Inventory Planning for Repeat Activewear Programmes
Repeat activewear programs fail for a structural reason, not a forecasting one: the colorway changes every season, so nothing can actually be repeated. If your bestselling bra was available in a seasonal blue last spring and a different green this spring, you have no continuity to forecast against, and each season is effectively a new launch with new risk. Inventory planning only works when something in the range is stable enough to model.
Forecast the cores, not the drop
Separate the range into core items that never change and seasonal items that do. Forecast the cores on trailing demand with a growth factor, and plan the seasonal pieces on a smaller, more conservative commitment with a defined exit. Core black should be on a standing fabric booking and a standing production slot, because it is the item you will be reordered on and the item you cannot afford to be out of.
Build the calendar backward
Take the date you need stock available to sell and work backward through every step: inbound freight and port clearance, production time, fabric knitting and dyeing, trim and hardware procurement, sampling and approval, and your own internal approval cycle. For an imported program this commonly lands in the range of three to four months door to door, and more in peak season. Write the dates down per style and hold the factory to the fabric booking date, because that is the step that slips first.
Safety stock belongs on the cores
Holding safety stock across a full size and color matrix is expensive and mostly wasted. Holding it on core black in the middle sizes is cheap insurance against a freight delay or an unexpected sellout. Set the level against your reorder lead time: if replacement stock takes four months to arrive, your safety stock has to cover four months of demand at the top-selling sizes, not two weeks of it.
Depth follows the size curve
Do not order every size at the same depth. Most activewear curves are heavily weighted to two or three sizes in the middle of the range, and the extremes carry a disproportionate share of the leftover inventory. Build the first season conservatively, capture actual size-level sell-through, and re-cut the curve for the second season using your own data rather than an assumption inherited from a different brand.
Decide the discontinuation rule in advance
Write the exit criteria before the season starts: sell-through threshold, weeks of supply, and the channel each leftover goes to. Without a rule, underperforming styles sit in the warehouse while the team argues about them, and the cash that should have funded the next reorder is locked in last season's mistake.
