The Emergence of the Fast Fashion Business Model and Imposed Quick Response Challenges for Chinese Fabric Manufacturers

It is becoming apparent that the ever changing environment in the global marketplace requires a swifter response time from businesses and their supply chains. The era when production was moved overseas, so businesses can take advantage of low-cost labor is coming to an end, because businesses are not only competing on price but also on time. The owner of Zara, a Spanish clothing store knows this first hand, and has turned supply chain management on its ear, making his company the “envy of the industry” (Ferdows, Lewis, & Machuca, 2004).

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.

Although the Chinese apparel manufacturers would lose profitability due to rising cotton prices and competition from emerging countries, they stand to gain the most from the removal of U.S. quotas and tariffs. According to the author, in 2007, 95% of the 20 billion garments Americans made were purchased overseas. Due to U.S. trade barriers, China’s share of the U.S. apparel import was only 30%. Once these barriers were removed, Chinese apparel would flood the American market due to their low cost and dominance in garment manufacturing. Experts predict that China could eventually supply 85% of U.S. apparel. As they increase their market share in the

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

if supplier doesn’t supply on time may incur the company the loses of the clothes out of date fashion . Huge number of tons will be consumed faster than before because of this fast fashion. This was the possible disadvantage of the fast fashion distribution system. There are a lot of advantages that offset the disadvantages of the fast fashion distribution system. We may say here fast fashion requires innovation and brainstorming to get new designs overtime to be

For partners of ASOS, they generally go through the same production process as ASOS own-branded dress. However, they receive the order from ASOS and its merchandisers instead of consumers. It is an important process for ASOS as understanding the product lifecycle and stock level, they can plan the introduction and withdrawal of product. Also price can be adjusted accordingly with which sales are introduced during the decline period (The Times 100, NA). However, this supply chain requires a high collaboration of functions across supply chain (Fernie, 2009). The reason why ASOS can eliminate the traditional functions of a retail store is due to its well-managed supply chain, effective stock keeping system and fast-going logistic system (Meadows, 2007).

Quick response of Zara leads it to be successful in the fashion clothing industry. Zara adopts international strategy for its operation. With vertical integration, it benefits Zara in cost aspect, however, it involves some risks. Due to our anaylysis on Zara’s operations, some of the recommendations are made to facilitate its further improvements.

Shanghai Tang has been in the business of selling high quality retail items for men and women, clothing and accessories, since 1994. Their designs have been based upon Chinese cultural influence while also being modern and wearable in markets around the world. Although business has gone well under the leadership of Rafael Le Manse, the company is experiencing some new internal and external issues. Shanghai Tang’s competition is about to establish a market presence in China and in order to stay ahead in the game; Le Manse needs to figure out how to expand the existing customer base. Also, Le Manse’s long time creative partner, Joanne Ooi, is leaving

The clothing industry, as one of the most globalized industries in the world (Bonacich et al 1994), is currently undergoing a restructuring, especially the fast fashion sector. Fashion markets are synonymous with rapid changes and short product life cycles. Therefore, changes in consumer demand for newness and fashion trend force the emergence of ‘fast fashion’ strategy in retailers like Zara and H&M and shifts in the focus of competitive advantage from price towards quick response. That is to say, clothing firms, which are adopting global or offshore sourcing strategy, are not considered to have more competitive advantages as before.

Hugo Boss has become known as an industry trend setter for its high quality men’s and women’s fashion apparel, shoes, and accessories. Product leadership, intimate knowledge of their market and customers, and operational excellence are what distinguish the company from others in the luxury fashion goods industry. From an operational perspective, the variability that exists as a result of designing and manufacturing short run fashion products is high. This perpetual shifting of demands and preferences makes it difficult to maintain accurate industry forecasts that result in high risk actions as manufacturing products with no guarantee of sale leading to large scale inventory systems.

‘In the United States clothing sales in general have been growing less than 5 percent per year, much slower than in foreign markets’ (Daniels et al, 683:2009). This is evident if you look at the clothing industry figures from 2011 to 2012. In

Fast fashion is an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers. It is also mass-produced and standardized. The unbeatably cheap top, dress, pair of jeans or shoes, is traded in large volumes, is identically served or styled, and is globally found everywhere. Designed to be cheap, easy, and rapid to produce; it draws on low-cost materials and labor, short lead times, and efficient large volume production. Created to be distributed, sold, and consumed in increasing quantities, it is priced low and brought to market fast. New styles, quickly copied from high-end

Zara organizes its supply chain in such a way that it adapts very fast to changing fashion trends. The fashion industry is typically characterized by very short product life cycles. Therefore being fast, adaptive and responsive to change is of core importance in this type of industry. Moreover, with increasing competition from LCC manufacturers (e.g. Primark), the fashion business is becoming increasingly competitive. Hence being efficient in operation is another critical success factor in this

The world has become fascinated towards the fashion. The first thing need to be considered is Fashion; it can be behavior, implementing new ideas on clothing’s, hairstyle, decorations and so on which are automatically linked to our day to day activities. In today’s context, fast fashion has become a trend to a fashion industry patterns yet delivered utilizing less costly materials to guarantee a low cost tag. Many companies have been successful and unsuccessful to earn a trust from their customer. For the matter of success level it depends on how innovativeness they are and also applies the principle of supply chain and logistic management activities for the growth of their

The increasing demand for fashion accessories composes the Indian fashion market together motivating and profitable. For the universal fashion industry, India is a very large exporter of fabrics and accessories. India's strengths not simply depend on its convention, but moreover in its raw materials. World over, India is the third biggest manufacturer of cotton, the second biggest manufacturer of silk and the fifth biggest manufacturer of artificial fibres, apart from having cheaper skilful work force. The fashion business is a multi-billion dollar worldwide undertaking gave to the matter of making and offering garments. This review paper is about how it has developed and what are challenges that have to be focused by the stakeholders in the fashion and apparel industry. This paper focuses on the trends in Indian Fashion and Apparel sector, Preparedness of Indian business people in these fast emerging changes in fashion and apparel sector, strengths and weaknesses of the fashion and apparel industry in India.