The economic downturn and recession that hit hard in 2008 caused retailers to trim down take a closer look at their operations, make changes fast, or suffer. Initially this sent most brands and manufacturers into a tailspin trying to figure out how to keep the goods flowing with a “lean” staff structure. Senior management was left searching for new strategies to keep afloat.
The lessons learned during the recent recession helped position their companies for strong and sustained growth once consumer spending reached normal levels. Even though they are acting more cautiously when making investments, retailers have reached a point where the expenditures they made in tougher times are starting to pay off. The leaders in apparel and footwear have restructured their organizations and processes to be more efficient, and able to scale as sales up-turn – whether seasonally, through other brand acquisition or the launch of new product lines.
In a recent report published by the American Apparel and Footwear Association, it is apparel that the industry is still thriving. “While U.S. apparel consumption slightly declined in 2011, the value of sales grew by 4.9 percent to $283.7 billion at retail. This growth reflects both the increase in retail prices driven by higher supply chain costs, including increases in materials, labor, and transportation, as well as consumers returning to purchases of apparel at higher price-points coming out of the recession.” These numbers reflect the need for retailers to not only keep a close watch on sales figures, but strive for profitability in each sale.
Even while maintaining a conservative posture, retailers that made the investments geared their spending toward technology to help them gain greater control over both their customer-facing and back-end operations. For example, while pre-recession expansion often focused on adding stores, post-recession retailers boosted their Internet presence and more fully integrated their internal and external teams and data.
Retailers chose technology-focused initiatives to implement solutions that streamline design, sourcing, shipping and inventory management processes. The trend toward implementing advanced technologies to ease the workload has helped retailers streamline their operations and enhance the responsiveness of the supply chain.
ecVision’s collaborative platform has been key for many brands that are now thriving and growing. One of our customers, a leader in athletic footwear and apparel, has seen the results. Since implementing a collaborative, integrated platform – including vendors and internal teams – they have experienced remarkable results. The Number 1 benefit they have expressed is overall efficiency.