectory. By overcoming the challenges of inflexible manufacturing constraints, the brand was able to quickly experiment with new ideas and partnerships that drove a significant number of new people to the brand and made 2023 a record year. Their ability to be flexible and on trend opened up incredible opportunities for them including their own brick and mortar.

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