Seasonality, the size-colour explosion and long offshore lead times push apparel into overproduction and deep discounts. DemandIntel sizes what to make and buy on your own data, so the end-of-season markdown stops being a line item.
Many apparel and textile makers quietly liquidate millions of dollars of stock at deep discount every year. It feels like a cost of doing business. It is not, it is overproduction and a demand-planning gap turned into destroyed margin.
The causes are structural: one style becomes dozens of size-colour SKUs, demand is sharp and trend-sensitive, and offshore production forces commitments months before the season’s real demand is known. Guess high and you liquidate; guess low and you miss the season.
Unsold seasonal stock sold at a deep discount is pure margin destruction, and the clearest symptom of a planning gap.
One style becomes dozens of SKUs. Each size and colour must be forecast and allocated on its own, not as an average.
Production in Morocco, Turkey or Asia means you commit months before you know what the season actually wants.
Demand is short-lived and moves with trend. A smoothed average is always one season behind.
Commit too much and you liquidate; too little and you miss the window. The quantity has to be sized on real uncertainty, not hope.
Cash sits in finished garments and raw textile across multiple sites and countries, hard to see, harder to move.
of unsold goods sitting in US retail inventory
excess, unsold fashion items produced a year
Sources: McKinsey, Tackling retail's inventory glut (2023); McKinsey / Business of Fashion, State of Fashion 2025.
DemandIntel forecasts sharp, seasonal demand reproducibly and sizes the pre-season commitment on real uncertainty, so you make and buy closer to what the season will actually take. The point is not a smarter guess; it is a quantity you can defend before you cut fabric.
On stock already in the building, the pre-obsolescence view flags what is heading for the markdown rack early enough to redeploy or promote it on your terms, not the clearance rack’s. It runs on-site, across your offshore sites, beside the ERP.
And because every number is reproducible and auditable, the buy plan is one your merchandisers and your CFO can both stand behind. The goal is simple: shrink the liquidation pile until it stops being a line item.
That is the norm here. DemandIntel plans across multiple production sites and long lead times, and sizes the pre-season commitment accordingly.
Yes. It plans at the SKU level, each size-colour on its own demand and variability, rather than splitting a style average.
Exactly where reproducible seasonal forecasting beats an average. It models the season’s shape instead of lagging it.
That is the target. It sizes the buy to avoid overproduction, and flags at-risk stock early enough to act before the clearance rack.
Picture your next S&OP meeting: one number on screen that nobody argues with. See it free, on your own data, in 45 minutes; and if it does not hold up, we part as friends.