Aptean Apparel ERP, RLM Edition Case Study: Trend Marketing

For more than 20 years, Trend Marketing has been a trusted partner to Canada’s retailers, working behind the scenes to ensure consumers have a great experience with their favorite footwear brands.

As one of Canada’s largest footwear distributors, the organization is responsible for keeping many leading footwear labels in stock in retail customers’ stores across the country. These labels include Cole Haan, Vince Camuto, Life Stride, Jessica Simpson and Sam Edelman, to name just a few of the 50 brands distributed by Trend Marketing. The company has a strong track record of serving large retailers such as Hudson’s Bay Co., Amazon and Nordstrom, as well as numerous specialty retailers across Canada.

Today all of those retailers and an expanding roster of footwear brands partner with Trend Marketing to help them meet omnichannel demand. For example, retailers need real-time visibility into Trend Marketing’s inventory to populate product availability on their ecommerce sites. Often drop shipping directly to the end consumer, Trend Marketing’s distribution center (DC) serves as a seamless extension of the retailers’ own supply chain.

The Challenge

Trend Marketing faced the need for much greater automation and connectivity if it was to continue supporting growth without proportionately increasing headcount—the company’s existing legacy system couldn’t scale and support its growth. In addition, Trend Marketing used multiple tools to perform mission-critical electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions with retail customers. Shipping associates often had to log into retailers’ systems to perform key processes, only to do the same processes again in the outdated ERP system.

• Manual data entry caused confusion and discrepancies between accounts receivable and inventory numbers

• Additional manual processes on the receiving end were making it difficult to locate goods

• Expanding roster of footwear brands was becoming a challenge to manage with multiple systems and double the work

• Team members were often working overtime on weekends to keep up with order volume

The Solution

Trend Marketing searched for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to replace its 9-year-old system and decided to implement Aptean Apparel ERP, a cloud-based suite, encompassing all business processes from financial management to warehousing and fulfillment.

The company went live with Aptean Apparel ERP in January 2016, and rolled out the warehouse management system (WMS) capabilities in the fall of 2017 to bring an even greater level of automation to its 60,000-square foot DC in the greater Toronto area.

The Results

Now, Aptean Apparel ERP has replaced those manual processes with automations and tight integration—ensuring timely information sharing, accurate data recording and smoother operations.

• EDI integration between retail customers and preferred parcel shippers allows for automatic transactions and cost applications

• Aptean Apparel ERP’s WMS automates receivables by calculating the landed costs for each style, allowing for goods to be received immediately into inventory at the distribution center

• With one integrated solution, Trend Marketing has greater flexibility in how to prioritize its order picking and fulfillment

“We have a much faster receiving time now,” said Michael Weinberger, Trend Marketing’s Director of Operations.

Since going live with Aptean Apparel ERP, Trend Marketing has established strong shipping accuracy rates. The company scans all outgoing orders to ensure the right product and right quantity are packed and shipped. And at every step of the way, the system generates automatic emails to customers to alert them of key milestones, assuring them their orders have been received, entered, invoiced and shipped.

Also, because the Aptean Apparel ERP system is cloud-based, there is less demand on Trend Marketing’s IT department to manage server security and software updates. Freedom from these and other software maintenance issues also supports the company’s ability to scale up the solution as its brand portfolio grows.

Reflecting on Trend Marketing’s latest systems implementations, Weinberger likens the experience to finding the right pair of shoes. “You don’t pick a pair of shoes and then try to squeeze your foot into them,” he said. “The same applies to ERP. You’re not necessarily trying to make the ERP system fit your business but rather to understand how the ERP system works and get it to work at its optimal level for your business.”

For Trend Marketing, that optimal use of ERP has meant seamless integration with retail customers, stronger shipping accuracy and increased speed in almost every aspect of its operations, from picking to invoicing to reporting.

Ready To Put Your Best Foot Forward With Aptean Apparel ERP?

Whether your business manufacturers or distributes clothing, footwear, accessories, swimwear, workwear or more, Aptean’s purpose-built fashion and apparel ERP is designed to help you automate processes, improve accuracy and gain complete operational visibility straight out of the box. This means you can maintain tight cost control, boost productivity, improve supplier relationships, accelerate time-to-market and ultimately maximize profitability.

What’s more, by choosing to partner with Aptean, you can reap the rewards of cloud-based software—such as improved scalability, enhanced security and lower up-front costs—as well leveraging our full ecosystem of tailored apparel systems to streamline your end-to-end operations including product lifecycle management and shop floor control software. And all of that comes with the support of our dedicated in-house teams, so you can rest assured you’re in safe hands.

To find out more read our apparel customer success stories or get in touch with one of our experts today to schedule your personalized apparel ERP demo.