Fashion Apparel Industry Analysis

Response to Changes in The Fashion Industry.

Over the last 20 years, the fashion apparel industry has greatly evolved through its changing dynamics. Through the fading of mass production, modified structural characteristics in the supply chain and the increased number of fashion seasons, the retailers have been forced to desire flexibility in design, quality, delivery and speed to market, and to desire low cost in fashion production. The competitiveness in the industry of fashion have been identified to be marketing and capital investment in addition to speed up design and market. Since the fashion industry is increasingly becoming dynamic and its market becoming so demanding, the key strategy to keep profitable position maintained is through

One of the changes is the fading mass production. In the 1980s, mass production of standardized styles at low cost occurred. These styles did not change frequently due to the design restrictions of the factories and they made the fashion industry to greatly succeed. Some of the products made by then included the Levi’s 501 jeans. At this time, most of the consumers were less sensitive towards fashion and style and they liked the basic apparel. However, as the consumers became more fashion-conscious, selling fashion apparel during the forecasted season became so

In the past, the competition in the fashion industry was increased by several large retailers who dominated the fashion apparel industry. The competition then was largely product-driven. However, other retailers wanted to survive the competition and they changed their attention to buyers instead of products. By focusing on buyers, the fashion designs changed based on the buyers demands. This increased the profit margins for the retailers. With the cost of production getting high and competition rising most of the retailers have resorted to outsourcing so as to maintain low costs while providing buyers with the best fashion and style demanded. Despite the benefits of outsourcing, it has significantly led to longer lead times as a result of longer geographic distances. It has delayed product development and fashion delivery to the customers. These delays as a result of distance have made the retailers to sometime fail to sell the merchandise during the appropriate season. However, based on the outsourcing challenges characterized by longer lead times, a number of fashion apparel retailers have come up with a quicker response and just-in-time technique to deliver fashion to customers in