Trunk show deposits, order books and reorders: what the numbers should look like

The first trunk show I helped a shop run in Hamburg ended with eleven fittings, nine deposits and two people who said they would think about it. The owner was happy with nine. I was more interested in the two. One of them ordered three weeks later from a follow-up message. The other never came back. The difference was not the fitting or the fabric. It was that the owner had recorded one person's details and lost the other's card in a jacket pocket.

A trunk show is a selling event with a time limit, and the order book is the part that outlasts the day. The fitting, the fabric wall, the tape measure, all of that matters, but it matters only if the paperwork behind it converts a try-on into a confirmed order or, failing that, into a contact the shop can reach again. Most of the questions shops ask us before their first trunk show are about logistics: how many samples to bring, how to set up the room, what to tell the customer about delivery. The questions they should also be asking are about money and follow-up.

How much deposit to take

Fifty percent of the retail price at the time of order is the figure most made-to-measure shops land on, and it is the one I recommend to any shop running a trunk show for the first time.

The logic is straightforward. A deposit needs to be high enough that the customer treats the commitment as real and low enough that it does not scare away a first-time buyer. Fifty percent does both. It covers the shop's fabric cost and a meaningful share of production, so the shop is not exposed if the customer disappears. And it leaves half the price for collection, which gives the customer a reason to come back and a moment to inspect the finished garment before paying the balance.

Some shops use a flat fee instead, say 100 or 200 in the local currency. That works for a narrow price range, but it breaks when the order value varies. A flat 200 deposit on a 400 suit is half; on a 1,200 overcoat it is barely a sixth, and the shop carries most of the risk. A percentage scales with the order and is easier to explain: "half now, half when it arrives."

One thing to put in writing at the point of sale: the estimated delivery date. For custom goods paid in advance, some jurisdictions require it by law. Even where they do not, a written estimate protects both sides. The customer knows when to expect the garment, and the shop has a record if a question comes up later. State the production time, the shipping method and a realistic arrival window. Our production runs 14 days from a confirmed order, shipping is extra, so the shop adds transit time for its region and quotes the total.

What the order book should capture on the day

The order book is not a receipt pad. It is the record that turns a fitting-room conversation into a factory specification. At a trunk show the fitter is working at pace, sometimes back to back, and anything not written down in the moment is gone by the evening.

For every customer who places a deposit, record at minimum: name and contact, the garments ordered, fabric reference and colour, every measurement taken (we use 47 measurement fields, 31 of them required), style choices (lapel, button stance, lining, pockets, monogram), the deposit amount and method, and the delivery estimate given. If the shop uses our ordering system, most of this goes straight into the platform during the fitting. If the shop works on paper first and enters later, double-check the measurements before submitting: a transposed chest and waist number is the most common trunk-show error we see, and it is the one that costs the most time to fix.

For every customer who tries on but does not order, record: name, contact, which garments they tried, which fabrics they responded to, any fit observations, and why they hesitated. That last point matters for the follow-up. "Wanted to check with my partner" is a different reorder conversation from "not sure about the shade of navy."

When the deposit becomes a confirmed order

A deposit sitting in the till is not yet a confirmed order. It becomes one when the complete specification, measurements, fabric, style, all of it, reaches the factory and production is scheduled.

At our end, the 14-day production clock starts from that confirmed order, not from the day of the trunk show. If a shop collects deposits on a Saturday event and submits the orders on Monday, production starts Monday. If the shop waits a week to enter the last few orders, those orders start a week later, and the customers who ordered on the same day get their garments at different times. Shops that batch-enter on the evening of the event or the morning after keep every customer on roughly the same delivery schedule, which is easier to communicate and easier to manage.

The deposit itself should sit as a liability on the shop's books until the garment is delivered and the balance collected. It is not revenue yet. This matters less for accounting at small scale and more for the principle: the money is held against a promise, and the promise is a garment delivered to specification within the stated window.

The reorder after the show

The customers who tried on but did not buy are the trunk show's second harvest, and most shops leave them on the table.

Our data from shops that run regular trunk shows is consistent: the majority of post-event reorders come within 14 days. After that the memory of the fitting fades and the conversion rate drops sharply. A follow-up message sent within a week, short, specific, referencing the fabrics the customer touched and the garments they tried, converts at a higher rate than a generic reminder sent a month later.

Here is what a good follow-up contains:

The two or three fabrics the customer liked, by name and colour, with a swatch image if the shop has one. The price of the garment they tried, since they already know it from the event and restating it removes a friction point. The current production time, so they know what to expect. And a way to order: come back to the shop, reply to the message, or place it remotely if the shop offers that option. We can cut from a remote order just as easily as from a trunk-show order. The minimum is one piece, and the process is the same.

What the follow-up should not contain is pressure. A customer who tried on a jacket, felt the cloth and walked away without paying is already interested. They do not need convincing. They need a convenient moment and a clear next step.

Running the numbers before the next show

After the event, the order book tells the shop three things.

First, conversion rate: deposits divided by fittings. A rate above 60 percent on the day is strong for a first trunk show. Below 40 percent usually means the price conversation happened too late or the deposit ask was unclear.

Second, average order value: total deposits divided by number of orders. If the average is lower than expected, check whether customers are ordering single pieces when the shop expected suits. That is a fabric-presentation issue, not a pricing issue.

Third, reorder rate: orders placed after the event divided by the number of try-on-only visitors. Track this over 14 days and again at 30. If the 14-day reorder rate is below 10 percent, the follow-up process needs work.

These three numbers, compared across events, tell a shop whether the trunk show is improving or just repeating. They also tell us, as the factory, how to help: if the conversion rate is high but the reorder rate is low, the shop needs a better contact-capture system. If the conversion rate is low but the try-on count is high, the deposit policy or the price communication is the bottleneck.

See prices and your margin, 3 min, or send us the sample references you are already showing and we will tell you what we can cut and when it ships.