Zedonk: A one-stop shop management solution for fashion brands
04/08/2021
The dual challenges of Covid-19 and Brexit have changed the way the UK fashion and textile industry work. Many UK brands are holding stock for their B2B and B2C customers on either sides of the UK/EU hard border. Some are setting up EU holding companies for VAT purposes. Others have relocated parts of their production to the UK to take advantage of the UK’s new trade agreements.
UKFT has worked with associate member Zedonk since it was established in 2007. Its founder Marcia Lazar ran designer fashion business Science London and grew frustrated with the lack of affordable ERP systems available to small and medium-sized companies so decided to develop her own. She built a system that could integrate sales, production and logistics processes and today Zedonk works with a huge array of UK fashion brands including many UKFT members. The specialist business software has been designed to meet the needs of the fashion industry, offering visibility on stock costs and levels across borders and currencies. Zedonk is also now launching a B2B sales module and better integration with Shopify and other web platforms to offer a full multichannel management system.
What the brands say
Amelia Davis, Logistics Manager of Simone Rocha: “Previously we were using a very basic system and we moved to Zedonk in 2018. We use it for our production development, logistics, sales and accounts. We also use the integration with Joor which means all sales orders are pushed through Zedonk to raise production in a central hub.
“Zedonk has been real big saviour during the last 18 months at a time where we have seen a lot of internal changes. It means other people can step in and have clear visibility of what is happening across the business. It is also super user friendly. It makes us fully aware of where we are with everything in one system.”
Emma-Jane Adam, Co-Founder of Smalls Merino: “It’s a one stop shop for us and it’s like having another employee for our three-person team. It feels like we have the systems in place to be able to scale.
“Zedonk is very quick and easy to implement within your business. It took us weeks to get it up and running and the support team are on hand to take you through the process. It is also really flexible. We were paying for the iPad module to present our collection to customers at tradeshows but that isn’t happening at the moment so we removed the module for the time being as we’re selling more online. It means you only pay for what you need.”
Stu Anderson, CEO, and President of Young Soles: “We have lots of different website and touchpoints and in this regard, Zedonk is our hero. We use it as our main hub, running an order management system, stock control across three warehouses, invoicing (integrating with QuickBooks) and our B2C sales (integrating with Shopify). We are a small team and having to put these changes in place has been hard but Zedonk has really helped to manage it all.
“I like that there are so many different ways to do the same thing and you can build a package to suit your business. As a children’s footwear brand, our business is very different to many other fashion brands in terms of sizing, production range and how we sell etc. Not only is it easy to use but easy for us to adapt to particular things.”