Essay about Industrial Analysis of Apparel Industry

In 2004, Gap had a supplier base of 1,000, with 3,000 factories in more the 50 countries (www.proquest.umi.com). Products are made in the Americas, Europe, Africa/Middle East, East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gap Inc. has garment factories around the world – from Sri Lanka to Lesotho; from the United States to El Salvador (www.gapinc.com/public/social responsibility).

Manufacturing. The manufacturing process is labor-intensive. The manufacturing process is relatively simple, and firms source their apparel from Asia, which has low wages.

The largest company is Boutique Knitting. In Canada, the major Sweater manufactures are located in Ontario Quebec and Manitoba and in 1996, the Sweater sales was totally about 500 million USD. Current competition is Coopers Knitting, San

II. Over the past few years, fast fashion has been an extremely hot segment and source to help some clothing companies increasing on their economic growth.

In order to gain a better understanding of the profit generating differences between small and large cap companies within the clothing industry, this report will focus on two companies: Urban Outfitter and L. Brands Inc. Within this report, Urban Outfitters will serve as the target company and it will be compared L. Brands Inc., the benchmark company.

The global women’s clothing industry is expected to exceed $621 billion in 2014, marking a 12% increase in five years, reports MarketLine. Clothing retailers account for the largest share of the market at almost 65% in terms of value. We will first seek customers locally, but will increase our range as we build our brand and are confident in our image.

Firstly, fashion design thinking is a framework for making products aesthetically attractive by adopting new innovative approaches. But I was intrigued by seeing the disparity between conceptual fashion design thinking of designers and its industrial production viability. Questions like what type of fabric is best for what type of printing process and which process is more cost-effective with less limitation, are still some burning issues in the fashion world. Many times fashion designers demand very critical development like reactive printing on polyester-cotton blend fabric or discharge printing on double part dyed cotton-polyester fabric. But unfortunately, considering current technological aspects in Bangladeshi industrial sector,

As a vertically integrated company, they manufacture, wholesale, and retail their own clothing line. They independently own and operate over 280 retail stores in 20 countries. American Apparel sells directly to its customers through their AmericanApparel.net website. The site has an online inventory of over 250,000 items and receives 1.5 million visitors per month. Online sales grew from $13.3 million in 2006 to roughly 40 million in 2009. The company’s site also runs on the Yahoo Stores platform and is included in the Internet Retailer 500 index. They also sell through an eBay store. They sell wholesale under the American Heavy label. American Apparel is one of the largest wholesalers in the country. American Apparel shirts are used as band merchandise and concert t-shirts for the bands, among many others.

2. Richard M. Johns (2006). The Apparel Industry. 2nd ed. UK, London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. 1-124.

‘Fashion industry is characterised by short product life cycles, volatile and unpredictable demand, tremendous product variety, long and inflexible supply processes and a complex supply chain.’

Rivalry among existing competitors: The apparel industry is highly competitive with a great number of both local and global competitors. As the market is mature, its growth is small. Accelerated growth and expansion to new markets are not easy goals to achieve. The barrier to get out of the industry is quite low for distributors, but high for producers. Most fashion manufacturers moved their production base to low-cost countries like China as wage and raw materials in developed markets like Western Europe are high. Besides, there is no great discrepancy in terms of quality of products, so customers make their purchase choices based on price and brand recognition.

The apparel industry is comprised of clothing, accessories and shoes. It can be segmented into menswear, womens wear and childrens

The quality of a finished item in apparel industry is mostly controlled on the quality of fabric when it is collected as a roll from mills. Even it occupies 60/70 percent of total garments cost. Apparel industry should take some defensive actions to ensure quality full fabric is being used in their items and set up fabric inspection

Fashion designers can create apparel for numerous people or for a select few. Haute couture designers create clothes specifically for a customer. One outfit could cost thousands of dollars. Ready-to-wear designs are produced in large numbers but sold at high prices. Mass produced clothing is constructed in large numbers and sold at reasonable prices. This is where most designers work. Boutique designers work alone or in groups to create their own designs and find outlets to sell their clothing. In 2012, twenty-five percent of the designers were self-employed. Large apparel companies usually consist of a team of designers headed by a creative manager. Very few designers work for high fashion brands. High fashion designers earn the most money and are the most well-known. Many different outlets of design are available as career options (McAlpine 14).

This report provides an analysis and appraisal of the textiles and clothing industry in Vienna, Austria and the importance of this industry as in moves towards the future. The report is representative of an industry perspective whereby taking into consideration the macroeconomic and microeconomic forces driving the textiles and clothing industry.