Why Fashion Retailers Need Dynamic Cost Visibility 

In fashion retail, tariffs may dominate the headlines, but it’s outdated, static planning that quietly erodes margin. For merchandisers and finance leaders navigating trade uncertainty, freight spikes, and shifting sourcing routes, reacting after the fact is no longer workable. Protecting profitability now demands a dynamic, financially integrated planning approach. 

New trade realities demand new planning realities. 

Total landed cost including tariffs, freight, currency impacts, and compliance charges can shift overnight. While retailers can’t control these costs, they can control how they plan for them. Static spreadsheets and rigid planning models lock teams into outdated assumptions, leaving little room to react when the market changes. 

Modern platforms like Board integrate financials and market insights into one orchestrated planning flow. This transforms uncertainty into action empowering merchandisers, buyers, and finance leaders to protect margins, allowing them to make decisions with confidence and speed. 

Why Legacy Planning Fails Retailers in Today’s Volatile Cost Environment 

Traditionally, landed cost was calculated once during sourcing and rarely revisited. But today’s volatility in tariffs, shipping rates, and exchange rates means treating cost as a fixed value is a fast path to margin erosion. 

Disconnected tools like Excel and legacy merchandising systems make it difficult to: 

• Simulate tariff or freight changes in real time
• Understand the margin impact of supplier switches
• Reconcile product cost assumptions with financial goals

The result? Slower decisions, missed opportunities, and preventable risk; this is the execution gap created by static planning processes that Board’s platform is specifically designed to close. 

The Board Advantage: Scenario Planning + Financial Integration = Planning Precision 

1. Scenario planning that’s built for cost volatility and sourcing shifts 

What if tariffs jump 10%? What if a nearshoring supplier changes shipping terms? What’s the impact of fuel surcharges next quarter? 

With Board, planners can: 

• Simulate multiple cost assumptions across suppliers, routes, and currencies
• Forecast cost impacts on margin, assortment depth, and open-to-buy
• Cascade scenarios down to store/SKU level and roll up to financial targets

According to RSR, 41% of retailers say predicting the impact of future pricing, assortment, and promo decisions is their top operational challenge. Board’s scenario engine addresses this head-on turning cost risk into planning agility. 

 2. Integrated Financials that Drive Commercial Clarity 

Unlike fragmented tools, Board aligns merchandise decisions with financial goals from day one. Retailers can: 

• Reconcile cost, retail, and margin in one unified model
• Roll up SKU-level cost differences into real-time P&L views
• Monitor shifts and reforecast margins dynamically

With rolling market forecasts at the core, Board’s retail planning solutions drive dynamic, margin-aware planning, accelerating response times and uniting teams around common goals and high-confidence outcomes. 

3. External Data Feeds Create a Dynamic, Market-Aligned Cost Model

Modern planning needs to respond in an agile manner to capitalize on opportunities and optimize resources and must be augmented with external data. Board integrates a vast ecosystem of external data using its Foresight and Signals capabilities, delivering: 

• 5M+ global datasets including macroeconomics, trade, FX, and inflation to identify key metrics that best determine your business performance.
• Curated market signals tracking tariff regimes, fuel surcharges, and trade routes
• Real-time HTS code updates and customs duties APIs
• Scenario inputs driven by global trends and local policy shifts

This turns live market signals into planning inputs so retail teams can make real-time changes to resource allocations to respond in time, not in hindsight. 

Why It Matters: Financial and Operational Wins 

Board’s unified, scenario-ready planning delivers real commercial impact: 

• 3–5% gross margin improvement
• 10–15% reduction in carryover inventory
• 30% fewer stockouts with smarter OTB and allocation

Conclusion: From Margin Risk to Planning Resilience 

Tariffs may be unpredictable, but how you plan for them doesn’t have to be. Board helps retailers build confidence into every merchandising decision unifying financial strategy, in-season agility, and external market context on one platform.  

Take Control of Margin Risk Before It Hits Your P&L 

Board’s Unified Merchandising Planning platform empowers you to: 

• Simulate cost and tariff changes in real time
• Align every SKU-level decision to financial targets§
• Adjust plans instantly as conditions shift

Whether you’re navigating nearshoring, FX risk, or global trade shifts Board turns volatility into visibility, and aligned, confident decisions into outcomes. 

Ready to unify your strategy, financials, and merchandise plans on one unified platform? 

Talk to our team and see how leading fashion retailers are using Board to turn volatility into visibility and turn confident decisions into business outcomes.