Momentis Blog

Counterfeiting has become an increasingly prevalent issue in the fashion industry, with forgeries diluting sales and even companies' brand images. A major hurdle to eliminating forgeries from the market is the fact that in some cases it is very difficult to tell a true branded garment from its phony counterpart.  Fortunately, researchers have not been standing idly by and a breakthrough has been announced by Chalmers University of Technology researcher Christian Müller.

Balancing escalating raw materials and production costs with retail demand for lower prices has without doubt squeezed margins for fashion and apparel wholesalers.

Located at the centre of a complex supply chain, wholesalers are enduring pressure from every direction.

Franchise is becoming an increasingly important component of retail strategy, especially for companies in the UK and North America struggling to attain domestic growth. So why are the vast majority of fashion retailers not realising the franchise vision? 

Latest research shows that retailers could have lost up to £147 million of revenue over the Christmas period due to out-of-stock products. And worryingly, these missed opportunities could be benefitting their direct competitors to the tune of £1.7 billion.

Efficient stock management is crucial throughout the year if retailers are to ride out the continued economic turbulence.

Stock-outs will cost retailers £1.87bn in lost opportunities this Christmas, according to new research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

The research revealed that UK retailers could lose an estimated £147 million of revenue due to missed sales opportunities through out-of-stock products, and an additional £1.7 billion to their competitors, as consumers shop elsewhere for their Christmas gifts.

Facing escalating pressure to reduce lead times and deliver the constant product change required to attain and retain customer interest, self-sourcing retailers are struggling to manage a complex and unpredictable supply chain that is severely undermining business agility and adding untenable cost to a low margin marketplace.

Pushing to reduce lead times without adequate control can result in costly design or manufacture mistakes. Manual intervention and a reliance on spreadsheets are inadequate; if retailers are to meet customer demand for fresh, innovative and frequently changing products, end-to-end fashion product lifecycle control is critical.

The only way to reduce the lead time without incurring risk is to improve collaboration at every stage of the critical path.

As retailers increasingly look to de-risk the business model, franchising is gaining growing traction. Retailers are increasingly exploiting the benefits of a lower cost route to market and utilising local knowledge to achieve international expansion.

But entering a new market raises a whole heap of issues and challenges to consider

Over the past decade, a number of new, innovative fashion retailers have transformed customer expectations. With market leaders now routinely achieving a seven week design-to-store lead time, how can the rest of the market justify the industry average of 12 to 16 weeks?