The State of Apparel Planning
How mid-market apparel brands plan today: the tools they use, where planning breaks down, and what separates the high-performing operations from the rest.
Overview
The apparel merchandising planning function is in a structural transition. After a decade of incremental spreadsheet sophistication — more complex workbooks, more tabs, more cross-file formulas — mid-market brands are encountering the ceiling of what disconnected tools can support.
This analysis examines the current state of apparel merchandising planning at brands in the $10M–$200M revenue range: the tools in use, where planning workflows break down, the cost of those breakdowns, and what distinguishes high-performing planning operations from the rest.
The Prevailing Planning Stack
For most mid-market apparel brands, the planning stack looks roughly like this:
OTB: A department-level spreadsheet managed by the planning team, updated manually as purchase orders are placed. The OTB file is typically separate from both the assortment plan and the buy plan.
Read the full 2026 report.
An editorial analysis of apparel planning on today's tools — the planning stack, where it breaks down, and the process changes that fix each break.
- The planning stack apparel teams assemble from separate tools — and where each part fails
- Four points where planning breaks down, from pre-season reconciliation to carry-over, and the mechanism behind each
- The process changes that close each break
- The scale threshold where spreadsheet-based planning stops working
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