Apparel demand has reached a new level of unpredictability. During the pandemic, the purchasing behavior pendulum has swung from weak sales amid early lockdowns to revenge spending in 2021. Historical data is therefore no longer a strong predictor of market performance. Retailers are also contending with supply chain disruptions, including expanded lead times and shipping schedules that threaten on-time arrivals of goods. The major risk has shifted from overstocks to understocks, and retailers have adjusted their buying strategies accordingly. In AlixPartners and Sourcing Journal’s recent “2021 Fashion in Focus” survey report, industry executives said they were planning for delays by buying earlier and ordering larger volumes of goods. But buying far out essentially means “buying blind,” explained Joe Schmitt, a managing director at AlixPartners.   As the industry adapts and learns from pandemic pressures, there are still uncertainties in how to navigate planning. “I don't think anyone has a clear game plan moving forward around what exactly they need to do,” Schmitt told Sourcing Journal founder and president Edward Hertzman in a recent podcast conversation. “I think the theme is really, ‘How can we be as flexible as possible while still being differentiated in the market?’ And that balancing act is what everyone's trying to figure out right now.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amid the retail disruptions of the pandemic, consumers began shopping online more than ever before. But escalating e-commerce sales are not solely a positive for retailers’ profitability. In AlixPartners and Sourcing Journal’s recent industry survey: “2021 Fashion in Focus: Investing in a Future Forged by Adversity,” respondents were largely split on whether the growth in online sales had an accretive or dilutive effect on their business, and a number were unclear on the impact. Serving a customer in store has a different cost structure than fulfilling online orders, and the labor, operational and other expenses for the latter can add up. This makes it more difficult to calculate the actual net financial result of digital sales, explained Bryan Eshelman, a managing director at AlixPartners, in a recent conversation with Sourcing Journal founder and president Edward Hertzman. “It is a hard, tangled web of costs and activities to untangle and really truly understand,” said Eshelman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For sourcing professionals, the pandemic has served up a seemingly never-ending series of logistical quagmires. Factory shutdowns, transportation capacity constraints and cost spikes, and raw material shortages forced companies to adopt plan B, C or even D. Outside of the direct effects of Covid-19, environmental disasters and geopolitical upheaval threaten to abruptly cut off supply or derail shipments. And when time is of the essence, it pays to have planned ahead. “Companies have to start thinking about developing their own contingency plans and risk-mitigation playbooks,” said Murali Gokki, managing director at AlixPartners, who leads the company's apparel and fashion services as part of the retail practice. “These need to be institutionalized; they no longer have the luxury of waiting for an event to happen and then putting their best brains in a room to think through a solution.” Listen to this episode to learn how to navigate freight hurdles heading into the holiday season, what it will take to scale nearshoring and onshoring, the hidden impacts of inflation that are hurting bottom lines, where to start with digital design and production management tools and how companies should approach the supplier-buyer relationship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert McMillan of Dearborn Denim discusses the appeal of Made in America denim, and how it makes for a more sustainable product. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blackhorse Lane Ateliers founder Han Ates discussed the ways in which his brand is practicing social sustainability and creating a London aesthetic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kings of Indigo’s Tony Tonnaer discusses how his sustainable foundation helped him navigate the pandemic, and what he has in store for 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeanologia’s CEO Enrique Silla discusses the company’s contributions during Covid-19 and what it learned from the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rudolf Group’s Alberto de Conti discussed Hub 1922’s latest innovations launched during Covid-19 that will have a lasting impact on the denim industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maurice Malone of Williamsburg Garment Company talks about the state of diversity in denim and the benefits of DTC beyond a pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fashion supply chain is infamously opaque, but brands and retailers are increasingly heeding calls for greater transparency and traceability that gets to the heart of their social and environmental impact. The shift can’t come soon enough. According to a 2019 survey by Ipsos MORI, four in five Americans want fashion brands to provide more information about their environmental commitments and the measures they are taking to curtail pollution in their supply chains. Roughly three quarters believed that brands should be responsible for what happens in the manufacturing process, and that they need to take appropriate action to ensure clothes are produced in an environmentally friendly way. Similar studies show that consumers not only value information related to a company’s supply chain, but many are in fact prepared to pay a premium for greater transparency and visibility. In this episode of the Sustaining Voices podcast, Sourcing Journal sustainability reporter Jasmin Malik Chua speaks with Jamie Barsimantov of SupplyShift, an end-to-end supply chain data management, responsible sourcing and supplier engagement platform, and Tai Ford, chief marketing officer at Retraced, a transparency solution that enables fashion brands to visualize, verify and communicate their supply chains, about the importance of transparency and traceability, the reasons behind their growing prominence and the obstacles that stand in the way of ensuring a socially and environmentally just industry. Though traceability and transparency are sometimes interchangeably used, they’re not the same, and “we need to separate that,“ Barsimantov said, though he admits that because people have their own definitions, the confusion isn’t going to go away. With transparency, “we usually think of a brand lifting the veil off where their manufacturing sites are and information about their practices,“ he said. “When people say full traceability, they’re usually talking about where this bit of cotton came from versus that bit of cotton, which is extremely challenging, expensive and in some cases, doesn’t even provide the right information to provide that transparency to the consumer.“ Traceability and transparency don’t make a brand more sustainable, but they’re a “means to help you along that journey,“ Ford said. “Traceability doesn’t necessarily say that you have sustainable materials in your supply chain, but [it] at least gives you points of reference to then set to start action plans and to communicate those action plans... with people in your company, other certification agencies and other members of your supply chain.“ Listen more to the podcast to learn how much of the fashion supply chain we can confidently map, if some materials are easier than others to track, how much transparency and traceability efforts might cost and how calls from governments and human-rights groups to divest from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region will impact the cotton supply chain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices