MNZ

Maryam Nassirzadeh opened the doors of her independent boutique in New York’s Lower East Side in mid-2008, selling a combination of emerging and established designer brands alongside travel finds and one-off homewares. Shortly after, opening the Maryam Nassir Zadeh Showroom to support the independent, emerging brands stocked at her store, working with brands such as Charlotte Knowles, Eckhaus Latta, Martine Rose and Reinhard Plank. With both ventures in full force, Maryam launched her namesake brand in 2014.

With three businesses to manage simultaneously and teams steadily growing, it quickly became time to look for a system that could automate tasks. “Originally, we wanted software that could produce sales and shipping documentation for our line. Documents like order confirmations, delivery notes and invoices, that’s why we initially got Zedonk. It was a much quicker process, minimised human error and made us appear more professional to buyers.”

After a short time using the system to create paperwork for the wholesale side of the business, the MNZ team realised that the system could be used to manage other aspects of the business, not just for sales. “We started using Zedonk to log our raw materials, build our products and collections as well as for costings and production purposes.”

Taking advantage of available support can prevent potential errors from happening and having someone guide you step-by-step can make it less overwhelming, especially when everyone is getting familiar with a new system. “In the early stages, the software was a little daunting because of how much data we thought we had to in-put and we were a very small team back then. Our first training session with the Support team was so helpful, so we did the entering in layers of what made most sense to us. And when we were figuring out our processes, my team could get in touch through the Helpdesk, making Zedonk an ingrained part of our business”

As the brand gained more popularity, collections started getting bigger and the quantities increased. And with more units being produced, being able to report on the performance of individual pieces, categories and seasons as a whole became fundamental. “For our MNZ label, we produce clothing, footwear, handbags and jewellery, which is quite a lot of product categories. Zedonk made producing multiple categories manageable. As soon as our sales team inputs orders into the system, we have real-time data on what has been popular and what we will go into production for. We can accurately report on our finances, margins and the percentage of sales per category and territory, which is really important for us.”

Keeping track of all the produced pieces started to get tricky, dispatching fabric to factories and continuous in-store deliveries meant that stock levels were updated automatically. “Everything was initially done in-house and once we started selling more units, we knew the stock-flow management was crucial. From looking at our inventory in Zedonk we can see how many pieces we have in stock. We can also see how much fabric we have on hand that can be used in the future.”

With the number of stockists and units growing, eventually, shipping became too much to manage in-house, MNZ started using an external warehouse to receive and ship goods to their wholesaling customers globally. “Without Zedonk, it would have been near impossible to manage our third-party warehouse integration, especially as we work with two warehouses on two different continents. We can see the stock levels for both of our warehouses, what is expected and what we may be short of.”

Over time, as their processes and workflow became more complex, the team realised that they had outgrown their current package and needed more from the system. Taking advantage of the modular structure, additional modules were added and they integrated with their third party logistics to meet their needs with their subscription with Zedonk growing as the business grew and developed. “We started with the standard package, adding Inventory when our units grew to help us better manage production and inventory, adding Barcodes and Allocation when we started integration with our logistics warehouse.”

With the introduction of new modules and add-ons, confusion can sometimes arise. This confusion was short-lived however, thanks to having a specialised team on hand to make sure everything is explained clearly and runs smoothly. “Anytime we added a new module or integration, we would have training sessions. For the more complicated aspects of our expansion, especially when it came to WMS integration and mapping, the Support Team were able to assist with this for every step and explaining in Laymen terms a problem, that for someone unfamiliar with the terminology, can seem extremely complex.”

By having their integrations mapped out, it has enabled the team to spend time focusing on other aspects of the business. Time can be spent building relationships with buyers and setting the business up for the future. “Our integrations have allowed us to become more competent and organised each season. Zedonk enabled us to have the infrastructure in place to support our continued growth. It allowed us to improve our invoicing processes and gave us uniformity and transparency throughout the company which has become beneficial long-term. The growth of our company has been supported by Zedonk.”