Follet Higher Education the largest campus store operator was facing the challenge of optimizing its supply chain to further drive product margins and secure a steady flow of products in stores. They were looking to build a robust supply chain and scale art license for each of the clothing items. Follet hired YAY Design to provide actionable solutions.

We fulfilled a critical role in driving revenue by building an efficient supply chain model and led the development from product concept to finished product in under 6 months.

KPIs

  • Increased sell-through rate from 65% to 76%.
  • Developed a rapid production timeline of 4 months.
  • Maintained low inventory levels.
  • Developed private label product from concept to selling in stores in 6 months
  • Apparel licensing.

Key focuses.

  • Designed and implemented the whole supply chain process from raw materials to fulfillment with 4 months of lead time.
  • Developed seasonal merchandising plans for private label apparel within Omni-Channel retail operations in the Men’s, Women’s, Accessories, and headwear categories.
  • Achieved rapid production turnaround time and developed an art template system enabling production artists to scale with 95% accuracy, an increase from 40%.
  • We negotiated net 60 terms with suppliers to optimize cash flow and avoid disruptions in the supply chain.
  • Helped in scaling art license for each of the clothing items.

More about the project.

We led with an initial discovery stage where we analyzed their supply chain for the past years, we were able to formulate strategies to achieve supply chain resilience. We prepared a road map of three phases- Define / Measure / Analyze, Improve / Design,  Implement and Control, with key deliverables and timelines for each phase.

We analyzed the key styles that were driving the most sales and designed the whole process from art scale production and development to implementation. Using the style guide requirements we were able to source products regularly while ensuring not to exhaust inventory levels which accelerated production.

We established the assortment and product setup for the Direct Ship Vendor program to implement e-Commerce operations, enabling the company to sell and deliver products using Print on Demand with zero inventory commitments and 24-hour order turnaround time. We were able to reduce lead time and increase sell-through rate from 65% to 76%.