In this TechBullion interview, Max Ma, CEO and Founder of 7thonline, shares insights into his journey from a retail software engineer to leading a successful retail SaaS company. Max founded 7thonline in 1999 with the vision of improving retail inventory management and demand planning, leveraging advanced analytics and data-driven solutions. The company has grown to serve major fashion, footwear, and accessory brands like PVH, Patagonia, and Canada Goose, offering multi-channel solutions that enhance inventory productivity and profitability.
Ma discusses the technological innovations behind 7thonline’s platform, including machine learning and AI, which help retailers make smarter inventory decisions by providing granular demand insights. He also highlights how 7thonline’s specialized focus on the apparel and footwear industry gives it a competitive edge, addressing challenges like seasonal demand forecasting, supply chain disruptions, and shifting consumer behaviour.
Looking ahead, Ma emphasizes the importance of data analytics, automation, and AI in shaping the future of retail, and advises aspiring entrepreneurs to build with passion and a long-term vision. With a proven track record of innovation, 7thonline continues to evolve, preparing to lead the next phase of technological transformation in the retail industry.
Please tell us more about yourself.
I’m Max Ma, Founder and CEO of 7thonline, a retail technology platform that provides advanced demand planning and inventory management solutions for retail businesses. I founded 7thonline in 1999 to help streamline retail and wholesale planning to be more efficient. For over 25 years, we’ve been empowering retail businesses with unmatched demand visibility, advanced analytics, and actionable insights. As both a data scientist and an experienced retail tech industry executive, I am passionate about merging cutting-edge technology with proven business practices.
Before founding 7thonline, I served as the lead developer for Pantone’s Electronic Color Systems. In addition, I was a member of the Board of Trustees and Treasurer for the Yale-China Association. I hold an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University, where I also served on the board of the Center for Technology in Supply Chain and Merchandising. My experience extends into media as well, having worked at HBO.
7thonline has made a significant mark in the retail SaaS space over the years. Can you take us back to the beginning; what inspired the founding of 7thonline, and how did the company evolve into what it is today?
When I started working in retail as a software engineer for a CAD software company, I quickly realized that the industry needed more effective ways to boost inventory productivity. Early on at 7thonline, we introduced tools for wholesale buying and planning, partnering with major wholesalers like Liz Claiborne, Jones Apparel Group, and Kellwood. Over time, we evolved our solutions to focus on cross-channel inventory planning and execution, enabling both wholesalers and retailers to align supply with consumer demand, ultimately improving margins.
Today, 7thonline is committed to helping the retail industry, which still relies heavily on manual processes, by offering technology solutions that enhance profitability. We believe that this ultimately will improve quality of life as there is a more efficient use of time, better results, and cost efficiencies. We constantly ask ourselves: Are we on the right track? Are we approaching this the best way? Our passion for supporting the industry drives us forward. Though we’re still at the beginning of this journey, there’s a great deal of excitement about the future and the possibilities ahead.
Your platform is praised for its data-driven approach. Could you explain the core technology behind 7thonline’s platform and how it empowers retailers to make smarter, faster inventory decisions?
7thonline specializes in multi-channel demand planning for leading apparel, footwear, and accessories brands like PVH, Patagonia, Michael Kors, Tommy John, Birkenstock, Alexander Wang, and Canada Goose.
We stand out by offering a data-driven platform that specifically caters to the fashion and footwear industry, supporting both retail and wholesale models. We’re revolutionizing merchandise planning and allocation to drive profitability, enabling planners and allocators in the industry to access deep demand insights and leverage robust optimization tools for achieving critical margin breakthroughs and maximizing inventory productivity.
What sets us apart is our ability to provide granular consumer demand insights—right down to an SKU at a specific store for a given week. This level of detail allows retailers to make smarter, faster inventory decisions based on real-time, localized demand.
Our platform offers several key modules:
Merchandise Planning with Integrated OTB: Flexible planning levels for analyzing business from multiple angles.
Pre-Season Assortment Planning and Order Entry: Maximize selling potential by reverse-engineering clusters down to the style/color level by door and by week.
Easy Reporting with Built-in Analytics and BI: Comprehensive reporting tools that provide actionable insights.
Production Demand Planning: Streamline production processes with accurate demand forecasts.
Allocation and Replenishment: Ensure products reach stores and online channels where they have the highest selling potential.
Factory to DC Replenishment and Order Aggregation: Optimize supply chain efficiency from factory to distribution centers.
Our modular, integrated solutions allow retailers to improve speed, accuracy, and profitability while driving higher customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
The retail SaaS solutions market has grown rapidly in recent years. What do you believe sets 7thonline apart from other competitors in this space, and how do you maintain your competitive edge?
What sets 7thonline apart is our ability to provide a holistic platform managing the total demand across stores, e-commerce, and wholesale distribution. While many companies offer solutions that address parts of what we do, none integrate these elements as comprehensively as we do, especially with the inclusion of a wholesale component. Our platform is specifically tailored to the apparel, footwear, and accessories (AFA) market, which is notoriously challenging for technology solutions. By focusing exclusively on this sector, we’ve honed our expertise and developed solutions that meet the unique needs of retailers in this space, maintaining a competitive edge through specialization and deep industry knowledge.
How are your teams translating strategic goals and objectives into actionable initiatives that can be measured and reported?
Our solution enables clients to take a more proactive approach, effectively shaping their merchandising strategies and driving financial performance. By aligning strategic goals with actionable and measurable initiatives, we help clients translate high-level objectives into tangible outcomes. This approach delivers key benefits, such as lowering markdowns, increasing full-price sell-through, reducing lost sales, improving inventory turns, and minimizing administrative tasks. With this results-driven model, clients can track progress and continuously optimize their merchandising strategies for maximum impact.
You serve a diverse range of clients in fashion, sports, and other retail sectors. What types of challenges do these industries typically face, and how does 7thonline tailor its solutions to meet their unique needs?
There are many reports about challenges at retail. Recently, Bain & Co. published their 2024 Consumer Products Report. It highlights that the industry is facing slower growth and rising challenges from both the global market and shifting consumer expectations. To stay competitive, companies are being encouraged to revamp their growth strategies, with a strong focus on sustainable innovation, digital transformation, and operational agility. Businesses must adapt to supply chain disruptions and evolving consumer behavior, positioning themselves to capture new opportunities while keeping long-term goals in sight.
We understand that the retail industry is primarily focused on short lifecycle and seasonal products. This makes demand forecasting extremely difficult because historical data is limited and consumer demand is constantly shifting. 7thonline leverages a wide range of data sources such as POS data, shipment data, logistic and warehouse data and marketing data to analyze the demand signal from every single channel of distribution.
In the past decade, 7thonline has experienced impressive growth. Could you share a few key success stories that highlight your company’s innovation, problem-solving capabilities, and customer impact?
We have clients with firsthand experience of how they benefit from using our solutions. One large conglomerate told us that by using our account planning system, they were able to place their production buy one week earlier. This resulted in the supplier offering the client a $1 lower cost per garment. This is a huge number that is truly exceptional in the retail industry.
Another example our clients have seen is the ability to have visibility across different continents to know the local demand of different countries and regions so that HQ can always stay on top of the demand signals of the entire company. We’re removing silos and helping companies use their data to make a meaningful difference in their business.
How do you see the role of data analytics evolving in retail, and what steps is 7thonline taking to stay at the forefront of technological innovation in this rapidly changing industry?
At 7thonline, we leverage machine learning and advanced algorithms to stay at the forefront of data analytics in retail. Data analytics has always been the core of our business, providing clients with powerful insights. However, with rapidly changing consumer shopping habits, traditional statistical methods are no longer enough. That’s why we’ve adopted AI and machine learning to enhance our capabilities.
For instance, we developed a fast fashion demand forecasting application that uses AI to predict in-season consumer preferences with minimal data. This enables our clients to quickly respond to shifting consumer demand and stay ahead in a dynamic market.
Retailers are dealing with significant changes in consumer behavior and supply chain disruptions. What strategies or features has 7thonline introduced to help your clients navigate these new realities?
Over a decade ago, 7thonline partnered with a major retailer operating 8,000 stores to implement a demand-driven allocation and replenishment solution. This system allowed the retailer to make data-driven allocation decisions by indexing each product at every store location, aligning product assortment with local consumer demand. By staying closely attuned to the unique consumer behavior at each location, the retailer ensured the right products were available at the right places, reducing stockouts and maximizing sales.
We continue to build on this approach by helping clients test consumer preferences before committing inventory to all channels and stores. For example, by indexing each product, retailers can accurately assess the propensity to sell and determine the optimal allocation and replenishment levels. This tailored, data-focused strategy ensures that retailers are responding effectively to specific consumer demand, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
As a company that has been leading in SaaS retail solutions for years, how do you balance innovation with stability, ensuring your platform is cutting-edge yet reliable for large-scale clients?
At 7thonline, we strike a balance between innovation and stability by closely collaborating with leading clients. This ensures that the features we develop are not just cutting-edge, but also practical and aligned with the real needs of the industry.
Our focus goes beyond simply implementing the latest technology. It’s about providing meaningful solutions that drive profitability and improve the quality of life for those managing large volumes of goods on tight margins. In today’s data-driven economy, technology is the key to breaking through the typical 5-10% margin barrier. By reducing turnaround time, minimizing human error, and enhancing overall business operations, we help our clients achieve significant breakthroughs.
An example of how we improve internal and external collaborations through the latest technology is helping clients make better supply chain decisions. By facilitating real-time Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), we enable better collaboration between sales planning and supply chain planning teams, breaking down silos and fostering more effective collaboration across the organization.
Looking forward, what trends or developments do you anticipate will shape the future of the retail SaaS landscape, and how is 7thonline preparing to lead the way in this evolution?
Excel has become a major pain point for retailers, creating data silos, and delaying real-time decision-making. As margins shrink, relying on Excel reaches a point where it’s no longer scalable. That’s where 7thonline steps in with end-to-end solutions that automate processes and deliver better results. Our goal is to eliminate the need for manual intervention by making everything automatic.
Often referred to as “the science guys of the retail industry,” we are continually enhancing our AI and machine learning capabilities through collaboration with leading clients. For us, AI and ML are not just marketing buzzwords—they’re essential tools that help retailers improve margins by allocating inventory based on current trends and customer preferences.
AI is reshaping the role of buyers, allowing them to stay ahead of trends and introduce product assortments that align with customer demand, particularly for seasonal items. According to a study published by Forbes, 60% of apparel products bought by buyers aren’t profitable, while only 40% are. This is because many decisions are made pre-season, long before customers interact with the products. AI enables retailers to gauge consumer behavior at the start of the selling season and make smarter, secondary product assortment allocations based on real-time data.
In the apparel and retail space, AI offers the critical advantage of predicting consumer trends early, reducing reliance on pre-season inventory bets, and managing the constraints of the supply chain. Retailers using AI can enjoy higher margins, which in turn allows them to invest further in technology and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Lastly, what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to build a successful business in the technology and SaaS industries, based on your journey with 7thonline?
You have to have the passion for what you do and “build to last” instead of “build to cash out.” With 25 years and still going, I still have the passion and excitement to continue to partner with our legacy clients and obtain new partners in the fashion, footwear and accessories industry. I feel that the best is yet to come and I hope that entrepreneurs looking to build a successful business find that same excitement and feel that what they are doing will ultimately help people have a better quality of life.
7thonline, Accessories, CEO, fashion, featured, Footwear, Future, interview, Journey, Leadership, Max Ma, Retail SaaS, technology, Vision
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