What Is a Fashion Range Plan? A Worked Example

A fashion range plan is a working overview of the products you intend to offer together. It shows what each style contributes, which colours and sizes you plan to sell, and how quantities and costs fit the collection. It turns a set of appealing garment ideas into a range you can question before paying for development.

For a small brand, a spreadsheet and a simple visual board can be enough. The value comes from the decisions recorded in them, not from buying a particular planning tool. Below is a worked example using a fictional 300-unit capsule.

What belongs in a range plan?

Start with a style reference, product description, intended role, material direction, colourways, size range and proposed quantities. Add target prices, estimated costs, supplier information, development status and delivery timing as those become available.

Keep assumptions visibly separate from confirmed information. A target cost is not a quotation, and an initial quantity is not evidence of demand. The plan should make those uncertainties easier to discuss.

A visual version helps you judge balance: repeated shapes, colour relationships and whether the products form useful combinations. The numerical version shows what that creative direction means for stock and development work.

Range plan, line sheet and tech pack: different jobs

A range plan is primarily a planning and decision tool. A line sheet presents a collection’s products and ordering information to buyers. Techpacker’s line-sheet guide describes product images or flats alongside details such as sizes, colours, prices and delivery information.

A tech pack goes into the specification of an individual product. It explains what to make. Your range plan explains why that product is in the collection and how much of it you intend to offer.

The documents should agree, but copying the same information manually into several files can create conflicting versions. Use consistent style codes and identify which record owns each decision.

Begin with the customer’s wardrobe

Imagine a small casual capsule for customers who want easy layers for everyday use. A T-shirt may be the accessible entry product, a sweatshirt the familiar core item and an overshirt the more distinctive piece. Each has a reason to exist.

Ask whether the products work together and whether two styles solve essentially the same problem. Three almost identical overshirts may create extra sampling and stock commitments without adding a useful choice.

Our explanation of the fashion design process covers the development of a garment. Range planning looks across those garments before the collection becomes too large to manage.

A worked 300-unit capsule example

The following quantities are fictional planning assumptions. They are not recommended buying ratios. A real plan should reflect customer evidence, size demand, supplier minimums and the money you can responsibly commit.

This range contains four styles and six style-colour combinations. Once sizes are included, it has 26 stock-keeping units, or SKUs: ten for the T-shirt, ten for the sweatshirt, five for the overshirt and one for the tote. It has 300 physical units of stock.

That distinction matters. Adding one new colour to the T-shirt creates five additional SKUs when all five sizes are offered. It also creates more decisions about photography, stock allocation and replenishment.

Split quantities by size without guessing equally

Do not automatically divide every colour into equal numbers of each size. Use previous sales where relevant, customer research and careful testing. If the brand is new, acknowledge the uncertainty and keep the first commitment proportionate.

For arithmetic only, one 60-unit T-shirt colour could be split as 6 XS, 12 S, 18 M, 15 L and 9 XL. These add to 60, but they are not a universal size curve. Another audience could require a very different distribution.

Check that the proposed allocation works with the supplier’s minimums. A factory may have separate requirements per style or colour, and a fabric supplier may impose a minimum that affects several garments. A range can look balanced on paper while being impractical to source.

Add costs and test the total commitment

Suppose the example uses provisional landed unit-cost allowances of £8 for the T-shirt, £18 for the sweatshirt, £24 for the overshirt and £5 for the tote. On those invented assumptions, the stock allowance is £960 + £1,440 + £1,200 + £250, which totals £3,850.

That is not a complete launch budget. Design, patterns, samples, testing, photography, selling costs, returns and overheads need separate consideration. Define what “landed” includes in your own file and use a consistent tax basis.

Now test a change. If the overshirt’s confirmed cost rises, can the range absorb it? Would reducing an unproven colour be more useful than removing a product that makes the collection distinctive? The purpose is to see the consequences before an order is placed.

Review balance, readiness and delivery

Look at the collection in three ways. Creatively, does it have a coherent direction? Commercially, are the quantities and price points plausible? Operationally, can the products be developed and delivered together?

Record a status for each style, such as concept, sampling, approved or on hold. Assign an owner to unresolved issues. One delayed fabric should be visible in the plan rather than hidden inside an email conversation.

A range plan is allowed to change. Keep a dated version and a short decision record so removed colours or revised quantities do not accidentally return in a supplier order.

What should you do first?

List the products you are considering and give each one a clear purpose. Add its colours, sizes and initial quantities, then calculate the number of SKUs and physical units. Review the total with your designer and production partner before expanding the range.

If you cannot explain why a style belongs, pause it. A smaller range with clear roles is easier to develop, photograph and learn from than a collection padded with products simply because the drawings look good together.