Spring 2022 Is Quickly Approaching

Plan For Your Seasonal Line The Right Way

We all react differently to the holiday decor and offerings when we walk into stores, whether it’s “okay, Halloween ended 13 minutes ago do we really need to be thinking about Christmas,” or, “I love everything about Easter and I’m thrilled about all these pastels I’m seeing at Target in January.” The reality is that whether you despise or cherish the seemingly premature promotion of an upcoming holiday there’s a valuable lesson that we can extract from this: seasonal line planning takes place WAY ahead of the season itself.

It may feel strange to be designing beanies and flannels in early summer, but this is the reality of planning your line for a successful, on-time launch. To make matters even more complex, yes, unfortunately we have to say the dreaded phrase: we’re living in unprecedented times, and you wouldn’t believe how incredibly tied up supply chain and shipping has gotten. We have some tips for keeping you on schedule, because our job isn’t just to make sure your brand looks awesome, but also on-season.

1. How do you break up your year? Does your company lean into all four seasons, split the year into the traditional Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer seasons, or go rogue around your popular selling seasons, holidays, and events? Your answer can help you determine how far in advance you will want to start planning your retail line
2. How many products typically make up your line drops? Are you selling strictly tees and tanks, or is it a blend of custom hats and other wearables? Differing lead times per product can impact when your line is ready to go.
3. Who is developing your artwork? If you have an in-house creative team, make sure that your artwork is print-ready and meets print standards. Always look for available templates and design guidelines to save precious production time. Need a design team? We have one. You’ll love working with these legends and they’ll turn your story into a visual masterpiece that can live on essentially any piece of apparel you can dream up.
4. What is your marketing schedule? Are you developing a full product lookbook? Do you need images for your ecommerce site? Or are you shooting from the hip with some tastefully shot phone photos? Regardless, you’ll want to buffer your production schedule to allow for the development of content that will hype up your audience on your new and very exciting release.
5. Have you ever experienced unplanned travesties? We have. Things happen, such as forgetting your wallet at home or global pandemics, and regardless of the scale of these calamities it’s always a boon to your project to plan for the unplanned. Better to be safe than sorry.

We can’t promise that you won’t lose your wallet or the disruptive arrival of aliens, but everything else on this list exists within our wheelhouse. Get in touch with one of our venerable Account Managers and we can help you plan ahead, and before you know it you’ll be giving the inflatable Santa Claus at the grocery store a knowing wink, even if it’s only November 1st.