📌 At a glance: A leading Indian multi-brand fashion retailer ditched its SAP WMS for Increff's cloud-based WMS — and within 15 days had three warehouses live, 700K units under management, and zero order cancellations for the next seven months straight.
What Is This Case Study About?
There's a specific kind of operational pain that high-growth Indian fashion retailers know well: the inventory is there, the demand is there, but the warehouse system can't keep up. Orders get cancelled. Audits eat up manpower. The SLA slips. And the root cause — almost always — is a legacy WMS that was never built for the pace of Indian e-commerce.
This case study is about what happens when you fix that root cause properly. One of India's most recognised multi-brand fashion retail groups replaced its existing SAP WMS with Increff's cloud WMS software — and the results weren't incremental. They were structural.
Client Overview
- Type: Multi-brand fashion retailer
- Region: India
- Segment: E-commerce fulfillment for exclusive domestic and international fashion labels
- Previous System: SAP WMS
- Warehouses Onboarded: 3, with ~700,000 units of inventory capacity
- Objective: Redesign e-commerce warehouse operations to cut manpower costs, eliminate order cancellations, and improve fulfillment accuracy at scale
Challenges Faced: What a Legacy SAP WMS Actually Costs You
Legacy systems have a way of making their problems feel normal. You run audits because the data isn't trustworthy. You hire more people because the system can't automate what it should. You accept a 2-day SLA because you've always had a 2-day SLA. None of it feels like a crisis — until you look at the numbers.
1. Order cancellations from inventory mismatchesThe cancellations weren't random. They followed a pattern: orders accepted, inventory not found at the expected bin location, cancellation triggered. In fashion e-commerce — where a size-8 and a size-10 are completely different products — bin-level inaccuracy isn't a minor inconvenience. It's a fulfilment failure, every single time.
2. Manpower costs inflated by manual processesMultiple physical audits per cycle. Manual data entries across systems. Network reconciliations that required dedicated headcount just to keep the numbers honest. None of this was adding value — it was compensating for a system that couldn't maintain accuracy on its own.
3. A 2-day SLA that was becoming untenableIndian marketplaces have moved fast. Customer expectations have moved faster. A greater-than-2-day SLA was no longer just a performance issue — it was starting to affect marketplace rankings and repeat purchase rates.
4. SAP WMS wasn't built for this kind of operationSAP WMS is a capable system in the right context. High-SKU, high-velocity fashion e-commerce with seasonal spikes and multi-channel order flows is not that context. The workarounds required to make it function at this brand's scale were themselves becoming a source of operational drag.
5. No real-time inventory visibility across channelsWithout a cloud-based WMS connecting inventory positions in real time, decisions about allocation and fulfillment were always slightly behind. And in e-commerce, slightly behind is often enough to lose the sale.
Increff's Solution: Cloud WMS Software Designed for the Reality of Indian Fashion E-Commerce
The brief was straightforward: replace the SAP WMS with something that could handle 700,000 units across three warehouses, integrate with existing SAP infrastructure, and go live without disrupting ongoing operations. Increff delivered all three — in 15 days.
Explore Increff’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) coupled with its powerful Order Management System (OMS)
One Unified Platform for WMS and OMS
The integration of warehouse management and order management into a single cloud WMS software layer removed the data gaps that had been causing mismatches. Inventory positions, order status, and fulfillment decisions all run through the same system now. There's no reconciliation step because there's nothing to reconcile.
SAP API Integration — Deep, Bidirectional, Real-Time
Switching WMS doesn't mean abandoning SAP. Increff's deep API integration kept the brand's ERP environment intact while eliminating the lag and manual intervention that had built up around it. Finance, procurement, and warehouse operations now work from the same live data.
15-Day Deployment Across Three Warehouses
Three facilities. ~700,000 units of capacity. Fully operational in 15 days — without pausing live e-commerce orders to do it. For context, a comparable SAP WMS implementation would typically take six months minimum. The difference isn't just time. It's the operational risk and revenue exposure that comes with a drawn-out transition.
Automation That Eliminates the Audit Cycle
Once bin-level accuracy is genuinely reliable — not audit-dependent, but system-driven — the entire audit overhead disappears. No more physical counts to validate what the system should already know. No more manual data entry to bridge gaps between systems. The ~50% reduction in manpower cost came directly from removing work that should never have existed in the first place.
Results: Measurable Impact Delivered by Increff
"Only 4 'not found' cases across more than 500,000 units managed. Seven months, zero cancellations. With Increff, these aren't targets — they're the actual production numbers."
Key Outcomes Summary
- ~100% inventory accuracy sustained in live production — only 4 "not found" cases recorded across 500,000+ units over the measurement period
- Zero order cancellations for 7 consecutive months — a number that tells you the system is working, not just the team working around it
- ~50% reduction in manpower cost, driven by eliminating physical audits, manual data entries, and the reconciliation overhead the old system required
- SLA dropped from 2+ days to same-day, improving both marketplace performance metrics and end-customer experience
- 700,000-unit warehouse capacity across 3 facilities — live in 15 days, with no disruption to ongoing e-commerce fulfillment
- Legacy SAP WMS fully replaced by cloud WMS software that integrates with SAP rather than competing with it
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the real difference between cloud-based WMS software and a traditional SAP WMS?
The honest answer: it depends on what you're using them for. SAP WMS is a serious system — it works well in structured, predictable environments where implementation timelines and customisation costs are acceptable. But for Indian fashion e-commerce, with its SKU proliferation, seasonal demand spikes, and multi-marketplace order flows, those environments don't really exist. Cloud-based WMS software like Increff's is built to deploy in days, adapt without months of reconfiguration, and maintain accuracy at the bin level without requiring manual audits to compensate for system gaps. That's a different product for a different operational reality.
How does a cloud WMS actually reduce manpower costs — and by how much?
The reduction comes from removing the work that manual systems create. Every time a warehouse team runs a physical audit, it's because they don't trust the system's inventory count. Every manual data entry exists because systems aren't talking to each other. Every reconciliation step is a gap being bridged by a person instead of automation. Eliminate those gaps — which is what a well-implemented cloud WMS does — and you eliminate the headcount that was filling them. In this case, that translated to roughly 50%. That figure will vary by operation, but the mechanism is consistent.
Why do Indian fashion e-commerce brands have particularly high order cancellation rates?
A few reasons compound here. Fashion SKUs multiply quickly — one style in four colours and six sizes is 24 inventory positions, each of which can be inaccurate independently. Bin-level errors that wouldn't matter much in a lower-SKU environment become significant at this scale. Add in the pressure of marketplace SLA windows, which leave little time to locate misplaced stock before a cancellation is triggered, and you have a system that produces cancellations almost structurally. Accurate bin-level tracking — the kind a cloud WMS provides by default — removes that structural problem.
Can Increff's WMS integrate with SAP without replacing it?
Yes, and that's an important distinction. The brand in this case study didn't rip out SAP — it kept its SAP ERP environment and replaced only the WMS layer with Increff's cloud-based solution. Deep API integration between the two systems means inventory and order data flows in real time, without manual reconciliation. The finance team still works in SAP. The warehouse now works in something built for the warehouse.
How long does it realistically take to go live with Increff's cloud WMS?
For this brand: 15 days across three warehouses with 700,000-unit capacity. That's the production number, not a pilot. A comparable SAP WMS implementation — from project kickoff to go-live — typically runs six to twelve months. Increff's cloud-native architecture, pre-built SAP connectors, and remote implementation approach remove most of that timeline. For Indian e-commerce operations where every month of delay is lost marketplace ranking and revenue, that difference matters more than it might appear on a project plan.
Which Indian retail businesses see the most impact from switching to cloud WMS software?
Fashion and apparel retailers, almost without exception — particularly those managing large, variant-heavy catalogues across multiple channels. But the pattern holds for any Indian retailer running high SKU counts, operating from multiple warehouse locations, or currently relying on legacy WMS infrastructure that requires significant manual intervention to stay accurate. The bigger the gap between what the current system can do and what the operation demands, the more pronounced the impact.
Why Increff for Cloud WMS in India?
Increff isn't a global logistics platform with an India presence. It's built specifically for the scale, complexity, and pace of Indian and emerging-market retail operations:
- Cloud-native from the ground up — no on-premise infrastructure, no months-long IT setup
- Proven rapid deployment — 3 warehouses, 700K units, live in 15 days in actual production
- Bin-level accuracy without audits — 99.9%+ sustained in live operations, not controlled pilots
- Deep SAP API integration — replace the WMS layer, keep the ERP, eliminate the reconciliation
- Built for Indian e-commerce — marketplace integrations, SLA management, and demand volatility are handled natively, not bolted on
- Documented cost impact — ~50% manpower reduction achieved in a real production environment
Ready to Replace Your Legacy WMS?
If your warehouse is running on a system that requires audits to stay accurate, manual entries to stay connected, and a larger team than it should need — the problem isn't your team. It's the system.
Increff's cloud-based WMS can have you operational in weeks, with inventory accuracy and fulfillment performance that holds up in production — not just in a proof of concept.
Book a demo with Increff today