In apparel and general merchandise, meeting consumer expectations online and in store is everything. Whether inventory consists of a dozen units at a time or thousands of clothing items, delivering what consumers want, when they want it, and the way they want to get it can be challenging. Every retailer, supplier, and distributor needs to be able to communicate with their trading partners to improve operational efficiency. GS1 Standards help companies speak the same language to identify, capture, and share product information that supports any type of commerce through any sales channel, platform, or device.
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There are many moving parts to ensure customer satisfaction in the apparel and general merchandise industry. From sourcing materials to manufacturing and product availability, meeting customer expectations is crucial to successful operation. GS1 Standards make it easier for companies to use a consistent data language at every point of the supply chain, ensuring your products are where they need to be. Standardized communications help to increase supply chain visibility, which reduces losses and increases profitability with enhanced inventory management.
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Related Topics
Increase Operational Efficiency and Supply Chain Visibility
Identify Your Products
Unique identification is essential to managing your inventory and providing consumers with correct product information. Every item variant, including color, size, or pack size, can be assigned a Global Trade Item Number® (GTIN®), a unique number that goes into a barcode, ensuring efficiency and accuracy. For instance, if you sell T-shirts and have a specific design available in four colors with four sizes, each size in each color will be assigned a unique number that goes into its barcode. So, four colors with four available sizes will be 16 GTINs for the single design. Having unique numbers and barcodes identifying all the variants lets you track exactly what you have much more easily.
Capture Information Efficiently
Hand-counting your inventory can be time-consuming and comes with a significant margin of error. Returning to the T-shirt example, you would need to organize your inventory into designs, break down the designs by color and size, then count each shirt by hand. Using barcodes or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags allows you to seamlessly capture your count. Then your computer system sorts and stores it. Scanning the items takes time, but it’s considerably faster and more accurate than counting by hand. RFID is expanding into new use cases and categories, including claims compliance and hardline products. As brands and retailers continue to invest in this technology, using GS1 Standards to encode and place tags can help answer the simple question, “Where’s my stuff?”—and more.
Easily Share Information With Supply Chain Partners and Customers
Sharing information across your supply chain helps your inventory flow consistently without letting counts get too low or having to carry excess safety stock. This improves efficiency and profits.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) technology enables computer-to-computer communication and exchange of business documents, including purchase orders, advance ship notices, and invoices. Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) is a GS1 Standard that enables trading partners to share information about the physical movement and status of products as they travel through the supply chain—from business to business and ultimately to consumers. It helps answer the “what,” “where,” “when,” and “why” questions to meet consumer demands. Learn more about how supply chain visibility can improve efficiency in manufacturing and supply chain management with lean manufacturing.
Grow Your Brand
Implementing GS1 Standards can help to grow your brand by improving operational efficiencies, driving inventory accuracy, and providing support for data quality between supply chain partners. Whether you’re providing raw materials, manufacturing, or selling directly to the consumer, your brand can help drive innovation within your industry to become a leader in production and supply efficiency. As a result, your customers will enjoy seamless omni-channel fulfillment and shopping experiences.
We Are Ready to Help You Succeed
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small online shop or a multi-national enterprise, GS1 Standards can help with your everyday operations. As a not-for-profit organization, our mission is to work with our members to bring the business community together to identify issues impacting businesses or industries and build consensus around best practices using standards-based solutions. We’re happy to provide solutions, advisory services, educational materials, and training to help you grow your brand into a successful business.
We talked previously about the importance of unique identifiers within inventory. Color and size code tables provide suppliers, retailers, and manufacturers with a common language for identifying products with color and size variants. GS1 US® offers these codes to help trading partners quickly and accurately identify product data for more-efficient supply chain processes.
Making changes within your business can be challenging. Work with those who have been there before to find the best way GS1 Standards can improve efficiency and help you share data with business partners and understand your target audience. Learn how best to adopt and implement GS1 Standards in your processes to ensure you efficiently manage inventory in your supply chain from end to end through visibility and quality data.
As a GS1 US member, you’re never alone. Our advisory services can help you identify where and how to implement GS1 Standards, with support for enabling RFID solutions, onboarding your team with standard practices, creating supply chain automation, and even ensuring product image standards are met. Our team of experts can assist with maximizing the benefits of implementing standards-based processes to improve operational efficiencies.
Beyond implementation, GS1 US also offers virtual and on-site training. Learn more about some of the most popular topics, including:
- GS1 Standards fundamentals
- GS1 Standards for traceability
- GTIN management standards
- Data quality assessment and data governance
- Package measurement rules
Education and training in healthcare from our experts can expedite GS1 Standards implementation, improving efficiencies across your business operations.
Key Resources: Implementation and Guides
Implementing GS1 Standards for apparel and general merchandise isn’t going to be the same across the board. However, you can learn how to implement GS1 Standards for your business from others in the industry. Use our resource page to see case studies outlining success stories from big and small businesses that have implemented GS1 Standards to enhance efficiencies across their supply chain.
- Guides and Tools
- Success Stories
- Key Insights
- Education and Training
Guides and Tools
Education and Training
Member Contributions
Not only can our team help you implement GS1 Standards but our collaborative workgroups are here as an additional resource. No matter which industry you’re a part of, we have workgroups and industry initiatives where you can partner with experts to solve problems and find collaborative solutions. We’re happy to help you find professionals within your industry and build a community of experts to continually build your business.
At GS1 US, it’s our mission to provide a foundation that moves your business forward with data-sharing standards. Our team can help you with everything from teaching you how to get a barcode for food products to providing resources for implementing GS1 Standards in your organization. GS1 US can help you improve your inventory, supply chain, and industry partnership management with food traceability.
