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Software to manage a fashion brand: what you need at each stage, and what plugs into what.
Most fashion brands run on a stack, not one app. An online store, a way to take wholesale orders, design and tech pack tools, accounting, email and a project board. What changes as you grow is the middle: where inventory, orders and production live. This guide lays out the stack by job and by stage, the signs you've outgrown Shopify and spreadsheets, and how the pieces connect.
By Shahrooz "Shawn" Kohan, CEO, AIMS360. He wrote code inside apparel brands before running one of the ERPs they buy. Published October 27, 2026.
Short answer: a fashion brand needs software for six jobs: selling, operations, design, accounting, marketing and team projects. At launch that's usually Shopify, Adobe Illustrator or a 3D tool for design, a spreadsheet for stock and production, and QuickBooks or Xero. Once you sell in more than one channel, add wholesale accounts or run your own production, inventory, orders and production move into an apparel ERP, and the store, wholesale platforms, accounting, shipping and marketing tools connect to it. AIMS360 is that ERP for consumer brands from about $1 million to $400 million+ in sales: Shopify, wholesale, production and the warehouse on one stock record, with retailer EDI built in for when you sell to department stores.
Disclosure: AIMS360 publishes this guide and makes the ERP in it. Tools named here are common choices, not endorsements, and we only say a tool connects to AIMS360 where we have an integration page for it.
What software does a fashion brand need?
Twelve rows across those six jobs. The row that changes most as you grow is inventory, orders and production.
| Job | What it covers | Common tools | How it connects to AIMS360 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online store and POS | Your website, checkout and in-store sales | Shopify, Shopify POS, Square | AIMS360 builds and maintains its Shopify app, listed since 2016. Stock syncs by location; paid orders come in as they happen. Square POS connects too. |
| Wholesale ordering | Line sheets, buyer orders, reps writing orders at shows | JOOR, NuORDER, Faire, Brandboom, a B2B portal | AIMS360's own WebLink buyer portal, RemoteLink iPad app and line sheets run on the same stock record. JOOR, NuORDER, Faire and Brandboom orders come into the same order book. |
| Department stores and big box | Retailer purchase orders, ASNs, carton labels, invoices | EDI provider or ERP with EDI | Built in for 350+ retailers, maintained by AIMS360's EDI team. Flat monthly fee per retailer, unlimited transactions. |
| Marketplaces | Amazon and other marketplaces | Amazon Seller Central, FBA, Vendor Central | Amazon programs run from the same stock record, with Vendor Central on the built-in EDI. |
| Inventory, orders and production | Stock by style, color and size, purchase orders, cut tickets, work in process | Spreadsheets at first, then an apparel ERP | This is AIMS360 itself: one stock record for every channel, with production that's due counted toward what you can promise. |
| Warehouse and shipping | Picking, packing, labels, a 3PL if you use one | ShipStation, ShipHero, a 3PL | The built-in WMS runs on handheld scanners in AIMS360 Runway. 3PL integrations and ShipStation connect if you ship elsewhere. |
| Returns | Return portals, exchanges, restocking | Loop, Redo | Loop and Redo connect, and returns post back to the same stock record. |
| Design and tech packs | Sketches, 3D samples, tech packs, approvals | Adobe Illustrator, CLO 3D, Browzwear, a PLM | Spec sheets generate from the style, tech packs are stored against it, and Centric, WFX and BeProduct connect for design work. |
| Accounting | General ledger, payables, tax, financial statements | QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, NetSuite | Invoices, receivables, chargebacks and factor approvals run in AIMS360, and it syncs to your accounting system. |
| Marketing and CRM | Email, SMS, customer lists, sales pipeline | Klaviyo, Salesforce | Klaviyo connects directly, and Salesforce can push orders into AIMS360. See CRM integrations. |
| Team projects | Collection calendars, sampling deadlines, launch tasks | Monday.com, ClickUp, Airtable, Notion | Use whichever board your team likes. Keep styles, orders and stock in the ERP so the board points to them instead of copying them. |
| AI assistant | Questions about sales and stock, order entry | ChatGPT, Claude | AIMS360's MCP server connects ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to live data, within each user's role. |
What software to add at each stage of a fashion brand
Channel count and production matter more than revenue. A brand selling only on Shopify can stay simple for a long time. One that adds boutiques, a department store and a factory can't.
Launching: one store, a few styles
Shopify for the store, Illustrator or a 3D tool for design, a tech pack template, QuickBooks or Xero, and Klaviyo for email. Stock and production fit in a spreadsheet because one person knows every number.
- Keep SKUs consistent from day one: style, color and size.
- Use UPCs early if wholesale is in the plan.
Growing: wholesale accounts, more channels, real production
Boutique orders, a showroom or JOOR, Amazon, a second warehouse or a 3PL, and production runs at outside factories. This is when an apparel ERP becomes the operations core and Shopify becomes one channel of several. Brands start on AIMS360 from about $1 million in sales.
- One stock record so wholesale and Shopify don't sell the same units.
- Purchase orders, cut tickets and work in process by size.
Scaling: department stores, big box, more warehouses
Retailers send purchase orders over EDI and measure every ASN, carton label and invoice. You need allocation rules for when stock is short, a warehouse with bins and scanning, chargeback tracking and, often, factoring.
- EDI that someone maintains when routing guides change.
- A warehouse that scans, not one that relies on paper picks.
Selling beauty, home goods or pet products alongside apparel? The same stages apply. AIMS360 runs ten consumer product industries on one platform.
Signs you've outgrown Shopify and spreadsheets
If three or more of these are true, inventory, orders and production belong in an apparel ERP. Shopify stays as your storefront either way.
- You've oversold a size that was already promised.A wholesale order and a Shopify order took the same units because each system kept its own count.
- Wholesale orders get typed in twice.Orders from a line sheet, a rep or JOOR are re-keyed into Shopify, a spreadsheet or QuickBooks.
- Size runs live in a spreadsheet.Someone rebuilds the style, color and size grid by hand every time you reorder or run a sale.
- You can't say what's coming from the factory.Units in production, ex-factory or on the water don't show up in what you can sell.
- A retailer asked for EDI.A department store or big box buyer wants purchase orders, ASNs, carton labels and invoices sent electronically.
- Month-end takes days.Sales from three channels, returns and chargebacks get matched to the books by hand.
- Your warehouse counts disagree with the system.Picks happen off paper, and stock adjustments are guesses.
- You add a channel and add a person.Every new store, marketplace or account means more manual work instead of a setting.
More on this in 5 signs you have outgrown QuickBooks and Excel and the best ERP for Shopify brands.
Why a fashion brand needs apparel software, not generic business software
Style, color and size is the unit
A single style in five colors and eight sizes is 40 SKUs that sell, reorder and mark down together. Apparel software keeps them as one grid with a size scale, so you order, allocate and report by style. Generic tools treat them as 40 unrelated products. See style, color and size inventory.
Seasons, prepacks and retailer rules
Wholesale runs on seasons, delivery windows, prepacks and case packs, and every retailer has a routing guide. Getting those wrong costs chargebacks. An apparel ERP models them as settings, not workarounds. The apparel ERP guide covers the rest.
Design, tech pack and PLM software for fashion brands
Design tools and the ERP do different jobs and hand off at one point: the approved style.
Sketch and 3D
Adobe Illustrator for flats and line art, and CLO 3D or Browzwear for 3D samples and fit. Our design software guide compares 10 of them.
Tech packs and PLM
Tech packs carry measurements, materials and construction for the factory. Teams with several designers and seasons in flight move them into a PLM such as Centric, WFX or BeProduct.
Into the ERP
Once a style is approved, AIMS360 holds the style and colors, size matrix, bill of materials, costing, cut tickets and work in process, generates spec sheets and stores tech packs against the style. PLM integrations bring styles across.
Using ChatGPT or Claude to manage a fashion brand
AI is most useful when it can read your live numbers. A chatbot that can't see your stock, orders and invoices can only give general advice. AIMS360 runs its own MCP server, so ChatGPT, Claude and Grok can answer questions like "which styles sold through fastest last month?" or "what's still open for Nordstrom?" from live data, and create and update orders and customers, within each user's AIMS360 role. Your team uses the AI it already has. See AIMS360 with ChatGPT and Claude and AI order entry from email.
Where AIMS360 fits in a fashion brand's stack
AIMS360 is the operations core: inventory, orders, production, warehouse, EDI and receivables on one stock record. The store, wholesale platforms, accounting, shipping, returns and marketing tools connect to it.
Who it fits
- Consumer brands from about $1 million to $400 million+ in sales.
- Shopify-first brands adding wholesale accounts, and wholesale brands adding Shopify.
- Brands making product at outside factories or in their own production.
- Brands that sell, or plan to sell, to department stores and big box chains.
Plans start at three users with the warehouse included. Implementation is run by AIMS360's own team, and 99% of clients are live within 90 days.
Where it isn't the fit yet
- A brand selling only on Shopify with a small catalog and no wholesale can stay on Shopify and a spreadsheet for now.
- If consolidating many legal entities is the hardest problem, NetSuite is built for that, and AIMS360 can sync to it as the ledger.
Comparing apparel ERPs? Our 2026 fashion ERP comparison covers 10 systems.
Brands running Shopify and more on AIMS360
MISA Los Angeles
Shopify DTC, JOOR wholesale to more than 300 stockists in 35 countries, and its own boutique, all drawing on one pool of stock. Read the case study.
Generation Love
Warehouse, ecommerce and stores on AIMS360 with Shopify POS: 10x faster inventory visibility, a 60% jump in scan accuracy to 99%, and 20% less dead stock. Read the case study.
Retrofête
Shopify DTC and JOOR wholesale through one 3PL-connected system. Read the case study.
LAPCOS
A K-beauty brand running inventory, wholesale orders, production purchase orders, Shopify DTC and QuickBooks on one platform. Read the case study.
Fashion brand software: FAQ
Direct answers to what founders and operators ask when they put their stack together.
Software for six jobs: selling (an online store such as Shopify, plus wholesale ordering), operations (inventory by style, color and size, orders, production and the warehouse), design and tech packs, accounting, marketing, and team projects. Early on, Shopify, a design tool, a spreadsheet and QuickBooks or Xero cover it. Once you sell in more than one channel, the operations job moves into an apparel ERP such as AIMS360, and the other tools connect to it.
It depends on your stage and channels, not one product. Shopify is the usual start for a direct-to-consumer brand. For design, most teams use Adobe Illustrator and a 3D tool such as CLO 3D or Browzwear. When you add wholesale accounts, a second channel or your own production, an apparel ERP becomes the system everything else connects to. AIMS360 fits brands from about $1 million to $400 million+ in sales that run Shopify, wholesale and production on one stock record. Our fashion ERP comparison covers the other options.
Not on day one. A brand selling only on Shopify with a small catalog can run on Shopify, a spreadsheet and accounting software. The signs it's time are overselling between channels, re-typing wholesale orders, tracking size runs and production in spreadsheets, and a retailer asking for EDI. AIMS360's Bronze plan starts at three users with the warehouse included, so a small team doesn't pay for seats it won't use.
For a single DTC channel, yes. Shopify tracks variants by size and color and stock by location. Shopify can give each variant a bin name and scan to verify at packing, but it counts stock by location, not by bin, and it doesn't track production by cut ticket or send retailer EDI. Brands that need those keep Shopify as the storefront and run inventory in an apparel ERP. AIMS360 builds and maintains its own Shopify app, which keeps stock in sync by location and brings paid orders in as they happen.
PLM is where styles are designed and developed: sketches, tech packs, materials, samples and approvals. ERP is where an approved style is bought, made, stocked, sold, shipped and invoiced. Many brands use both once several designers and seasons are in flight. AIMS360 covers product development and production: styles and colors, the size matrix, samples, bills of materials, costing, cut tickets and work in process. It generates spec sheets from the style and stores tech packs against it, and design tools connect through its Centric, WFX and BeProduct integrations.
An EDI connection for each retailer and an ERP that can produce what they require: purchase orders (850) in, then acknowledgments, advance ship notices (856) with GS1-128 carton labels, invoices (810) and inventory feeds (846) out. In AIMS360, EDI is built in for 350+ retailers, set up and maintained by AIMS360's own EDI team, with a flat monthly fee per retailer and unlimited transactions.
Shopify, Shopify POS, Square POS and Amazon for selling; JOOR, NuORDER, Faire and Brandboom for wholesale, plus AIMS360's own WebLink buyer portal and RemoteLink rep app; QuickBooks, Xero, Sage and NetSuite for accounting; ShipStation and 3PL warehouses for fulfillment; Loop and Redo for returns; Klaviyo for marketing and Salesforce for orders; Centric, WFX and BeProduct for PLM; and ChatGPT, Claude and Grok through AIMS360's MCP server. See every integration.
Yes, if your ERP connects to them. AIMS360 runs its own MCP server, so ChatGPT, Claude and Grok can answer plain-English questions from live orders, invoices and inventory, and create and update orders and customers, within each user's AIMS360 role. You use the AI you already have instead of learning another app. See AIMS360 with ChatGPT and Claude.
When the spreadsheet becomes the place where orders, stock and production get reconciled by hand. Common triggers are a second sales channel, the first department store account, production running at more than one factory, or month-end taking days. QuickBooks can stay as the general ledger, since AIMS360 syncs to it. Read 5 signs you have outgrown QuickBooks and Excel.
With AIMS360, 99% of clients are live within 90 days, from AIMS360's own implementation analysis. The date is agreed during scoping and depends on how many channels, retailers and warehouses go live at once. AIMS360's own team runs the implementation, so you don't need to hire an ERP consultant.
See your stack on one stock record
Bring your Shopify store, a wholesale order and a style you're producing now. We'll show them in AIMS360 with the same units, not a slide deck.
