Fashion and lifestyle retailer URBN is expanding its partnership with retail technology provider Bamboo Rose, introducing artificial intelligence-powered cost intelligence to help design and merchandising teams make faster product decisions across its global teams.
Specifically, the owner of Anthropologie, Free People, FP Movement, Urban Outfitters, Nuuly and Terrain is extending its deployment of Bamboo Rose’s TotalPLM platform by utilising new modules of the software and VibeIQ.
The technology gives URBN teams visibility of estimated product costs and potential margins at the concept stage, before samples are produced or suppliers are engaged. This enables teams to compare options, assess commercial viability and make more informed decisions earlier in the product development process.
URBN has been a longstanding Bamboo Rose customer, using its TotalPLM platform across product development, sourcing, purchase orders and global trade management.
The expanded deployment, Bamboo Rose said, brings creative and commercial workflows closer together, with approved concepts moving directly into product development without the need to re-enter data.
It is also intended to reduce costly redesigns, supplier changes and discontinued product concepts amid changing tariffs, sourcing pressures and margin expectations.
Dan Stockbridge, director of production and sourcing systems at URBN, said: “Bringing our design and development workflows together on one platform allows everyone to act on the same information in real time. Bamboo Rose helps us simplify our day-to-day workflow and see costs earlier, so our teams can move faster and spend more time focused on great design.”
Matt Stevens, CEO of Bamboo Rose, remarked: “Creative decisions shape margins long before a purchase order is placed.
“[Our] Decision Intelligence [tool] unlocks the value of historical data and automatically surfaces key insights within design, product development, and sourcing workflows. This enables companies like URBN to optimize margins earlier, reduce rework, and move promising ideas into development faster and with greater confidence.”
He also highlighted a sustainability aspect to deploying software in this way, telling Green Retail World: “In retail, sustainability starts with making better decisions earlier in the product lifecycle.
“By connecting design and product development with sourcing and supplier management, retailers like URBN can better evaluate materials, costs, supplier options, and packaging requirements before committing to production.”
He added: “This creates opportunities to reduce unnecessary sampling, minimise rework, and make more responsible decisions across the product journey, from supplier to shelf to customer.”
Urban Outfitters takeback scheme: Fashion retailer teams up with Reskinned
[image credit: Green Retail World]
