A fast fashion safety-first inventory model

In the industry of textiles and clothing, fast fashion is a trend. More and more fashion retailers are following the steps of the renowned brands, such as H&M and Zara, in having more frequent changes of styles every season and keeping a low inventory level. In this paper, we analytically explore this phenomenon in a supply chain with the safety-first objective. According to the Bienaymé—Tchebysheff inequality theory, it is known that maximizing the safety-first objective is equivalent to minimizing the chance of making a profit lower than a target profit threshold. Accordingly, and with reference to the fast fashion system, we mathematically derived the optimal retailer’s inventory policy. We found that the optimal policy was consistent with that which was applied in the case of fast fashion. Data sets from a fast fashion retailer were collected for further analysis. Extensive sensitivity analysis was conducted and the implications are discussed.