The creator demand playbook
Style Arcade invited Ragtrader to moderate a panel on how marketing and merchandise teams can convert creator-led demand. The session was part of an event hosted by The Thoughtful Agency at Meta HQ. Here are the highlights.
A new speed for fashion
Social creators have compressed the time between inspiration and demand. For fashion brands, the challenge is turning that sudden attention into a commercial opportunity — without losing control of inventory, margin or the customer experience.
Collections can be planned up to 18 months in advance, buy depths are often locked months before products reach consumers and replenishment can take 12 weeks. Yet demand no longer follows a predictable seasonal cycle. A creator post, a celebrity sighting or a paparazzi image can propel a single style into the spotlight overnight, leaving brands scrambling to respond to demand that their original plans never anticipated.
The result is a growing tension between the speed of culture and the mechanics of retail. While marketing can generate demand almost instantly, merchandise planning, inventory commitments and supply chains are built around much longer horizons. Getting the balance right requires more than a reactive marketing strategy. It means bringing brand, marketing, merchandising and commercial teams closer together, aligning around shared objectives and building greater responsiveness into buying and planning decisions.
The insights below draw on the experience of three operators working at the intersection of creator-led demand and inventory management: Meshki head of brand Courtney Judd, Perform Retail merchandise consultant Teneille Oakley and Style Arcade CEO Michaela Wessels. The session was moderated by Ragtrader publisher Assia Benmedjdoub.
"We're leaving ourselves a bit of reactivity to jump on a trend."
Courtney Judd — Meshki head of brand
Build reactivity into the buy without giving the brand away
Meshki grew on creator demand. Now it plans for it.
Australian womenswear brand Meshki scaled rapidly on the back of creators, influencers and celebrities. Founded in 2013, much of the early growth was organic and driven by a simple ambition to see product on the people its customers loved and admired. Meshki head of brand Courtney Judd recently joined from Mecca and is now connecting that demand with product, marketing and the merchandise and buying teams behind it.
The mechanism is a reactivity buffer. Meshki leaves around 30% of each collection or campaign plan open so it can replenish, recolour or chase a trend when something starts flying out the door.
"We might start planning a product collection 18 months or 12 months in advance. Since the rise of creators and influencers really driving the demand for our business, we have ensured that with each collection or campaign, we're leaving ourselves a bit of reactivity at the end to be able to jump on a trend," she said.
That flexibility has pulled some lead times in to as little as six weeks before launch. But the label's long-term ambition keeps the reactive share in check.
"We want to be a legacy brand. We want to be a brand that's around in 20, 30, 40 years. So how do you maintain your brand identity when so much of your brand is being consumed or shared by other people?" Judd asked.
Merchandise and creators enter the conversation early. Meshki's creator team is the largest in Judd's marketing department. It reviews product at preview, six to nine months out, and weighs up who each piece will work with and which market it will resonate with.
"If we all look at it in our preview and everyone reacts really strongly to something, we will back that further, buy deeper and then make sure that we're assigning the right kind of marketing levers and creators to ultimately drive that for us," she said.
Put marketing and merchandise on the same number
Michaela Wessels learnt the cost of a marketing and merchandise disconnect in a single meeting.
Before co-founding Style Arcade, Wessels was director of merchandise at one of Australia's largest online fashion retailers during its fast-build phase. Three months into the role, she presented what she considered the best Black Friday merchandise plan the business had ever put together. It had the right brands, the right categories and a target she was confident of beating.
Marketing had planned for 30% less. The acquisition and traffic work needed to fuel the event needed to start six months earlier.
"That was the lesson to me: never let this disconnect be the thing that makes one side fall over. Marketing and merch are like the supply and the demand of the entire company and they have to talk the same language. It was a bit like a bad marriage. You've got to talk to each other," she said.
Judd moved Meshki's marketing and merchandise teams onto a single commercial goal as soon as she arrived.
"We have to all be going towards the same target, or you're not going to have the six months or three months of lead generation and customer acquisition to fuel a funnel that's ultimately going to drive the sales you have planned," she said.
"Marketing and merch are like the supply and the demand of the entire company."
Michaela Wessels — Style Arcade CEO
Stock the first six to eight weeks because that's where the sale is
Creator investment is only as strong as the stock behind it.
Teneille Oakley partners with fashion brands through Perform Retail and sees most traditional planning structures falling short of creator speed. Many of the brands she works with lack the people, tech tools or data integrity to spot a breakout product early.
"Partnering with them, filling in those gaps, giving them the tools, cleansing the data and putting the systems in place to be able to respond to things quickly is really key," she said.
For one fast-growing client, the answer sat in the buy itself. The brand had historically quantified flat, using a test-and-learn approach that suits a broad range but not a tightly edited one.
"We analysed the rate of sale of the products that went viral, picked which ones we thought were going to go viral and put a lot of quantity behind those. When it did convert, we saw that uplift," she said.
Her advice for marketing teams planning significant creator spend behind a single product is to check stock availability first.
"The revenue that the campaign is going to drive is going to be limited if that stock is not available. Having enough stock to get you through that first six to eight weeks is really key. That's the window where the conversion's high and she really wants it. If you miss out on that, do a reorder and it gets in 12 weeks later, she's like, 'Thanks, I'm done. I'm over here now,'" she said.
Quantities should be built from the bottom up, using rate of sale on like-for-like items. The good news is brands are getting faster.
"They're getting quicker and quicker because things are getting more automated. We can react faster. We can also quantify without having to open up spreadsheets. The teams are getting closer to the timeline and able to grow their brand without waiting for next season," she said.
Many are also better prepared, with fabric ready to go and pre-order on hand to convert demand while stock is on its way.
"Having enough stock to get you through that first six to eight weeks is really key."
Teneille Oakley — Perform Retail merchandise consultant
Redirect the demand and keep the plan
One of Meshki's biggest recent spikes came from a dress already on final sale.
Meshki has built a long and authentic relationship with Alexandra Saint Mleux, known to Formula 1 fans as Alexandra Leclerc, including an edit with the brand. Product placed on her reliably sells out, to the point the team can forecast it.
A few months ago she was photographed by paparazzi in a Meshki dress the team had sent her in a gifting package around a year earlier. The style had been marked down to $75 on final sale. Traffic to site surged.
"Doesn't matter how big you are, when things like that happen, we sort of freak out. We were like, how many units have we got of this one particular product?" Judd said.
The style had been marked down for a reason, so Meshki redirected the interest instead of chasing it. The brand had three similar dress styles in stock. Its PR team issued a media release linking them to the look, an edit page brought together everything Saint Mleux had previously worn in styles with deep stock and the original was recoloured for the next run. It was back in market roughly six weeks later.
"It's about saying great, we'll leverage that. But how do we drive demand with thoughtfulness and with purpose? How do we make sure we're planning to create the demand, answer the demand and then leverage those happy accidents when they do happen?" she said.
By the time the recolour landed, the moment had largely passed. Meshki's customer moves fast.
"We've got quite a shop now, buy now mentality. If I am someone that is obsessed with the creators that we work with, I will see them wear it and I will buy it really quickly," she said.
That speed is exactly why Meshki is careful not to over-react.
"We were trying to buy deep, go deep in these things that we saw and then it got to a place where we were almost overstocked on certain things. That's why our strategy at the moment is to be constantly thinking about the longevity," she said.
Every spike is a signal
While marketing watches the numbers climb, merchandise is already running the analysis.
Oakley's playbook for an unplanned creator moment starts with diagnosis and then moves fast on stock.
"Why is it working? Where is it working? Can we move stock from A to B because that's where it's working? How quick can we get a reorder in? Is there something already coming that looks like it and feels like it that we want to push in that direction? And then switching on that pre-order so we can actually convert while the demand is there," she said.
Meshki switched on pre-order in the past month. Its push to stay reactive had stretched some critical paths, but with fabric and supply in hand the brand knew it could deliver.
"Even if it's the re-fulfilment, we could have it as a pre-order product but only for really select amounts, because I think you can get pre-order fatigue as well," Judd said.
Unexpected sell-outs also shape who Meshki works with next. Micro and UGC creators have driven sales well beyond forecast, including a recent spike across the brand's higher price point Atelier collection.
"Apart from everyone going, 'We should have backed that harder', we went, okay, there is an appetite for this. If we create the right content with the right people, it is going to ultimately deliver and sell for us," she said.
Those learnings flow straight back to product and merchandise, where rate of sale determines whether a restock stacks up commercially.
Measure what you could have sold
When a product outpaces forecast, the revenue leak is the stockout.
Wessels pinpointed where businesses lose money when one product takes off: best sellers sell out faster than planned. The metric that matters is true rate of sale when in stock, which shows how many units of a product can sell by size while it is available.
"We lose revenue because our best sellers sell out way faster than we had hoped. For me, that was the elusive metric: true rate of sale when in stock. How many can we sell by size of this product when we're in stock? It's a very difficult number to get your hands on," she said.
Style Arcade has worked with Adidas for several years, including through the Samba's run as a street style phenomenon.
"Seeing that true rate of sale when in stock for the Samba, with every single post building and building, you're like, when is this trend going to end? Knowing how much you could have sold when you're in stock of that product was everything for them," she said.
Wessels built Style Arcade to move buying and merchandise teams off spreadsheets. It was also built to end the familiar arguments with marketing over advertised products with no stock and deliveries that ran late. On the platform, both teams plan in the same live environment with visuals alongside the numbers.
"You're both on the platform. You're planning the campaigns and attributing them to the styles that you want. You can see how many units are coming and when they're coming. You can see the delivery dates change in real time. It's all just live for everyone," she said.
Meshki was an early adopter. Wessels cited one of its buyers who used the platform to set size ratios across her dress range, reaching 99% accuracy for the season and delivering 12% more revenue.
"It's so ingrained. Everyone in the team knows how to use it and trusts it," Judd said.
Commercial acumen sharpens creative but doesn't replace instinct
More data can make marketing more conservative, which is why instinct still has a seat at the table.
Wessels acknowledged the risk and argued it is exactly why buying and planning will never be handed entirely to AI.
"We'll never have a situation where AI is running all of our buying and planning. The instinct is everything and the instinct comes from being in the industry for many years, having the data behind you but knowing when to use it. We call it the 10x buyer. If you have one of those in your team, they just know what to back, even though no one can back it with data," she said.
Judd sees the same instinct in marketing and argued commercial literacy is what gives it weight.
"The greatest empowerment I've seen in marketing individuals is giving them commercial acumen and insight. The best picture, the most beautiful campaign: we don't have a job at the end of the day if we're not selling from it," she said.
That literacy also gives marketing the confidence to challenge merchandise. Meshki will run ads on an eye-catching hero product with limited stock when the talent wearing it will drive fame, virality and reach. That traffic is then directed to entry price products with depth.
"We still want to be able to use those hero, eye-catching, attention-grabbing, disruptive products. Sometimes that can be a bit of a tension point for merchandise teams because they go, 'Oh, but we've only got so many.' But we use it to drive a purpose and then make sure on the back end that we've got other product we know we have depth in to fuel that customer," she said.
"The best picture, the most beautiful campaign: we don't have a job at the end of the day if we're not selling from it."
Courtney Judd — Meshki head of brand
Trust the gut and back it with stock
One of the clearest marketing and merchandise wins of the session came from beauty.
Before Meshki, Judd headed up category product marketing at Mecca. Around four years ago, Sol de Janeiro was on a steep trajectory. Marketing could see the demand and the engagement its content was generating, while the product and buying team questioned how far a body cream could go.
Mecca threw a full-funnel campaign behind the Brazilian Bum Bum Cream. It included a roster of Australian creators, a 3D bus stop takeover where passers-by could spray the scent and an AI hot air balloon.
"Everyone was like, 'You're so crazy! This is a body cream.' But we worked really closely with our product team: we know the demand is here, get as much product as you can, put it on a ship, air freight it over. We promise you, we will drive the demand," she said.
The product and the brand grew 500% in eight months. A solid merchandise plan for the following 12 months kept the momentum going until demand eventually outran the brand's own supply.
"Sometimes it's trust your gut. Even if it's a weird product, trust the gut. Look at what's happening and then just throw everything behind it," she said.
Plan top down and bottom up to bridge the gap
Marketing and merchandise land on the same page when they read the same numbers.
For Oakley, revenue is the metric both teams should share.
"From a merch perspective, we just want to be cashing in on that great creative. If we're aligned on that, it makes things easier because we're working towards the same goal," she said.
Wessels' pick is true rate of sale when in stock, particularly on hero products.
"There's so much more I can see about a brand now that I can see that number. Watching those hero products, you know how much to order," she said.
Judd adds profit margin, read alongside marketing efficiency ratio (MER).
"Revenue is great, but our MER and our profit margin are numbers I like to look at together. It is important to understand that we can be driving revenue, but if we're spending it at a rate that's not sustainable, we're not growing," she said.
Each panellist closed with one move brands can make now. Wessels' answer is a merchandising principle: top down, bottom up.
"The top-down plan comes from the demand side. What are the marketers doing to drive traffic and what do they think that's going to make in revenue? Then bottom up, what are the merch teams planning for the products? Can you attribute every single product a life? How long do I want it to last and how much is it going to make me over what time frame? Imagine if you could roll that all up and see the revenue the merch team thinks and the revenue the marketing team thinks and bridge the gap. Then you've really made it," she said.
Oakley's is communication.
"A lot of brands work in silos and merch often finds out just as it's selling out. If they can communicate in advance and quantify the order correctly using the data and the true rate of sale, the revenue of the campaign can be maximised," she said.
Judd's is brand conviction.
"Be steadfast in your brand, your brand offering and what you want long term. Social media, pay to play and creators are all going to change the velocity of a market or your brand. Don't be afraid to touch, play, try and look at different ways of working, but have that steadfast offering underneath it so you're not completely reliant on trend and virality, because it could all change tomorrow," she said.
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