PRODUCT LAUNCH
ON PROTOCOL.

The calendar is not yours

Major retailers plan seasons far in advance and their buying appointments are the fixed points. Everything else — samples, linesheets, pricing, production capacity — has to be finished before the appointment, not before the season.

• Work backwards from the buying appointment, not forwards from today
• Samples must exist before the meeting, not be promised at it
• Production lead time is the constraint nobody builds slack into

What a buyer needs to say yes

A price, a delivery date they believe, a minimum they can afford and a reason their customer will pick it up. A pitch that spends its time on the story and leaves the case pack undefined generates a week of email instead of an order.

Launch narrow

A line launched in three colours across two doors can be evaluated. The same line in twelve colours across sixty doors cannot — and the inventory risk is carried by whoever guessed wrong, which at launch is you.

Set up the reorder before the first order

Sell-through is the only number that predicts a reorder and the retailer holds it. Agreeing to receive it, in the terms, before the first shipment is worth more than any amount of chasing afterwards.