How to Plan a Seasonal Collection for Your Shopify Store

Start with the calendar

Every successful collection starts with a date and works backwards. Your launch date is fixed — it's determined by the season, your marketing calendar, and when your customers expect new product. Everything else in the development process is a function of how much time you have between now and that date.

For most Shopify fashion brands, a seasonal collection takes between four and seven months from initial concept to products live on site, depending on the complexity of the range and your supply chain. If you're launching an Autumn/Winter collection in September, your calendar might look something like this:

• March–April: Concept and trend research. Define the collection theme, colour palette, and key silhouettes. Review last season's performance data to inform this season's direction.
• April–May: Range architecture. Decide on the number of styles, category mix, price points, and buy quantities. Build out the range plan.
• May–June: Sampling. Brief suppliers, receive initial samples, review, request amendments, approve final samples.
• June–July: Costing finalisation. Negotiate final costs, confirm landed costs, sign off margins. Place production orders.
• July–August: Production. Monitor production progress, QC checkpoints, arrange freight and logistics.
• August–September: Delivery and launch preparation. Receive stock, photograph products, write copy, build Shopify collections, prepare marketing assets.
• September: Launch.

The critical thing about this calendar is that every phase depends on the one before it. If sampling runs two weeks late, it compresses costing. If costing runs late, production starts late. If production starts late, you either launch late (bad) or pay for air freight instead of sea freight (expensive). The calendar is a chain, and every link matters.

Range architecture

Range architecture is the structural blueprint of your collection — how many products, in which categories, at what price points, in what ratio. It's the most important strategic decision you make each season, because it determines not just what you sell but how your buy budget is allocated, what your average margin will be, and how your collection looks and feels to the customer.

How many SKUs?

There's no universal answer, but there is a useful rule of thumb: your collection should be large enough to tell a coherent story and small enough that every product earns its place. For most Shopify brands, this means somewhere between 30 and 120 styles per season, depending on the breadth of your categories and the depth of your colourways.

More is not always better. A collection of 200 SKUs where 40% sell poorly and end up in a markdown sale is worse than a collection of 80 SKUs with a 75% sell-through rate. Every underperforming SKU represents not just lost margin on that product, but the opportunity cost of the buy budget that could have been allocated to a stronger style.

Category mix

Start with last season's sales data. If knitwear accounted for 35% of your revenue last autumn and outerwear accounted for 20%, that's your baseline. You can adjust — maybe you want to grow outerwear to 25% because you've found a strong supplier — but the adjustments should be deliberate and data-informed, not arbitrary.

A common mistake is to over-rotate toward categories that feel exciting at the design stage but don't reflect how your customer actually shops. Your trend research might tell you that quilted gilets are going to be everywhere, but if your customer is primarily buying knits and jersey, allocating 15% of your buy to gilets is a risk that needs to be justified by more than a feeling.

Price architecture: good, better, best

Your collection needs products at different price levels, and the distribution of those levels should be intentional. The classic framework is good/better/best:

• Good (entry price): Your most accessible products. These drive volume, attract new customers, and keep your average basket affordable. Typically 30–40% of the range by SKU count.
• Better (mid price): The core of your collection. Better fabric, more detail, higher perceived value. This is where the majority of your revenue and margin should come from. Typically 40–50% of the range.
• Best (premium): Your hero pieces. Statement products that define the collection's identity, attract press coverage, and anchor your brand positioning. Lower volume, higher margin. Typically 10–20% of the range.

Core vs fashion split

Every collection should contain a mix of core products (styles that carry over from season to season with minimal change) and fashion products (new styles specific to this season). Core products are lower risk — you know they sell, you have historical data, your suppliers know the specs. Fashion products are higher risk but essential for keeping the brand fresh and giving customers a reason to come back.

For most brands, a core-to-fashion split of somewhere between 40:60 and 60:40 is healthy. Too much core and the collection feels stale. Too much fashion and you're exposed to the risk of styles that don't resonate.

Costing and margin planning

Margin isn't what's left over after you price a product. Margin is a target you set before you design the product, and every decision from fabric choice to order quantity should be evaluated against that target. If you don't start with a margin framework, you'll end the season surprised — and not in a good way.

Set your target margin

Your target gross margin depends on your business model, your overheads, and your channel mix. For most DTC Shopify fashion brands, a blended gross margin target of 60–70% is typical. This needs to account for the fact that not everything sells at full price — some products will be marked down, and your achieved margin will always be lower than your initial margin.

A useful approach is to set your initial margin target 8–12 percentage points above your achieved margin target. If you need to achieve 58% gross margin across the season (after markdowns), you should be targeting 68–70% initial margin on your full-price range.

Landed cost calculation

Cost price from your supplier is not your cost. Your real cost — the landed cost — includes everything it takes to get the product from the factory to your warehouse, ready to sell. A complete landed cost calculation includes:

• Ex-factory cost: What you pay the supplier per unit
• Freight: Shipping from factory to your warehouse, divided by units in the shipment
• Import duty: Based on the HS code of the product and the country of origin. For UK imports from non-preferential countries, fashion duty rates typically range from 6.5% to 12%
• Customs clearance fees: Broker fees, port handling, documentation charges
• Packaging: Poly bags, swing tags, branded tissue, shipping cartons — the per-unit cost of getting the product presentable
• Quality inspection: If you use a third-party QC service, the per-unit cost of inspection

For many brands, the gap between ex-factory cost and landed cost is 15–25%. A product that costs £12.00 ex-factory might land at £14.50–£15.00 once you add freight, duty, and ancillary costs. If you're calculating margin off the ex-factory cost, you're overstating your margin on every single product.

Markup vs margin

This catches more people than it should. Markup and margin are not the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably.

• Markup is the percentage added to cost to arrive at price. A £10 cost with a 3x markup sells for £30.
• Margin is profit as a percentage of selling price. That same product (cost £10, price £30) has a margin of 66.7%, not 300%.

When someone says they're running "3x markup" and you assume that means 70% margin, you're close — but for precise financial planning, always work in margins. It's the number that ties to your P&L.

Break-even units

For every product in your range, you should know how many units you need to sell at full price to break even on the buy. This is a straightforward calculation: total cost of the order divided by the gross profit per unit. If you ordered 200 units at a landed cost of £15 each (total £3,000) and your full-price selling point gives you £20 gross profit per unit, you need to sell 150 units at full price to break even. The remaining 50 units are pure profit at full price, or your buffer for markdowns.

The sampling process

Sampling is where your range plan becomes a physical product. It's also the phase most likely to cause delays, because it involves the most back-and-forth between you and your suppliers. A well-managed sampling process is the difference between launching on time and launching two weeks late with a frantic air freight bill.

Initial samples

Your supplier produces the first sample based on your tech pack or product brief. This is a prototype — it's the supplier's interpretation of what you've asked for, and it will almost certainly need changes. Expect the initial sample to be 70–80% right. The key at this stage is speed of feedback. The longer you take to review and respond, the more compressed the rest of your timeline becomes.

When reviewing initial samples, focus on the things that are hardest to change later: construction, silhouette, fabric weight and hand-feel. Colour, trim, and finishing details are easier to adjust in a counter sample. If the fundamental construction is wrong, you may need to go back to the tech pack before requesting a revision.

Counter samples

A counter sample (sometimes called a revision sample) incorporates your feedback from the initial sample. For most products, one round of counter-sampling is sufficient. If you're still making significant changes after two counter samples, there's likely a communication issue with the tech pack or the supplier's understanding of what you need.

Approval workflow

Once you're satisfied with a sample, it needs formal approval — a clear, documented "yes, this is what we want to produce." This sounds obvious, but in practice, many brands have an informal approval process (a WhatsApp message saying "looks good, go ahead") that creates ambiguity when production samples arrive and aren't quite right. Formal approval means a written sign-off with the specific sample reference, date, and any final notes.

Photo samples and sizing

Separate from your production samples, you'll need photo samples — the specific units that will be photographed for your website. These should be in your hero colourway and in the size you'll use for your model or flat-lay photography (typically a UK size 10 or medium). Order photo samples early enough that you can shoot before your launch date, ideally with a two-week buffer for reshoots or styling changes.

If your products are sized (clothing, footwear), you also need to approve a size set — a sample in every size across your size run, measured against your size spec. Size discrepancies are one of the leading causes of returns in fashion ecommerce, and catching them at the sampling stage is significantly cheaper than dealing with them post-launch.

Production and delivery

Once samples are approved and production orders are placed, you enter a phase where your direct influence is limited but your monitoring needs to be constant. Production issues that go undetected until delivery are vastly more expensive to resolve than issues caught during production.

Supplier lead times

Production lead times vary enormously by product type, supplier, and order size. Cut-and-sew garments from China or South Asia typically take 6–10 weeks from production order to ex-factory. European production can be faster (4–6 weeks) but at a higher unit cost. Knitwear is generally slower than wovens. Printed or embroidered details add time. If you're using multiple suppliers, they'll all have different lead times, and your critical path needs to account for the slowest one.

Always confirm lead times in writing before placing the production order, and always ask for the realistic lead time, not the best-case scenario. A supplier who says "4–6 weeks" almost certainly means 6 weeks, and may mean 7.

Critical path management

Your critical path is the sequence of activities that determines the earliest possible delivery date. It includes every dependency: fabric sourcing, trim procurement, cutting, sewing, finishing, QC, packing, and shipping. If any activity on the critical path is delayed, the delivery date moves.

For Shopify brands without a dedicated production manager, the most effective critical path management tool is a simple weekly check-in with each supplier. A five-minute call or message: "Where are we? Are we on track for the confirmed ship date? Any issues I should know about?" Suppliers are generally forthcoming about delays when asked directly — they're much less likely to proactively tell you there's a problem.

Quality control checkpoints

There are three key QC points during production:

1. Pre-production (PP) sample: A sample produced using production fabric, trims, and construction. This is your last checkpoint before bulk production begins. Approve the PP sample carefully — once bulk cutting starts, changes become extremely expensive.
2. Inline inspection: A check during production, typically when about 20–30% of the order is complete. This catches systematic issues (wrong colour thread, sizing drift, construction errors) before the full order is affected.
3. Final inspection: A check on the completed, packed order before it ships. This is your last opportunity to reject goods before they enter your supply chain. For high-value orders, consider using a third-party QC service — they'll inspect to your specifications and provide a detailed report with photos.

Freight and logistics

For most Shopify brands importing from Asia, sea freight is the default — it's significantly cheaper than air freight, with the trade-off being transit time (typically 4–6 weeks from East Asia to the UK, depending on the port). Air freight is 5–10x more expensive per kilogram but takes 5–7 days. Express courier (DHL, FedEx) is faster still but prohibitively expensive for bulk orders.

Book your freight early. Shipping capacity is not unlimited, and peak seasons (particularly August–October for Christmas stock) see higher rates and reduced availability. If your production is running to schedule, book your sea freight slot four weeks before the expected ex-factory date.

Launch preparation

Stock is on its way. Now you need everything else — the photography, the copy, the Shopify setup, the marketing assets — ready before the boxes arrive at your warehouse. This phase is often underestimated because it feels like "just admin," but a poorly executed launch can undermine months of good product development.

Photography

For fashion ecommerce, photography is not optional and it is not an area to cut corners. Your product images are the primary conversion tool on your website — they're doing the work that a physical store, a fitting room, and a sales assistant would do in person. Budget for professional photography and plan the shoot as a project in its own right.

You'll typically need: model shots (front, back, detail) for key styles, flat-lay or ghost mannequin shots for the full range, and lifestyle or editorial shots for your hero products and marketing materials. Brief your photographer with a shot list and a mood board. Plan styling in advance. Shoot in order of priority so your hero styles are completed first.

Product copy

Write product descriptions that do three things: describe the product accurately (fabric, fit, features), help the customer imagine owning it (styling suggestions, occasion, feeling), and answer the practical questions that prevent purchase (size guide, care instructions, delivery). Keep descriptions concise but complete. A good product description is 80–120 words.

Shopify collection setup

Build your Shopify collections before launch day — not on launch day. Create the collection pages, set up your navigation, configure any automated collection rules, and build your collection landing page. Preview everything on mobile. Check that filtering works correctly. If you're using a pre-launch or "coming soon" mechanic, set it up and test it end to end, including the notification email.

Marketing preparation

Your marketing for a seasonal launch should be planned and largely created before the stock arrives:

• Email marketing: Plan a launch sequence — teaser, announcement, hero product spotlight, full collection browse. Write the copy and design the templates in advance. Schedule sends.
• Social content: Create a content calendar for the two weeks around launch. Plan your grid, stories, and any paid social creative. Shoot social-specific content during or alongside your product photography shoot — it's far cheaper to shoot everything at once than to organise a separate social shoot later.
• Paid advertising: If you're running paid campaigns for launch, brief your creative, set up campaign structures, and prepare audiences in advance. Launch-day traffic should be driving to fully built, fully tested collection pages.
• PR and press: If press coverage is part of your launch strategy, send samples to editors and stylists 4–6 weeks before launch. Press works on long lead times — a magazine feature in September was planned in June.

Post-launch review

The collection is live. Customers are buying. The temptation is to move on to the next thing immediately. Don't — the first six weeks after launch are where you collect the data that makes next season's collection better.

Sell-through analysis

Track sell-through rate (units sold as a percentage of units bought) at the style level, the category level, and the collection level. At two weeks post-launch, you should have early signals about which styles are performing. At six weeks, you'll have a reliable picture. Sell-through benchmarks vary by category and price point, but as a general guide:

• Above 60% at 8 weeks: Strong performer. Consider reordering if supplier lead times allow.
• 40–60% at 8 weeks: Solid. Monitor and expect to sell through at full price over the season.
• Below 40% at 8 weeks: Underperformer. Start planning your markdown strategy for this style.
• Below 20% at 8 weeks: Problem. Investigate why — is it the product, the price, the photography, or the positioning?

Markdown strategy

Not everything will sell at full price. That's normal. The question is how you manage markdowns to maximise recovered revenue without training your customers to wait for sales. A considered markdown strategy typically involves:

• Tiered markdowns: Start with a modest reduction (20–30%) for slow movers, and deepen only if needed. Avoid going straight to 50% off — you're leaving money on the table.
• Timing: Mid-season markdowns for styles that are clearly underperforming. End-of-season clearance for remaining stock. Don't wait until the last week of the season to start marking down — the pool of potential buyers shrinks as the season progresses.
• Channel strategy: Consider whether markdowns should be on-site, via email to existing customers, or through a separate outlet channel. Each approach has different implications for brand perception.

Learnings for next season

The most valuable output of a post-launch review is a clear set of learnings that feed directly into next season's range planning. Document them while they're fresh:

• Which categories over-performed or under-performed relative to the buy allocation?
• Which price points had the strongest sell-through?
• Which suppliers delivered on time and to quality? Which didn't?
• Where did the timeline slip, and what caused the delay?
• What would you buy more of? Less of? Not at all?
• Were there products customers asked for that you didn't have in the range?

This review doesn't need to be a formal document or a two-hour meeting. A one-page summary with honest answers to these questions is more useful than a 40-page report that nobody reads. The point is to make next season's planning informed by this season's reality, not just this season's assumptions.

Planning a seasonal collection is genuinely complex. There are dozens of moving parts, multiple dependencies, and very little room for error on the timeline. But the brands that do it well share one trait: they have a process, they follow it, and they improve it each season based on what they learned from the last one.

The process described in this guide isn't the only way to do it — it's a framework. Adapt it to your brand, your team, your supply chain. The important thing is that you have a structured approach, that you start with the calendar and work backwards, and that you track everything well enough to learn from it when the season is over.