Style and spec pages
Each style lists fabric weight, blend, seam finish, measurements and care label text in one place.
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Manufacturer Direct Maternity Dress Store
A manufacturer direct maternity dress store takes the order from the retailer's buyer to your production planning without a round of spreadsheet emails. This page explains how SIZ Group would plan that store for a manufacturer sales director who sells to many stores and has to keep cut and sew schedules accurate.
01
What a manufacturer direct maternity dress store replaces in order capture
Most manufacturers of maternity dresses receive orders as a mix of email threads, faxed purchase orders and spreadsheets that a sales assistant keys in by hand. A buyer might ask for a stretch crepe wrap in navy, sizes small to extra large, with a change to the neckline halfway through the thread. Each change is a chance for the wrong size run to reach the cutting room.
Confirmation is where the process breaks down. A retailer's buyer can approve a size split on the phone, but the production planner may only see the final spreadsheet a day later. By then the cut has already been planned against the old quantities, and the buffer for fabric has been spent on the wrong colorway.
Samples and pre-production approvals add a second loop. Fit comments from the buyer travel back to the pattern room in pieces, and the version that goes to production is not always the version the retailer approved.
- Purchase orders arrive as email attachments in several formats.
- Size splits change by phone and are rarely written back into the order.
- Fabric buffers are set against quantities that were already revised.
- Fit comments from buyers reach the pattern room a few days late.
02
The first release: what to build for factory order capture
The first release should let a retailer choose a style, a colorway and a size run, then submit an order that writes directly to the factory's order list. Each style page should carry its product specifications: fabric weight and blend, the seam finish, the bust and belly measurements and the care label text.
Variant selection should stop an order that the factory cannot make. If a colorway is out of season or a size is not cut in that fabric, the buyer should see it before submitting. Quantities should be entered in case packs where the factory cuts that way, so the cutting room gets whole bundles.
Later phases can add a tech pack download for each style, an approval step where buyers sign off a fit sample and an allocation view for limited fabric. Each one should wait until the first release has run through a full season of orders.
03
Fitting in with the software a maternity dress factory already uses
Many manufacturers run a production system or an enterprise platform such as NetSuite, which tracks inventory, bills of material and work orders. The storefront should write confirmed orders into that system with the same style codes, so planners see one order list rather than two.
Smaller factories often work from QuickBooks for invoicing and from a shared spreadsheet for cutting plans. That is workable for a short season, but once several retailers order in parallel, the spreadsheet becomes the bottleneck. We would plan the handoff so the spreadsheet can be retired without stopping production.
For the storefront itself, Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce can each handle variants, but a manufacturer's variant structure is usually deeper than a retail catalog. The platform choice follows the number of styles, colorways and size runs, and the systems the factory has to connect to.
What you get
Key features
Colorway and size run selection
Buyers pick colorways and size splits, and the cart blocks combinations the factory cannot cut in that fabric.
Direct order capture
Confirmed orders write straight to the factory order list with the style codes production already uses.
Case pack quantities
Quantities round to whole case packs where the cutting room works in bundles, so the cut plan stays clean.
04
Mistakes we would steer maternity dress makers away from
The most frequent mistake is building the store around the sales catalog instead of the production data. The product pages look right, but the order that comes out of them carries a style name the factory does not use, so planners rekey it anyway.
Another is letting buyers submit any combination of colorway and size. A stretch fabric dyed in a limited run can only be cut in the quantities the mill delivered, and an order that ignores that limit becomes a short ship that the sales team has to explain.
Some manufacturers also put the whole range online before the fit data is ready. A retailer who orders a size run on the basis of a wrong bust range will return it, and the cost of that return falls on the factory.
05
What drives cost and timeline for a manufacturer store
Cost follows the number of style codes, the colorways per style and the connections to production and accounting. A range of six styles with two colorways each is a much smaller build than a seasonal range of sixty styles with restricted fabric lots.
Scope stays under control when the first release covers ordering, specifications and variants only. Production planning links, tech packs and allocation rules can be quoted as separate items. Every project opens with a free scoping call, and a written scope with its figure comes before any build.
- Number of style codes and colorways in the range
- Connections to the production system and accounting
- Fabric allocation and minimum order rules
- Tech pack and fit approval workflows if they are needed
06
Rolling out the store to buyers and the planning team
A manufacturer store only works when the sales team and the buyers both use it. The sales director should choose three retailers whose orders are the most complicated, and run their next season through the store alongside the old process for one cycle.
The planning team needs a short guide that explains how an online order appears in the cutting schedule and what to do when an order is changed. Post-launch support is available, so the first season can be reviewed with the planners and the variant rules tightened where they keep causing problems.
Can our manufacturer direct maternity dress store replace the email orders we take now?+
It can, once the three most active retailers are running their orders through it. We usually recommend a parallel season first, so the planners can compare the two flows before the email process is closed down.
Will the store stop a buyer from ordering a colorway we have sold out?+
Yes. Stock and fabric limits are shown at the variant level, so an unavailable colorway or size run is marked before the buyer submits. The buyer can then choose another option or send a request to the sales team.
Do retailers need to download our spec sheets before they buy?+
Spec sheets are shown on each style page, and a PDF copy can be downloaded for the buyer's own records. The sheet carries the measurements and care text that the label uses, so the retailer sees the same information the factory works from.
How is the price of a manufacturer direct store decided?+
The figure follows a free scoping call and depends on the number of styles, the systems to connect and the planning features required. A written scope comes before the build begins.
Who inside the factory needs access to the new order list?+
Usually the sales director, the production planner and the person who runs the cutting room schedule. Access is given by role, and the order list can be filtered so each team sees only the orders that affect its work.
Let's make it happen
Bring retailer orders straight into your maternity dress plan
Book a free scoping call and we will map the orders, variants and systems in your factory.