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Global Sourcing: Insights from the Global Clothing Industry-The Case of Zara, a Fast Fashion Retailer
Abstract
Until recently, Zara, a major international clothing retailer and pioneer of fast fashion principles, kept almost half of its production in Spain and Portugal, earning the reputation of being one of the exceptions to globalization. Since the 1980s, the existence of such exceptions has been fueling an expectation that the production of high-quality fashion garments and tailored suits would remain in the industrialized core. Here I revisit this expectation in the light of the current seminal change in the culture of fashion from ready-to-wear to fast fashion, and report that the increased variety and fashionability associated with fast fashion, represented by Zara, have tilted the balance of competitive advantage towards, rather than away from, firms in partially industrialized countries. As a number of supplier firms in countries such as Morocco, India and Turkey have gained the competence to manufacture intricately worked high-quality garments with the required flexibility and speed, Zara has turned to sourcing from these countries. It appears that instead of Zara changing the geography of jobs, the geography of competencies and jobs has changed Zara.
... Continuous consumption, low prices, and a constant change in collections and fashion trends have social, economic, and environmental consequences. This model is known as 'Fast Fashion' and is characterised by the mass consumption of low-cost clothes [1], produced by cheap labour in short distribution times [2]. Frequent fashion campaigns drive companies to accelerate their production processes, resulting in mass consumption. ...
... Thus, those correlations whose p-value is less than 0.05 are statistically significant. 2 Correlation matrix between the variables of assessment and degree of concern about working conditions and control variables (gender, age, level of education, employment status, environmental impact, and political self-positioning). Statistically significant relationships are those where the p-value is less than 0.10 and are indicated in bold figures. ...
... Degree of concern about working conditions in clothing factories(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Source elaboration based on the data of the questionnaire 'Social processes in the virtual shop: the pu of clothing after COVID-19' (2022). ...
The clothing industry has experienced global and sustained growth in the last decades due, among other factors, to the decentralisation of production in this sector and its consequent lowering of prices, but also to the effect of the unceasing demand that fashion generates. Simultaneously, the number of people employed in the textile sector has been growing in economically developing countries under precarious labour conditions. The objective of this study is to analyse the level of knowledge and awareness of the Spanish population about the working conditions in clothing manufacturing at production sites. To achieve this, we applied statistical analysis to data collected from a sample (n = 3000) of Spanish fashion consumers. The main results show a society with a high degree of concern for labour conditions in the textile sector, as well as for the environmental repercussions triggered by this type of production. Considering the differences based on socio-demographic variables, we find that women, older consumers, and respondents with higher education show a greater degree of concern about the working conditions in the clothing industry. Along the same lines, respondents who are ideologically left wing present a higher degree of concern than respondents from the extreme right.
... By 1988, the brand's presence was felt internationally, as evidenced by its store in Porto, Portugal, quickly followed by expansion into major fashion hubs-New York and Paris. Zara's emergence in the fashion sector was strategically timed [5]. As established players like Gap and H&M grappled with legacy technologies, Zara seized the opportunity to integrate the latest information systems without being bogged down by outdated infrastructures [5]. ...
... Zara's emergence in the fashion sector was strategically timed [5]. As established players like Gap and H&M grappled with legacy technologies, Zara seized the opportunity to integrate the latest information systems without being bogged down by outdated infrastructures [5]. The brand's ascent was not merely about tech-savviness. ...
... In the 1980s, while lower labor costs in other countries lured competitors, Zara discerned the importance of unit labor costs. This insight led them to capitalize on Spain and Portugal's competitive labor costs, giving them a significant edge [5]. This strategic move allowed Zara to foster a robust local assembly line, with the early adoption of vertical integrationensuring control over production, distribution, and sales-further strengthening its position [5]. ...
The digital revolution, characterized by widespread internet access and the burgeoning influence of social media, has heralded a new era of consumer engagement and transformed branding paradigms. Particularly impacted is the fashion domain, with brands navigating the tumultuous waters of dynamic trends and digital preferences. This paper delves into Zaras foray into this intersection of fashion and digital marketing, illuminating its triumphs in social media marketing (SMM) and underexplored areas. Despite Zaras commendable utilization of platforms such as Instagram, a glaring bidirectional communication gap needs to improve the establishment of authentic consumer connections. The advent of Generation Z accentuates this, introducing nuanced digital consumption behaviors that demand a revised SMM approach. Recommendations proffered include enriching content interactivity, fortifying influencer collaborations, and calibrating strategies tailored for Generation Z. Emphasizing the vitality of agility in branding, the study underscores the necessity for brands, even those at the pinnacle of their sectors, to perpetually evolve in harmony with the digital zeitgeist. Through a detailed exploration of Zaras digital endeavors, this research offers an instructive lens on the intricacies of modern digital consumerism, charting a direction for the fashion industry in the age of pervasive digital connectivity.
... However, starting in the 1990s, in an increasingly competitive retail landscape, efforts to entice consumers to shop more and more frequently meant the industry grew increasingly driven by faster trends (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst, 2010;Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006;Leslie et al., 2014). This resulted in a need to increase speed of production, as well as production lead times-so that factories were asked to produce more product in a shorter period of time (Tokatli, 2008;Bhardwaj and Fairhurst 2010;Taplin 2014). The advent of lean-retailing and just-in-time transportation services led the industry to develop newer, faster, and more globalized industrial supply chains that could respond to consumer demands in real-time (Abernathy et al., 1999). ...
... Outsourcing production to countries with low labour costs, such as Bangladesh, meant that companies could meet consumer 'needs' without compromising their bottom-line (Tokatli, 2008;Taplin, 2014). This is the very nature of 'supply chain capitalism,' which Tsing (2009) defines as "commodity chains based on subcontracting, outsourcing, and allied arrangements in which the autonomy of component enterprises is legally established even as the enterprises are disciplined within the chain as a whole." ...
... The global fashion and apparel industry today continues to reflect this evolution. It is a highly fragmented and globalized industry, where systems of design, production and manufacturing, distribution, as well as consumption, occur in multiple locations, traversing national boundaries where necessary, all fall in line with the logic of global capitalism (Tokatli, 2008;Crewe, 2017). Under this system, brands and retailers come to be associated with certain countries (for example, Sweden) with skilled design (Hauge et al., 2009), and others (for example, Bangladesh or Turkey) with low-cost production (Tokatli, 2008). ...
In this article, we investigate Canada’s shared role in supporting worker safety and responsible fashion and apparel in Bangladesh. Drawing on two case studies, the Rana Plaza factory collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigate the Government of Canada’s varied response to the impact of these crises on garment workers. To investigate this, and to advance our understanding of Canada’s own role in supporting garment worker safety and agency in responsible fashion and apparel production, we turn to the concept of ‘fashion diplomacy.’ We argue that if Canada hopes to play a leading role in supporting responsible fashion and apparel practices in an ever-changing landscape, it must develop inclusive policy solutions capable of addressing the diverse and at times divergent interests of state and non-state actors both at home and abroad. In doing so, we identify possible strategies for Canada in addressing the new and emerging Indo-Pacific strategic environment.RésuméDans cet article, nous examinons le rôle partagé du Canada dans le soutien de la sécurité des travailleurs et de la mode et des vêtements au Bangladesh. En nous appuyant sur deux études de cas, l'effondrement de l'usine Rana Plaza et la pandémie de COVID-19, nous examinons la réponse variée du gouvernement du Canada à l'impact de ces crises sur ces travailleurs. Pour enquêter cela et pour avancer notre compréhension du rôle du Canada dans le soutien de la sécurité des travailleurs des s et de l'agence dans la production responsable de mode et de vêtements, nous nous tournons vers le concept de « diplomatie de la mode ». Nous soutenons que si le Canada espère jouer un rôle de premier plan dans le soutien des pratiques responsables en matière de mode et des vêtements dans un paysage en constante évolution, il doit élaborer des solutions politiques inclusives qui sont capables de répondre aux intérêts divers et parfois divergents des acteurs étatiques et non étatiques, tant au niveau du pays or de l’état et à l'étranger. Ce faisant, nous identifions des stratégies possibles pour le Canada face au nouvel environnement stratégique émergent de l'Indopacifique.Keywords: Fashion diplomacy, sustainable fashion, labour rights, cultural diplomacy, Canada, BangladeshMots-clés : Diplomatie de la mode, mode durable, droits du travail, diplomatie culturelle, Canada, Bangladesh
... These strategies allow the brand to introduce new designs every 5 weeks and ship orders every 2 weeks [32]. They prioritize nearby suppliers for fashion items, shortening lead times, while basic items are outsourced to Asia [55]. Zara's automated distribution center, 'The Cube,' ensures quick shipping times and reduces storage needs [14]. ...
... Sales data and customer feedback help adjust designs and inventory efficiently [14]. The company maintains a low unsold inventory rate of 10% by accurately forecasting fabric needs and production [55]. RFID technology enhances customer experience and store security , and advanced digital features support a hybrid retail model [14]. ...
... This approach is commonly employed by major retail chains such as Zara and H&M, among others (Ângelo, 2022;Rodrigues, 2022), enabling them to rapidly produce and distribute new fashion trends at affordable prices (Caro & Martínez-de-Albéniz, 2015). By reducing production times and leveraging economies of scale, these companies can quickly respond to consumer demand and maintain a competitive edge in the market (Tokatli, 2008). The use of this strategy proves highly advantageous for companies, as research suggests that product purchases in fast fashion are often driven by consumer impulse and a tendency to accumulate items (Barnes & Lea-Greenwood, 2006;Rodrigues, 2022). ...
... Research shows that sociodemographic factors often shape consumer awareness and behavior in the fashion industry. Tokatli (2008) argues that globalization and the rise of fast fashion have created disparities in how different consumer groups perceive and engage with fashion trends. For instance, younger consumers, particularly Generation Z, are more likely to be aware of fast fashion due to their active engagement with social media platforms and digital marketing, which frequently promote fast fashion brands (Caro & Martínez-de-Albéniz, 2015). ...
A globalização, as alterações ambientais, a evolução dos padrões de consumo e a preocupação acrescida com a aparência pessoal redefiniram o comportamento dos consumidores. Em resposta, as empresas têm de implementar estratégias inovadoras para responder eficazmente às exigências do mercado. O marketing desempenha um papel fundamental ao permitir que sectores como o da moda se adaptem rapidamente às novas tendências. O modelo de fast fashion exemplifica este facto, facilitando a rápida criação e lançamento de novos produtos de acordo com as tendências em evolução.Esta investigação explora o fenómeno da fast fashion através de um estudo de caso da Parfois, uma marca portuguesa líder. O estudo baseia-se em 371 respostas válidas de inquéritos aos consumidores. Os resultados evidenciam diferenças sociodemográficas significativas nas perceções dos consumidores sobre a fast fashion. Especificamente, os valores de humildade e rigor não estão relacionados com a idade, enquanto o rendimento é um fator de previsão significativo das compras de produtos nas categorias de joias, vestuário e calçado. Além disso, foi confirmada uma relação entre as características do produto e os valores da marca, rejeitando a hipótese nula em múltiplas variáveis.
... Benetton and Zara are differentiated from H&M's pure retailing strategy that do not own factories but keep market relations with large independent suppliers (Tokatly, 2008). In Benetton's case, it was renowned to be a firm that manufactures the majority of the products in Italy (Berger 2005;Dicken 2007;Tokatly 2008) but this situation has changed during the 80s the foreign production rose to 20% ...
... Benetton and Zara are differentiated from H&M's pure retailing strategy that do not own factories but keep market relations with large independent suppliers (Tokatly, 2008). In Benetton's case, it was renowned to be a firm that manufactures the majority of the products in Italy (Berger 2005;Dicken 2007;Tokatly 2008) but this situation has changed during the 80s the foreign production rose to 20% ...
Supply Chain Management is the process by which raw materials and components are transformed into finished products and then delivered to the customer. Its parts are design, manufacturing, sourcing and distribution (Accenture, n.d.).
Fast Fashion is an industry and business model of fashion textile commercialization known as work with fast changing collections, always looking for the latest trends which imply to keep constantly designing new items in mass production consequently reducing the time of each collection available in the physical and online stores. Nowadays the major companies in the industry are Zara, H&M and
Benetton, hence studying their cases would understand the typical phenomena, especially related to the supply chain parts and digitalization.
The importance of the Supply Chain for the success of these organizations at international level will be shown, together with their strategic use of technologies for this aim over the years and the changes in society, reaching the next level of personalization from the design to the delivery to the customer, changing from a supply chain centred strategy to a customer centred strategy. As a hypothesis, these successful fashion companies have a high level of digitization over all the
processes of their Supply Chain and probably their next step is going to be how to use this Supply Chain to be more sustainable.
Consequently the research question is: How could digitalization contribute to optimize their supply chain operations?
... Due to this, the customers feel less at fault for disposing the clothes, as these clothes tend to be easily and cheaply replaceable (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009). Today, the clothing companies create higher amount of collections in lesser time in order to earn more (Tokatli, 2008). An increase in consumption and amounts of apparel waste has arisen a need to know how and why the customers dispose off clothes (Krogman, et al 2021). ...
In earlier days, clothing was a necessity to protect oneself from external factors. Today, clothing has become a symbol of expression, style and fashion. Due to globalization, it has become possible to produce clothes at very lower prices, which brings in the consideration of the clothes being disposable and this is being called ‘Fast Fashion’. So, we have low price clothes for every occasion which can be disposed after wearing. But as documented by Claudio (2007) fast fashion generates significant environmental and occupational hazards. As published by Martina Igini in Earth.org an alarming 1.92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced every year, and the number of times a garment is worn has been declined by 36% over the last 15 years. It is high time that we open our eyes and do our bit towards it. Today, there are a lot of brands, companies in the fashion industry which produce tonnes of clothing every day. People look towards fast fashion brands for their fast-changing clothing and as a matter-of-fact fast fashion brands are producing twice the amount of clothes they did around 2000. Millions of clothing end up in landfills every year and the industry is responsible for 10% of the global carbon emissions which would increase to 50% by 2030. In this research, we will be reviewing the studies done on this subject to spread the light on the amount of harm being done to the environment through the wastage of clothing. We will also attempt to find ways through which we as an individual can reduce our clothing wastage and give our bit towards the environment.
... Countries such as Türkiye, Egypt and Iran have developed textile production industries (Kanat, 2019). Turkey, in particular, has become an important player in the global textile market thanks to its advanced technology and qualified workforce (Tokatli, 2007). ...
... Countries such as Türkiye, Egypt and Iran have developed textile production industries (Kanat, 2019). Turkey, in particular, has become an important player in the global textile market thanks to its advanced technology and qualified workforce (Tokatli, 2007). ...
This chapter focuses on the concept of the self through the lens of Social Identity Theory, offering an in-depth discussion of how group membership and social categorization shape individual identity. Drawing on core principles of the theory, it examines how individuals define themselves in relation to social groups, how in-group/out-group dynamics influence self-concept, and how social context affects identity construction.
... Globalization has brought significant advantages to the fast fashion industry in terms of supply chain optimization and resource allocation. With the support of transnational procurement and manufacturing, companies are able to take advantage of the resource advantages of different regions and obtain raw materials and labor at the lowest cost [14] [15]. For example, many fast fashion brands choose to carry out large-scale production in Southeast Asia and South Asia to take advantage of local cheap labor and looser environmental regulations [16]. ...
Globalization has posed severe challenges to the management of the fast fashion industry chain, but it has also brought opportunities for transformation and upgrading. In the context of globalization, the fast fashion industry faces the combined impacts of increasingly complex supply chain networks, significant cultural differences, rapidly changing consumer demands, and environmental and social responsibility pressures. This background has prompted disruptive changes in the traditional fast fashion business model and triggered a comprehensive innovation in the management of the industrial chain. This paper aims to explore how globalization drives the reshaping of the fast fashion industry chain and the key role of business model innovation in promoting the green transformation of the industry chain. Through literature review, this paper summarizes the main development trends and management pain points of the fast fashion industry in the context of globalization. Research shows that business model innovation is the core driving force for the fast fashion industry to cope with the challenges of globalization. Digital technology-driven supply chain transparency, the implementation of circular economy models, and cross-border collaboration for resource allocation have all paved the way for the sustainable development of the industrial chain. This study provides a new theoretical perspective and practical direction for the fast fashion industry to achieve green transformation in the context of globalization.
... Dentro de la industria de la moda rápida, destacan marcas como Zara, H&M o Shein, siendo Zara (perteneciente al grupo Inditex) una de las empresas pioneras en la moda rápida (Tokatli, 2007). ...
Objetivo: El objetivo de este estudio es examinar el cumplimiento de los ODS en el caso específico de Inditex, una empresa multinacional española que se ha convertido en el primer distribuidor de Fast Fashion del mundo. Marco Teórico: El sector del fast fashion se ha impuesto en la hegemonía de la industria textil, que es la segunda más contaminante del planeta. La hipótesis principal es la siguiente: Inditex está llevando a cabo proyectos de cambio para adaptarse a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Método: La metodología que se ha llevado a cabo ha sido cualitativa y se han empleado fuentes tanto primarias como secundarias. Se han confrontado informes emitidos por Inditex y las principales metas de dichos objetivos. Resultados y Discusión: Los resultados obtenidos han sido: la industria textil y en especial del fast fashion, es una de las más importantes para conseguir un planeta sostenible y es crucial su participación en los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Implicaciones de la investigación: Se discuten las implicaciones prácticas y teóricas de esta investigación, proporcionando información sobre cómo los resultados pueden aplicarse o influir en las prácticas en el campo de la moda y textil. Originalidad/Valor: Este estudio contribuye a la literatura a conocer empresas a modo de ejemplo de cambio por el desarrollo sostenible.
... As an interdisciplinary field, fashion studies provide a comprehensive understanding of fashion's societal role. By integrating insights from sociology, philosophy, education, economics, anthropology, geography, and cultural studies, fashion studies address the complex interplay of cultural, social, economic, and aesthetic factors that shape fashion as a central social phenomenon (Tokatli, 2008). While practical applications in fashion education are welldeveloped, there is a significant need for more theoretical research in fashion (Kawamura, 2018;Rocamora & Smelik, 2015), particularly regarding the placement of fashion within the epistemology of informal education. ...
Fashion pedagogy, an emerging field within fashion studies, plays a critical role in contemporary culture by integrating elements of body education, expression, and socio-economic values. This paper explores the epistemological foundations of fashion pedagogy through a comprehensive review of the current scientific literature. We address the multifaceted relationship between fashion pedagogy and body education, highlighting how this discipline influences and reshapes people's perceptions of body image and self-expression within informal education. The interplay between fashion pedagogy and capitalist values is also examined, revealing how fashion education reflects and critiques prevailing economic ideologies, promoting a more conscious engagement with fashion as a form of cultural production. Furthermore, this study delves into the interdisciplinary nature of fashion pedagogy, which draws upon diverse fields such as art, aesthetics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and business to enrich learning experiences and outcomes. The paper also reviews how fashion pedagogy can be implemented within the curricula of higher education institutions, emphasizing innovative teaching methods that foster critical thinking and creativity. Through an analysis of various educational models and practices, we identify key trends and challenges that influence the effectiveness and relevance of fashion pedagogy in today’s educational landscape. This paper argues that fashion pedagogy is significant in educating about fashion and fostering critical awareness among students about its broader social, cultural, aesthetic, and economic implications. It is a pivotal tool for empowering students to navigate and influence the evolving dynamics of contemporary culture through informed and thoughtful fashion practice.
... However, despite the fact that most apparel is produced in the Global South, the design creation phase of fast fashion garments is mainly implemented in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America (Niinimäki et al., 2020). This combination of global and local sourcing locations, usually based on the two main criteria of time and cost, ensures both the convenience and cost-effectiveness of the FFSC (Tokatli, 2007). ...
In recent years, the fast fashion industry has attracted significant public scrutiny for its substantial contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, prompting many companies to commit to reducing their carbon footprint. However, the practical solutions adopted by the industry to decarbonize its operations remain ambiguous. Therefore, to address this gap, a content analysis was performed on the sustainability initiatives taken by the five biggest fast fashion brands to make their product design, process design, and supply chain processes less carbon-intensive. It has been found that although brands have attempted to lessen their GHG emissions, their present efforts are still insufficient to achieve net zero in GHG emissions in the following decades. Therefore, the fast fashion industry should adopt a comprehensive sustainability approach to mitigate its environmental impact, focusing on long-term solutions to reduce GHG emissions across the fast fashion supply chain.
... Fast fashion is considered an accelerated business model characterized by short product life cycles and imitation of the designs of well-known fashion houses at reasonable prices (Siege, 2019). Examples of the most successful brands in this sector fast fashion are the Spanish group Zara and its Swedish counterpart H&M, which can translate imitated designs into fashion within two to three weeks (Tokatli, 2008). Unlike high-end luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton, which produce only one or two collections per year (McKinsey, 2021). ...
... Capital has created ubiquitous consumption scenarios by linking digital platforms with social media, and brands are using technological tools such as algorithmic recommendations and precision marketing to further enhance consumer engagement and desire to consume. fast-fashion brands such as Zara and H&M are using technological tools to accurately analyse the market and capture consumer preferences, so that they can launch new products that cater to the market's needs in the shortest possible time [3]. ...
This study delves into the contrasting mechanisms of fast fashion and slow fashion, examining how they operate as expressions of human desire driven by distinct neurological and philosophical underpinnings. Fast fashion, fueled by rapid production cycles and the influence of technology and capital, leverages dopamine-driven mechanisms to provide instant gratification. This model aligns with the short-term reward system, reinforcing consumer behaviors that lead to continuous purchases and cyclical consumption. However, this pursuit often results in environmental degradation, resource overuse, and psychological exhaustion among consumers. In contrast, slow fashion embodies a counter-narrative that emphasizes quality, sustainability, and long-term satisfaction, aligning with the endorphin-driven mechanisms. These endorphins, associated with deeper emotional fulfillment and resilience through challenges, promote a reflective, meaningful consumer experience. The philosophical analysis incorporates Schopenhauer’s concept of insatiable will, paralleling the endless desire perpetuated by fast fashion, and Nietzsche’s idea of the will to power, suggesting slow fashion as a creative and life-affirming response that embraces challenge and meaning. Ultimately, the article argues that while both fast and slow fashion engage human desire mechanisms, their impacts differ vastly in terms of sustainability, psychological well-being, and existential fulfillment. The study calls for a broader exploration of how technology, culture, and ethical considerations can reshape fashion consumption toward more sustainable and emotionally satisfying practices.
... Thus great potential of fast fashion brands in Chinese market is displayed to the world owning to economic prosperity. Fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M are continued to emerge in downtown areas of major cities [2]. As a leading brand in fast fashion, ZARA entered the Chinese market in 2007 and strives to attract Chinese consumers through online channels to enhance competitiveness. ...
In recent years, there has been a collective decline in the development of fast fashion clothing brands in the Chinese market. Taking ZARA as an example, its parent company Inditex Group has undergone large-scale store adjustments globally in the past two years, especially in the Chinese market, where the number of ZARA stores has decreased by nearly half compared to four years ago. While Inditex's global revenue has grown, there has been a significant decline in revenue in mainland China. Therefore, understanding how the fast fashion industry was accepted by the Chinese market in the past and why it is now being excluded has gradually become important. For the clothing industry, market decision-making power has shifted from clothing merchants to consumers, and consumer psychology has undergone certain changes, and in fact, they have gained some bargaining power. As a product aimed at the general public, fast fashion brands have lower customer loyalty. Customers are more sensitive to price changes. In the rapidly changing and uncertain environment, the drawbacks of the fast fashion brand model have begun to emerge: convergent styles, unstable channels, and environmentally unfriendly production models, etc., which no longer have sufficient competitiveness in the current market. Therefore, this article intends to use literature research and case analysis methods for research, and to address the above issues, some suggestions are proposed, hoping to help fast fashion brands retain and expand the Chinese market.
... Nevertheless, one can choose an arbitrarily large A i and effectively make the constraint redundant. Each store has a predetermined space for Merchandise Subgroup (MSG) Capacity Naderi (2020) , Tokatli (2008), Wang et al. (2023) We considered a model with no replenishment. ...
This paper considers a joint transshipment, markdown, and clearance sales decisions of multiple
products for a fast-fashion retailer that owns and operates a large network of retail stores. This
problem is motivated by the logistics operations of the largest apparel retailer in Turkey, namely
LC Waikiki. Particularly, the emphasis is on the following questions: How should the products be
re-distributed among retail stores after a few weeks of demand observation? What should be the
price level for each product? And, finally, which products should be marked for clearance sales? To
answer these questions, a mathematical model is proposed considering the business rules and the
practices of the retailer encounters. We develop a Bender-Decomposition-based heuristic to find
upper bounds and a simulated annealing-based metaheuristic to find incumbent solutions, both of
which have proven to be quite effective. A Covering-Cut-Bundle approach is used to accelerate the
convergence of the Bender-Decomposition algorithm. We have also conducted a set of experiments
to uncover the impact of business rules on the retailer’s operations and the effectiveness of joint
markdown and transshipment decisions.
KEYWORDS
Transshipment; markdown;
benders decomposition;
simulated-annealing;
covering-cut-bundle
... This model is inherently designed to produce disposable clothing. Fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara have drastically reduced the turnaround time from catwalk to consumer, from six months to mere weeks, resulting in increased profits [12]. The relationship between fast fashion and sustainability is contradictory in nature as it often leads a consumer to make a biased choice, which can also be described as 'present at the cost of future' or vice a verse. ...
Fast fashion is a prevalent but unsustainable business model that relies on frequent production and consumption of low-quality clothing. This model provides quick solutions for fast-changing trends and accelerated demand of consumers, but raises severe environmental and social issues, such as massive consumption of natural resources, pollution, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, fast fashion brands often exploit low-cost labor, resulting in unethical practices such as child labor, unfair wages, and long working hours. This paper explores the fashion sustainability initiatives and challenges in depth to propose a framework of strategies. This framework aims to suggest innovative solutions for creating ethical and profitable value while fostering sustainable consumption. It uses case studies of the fast fashion brands H&M and Zara (Inditex) that have successfully made their buusiness model sustainable to analyze their policies and business practices and compares their annual reports from (2019-2020) to (2021-2022) to study the qualitative impact of these policies on their sales performance and profit margins. This analysis reveals that, despite the growing adoption of sustainable business practices, there is yet a long way ahead for brands to achieve fully sustainable business models. It also indicates that it is easier to start anew with a 360o sustainable business model than to change the complex traditional structures of the existing organisations. It establishes how brands can integrate sustainability into their business models and achieve both profit and social responsibility simultaneously. Some initial recommendations from the study include government intervention to make and implement policies regarding sustainability, organisational transparency in operations and supply-chain management, and consumer awareness and action to buy less and only the ethically produced clothes.
... Consequentially, new fashion pieces are seen, selected, produced and sold almost immediately, and new collections enter the store at an ever-increasing rhythm. The three key assets of fast fashion companies are: (i) an increasing number of retail stores, (ii) a reliable information infrastructure to detect the latest trends and (iii) a quick and cost-efficient supply chain (Tokatli, 2007;von Hirschhausen, 2017). ...
The body of literature addressing platform capitalism, platform labour and platform urbanism paints a compelling picture of how digital platforms shape the dynamics of both leisure and labour within the framework of the platform's model for extracting value. However, this literature rarely captures how the global timespaces of digital platforms are translated in platform-mediated fields of work and which frictions occur in this process. Therefore, the contrasts between the rhythms of the platform prompting users towards instantaneous data production and the production capabilities of the humans, whose daily (work) life has become dependent on such platforms, remain largely unexplored. In this article, I develop the lens of timespace friction, by integrating the existing research on platform labour with a timespace perspective. The aim is to present a framework that reveals the contrasting relationship between the conflating rhythms of platform capitalism and platform-mediated labour. The mechanisms are explored utilising an ethnographic case study of the digital labour of independent fashion designers on Instagram. The proposed perspective on timespace friction demonstrates that mobile apps function as metronomes, nudging the timespaces of daily (work) life. Timespaces are thus negotiated in the polyrhythmic encounters of daily life, where designers challenge the rhythms of the platform or accelerate their practices to follow the imposed pace. A timespace friction perspective therefore sees beyond the smooth operating mechanisms of the platform economy that promise real-time data, flexibility and efficiency, revealing the hidden struggles of synchronisation (speeding up), de-synchronisation (slowing down) and losing grip (going viral).
... Their experiences epitomize the broader predicament of industrial upgrading within the entire apparel industry in Prato. As demonstrated by Wang and corroborated by other studies (Ostberg, 2011;Tokatli, 2008), the fashion system exhibits a clear national hierarchy. Only a handful of national clothing cultures assume the top position, being positioned to gain global acclaim and acceptance. ...
This article delves into China's role within global capitalism through the story of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in the Italian fashion industry. Moving beyond the state-centrism and methodological nationalism prevalent in Chinese communication studies and fashion studies, this research underscores the intertwined development paths of Italian and Chinese fashion industries. Probing into the operations of Chinese apparel manufacturers in Prato, Italy, the article shows how they strategically sourced from both nations and built original brands to upgrade their position within global value chains. Their position straddling two countries, however, also exposes them to a distinct set of vulnerabilities including national and racial discrimination and a dearth of substantial external financial support. Through the lens of grassroots immigrant entrepreneurs, the article challenges the cultural essentialism tied to country-of-origin labels and presents a fresh viewpoint to scrutinize and complicate the existing narrative about global China. Situating the Chinese apparel industry in Prato in the ongoing transformation of the world economy, it reveals how the international frictions concerning China’s rise often reflect the deep-seated global economic hierarchies and the shared tribulations of late-developing countries.
... Aside from relying with the in-house sourcing, Zara also outsources some of their fashion category products to original design manufacturers (ODM suppliers) in geographically proximate countries such as: Turkey, Morocco Portugal and Bulgaria. Carefully selecting the supplier will help Zara to compress order-to-delivery lead times (Gereffi & Memedovic, 2003;Tokatli, 2008). Comparative advantages can be reallocated in favour of these geographically close countries based on "transport time," as one of the location consideration components that is different from the "transport cost" that will be the main factor typically taken into account in economic geography models (Orcao & Pérez, 2014). ...
Supply chain management (SCM) is the process that carried out to control the movement of goods and services to and from the business. It encompasses each stage including transforming raw materials and components into a finished good, delivering it to the end customers. Supply chain management can help to improve the activity streamline to become more efficient and effective. This is possible as they watch closely all of the internal activities (inventories, production, distribution, and sales). Company may identify and terminate wasteful action and maximize customer value. The purpose of this paper aret: To understand the Zara's overall supply chain management; To check the strategy fit of Zara's supply chain strategy; To analyze the performance of Zara's supply chain; To understand Zara supply chain driver; To understand the problem in Zara's supply chain; and To find out the solution in solving the Zara supply chain problem Zara's success may be attributed in large part to its dedication to manage their supply chain management and build a strong competitive advantage with it. In fact, there are several approaches that they use in creating the supply chain strategy including, vertical integration, JIT manufacturing, strategic fit, and its ability to adopt the technological advancement. All of this effort is done to let Zara have better control over their processes starting from the beginning to the very end. This situation lets each of the Zara's departments to manage close relationship and create synergy. It is going to be fundamental aspect for a company who wants to have good supply chain coordination just like what Zara did.
... Zelbst et al. argue that high levels of information technology could lead to information sharing among supply chain companies [58]. Tokatli found that compared to the established apparel manufacturing leaders, Gap and H&M, ZARA, as latecomers, by adopting the latest information technology, they quickly acquire the production technology and R & D capability that the former needs to accumulate over a long period [54]. The ex-ante investment in innovation by the dominant firm necessitates ex-post compensation in the form of monopoly gains. ...
This paper primarily focuses on whether supply chains enterprises adopt a digital strategy and the impact of various government measures on supply chain digital decision-making. The study develops a multi-agent decision-making evolutionary game model to examine the stability of decision-making among the government, suppliers, and manufacturers. Additionally, a system dynamics model is established to analyze the governing dynamics within the supply chain's digital decision-making process, identifying characteristic patterns and trends. The analytical results of this study illustrate the government's strength thresholds exist regardless of ex-part penalties or the mix of rewards and punishment. Once the government's strength exceeds these thresholds, the evolutionary game system undergoes abrupt changes. Suppliers and manufacturers who adopt digital strategies are more affected by government penalties than incentives. The stronger the mix of government incentives and penalties, the higher the incentives for the supplier and the manufacturer to adopt a digital strategy, but the lower the incentives for the government to choose a regulatory strategy. Low-intensity mixed rewards and punishments, as well as low-intensity government rewards, are effective mechanisms for promoting government decision-making and supervision. Conversely, high government penalties do not motivate governments to choose regulatory strategies. The unit cost of products to deploy digital strategies directly affects the final digital strategy choice of supply chain enterprises. To choose a digital strategy, supply chain companies must ensure that the unit cost of products remains within a reasonable range.
... In contrast, New York ranked first from 2009-2011 as the fashion capital, and it ranked higher than Paris, London, and Milan (Martínez de Lejarza and Hernández-Carrión 2012). Moreover, US brands lead in terms of the most affordable luxury brands around the world (Coach, Carolina Herrera, Tory Burch, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, and Ralph Lauren;Alserhan et al. 2014) and two of the top influential fast fashion brands (Forever 21 and Gap; Tokatli, 2007). ...
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of country of origin on purchase decisions of luxury and fast fashion. The countries of origin include the US and European countries like France, Italy, UK, Spain, Germany, and Sweden. Moreover, conspicuous consumption was included in this research as a mediating variable, and brands from the US and Europe were evaluated. A total of 443 women were surveyed. The data were assessed using a structural equation model and a t-test. The results confirm the positive relationship between the country of origin and purchase decision of luxury and fast fashion; conspicuous consumption acted as a mediating variable that affected this relation. The results also confirm the positive relationship between conspicuous consumption and consumer purchase decisions of luxury and fast fashion brands. No difference was found between luxury and fast fashion in terms of the relation to the country of origin and conspicuous consumption. Moreover, US brands were evaluated higher than European ones for both luxury and fast fashion. This study gives insight into the role of country of origin in purchase decisions. In addition, it provides a deep understanding of the term of conspicuous consumption and its relation not only to luxury but also to fast fashion.
... Such a geographically expanded and diversified overseas production network allows them to respond to a wider variety of buyers with different types of orders, from mass-market to small-batch ones, by flexibly switching orders internally from one factory or line to another or utilizing compatriotic or local contract suppliers in foreign locations. As discussed in chapter 'Toward a Bipolar Apparel GVC? From the Perspective of First-Tier Suppliers', this highlights that regional expansion not only helps Korean FTSs reduce costs, but also improves responsiveness and flexibility in addressing buyer and market demands in the era of 'fast fashion' (Berg et al., 2017;Tokatli, 2008). ...
This book offers a fresh look at the global apparel industry, focusing on Korean multinational corporations (MNCs) and their growing role in building regional connections and shaping economic and social development in Asia. Focusing on the multinationalization of Korean apparel firms over the past decades and their upgrading to first-tier suppliers in apparel global value chains, this edited volume highlights a host of new challenges these emerging MNCs confront in the rapidly changing global apparel industry and provides an in-depth view of their expanding role and adaptive strategies in configuring regional connections in post-Pandemic Asia.
... Such a geographically expanded and diversified overseas production network allows them to respond to a wider variety of buyers with different types of orders, from mass-market to small-batch ones, by flexibly switching orders internally from one factory or line to another or utilizing compatriotic or local contract suppliers in foreign locations. As discussed in chapter 'Toward a Bipolar Apparel GVC? From the Perspective of First-Tier Suppliers', this highlights that regional expansion not only helps Korean FTSs reduce costs, but also improves responsiveness and flexibility in addressing buyer and market demands in the era of 'fast fashion' (Berg et al., 2017;Tokatli, 2008). ...
This book offers a fresh look at the global and regional apparel industry by focusing on export-oriented Korean apparel multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their expanding role in weaving regional connections and shaping economic and social development across Asia. In this introductory chapter, we discuss major themes that cut across this volume, highlighting the following three aspects: (1) global value chain (GVC) integration, upgrading, and regional expansion, (2) GVC governance and the rise of multinational first-tier suppliers (FTSs), and (3) their experiences of navigating complex technological and institutional uncertainties. The chapter then outlines each of the chapters to follow and concludes with a brief discussion of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.KeywordsThe apparel industrySouth KoreaGlobal value chainsGVC governanceRegional expansionFirst-tier suppliersSupplier experimentation
... sourcing, manufacturing and distribution time delivering affordable fashion and offering a variety of products and assortments to the consumers regularly (Mehrjoo & Pasek, 2016). Fast fashion provides "mass exclusivity" (Tokatli, 2007) to the consumers by producing small stock of goods thereby reducing obsolescence risk and meeting the consumer demand by shortening the supply chain of its products from design to distribution (Ozdamar Ertekin & Atik, 2015). Zara, the world famous apparel brand has about 3000 stores and is currently valued at $14.7B worldwide, with sales approximating $21.9B thanks to its massive internationalization strategy aiming to provide "fast fashion" or affordable fashion to the rest of the world (Mo, 2015;QuickBooks, 2018;Swant, 2020). ...
The study provides empirical support to the framework of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) elements resulting in brand loyalty for Indian college going students for the fast fashion brand Zara. Using brand equity elements such as brand awareness, consumer's quality perceptions, value perceptions, brand associations, brand personality and brand uniqueness the study has tried to identify the dimensions influencing young consumer's perceptions and resultant brand loyalty for the fast fashion brand Zara. The results support the hypothesis that perceived brand awareness, perceived value, perceived quality, brand personality and organizational associations have a positive influence on the consumers brand loyalty while brand uniqueness is non-significant for the Indian college-going students. The findings suggest that in order to gain foothold in fast growing Asian markets, a fast fashion brand has to ensure building the right CBBE elements by devising business practices which would influence the fast fashion buying motivation of the young generation Z consumers and foster brand loyalty in return. JEL Classification Code: M20, M21, M30, M31, M39
... Fashion caters to changing identities with modern designs and quick fulfillment (Bauman, 2005). It does so by substituting controlled spontaneity and a high rate of obsolescence for exclusivity, glamour, originality, and luxury (Tokatli, 2007). ...
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are the focus of researchers and practitioners worldwide. Despite the proliferation of studies on sustainability in marketing and retailing, the existing studies on the subject are fragmented. To address the key issues relating to ‘sustainable marketing' and ‘retailing', this study seeks to conduct a thematic analysis to decipher the essential themes in sustainable marketing and retailing research. This study has used the Scopus database and the biblioshiny platform in R Studio to ensure that the findings of this investigation are as rigorously scientific as possible. This study has also shown numerous co-occurrences of the keywords and their inferences to summarize and synthesize the area. The study's main conclusion states that sustainability in retailing depends upon the retailer's contribution through empowering sustainable consumption, such as through choice editing, implementing CSR, and promoting slow fashion culture. The future research scope and limitations of the study have also been discussed.
... It has also been found that the ethical practices in the fashion garment industry are not improving due to concept of 'fast fashion' which can be defined as the inexpensive fashion garments products duplicating the contemporary luxury clothing brands (Joy et al., 2012). Resulting in increasing throwaway garment products, fast fashion has made it possible for brands like H&M, Primark and Zara to launch new garment products in every few weeks (Tokatli, 2008). ...
This conceptual study aims to find out the extent of ethical practices adopted by the ready-made garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. By reviewing relevant previous literature focusing on the developing countries, the authors endeavoured to analyse the prevalent working conditions and practices of the RMG factories, also known as sweatshops, in emerging economies like Bangladesh from the perspective of five major fundamentals of ethical practices. Furthermore, the paper attempted to identify the possible obstacles hindering the adoption of ethical practices to ensure fair treatment to the garments workers. After conducting a qualitative analysis, this paper has identified lack of secured work environment, exploitation of child labour, insufficient incentives from the influential stakeholders and inadequate human resource development initiatives as the key existing hindrances of the RMG sector in Bangladesh. Moreover, the prevalence of ethical concepts like cultural relativism and consequentialism has also been identified as a crucial factor of provoking unethical practices and unfair treatments towards the underprivileged workers serving in the garments factories. On the other hand, the paper has suggested some recommendations such as, promoting concepts like ethical fashion and consumer citizenship and implementing ethical theories of non-consequentialism and natural law to abolish destructive trends like fast fashion.
... Similarly, only 25% of fashion garments are recycled, while the rest pollutes the environment by amplifying landfill waste (Lee and Sanders 2016;Becker-Leifhold 2018;Niinim€ aki and Hassi 2011;Tokatli 2007). Despite concerns about waste pollution, industry production has been doubling every year (Bianchi and Birtwistle 2010). ...
Can a piece of cloth influence the way we live? Athleisurewear, a portmanteau of the words “athletic” and “leisure” has emerged as fashionable activewear which is worn for both exercising and as everyday casual wear. Athleisurewear consumers are inspired by the “fitspiration” movement where their intentions are to appear fit and healthy to the society they inhabit. Athleisurewear sales are forecast to surpass all other forms of casual apparel in the coming years. Motivated by these intriguing discussions, this report systematically reviewed 39 studies involving the athleisurewear trend which consisted of 9 journal articles, 5 conference papers, 2 book chapters, 1 thesis, 2 industry reports and 20 online fashion blogs/news. Commercially published academic literature on athleisurewear was scarce and identified the trend as under-researched. Yet much literature exists in gray literature sources which were fashion blogs/news. We suggest three main themes derived from these literatures: (1) Athleisurewear and fit-inspired lifestyle; (2) Enclothed cognition and athleisurewear; (3) Athleisurewear and the need for sustainability.
1970’li yıllarda yaşanan ekonomik krizden çıkmak için uygulamaya konulan neoliberal ekonomi politikaları gereği devletler ekonomik ve sosyal alana yaptığı müdahalelerden vazgeçmiş, önceki dönemde egemen olan sosyal devlet anlayışı terk edilmiştir. Böylece, serbest piyasa anlayışı günlük yaşamın her alanında etkili olurken, bu anlayışla uyumlu küreselleşme süreci hız kazanmıştır.
Yeni düzende, çokuluslu işletmeler geliri küresel değer zincirleri aracılığıyla uluslararası çapta yaratmaktadır. Bu anlamda, küresel değer zincirlerine dahil olmak için özellikle gelişmekte olan ülkeler arasında rekabet yaşanmaktadır. Bu rekabette, avantaj sağlamanın temel yolu işgücü maliyetini düşürmekten geçmektedir.
Bu bağlamda, iş hukuku önceki dönemde işçi ve işveren arasındaki güç bakışımsızlığını azaltmanın ve işgücü piyasasını düzenlemenin temel aracıyken, yeni dönemde işgücü maliyetini artıran gerekçelerden biri olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Bu süreçte iş hukukunun işçileri koruyucu işlevi aşınmıştır.
İş hukukunun işçileri koruyucu işlevini yerine getirmesi için yeni yöntemler denenmektedir. Çalışma koşullarının sertifikaya bağlanması, serbest ticaret anlaşmalarına çalışma koşullarıyla ilgili hükümler konulması ve çokuluslu işletmelerin yürütme ilkeleri kabul etmesi bu yöntemlerdendir. Fakat, bunların hiçbirinde işçi katılımı yoktur. Dolayısıyla, işçilerin işverenler karşısında korunması ve çalışma ve yaşam koşullarının iyileşmesi söz konusu değildir. Uluslararası çerçeve anlaşmalar ise bu yöntemlerden farklılaşmaktadır. İşçilerin anlaşmaların pazarlık ve uygulama sürecine katılması nedeniyle, uluslararası çerçeve anlaşmaların çalışma ve yaşam koşullarını somut olarak iyileştirmesi ve işçi ve işveren arasındaki güç bakışımsızlığını azaltması beklenmektedir.
Bu beklentilerin gerçekleştiği kuşkuludur. Uluslararası çerçeve anlaşmalar yasal olarak bağlayıcı olmadığı için işçilerin çalışmaya ilişkin temel haklardan yararlanması ve güç bakışımsızlığının azalması çokuluslu işletmelerin isteğine kalmaktadır. Bu nedenle, uluslararası çerçeve anlaşmalar yasal olarak bağlayıcı olmadığı sürece geliri çokuluslu işletmeler lehine dağıtmaktan başka bir işlevi bulunmayacaktır.
The fashion industry is one of the world's most polluting sectors, as highlighted by the United Nations. It consumes vast amounts of water, uses harmful chemicals, and generates a significant carbon footprint, mainly due to production occurring far from key markets. Fast fashion, driven by consumerism and psychological obsolescence, worsens the problem by promoting impulse buying of low-cost garments with short lifespans. To mitigate this environmental impact, the industry must adopt circular economy principles, including reducing, reusing, recycling, and redesigning. While 22 many fashion brands claim to implement sustainable practices, it raises concerns about potential greenwashing. However, some companies, like Ecoalf, offer a genuine model for sustainable fashion. Ecoalf's eco-design approach uses recycled materials, such as plastics and fishing nets, to create clothing, demonstrating a true commitment to environmental sustainability. This chapter explores the progress of these strategies and examines the fine line between true eco-friendly practices and greenwashing.
Purpose
Both formal and informal governance mechanisms are important to minimize unresolved supply chain disruptions in buyer-supplier relationships. However, the role and impact of governance mechanisms could be contingent upon the product complexity and the level of visibility across the supply chain. Therefore, we attempt to examine the changing effect of different governance mechanisms under contexts of product's complexity and supply chain visibility.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses survey data collected from manufacturing companies located in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. We received survey responses from 291 senior supply chain and procurement professionals, and we used this data to test our hypotheses through negative binomial regression models.
Findings
Our results show that, overall, informal governance has an insignificant effect on unresolved supply chain disruptions, while formal governance has an inverted U-shape effect on unresolved supply chain disruptions. Both product complexity and visibility moderate the dynamics of governance mechanisms when it comes to unresolved supply chain disruptions.
Practical implications
These findings are useful for supply chain managers in designing and developing governance mechanisms and strategies for different buyer–supplier relationships, considering the level of visibility and complexity of the particular product. In other words, our results assist managers in ensuring better disruption mitigation and resilience development.
Originality/value
By testing the impact of both formal and informal governance using a curvilinear model, our research makes novel contributions to the extant literature on buyer-supplier relationships and governance. Furthermore, emphasizing the role of visibility and product complexity in reducing unresolved disruption adds to the current knowledge within the broader areas of resilience research.
A fresh and comprehensive perspective on current and innovative topics related to consumer preferences, attitudes, perceptions and reactions in service industries. It delves into the impact of contemporary trends and emerging technology, by providing a holistic view on the future of the trends and behaviour within the service sector.
South Korea has had a central role in post-war global garment production. Initially positioned as an offshore processing location for Japan in the 1960s, Korea’s garment sector has emerged as one of the leading suppliers in the global garment industry in the ensuing decades. Tightly integrated to buyer-driven global value chains (GVCs) linking East Asian producers to Western consumers, leading Korean garment vendors have become multinational, first-tier suppliers (FTSs) for US and European brands and retailers. As a result of intensive efforts to go overseas to reduce production costs, these FTSs now have strong footprints across Asia and Central America. Despite their significant presence in garment GVCs, little research has been done on the history and current state of the Korean garment sector in GVCs, particularly leading FTSs. This chapter aims to fill this research gap, first, by revisiting the history of the Korean garment industry from a GVC perspective, starting from its initial industrial built-up and subsequent export growth in the 1960s–1980s to a massive migration of production to lower-cost locations in China and South/Southeast Asia throughout the 1990s. Based on the statistics on international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), this chapter then examines the changing geographic and organizational features of Korean FTSs’ production network over the last two decades, a period interspersed with the Asian economic crisis, the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), the rise of “fast fashion,” and the global financial crisis. The findings are discussed in the context of the shifting dynamics of governance in post-crisis garment GVCs and the challenges the Korean FTSs confront in the rapidly changing apparel GVCs in terms of market, technology, and regulation.KeywordsKorean apparel industryOverseas expansionMultinationalizationFirst-tier suppliersGlobalizationUpgradingGlobal value chains
Актуальность статьи обусловлена динамичными процессами в глобальной индустрии моды, включающей текстильную и швейную промышленность. Выявлено, что центральное место в успехе быстрой моды занимает концепция глобальных цепочек создания стоимости. Установлено, что транснациональные корпорации индустрии моды Inditex, Fast Retailing, H&M смогли на основе достижений в области технологий и логистики учесть и использовать меняющиеся потребительские предпочтения в условиях глобализации и предложить доступную и модную одежду. Выявлено значение аутсорсинга для обеспечения экономической эффективности и конкурентных ценовых предложений. Установлено, что развивающиеся страны Азии и Латинской Америки стали ключевыми производственными центрами в рамках глобальных цепочек создания стоимости быстрой моды.
The relevance of the article is due to the dynamic processes in the global fashion industry, including the textile and clothing industries. It has been revealed that the concept of global value chains (GCC) occupies a central place in the success of fast fashion. It has been established that the established TNCs of the fashion industry Inditex, Fast Retailing, H&M, were able, based on advances in technology and logistics, to honor and use changing consumer preferences in the context of globalization and offer affordable and fashionable clothes in demand. The importance of outsourcing for ensuring economic efficiency and competitive price offers of fast fashion TNCs has been revealed. It has been established that the developing countries of Asia and Latin America have become key production centers within the framework of the GCC fast fashion.
Актуальность статьи связана с важной ролью индустрии моды, включающей текстильную и швейную промышленность, и международной торговли текстилем и одеждой в глобальной экономике. Выявлено, что международная торговля текстилем и одеждой значительно изменилась под воздействием глобализации. Установлены факторы и направления таких изменений. Выявлены изменения в положении ведущих экспортеров и импортеров текстиля и одежды под влиянием глобализации. Установлено, что международная торговля текстилем и одеждой все больше осуществляется в рамках глобальных цепочек создания, управляемых транснациональными корпорациями.
The relevance of the article is related to the important role of the fashion industry, including the textile and clothing industries, and international trade in textiles and clothing in the global economy. It is revealed that the international trade in textiles and clothing has changed significantly under the influence of globalization. The factors and directions of changes in the international trade in textiles and clothing under the influence of globalization have been established. The changes in the position of leading exporters and importers of textiles and clothing under the influence of globalization are revealed. It has been established that international trade in textiles and clothing is increasingly carried out within the framework of global chains of creation managed by TNCs.
Zara, the flagship brand of Inditex, has revolutionized the fashion industry with its unique approach to fast fashion. Zara has completely transformed the fashion business. Zara's success can be attributed to its extensive incorporation of technology, that contributed to the company's ability to effectively manage its supply chain, improve the design management, and provide a seamless consumer experience. This case study examines Zara's key strategies, including its technological influence on vertically integrated supply chain, rapid design-to-sale cycles, and customer-centric retail approach. This case study is based on secondary data.
In this article, the predictive analysis is conducted for a garment retail dataset that contains the attributes of the dresses and sales information. Precisely, Random Forest (RF), Linear Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Decision Tree (DT) algorithms are used for classification. That is, advising whether the dresses should be kept in store or not by automating the process of the recommendation. Moreover, two variants of the datasets are given as input to the said algorithms apart from the raw dataset. One variant is obtained through feature selection and another uses the concept of dummy variable since the majority of the features are categorical. In addition, the demand for sales is estimated over a period. Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) is applied in particular to achieve the forecasting of the sales. The dataset contains fourteen features of dresses and sales data of alternative days over a month. The experiments on the case study show that RF algorithm is good at the classification although it is marginally better than LR. Also, the sales forecasting is producing results in an acceptable range as per the relevant performance metrics. Overall, the proposed methodology of this paper helps in the decision-making of fashion retail.
The clothing sector is one of the biggest polluters in the world. Aware of the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers, several fashion brands aim to become more sustainable. Artificial intelligence (AI), defined as “a system’s ability to interpret external data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation,” may be applied to fast fashion as a means of greening the apparel industry. This chapter explains how AI can enhance the sustainable production and consumption of clothing products. First, it provides an overview of AI and analyzes and decodes its potential and associated risks and challenges. Numerous examples describe AI’s application to the retail and clothing industries, such as supply chain optimization and fostering eco-responsible consumption patterns. Second, this chapter illustrates how AI can help the fashion industry significantly reduce its carbon footprint. Third, three case studies of fashion companies that have started implementing artificial intelligence into their operations to improve sustainability are put forward, including two fast-fashion companies (H&M and Zara) and one luxury fashion retail platform (Farfetch). Finally, the chapter concludes with suggestions for the future of fast fashion.
This chapter aims to shed light on the trends of sectoral trade globalization. This component of trade globalization is often neglected. An accurate evaluation of sectoral trade requires the analysis of the interdependencies of countries and the consideration of distance as a central dimension of trade globalization. As such, sectoral trade globalization is one aspect of a more complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Data show that sectoral trade globalization has increased significantly over the last 50 years irrespective of the characteristics of individual sectors. One relevant insight is that the level of trade globalization is on average still different for high-tech sectors compared to low-tech and medium-low-tech sectors even though the former could increase their bilateral trade relationships over time. Even though protectionist tendencies as well as the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a vivid discussion about the return to more local or regional production schemes, digitalization processes could still have the potential to further integrate countries' trade networks.
Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in Recommendation System: Current Trends, Technologies and Applications captures the state of the art in usage of artificial intelligence in different types of recommendation systems and predictive analysis. The book provides guidelines and case studies for application of artificial intelligence in recommendation from expert researchers and practitioners. A detailed analysis of the relevant theoretical and practical aspects, current trends and future directions is presented.
The book highlights many use cases for recommendation systems:
- Basic application of machine learning and deep learning in recommendation process and the evaluation metrics
- Machine learning techniques for text mining and spam email filtering considering the perspective of Industry 4.0
- Tensor factorization in different types of recommendation system
- Ranking framework and topic modeling to recommend author specialization based on content.
- Movie recommendation systems
- Point of interest recommendations
- Mobile tourism recommendation systems for visually disabled persons
- Automation of fashion retail outlets
- Human resource management (employee assessment and interview screening)
This reference is essential reading for students, faculty members, researchers and industry professionals seeking insight into the working and design of recommendation systems.
This article has two objectives. On the one hand, it attempts to delve into the sources of competitive advantage of Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer, by considering the evolution of the company’s strategies over the last two decades and relying on an econometric technique, Local Projections, to complement the qualitative analyses. On the other hand, the article presents and explains this quantitative technique, which can help to solve some of the problems that arise when attempting to apply quantitative methods in business history, such as small sample sizes, causality analysis or endogeneity.
Leather, a popular material in a wide array of industries, is traditionally sourced from animal hides. The scale of production has increased over time, leading to ever-greater concerns about the environmental, ethical and health impacts of leather manufacture. The substantial resources required, plus the pollution and waste generated, pose serious doubts over the sustainability of existing production systems and their ability to meet the increasing demand for leather-like materials. To address these issues, alternatives to leather have been developed. Up to now though, these materials have been unable to perform as well as genuine leather, either mechanically, aesthetically or texturally. Some of the polymer-based alternatives may even be more harmful to the environment than leather itself. The need for a more-suitable leather substitute has coincided with the emergence of cellular agriculture technologies. In the future, it is hoped that leather-like materials may be engineered from collagen created by cellular agriculture, instead of relying upon animal slaughter. Such a material could offer great design, sustainability, environmental and ethical benefits over real leather. Whilst there is significant potential, more investment in research and development is needed before the technology can be considered sufficiently well developed. So far, tissue-engineering techniques applied from clinical fields have proven too costly and inefficient for scaling up, but work has already commenced to identify sources of collagen and cell growth media that are less animal-dependent and not so expensive. Even so, more-efficient methods of controlling the collagen network structure still need to be created. The new round of research is therefore expected to focus upon increasing cell-culture efficiency using, for example, specialised bioreactors.
The global economy has changed in significant ways during the past several decades, and these changes are rooted in how the global economy is organized and governed. These transformations affect not only the flows of goods and services across national borders, but also the implications of these processes for how countries move up (or down) in the international system. The development strategies of countries today are affected to an unprecedented degree by how industries are organized, and this is reflected in a shift in theoretical frameworks from those centered around the legacies and actors of nation-states to a greater concern with supranational institutions and transnational organizations. Policy makers, managers, workers, social activists, and many other stakeholders in developed as well as developing nations need a firm understanding of how the contemporary global economy works if they hope to improve their position in it, or forestall an impending decline.
The topic of the global economy is inherently interdisciplinary. No single academic field can encompass it or afford to ignore it. Because of its vast scope, pundits who focus on the global economy are likely to be classified as academic interlopers; they run the risk of being too simplistic if they advance forceful hypotheses and too eclectic if they try to capture the full complexity of their topic. Scholars in this field thus have to master what economist Albert Hirschman has popularized as ‘the art of trespassing’ (Hirschman, 1981; Foxley et al., 1986).
The global economy can be studied at different levels of analysis. At the macro level are international organizations and regimes that establish rules and norms for the global community. These include institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the International Labor Organization, as well as regional integration schemes like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. These regimes combine both rules and resources, and hence they establish the broadest parameters within which the global economy operates.
At the meso level, the key building blocks for the global economy are countries and firms. Those scholars who take countries as their main analytical unit (as in the varieties of capitalism literature) provide an institutional perspective on the main, enduring features of national economies. The global economy is seen as the arena in which countries compete in different product markets.
Would you send a half-empty truck across Europe or pay to airfreight coats to Japan twice a week? Would you move unsold items out of your shop after only two weeks? Would you run your factories just during the day shift? Is this any way to run an efficient supply chain? For Spanish clothier .Zara it is. Not that any one of these tactics is especially effective in itself. Rather, they stem from a holistic approach to supply chain management that optimizes the entire chain instead of focusing on individual parts. In the process, Zara defies most of the current conventional wisdom about how supply chains should be run. Unlike so many of its peers, which rush to outsource, Zara keeps almost half of its production in-house. Far from pushing its factories to maximize output, the company focuses capital on building extra capacity. Ratherthan chase economies of scale, Zara manufactures and distributes products in small batches. Instead of outside partners, the company manages all design, ware-housing, distribution, and logistics functions itself. The result is a superresponsive supply chain exquisitely tailored to Zara's business model. Zara can design, produce, and deliver a new garment to its 600-plus stores worldwide in a mere 15 days. So in Zara's shops, customers can always find new products-but in limited supply. Customers think, "This green shirt fits me, and there is one on the rack. If I don't buy it now, I'll lose my chance." That urgency translates into high profit margins and steady 20% yearly growth in a tough economic climate. Some of Zara's specific practices may be directly applicable only in industries where product life cycles are very short. But Zara's simple philosophy of reaping bottom-line profits through end-to-end control of the supply chain can be applied to any industry.
The Maquila Debate in Mexico The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has dramatically increased the export dynamism of the Mexican apparel industry. The sheer increase in the country's clothing exports to the United States, from 8.7 billion in 2000 and $7.2 billion in 2003, is impressive evidence of this claim. NAFTA has also promoted the consolidation of apparel export production centers. This case study concentrates on one of these production centers, the Torreon region of Mexico, which has been called the new blue jeans capital of the world. Torreon is a dynamic industrial cluster of 500,000 workers located in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, about four hours from the Texas portion of the U.S. border by car. It is located in the heart of La Laguna region, well known for its cotton and dairy products. Torreon's apparel industry is actually a cluster of three cities, as it straddles the near-by municipalities of Gómez Palacio and Lerdo, in the neighboring state of Durango. Following an economic recession in the early 1990s, Torreon has been one of the main beneficiaries of Mexico's recent export boom. Although Torreon is also home to other export-oriented manufacturing sectors, such as autoparts and machinery, the apparel and textile industries have been the star performers in terms of export growth and job creation. Despite this undeniable growth, a verdict on the consequences of NAFTA for both Torreon and Mexico has yet to be reached. Much of the debate about NAFTA in academic and policy-making circles on both sides of the border has addressed the question, "Is NAFTA good policy, and if so, for whom?" The maquila form of production occupies a center stage in this debate. Maquiladoras are factories that assemble products for export from imported components that enter the country duty-free. Proponents of the maquiladoras assert that it is a valuable source of export revenue and job creation for Mexico. However, the program's critics see it as the ultimate example of a "new international division of labor" that traps developing countries into the dead-end role of providing cheap labor for low value-added assembly operations. Because the vast majority of inputs assembled into final products in the maquilas are imported, 2 the maquilas do not stimulate growth in the rest of the economy.
India, a late integrator in the global market for clothing, has followed a path to integration that is quite different from the experience of some of its major competitors. Unlike China, Mexico, Eastern Europe, and other South Asian countries, India’s recent surge in clothing exports has occurred despite the lack of major foreign direct investment in textile and apparel production, the lack of entry into preferential regional trade agreements with buyer countries, or the lack of any significant direct role of global buyers. Arguing that changes in domestic policy and in the structure of domestic demand throughout the 1980s and 1990s played an important role in triggering new growth in India’s textiles and apparel exports, and in reshaping the capabilities of local firms, I examine three features of India’s recent integration into global clothing markets: the striking emergence of design as a source of comparative advantage in Indian apparel, the growing importance of outward-bound investment by Indian clothing firms in recent years, and the powerful new role that retail is playing in organizing the Indian domestic market, driven in part by surging consumer demand from entirely new mid-market youth segments associated with the country’s information technology – business process outsourcing boom.
The expectation that Chinese apparel and textile exports will swamp the US and EU retail markets now that international quotas on those products have been eliminated has fueled much of the discussion of the future of these industries. Although imports from China have surged since the elimination of quotas on 1 January 2005, this conventional wisdom masks important choices that remain for public and private policies over time. In particular, two factors will continue to have major effects on the location of apparel and textile production going forward. First, public-policy choices will continue to influence sourcing location; in particular, as they relate to tariffs and regional trade polices as well as to policies affecting the linkages between countries. Second, the lean-retailing model that now prevails requires apparel suppliers to replenish basic and fashion basic products on a weekly basis. As that retailing model became dominant in the 1990s, so too did the advantage of sourcing these apparel items closer to the US market so that products could be manufactured and delivered more rapidly from a smaller finished-goods inventory. Even though costs remain a driving factor, we show that proximity advantages for certain classes of products will continue in a postquota world as retailers raise the bar ever higher on the responsiveness and flexibility required of their suppliers.
The last decade has witnessed an acceleration of retail foreign direct investment into a range of emerging markets across East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, led by a small cohort of food and general merchandise retailers from Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, North America. While these investment flows have had profound developmental impacts in host economies, research in this area is still in its infancy. This article therefore maps out a detailed research agenda with respect to the host economy impacts of transnational retailing. After setting the scene empirically and conceptually, the article considers different dimensions of these impacts on retail competitiveness, supply chain dynamics, consumption practices and consumer/civil society, institutional and regulatory frameworks and, reciprocally, on the retail transnational corporations themselves. It concludes by calling for a concerted interdisciplinary research effort into this important and understudied aspect of economic globalization.
A basic approach to the geographic investigation of low-technology, labor-intensive industries is sketched out by invoking notions of industrial organization, locational agglomeration, and spatial divisions of labor. The distribution of the clothing, footwear, and furniture industries across the contemporary world is described on the basis of detailed published statistics. Special emphasis is accorded to similarities and contrasts in the geography of production between more developed and less developed countries. I show that no matter what the level of development, agglomeration tends to be a pervasive (though not universal) feature of these three industries. Global trading patterns in the three industries are subjected to extended investigation. I examine international flows of finished products as well as production-sharing activities involving various kinds of subcontracting arrangements between high-wage and low-wage countries. I then attempt to demonstrate in theory how spatial agglomeration and international commodity flows function as mutually reinforcing phenomena via the play of increasing returns effects. The significance of low-wage, low-technology industries for processes of economic development is also stressed. In the conclusion I suggest that the global geography of production is tending more and more to assume the form of a far-flung mosaic of competing and collaborating agglomerations at various levels of productive capability and development.
The paper opens with a brief description of the organizational structure of the women's dress industry. The geography of the industry in the Greater Los Angeles Region is described. A sample of dress plants is factor analyzed in order to determine the basic dimensions of organizational variation. These dimensions are shown to be standardization, scale, and technology. A lengthy analysis of the interrelations of location and linkages is undertaken. Particular attention is paid to the role of subcontracting in the women's dress industry as a linkage phenomenon with complex locational effects. It is then shown how the industry is spatially organized around its own center of gravity. As enlargement and standardization of production processes come about, some decentralization of the industry occurs. It is demonstrated that, in the Greater Los Angeles Region, the process of decentralization has been arrested by the high degree of organizational interdependence between plants.
This article comprises observations from fieldwork undertaken in September 2002 in and around cities in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in south-eastern China. The author interviewed proprietors of Chinese-Italian companies in the textile and clothing industries, representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the Italian Consulate, and Chinese officials and managers from government or semi-private special Development Zones. The aim was to identify a number of companies co-operating in joint ventures or entirely financed by foreign capital, in order to study the Chinese and Italian textile cultures, which have been interacting with each other on the international market. The analysis leads to discussion of ambiguities and characteristics of fashion itself. More generally the article aims to discuss the transformation of the cultural system of Western prêt à porter into a system with different characteristics in which China plays a prominent role. Reinach concludes that prêt à porter is a mass-produced product and can be easily copied and subjected to transformations that compromise its embodiment of luxury. This is why designers are moving towards personalization and offering unknown small brands as an antidote to standardization. The huge variety of fashion styles in China reveals the substantial changes and contradictions that globalization inflicts upon fashion. China is fast fashion; Italy is prêt à porter par excellence.
This article identifies the way in which a firm-centered, value-chain approach to studying the distinctive structure and evolution of the geography of the Italian textile and clothing industries (TCI) offers important insights that qualify the results of district-centered and commodity/value-chain research. Analyses of the functional profiles of textile and clothing companies and of the roles of design, distribution, and services help explain recent trends in industrial concentration and in the national and international fragmentation of value chains. These analyses also give rise to a view of districts as parts of an interdependent geographic division of labor that includes magic circles and delocalized zones of dependent manufacturing. An appreciation of these features of the system is vital for understanding recent trends in the performance of the TCI and the Made in Italy industries more generally.
The main thesis of this study is that the world economy is undergoing a profound structural change that is forcing companies to reorganize their production on a global scale. This is being brought about both through the relocation of production to new industrial sites, increasingly in the developing countries, and through the accelerated rationalisation measures at the traditional sites of industrial manufacture. The authors have designated this structural movement as ‘the new international division of labour’, and argue that it has led to the crisis that can be observed in industrial countries, as well as to the first steps towards export-oriented manufacturing in the developing countries. They see these trends as being largely independent of the policies pursued by individual governments and the strategies for expansion adopted by individual firms, and argue that the conditions currently prevailing in the capitalist world economy mean that the efforts of individual countries to devise economic policies to reduce industrial unemployment in the industrialised countries or to accentuate a balanced process of industrialisation in the developing countries are doomed to failure.
Production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. This trade brings producers and exporters based in Africa together with importers and retailers in Europe. Large retailers in Europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from Africa. The requirements they specify for cost, quality, delivery, product variety, innovation, food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out. The control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by UK supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types, and for the long-term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
In this paper we discuss two distinct sets of advantages which have helped Turkey to become the world’s second-largest clothing exporter: the competency-related advantages of the last decade; and the trade-and-currency-related advantages of the earlier decades. In the late 1980s and 1990s, some fortunate developments in the international currency markets, together with an unofficial trade with Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulted in windfall trade gains for Turkey. During the last decade, a shift in the culture of fashion, from ready-to-wear to fast fashion pushed Turkish suppliers to upgrade into higher value-added activities such as design. While our focus is on the latter advantage, we point out that both sets of advantages have a commonality: namely, a sustainability problem.
While apparel manufacturing is often considered the quintessential global industry, the regional dimension of trade and production in the textile and clothing sector is less widely noted. In this paper I discuss two macroregional production blocs: North America (defined as the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean Basin countries) and Greater Europe [which includes the European Union (EU), Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey, and North Africa]. Analyzing what opportunities regionalization might provide is particularly relevant given China’s increasing dominance of both the EU and US import markets in the post-Multifibre Arrangement period. Drawing on the global commodity chains literature, I discuss three dimensions around which cross-regional comparative research on the European and North American apparel sectors can be organized: (1) production model; (2) institutional context; and (3) development outcomes. Several similarities between these production blocs are noted, particularly with regard to the intraregional division of labor expressed by networks connecting firms in higher-wage and lower-wage countries and the coexistence of assembly subcontracting and full-package manufacturing in both regions, but differences include the existence in Europe of a stronger textile base and a more expansive regionalization strategy (as suggested by the Euro –Mediterranean Partnership), which may strengthen the competitiveness of the Greater European bloc vis-à-vis its North American counterpart.
Within economic geography, the internationalisation of retailing is a much understudied element of contemporary globalisation processes. In this paper the author seeks to develop the research agenda in this area from an economic - geographical perspective that is sensitive to spatial and temporal fluctuations in corporate strategies and investment patterns, the importance of political economic context(s), and the variety of potential developmental outcomes. The paper is structured into two main parts. First, the author offers a review of current levels of retail internationalisation in static and dynamic terms, illustrating that this is a phenomenon that demands more academic attention. The second reveals several limitations in the prevailing management/business approach to the topic, and maps out an explicitly geographical research agenda on the internationalisation of retailing. Six key areas in which research can usefully proceed are identified.
The impacts and activities of international retailers have been largely ignored in the globalisation discourse. A possible
reason for this is the absence, in international retailing, of concept and theory that does not hang on the coat-tails of
international production. The paper attempts to consider international retailing in its own right. Three linked questions
are explored. Has the internationalisation process of the large retailers resulted in an increase in the global concentration
of sales? In what ways does the process of retailer internationalisation differ from the internationalisation of production?
What does the committed international retailer transfer to the host country during the internationalisation process?
In 'top down' conceptualizations of globalization, people often enter the analytical picture merely as resisters to globalization or as receivers of corporate produced goods, messages and ideas. This article, in contrast, focuses on a process in which 'ordinary' people are the active makers of global processes and meanings. I describe the transnational trade network between post-Soviet countries and Turkey, in which Western fashions and images get circulated and transformed through the activities of informal entrepreneurs. I thus challenge accounts of globalization in which the dissemination of images is depicted as a top down process originating in corporations located in metropolitan countries. Based on ethnographic evidence collected in Istanbul and Moscow on the informal 'shuttle trade', I demonstrate that the mobility of 'ordinary' people across borders facilitates the flows of signs and images. Moreover, Western images and fashions get remoulded and acquire new meanings in the process of circulation. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2007 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
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Leveraging speed as a competitive advantage: a case study of an international fashion chain and its competitors
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