You shipped the order in February. Then nothing.
Thirty boutiques ordered your spring range. You shipped in February and invoiced. After that, you know almost nothing about what happened. Did the linen dress sell out in a week in the Cotswolds and sit on the rail in Leeds? Were the larger sizes gone first? You find out, partly, when a boutique reorders or does not, and when your sales agent passes on what the owner said.
Meanwhile, you are planning next season's range and quantities with good data from your own website and almost none from a third of your business.
Why sell-through stays invisible
- Boutiques use different EPOS systems, or none.
- Reporting is not part of the wholesale agreement, or is not followed up.
- Sales reports that do arrive are PDFs or photos in different layouts.
- Nobody has time to merge them into anything useful.
- Style names and codes in the boutique's system differ from yours.
What the blind spot costs
| Missing information | What it leads to |
|---|---|
| Which styles sell in stores | Range decisions based on online taste only |
| Which sizes sell first | Wholesale size packs that do not suit |
| Which stockists perform | Sales effort spread evenly instead of wisely |
| Slow stock in a shop | No chance to swap or support it before markdown |
Online and in-store customers often buy differently. A style that is slow on your site might be the one boutiques cannot keep on the rail, and you would never know.
How we gather stockist sales
- For each stockist, we agree the simplest way they can share sales: an EPOS export emailed monthly, access to a report in their system, a shared spreadsheet or a short web form listing your styles.
- Incoming files are read automatically, whatever the layout, and each line is matched to your style, colour and size, using the barcode where the boutique scans it and name matching where it does not. Anything uncertain goes to a person.
- Where stockists send photos or PDFs, the text is extracted and checked the same way.
- Sell-through is calculated against what you shipped them, by style and size.
- A dashboard shows performance by stockist, region and style, alongside your own online sales for the same styles.
- Stockists get a short summary back if you want, which gives them a reason to keep sharing.
What your planning looks like with it
In the range review, the dashboard shows that the linen dress sold through fast in stores but slowly online, and that boutiques ran out of 12s and 14s first. The wholesale size pack for next season changes. Two stockists are well behind the rest on the same styles, so your sales agent visits them and the team offers a swap or window display support. Decisions that were guesses are now based on figures the stockists sent.
Getting stockists to share
The technology is the easy part. The hard part is asking boutiques to share. That is why we make it as light as possible for them, and why the summary they get back matters: a boutique that sees which of your styles sold best for them, and which sizes, has a reason to send next month's figures. What you ask for in your wholesale terms is your decision, and many brands start by asking their best stockists first.
Timing matters as well. A monthly figure is enough for range planning, but in the first weeks after a delivery lands, a quick check-in from a handful of stockists tells you far more than a full report at season end. The form can ask a few boutiques for a short update in week two and week four, while there is still time to move stock between shops or send more of a style that is flying.
Signs you are missing stockist data
- You do not know how your styles sell in boutiques.
- Stockist sales reports, if any, arrive in different formats.
- Wholesale size packs are the same for every style.
- You find out a style failed in a shop when they do not reorder.
- Range planning relies mostly on your own website sales.