French Ready-to-Wear federation conducted a video conference on 3rd February 2021 on digital wholesale (how to sell, how to buy, without being able to visit showrooms and meet people). Primarily intended for brands, there are some interesting learnings for IADS members too.

What

The French Federation of RTW (different from the French Federation of Fashion and Couture) helps its brand members by providing actionable information to adapt to the new market conditions. They organised a video seminar with a buyer, a fair and a virtual showroom to explain how the commercial job has changed.

Why is it important for IADS members

So far (and this is also validated by what we read in the press), the technological solutions helping buyers are solely focusing on placing orders (by proposing “super-Excel” solutions) but are not helping to discover new brands nor build relationships with brands. We believe at IADS that:

-    The future will not be 100% digital as the commercial relationship is key,

-    However digital is here to stay (more efficient and helps to save on costs),

-    It needs to be fine-tuned to the actual needs of multibrand buyers, instead of focusing on brands needs.

We provide for our members in addition to this recap a benchmark of buying platforms and discovery tools, to know what is available on the market now.

iads Report – What to learn from Digital Wholesale 

Wholesale videoconference - Watch the talk in video (in French):

Presentation - Benchmark: the platforms B2B digitals