July 20, 2022
Most brands develop 3-5 large seasonal assortments each year, with each release taking 18-24 months to complete. Stakeholders gather together for hours at a time to share instincts and opinions, pass around physical samples, and debate over every product detail.
Most styles never make it to consumers, bold newness gets cut in favor of proven past sellers, and usually the loudest voice in the room gets the final say. While historical sales performance and market trend data is often used to help shape assortments, most brands still fail to get input directly from the source best able to accurately predict demand and right-size investments: consumers.
And it’s showing. Not only are consumers satisfied with products for just half as long as they were 15 years ago, but retail overproduction has reached an astonishing 40% per season. Markdowns now cost brands a whopping $300 billion annually, or 12% of total retail sales.
Fortunately, there’s a better way, and it starts with putting consumers at the core of your product strategy. Take a look at the below infographic to learn all about the 5 stages of consumer-obsessed product creation and what brands like Taylor Stitch are doing to reach full maturity.
While every brand’s journey to modern product creation and merchandising is unique, MakerSights’ 5-stage maturity model maps out the most common challenges and stumbling blocks, top data sources and technologies, and key opportunities and best practices found along the way.
Download the free 47-page guide to learn which stage your brand falls into, specific steps you can take to get to the next level, and how consumer-obsessed brands are driving success.
We focus on surrounding AI design tools with consumer data to improve accuracy and prevent decision fatigue. Our intuitive product insight platform and team of retail-expert researchers work with brands to uncover their target consumers’ preferences on everything from color, silhouettes, patterns and feature attributes.
To provide a little insight into what’s likely coming down the pike, we’ve rounded up the recent statistics that we think retailers should keep top of mind over the next twelve months. From operational efficiencies to digital transformation to responsible fashion, here are 55 stats that we believe are key indicators of what’s to come in the new year.
One team’s success doesn’t have to come at the other’s expense. In fact, it’s proven that brands perform better when these two groups work together.
