Alan Miklofsky Consulting Website - Operational Excellence

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE: FILL-INS, BACKORDERS, AND “NO SURPRISES” SERVICE

By Alan Miklofsky – December 2, 2025

A lot of brands think their success at independent retailers is all about design and storytelling. Nice idea. In reality, buyers fall in love with your product and stay in love (or not) based on something far less glamorous: how you ship, how you fill, and how you handle things when the wheels wobble.

In the comfort channel, operational excellence is not “support.” It is the product.

WHY OPERATIONS DECIDE IF YOU GET A SECOND SEASON

A retailer might take you on because of style and buzz. They keep you because:

· Your fill-ins arrive when promised.

· Your backorder behavior doesn’t wreck their wall.

· Your paperwork doesn’t waste their time.

If you’re late, vague, and full of surprises, you quietly get demoted: less wall space, smaller buys, fewer reorders, and eventually “we’re not writing them this season.”

FILL-INS: THE FASTEST PATH TO CORE BRAND STATUS

In a comfort store, fill-ins are where the real money is made. A few styles break out as winners. The question is: can you feed the flame?

To become a go-to brand, you need:

1) Honest, boringly accurate availability – stop guessing. If your system says 220 pairs, the retailer should receive 220 pairs, not wishful thinking minus an unspoken “warehouse surprise.”

2) Real lead times, not fantasy – if you need four weeks, say four. Not two. Not “we’ll try.” Retailers can plan around reality; they can’t plan around optimism.

3) Quick paths for reordering winners – make it stupidly easy to reorder top styles: simple order forms, portal shortcuts, “core list” SKUs that everyone knows you keep in stock.

4) Sensible minimums and freight thresholds – if a store needs 12 pairs of a 5-star performer, forcing them to 36 just to hit a free-freight level is how you turn love into resentment.

When a buyer knows, “If this style hits, I can get more, fast, with no drama,” your line suddenly feels safe. Safe lines become core lines.

BACKORDERS: TRUST KILLER OR LOYALTY BUILDER

Backorders are not automatically bad. Silent, chaotic backorders are bad.

You need clear, disciplined rules:

· When you will backorder – only on styles you are genuinely committed to produce again, not on maybe-someday SKUs.

· How long you will backorder – set a maximum window: “We will hold backorders up to X days unless you tell us otherwise.”

· When you auto-cancel – don’t sit on ghost orders. If production is pushed out or canceled, say so early and clearly.

· One source of truth for ETAs – reps, customer service, and the portal should all tell the same story. Nothing destroys credibility faster than three different ship dates from three different humans.

Done well, backorders can feel like, “They’re trying hard to keep me in stock.” Done badly, they feel like, “These people have no idea what they’re doing.”

SERVICE THAT MAKES LIFE EASIER, NOT LOUDER

Independent retailers do not have time for vendor theater. They want issues fixed with minimal noise.

Design your service model so that:

· One call or email actually resolves something – no endless ping-pong between “your rep” and “customer care.”

· Your people are empowered – if a shipment was your mistake, staff should be able to authorize a label, a credit, a fix—without needing a committee meeting.

· Policies are simple and predictable – clear rules on returns, defects, freight, and dating. Retailers will work within tough rules if they’re consistent. What they won’t tolerate is random exceptions and policy du jour.

TOOLS THAT HELP RETAILERS RUN THEIR BUSINESS

The best “tech” is the stuff a time-starved manager actually uses. Aim for:

· A clean, fast portal – they should be able to see ATS, open orders, tracking, and invoices in seconds—not after a scavenger hunt.

· Quick-ship and core lists – a short list of dependable, always-on SKUs they can treat like inventory extensions. That is gold.

· Transparent production calendars – let them see when major drops are truly arriving. If a season is going sideways, tell them early so they can adjust promos, staff, and buys.

If your tools cut down on phone calls and “just checking status” emails, you become the vendor they can rely on when everything else is on fire.

THE “NO SURPRISES” CULTURE

At the heart of operational excellence is one simple principle: no ugly surprises.

That means:

· Don’t promise dates you can’t hit just to get the order.

· Tell the bad news early, with options.

· When you mess up, own it clearly and fix it cleanly.

“Hey, this style is going to be four weeks later than we thought. Here are your options: keep the order, switch to X or Y that we can ship next week, or cancel. What works best for you?”

That email gets you invited back. The alternative—silence followed by a half-shipped order and a cryptic packing list—gets you quietly cut.

BORING OPERATIONS, EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS

From inside your company, operations might feel like the boring part of the brand. From the retailer’s side of the counter, it’s the part that determines whether they can trust you with their cash flow, their wall, and their customer.

If your fills are predictable, your backorders are honest, your communication is clear, and your service fixes problems instead of creating them, something nice happens:

· Buyers stop wondering if you’re going to blow it.

· Staff stop worrying if they’ll have sizes when they sell your shoes.

· Your line becomes the easy choice.