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The purpose of this paper is to explain the key aspects and growing relevance of sustainability in fashion retail and to evaluate the possibilities of fashion retailers to act sustainable in supply chain management as well as carving out the challenges they have to deal with. The research methodology applied for this purpose is a critical literature review examining books and articles. The findings demonstrate the rising importance of sustainability in fashion retail. In this regard, fashion retailers play a key role and responsibility for sustainability in the fashion supply chain, from the beginning up to the end. This paper mainly analyzes sustainability in the fashion supply chain. It does not analyze topics like second-hand shopping or social media sustainability.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the practice of closed-loop production systems (CLPS) is implemented in the fashion industry. This paper offers a critical literature review to present a thorough understanding of the actual status of literature. Subsequently, the paper reveals that CLPS are of great importance. Generally, such systems include different activities that have to be integrated. Critical points are the product acquisition, the recovering process itself and the remarketing to the customer. A lack of reliable data concerning CLPS in the specific case of fashion industry can be identified. Important research fields could be marketing strategies, controlling the acquisition process, evolvement of return technologies and strategies, adaption of recovered products to the mass market, and the development of new technologies concerning recovering processes.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact on sustainability of fashion production and consumption in order to discuss what the main lever is to reduce the negative impact. The research methodology applied is a literature review examining academic references. Key findings suggest that fashion production and consumption have a single comparable impact on sustainability. Moreover, as the fashion production follows the demand, the consumer steers the production in a certain direction. Therefore, consumers take over responsibility and need to be informed. To reach a long-term change in the fashion industry, the consumer has to be the focus of the sustainable efforts. Most results in literature were conducted by qualitative research methods, so that further quantitative testing of the results is recommended. Furthermore, most surveys were conducted with young fashion consumers in the EU or UK which does not represent the fashion consumer in general.
The purpose of this paper is to define what impacts sustainable manufacturing standards have for retail brands concerning the communication policy and to find possible solutions of how the companies can deal with them. Therefore, sustainable standards and the impacts on the internal and external communication are described. The enclosed discussion finds possible solutions for the negative impacts. A literature discussion has been conducted to investigate the purpose. Generally, there are many impacts fashion retails have to consider, if they want to transform their company to become more sustainable, because only the impacts on a defined part of the communication policy were huge. A limitation of this paper is that the proposals how retailers could deal with the impacts of the transformation of the company toward more sustainability need further research and tests until they are practicable.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight potentials and limitations of the prosumer concept in fashion retail. The paper illustrates the evolution of prosumption and in which directions the concept is being developed. The primary research is based on a literature review containing different sources of academic and non-academic references. Findings suggest that the prosumer concept is no new phenomenon. Recently, it has moved into the focus of companies that have noted that it is efficient when engaging with customers in order to strengthen their brand loyalty. An increasing number of companies offer innovative business models that underlie the concept. However, lately smart prosuming machines are changing the objectives of the concept. Even if the prosumer concept exists since many years and scholars investigate its potentials continuously, it is the fashion industry that has been researched comparatively little up to now.
The second hand concept indicates a growing trend in clothing recently, leading to growing numbers of second hand shops and developments of new second hand retail forms. This paper concentrates on the current second hand market for fashion products and presents the different motives toward second hand consumption as well as alternative consumption channels for second hand products. The findings of the paper are founded on literature research of academic articles and case studies. Results show that there is a high potential for the second hand market due to the increasing interest of consumers in buying second hand products. The paper concentrates on the second hand market for fashion products in the western society. This means that there was no research on second hand products for disadvantaged people in poor countries. Furthermore, the paper focuses the formal second hand retail channels to see what is already on the market.
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate consisting consumption patterns caused by fast fashion with a new appearing form of consumption and retaining potentials as an alternative as well as sustainable form of fast fashion consumption. This research is set up on a theoretical background of scientific literature including governmental as well as press releases in order to evaluate the status quo of consumption and answering the research question. A new consumption pattern as well as an appearing economy of sharing can be stated including potential aspects of raising businesses and sustainable alternative forms of fast fashion. The framework of the research is limited to the textile and fashion industry in industrialized countries focusing on consumption in the twenty first century.
The purpose of this research is to explore current boundaries of the fashion industry’s second hand market and which solutions and approaches can be adopted from the used-car industry. The paper is based on the study of existing literature which deals with sustainability in combination with second hand markets in general and adaptable features of the used-car industry. Adaptable features are found using the business model canvas. The key finding of this study indicates that the fashion industry faces immense social and environmental challenges which can be partly solved by the development of the second hand market. Used-car industry can be seen as role model for fashion retail. In this study only aspects of used-car distribution are highlighted; therefore, characteristics of the recycling of used cars are not examined.
The purpose of this paper is to study the recycling form of reusing second hand clothing from a conventional fashion brand’s perspective. It should clarify which measures and activities a fashion company needs to integrate in its value chain in order to offer branded second hand merchandise in a self-operated store. The research paper relies on a desk-based research and aims to illustrate the topic by means of a descriptive approach, processing the existing literature. Key findings demonstrate that fashion brands need to integrate complete lifecycle strategies, sustainability communication, and reverse logistics structures, like take-back schemes, for offering second hand clothing. The main limitations evolve from the research design. Further, empirical evidences need to be conducted for a more fundamental understanding of the new business model.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of sustainable closed-loop supply chain of the fashion brand Filippa K. Information on green fashion has been gathered and a case study approach on the fashion retailer
Filippa K conducted. Results show a switch in knowledge content between a fast fashion supply chain and a sustainable supply chain. Also there is an evolution in sustainability as companies, retailers, and manufactures suffer under pressure from the customers, governments, and the media. Sustainable fashion brands like Filippa K are interested in sharing precise knowledge on variety of aspects linked to the sustainable closed-loop supply chain. This research paper has been limited by less information and unexplored topics in the theme green fashion. This led to the personal critical disputation with the brand Filippa K.
This study focuses on the different roles of social media for the promotion of a sustainable lifestyle, behaviour and consumption, especially with regard to the typically non-ethical fashion industry. Research findings include eight roles of social media influencing a sustainable consumption contrary to prior research naming one to five impacts. Results show that social media educates and engages the young and ethically interested target group besides increasing supply chain transparency and brand or theme awareness. Furthermore, social media provides a platform for organisations’ relationship management and social interaction since users get empowered to share experiences which leads to a higher level of trust.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential of a fashion fTRACE (ffTRACE) application that gives transparent insight on the supply chain of a fashion item. The research methodology applied to this purpose is a literature review examining academic references. The key findings of this paper are that information plays a major role in the consumer decision process and is therefore beneficial to the demand for sustainable products. Given the right information content in a transparent, credible and understandable way is important. It is found that the functions of such an application would be able to satisfy this consumer demand and therefore has the potential to raise the sales of a sustainable company as well as increase the brand’s awareness and improve its image. While mainly indicating the potentials of the ffTRACE application, their relevance is not examined in this paper.
Since there is no denying that transparency is increasingly central to corporate sustainability, the purpose of this paper is a case study on a company’s attempt to be fully transparent, hence, picking up the existent scholarly conversation about uncompromising supply chain transparency. Literature so far was found to be fairly limited, but, following a trend, has been rising in numbers over recent years. Addressing these shortcomings in the methodology, an in-depth literature review about the multiple dimensions of supply chain transparency has been performed and links within supply networks stressed. On this basis, a case study by exemplary illustrating the fashion label Honestby has been drafted and the effort to become the world’s first 100 % transparent company further examined. Findings are discussed whether more supply chain transparency is desirable in any case, obstacles listed and an outlook for this kind of business model has been drawn. The research is clearly limited by the amount of scholarly literature concerning Honestby in particular. Out of this reason, magazines and journal entries are used as reference as well. Only with the extension of the topic itself to supply chain transparency and the literature review beforehand, the paper gained its necessary academic standard. Concerning implications, it needs to be mentioned that even though Honest by demonstrates to be fully transparent, it was not possible to find any public information about the degree of supplier relationship. In particular, concerning the applied control mechanisms used to exert influence and to balance out the power gradient between company and suppliers.
Social sustainable supply chain management in the textile and apparel industry : a literature review
(2017)
So far, a vast amount of studies on sustainability in supply chain management have been conducted by academics over the last decade. Nevertheless, socially related aspects are still neglected in the related discussion. The primary motivation of the present literature review has arisen from this shortcoming, thus the key purpose of this study is to enrich the discussion by providing a state of-the-art, focusing exclusively on social issues in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) by considering the textile/apparel sector as the field of application. The authors conduct a literature review, including content analysis which covers 45 articles published in English peer-reviewed journals, and proposes a comprehensive map which integrates the latest findings on socially related practices in the textile/apparel industry with the dominant conceptualization in order to reveal potential research areas in the field. The results show an ongoing lack of investigation regarding the social dimension of the triple bottom line in SSCM. Findings indicate that a company’s internal orientation is the main assisting factor in sustainable supply chain management practices. Further, supplier collaboration and assessment can be interpreted as an offer for suppliers deriving from stakeholders and a focal company’s management of social risk. Nevertheless, suppliers do also face or even create huge barriers in improving their social performance. This calls for more empirical research and qualitative or quantitative survey methods, especially at the supplier level located in developing countries.
This research is about Omnichannel Retailing and addresses the question how the omnichanneling of retailers in the fashion market can be measured. Our sources will include books, interviews, newspapers and scientific databases.
Omnichanneling is a current topic in the fashion market, retailers all over the world face the question on how to adapt to the challenges Omnichannel Retailing sets. We are going to define what Omnichanneling is by explaining the differences between Multiple-, Multi-, Cross- and Omnichannel Retailing. After we defined omnichanneling itself, we took a set of 26 retailers to evaluate regarding their Omnichannel capabilities. Then we create an index with criteria that can measure the Omnichannel capability of each retailer.
The Omnichannel Score is based on 31 criteria, which analyze the retailers in offline, online, mobile and social aspects enables to see differences between retailers. Our findings were that retailers in the US fashion market are more advanced in Omnichannel Retailing than retailers in the German fashion market. Our top three Omnichannel retailers were Sears with an Omnichannel Score of 91, followed by KOHL’S and Marks&Spencer, both with a Omnichannel Score of 88. The best Omnichannel Retailer from Germany was Adidas with the fourth place and an Omnichannel Score of 81.
There is no doubt that the amplification of channel integration towards an omni-channel structure is a powerful idea whose time has finally come. The digitally cross-linked world postulates all-encompassing, ubiquitous, and unobtrusive future services. In the concomitant, increasingly competitive market, retailers are starting to lay the foundation for omnichannel, meeting the expectations of a digitally cunning audience wanting their shopping experience to be as seamless and uncomplicated as possible. Nevertheless, recent researches show that there are still enough avenues for further research on omnichannel. Until now, the performance of companies was solely considered by experts from a suppliers’ point of view. It would be rather interesting to find out whether the desire to meet the increased cus-tomer expectations is also recognized by the customers themselves. This paper seeks to answering how the purchasing behavior has changed and what customers demand. In addition, it elaborates the opportunities that are promoted by omni-channel. Searching out all the effects, the paper will get to a final step, where it can be attested how the omnichannel performance of fashion and lifestyle retailers can be measured from a consumers’ perspective by developing an exclusive index. The study is confined to four fashion and lifestyle retailers: Hugo Boss AG, Levi Strauss & Co, Pull and Bear as well as COS. Using the scientific method of mystery shopping and a multi-item checklist including 54 key performance indicators, the paper aims to examine to which extend the four selected retailers provide a seamless customer journey, according to the five decision-making phases.
The purpose of this paper is to determine the relevance of social media for luxury brand management. It employs both a multi-methodological approach: After analyzing the online performance of the three luxury brands Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, the empirical research includes a survey as well as an eye tracking test executed with Tobii Studio. The findings reveal that online and social media have given luxury fashion businesses the opportunity to establish a sustainable interaction with their customers and distinguish themselves from the competition. Still, the online business holds many challenges for luxury companies to overcome. This paper gives instructions as to how social media can be effectively incorporated into a luxury company.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the value of the web representation of certain fashion hot spots and how these results can be shown on fashion maps in an illustrated way.
Design/methodology/approach: A new ranking was created, which was evaluated with a self-instructed index, to gain solid results. Numbers were collected from Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and web.alert.io. Additionally, fashion maps were created for an illustrative visualization of the results.
Findings: Compared with the ranking of a trend forecasting agency, called Global Language Monitor, which concepted a ranking of non-virtual fashion cities, the web representation and therefore the ranking of the research project, differs mainly in the situation of the cities among the first 10, viz. the rank on which a city occurs, but fewer in the actual cities mentioned.
Research limitations: The research was limited to subjective analysis of data, leading to partly subjective results, as well as the selected number of social media platforms, that had been used.
Originality/value: This is the first study to explore the web representation value of fashion metropolises in comparison to their non-virtual ranking. The results are partly based on results that already existed, concerning transformations of fashion cities or in general which cities own the status of a fashion city.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the service of the new business model Curated Shopping in the fashion industry as well as to analyze if the service provides a higher costumer added value in comparison to traditional services in retail stores and e-commerce platforms. It gives implications to curated shop operators how to optimize the service in each stage of the customer buying process.
Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology applied is an empirical study that uses the principal of mystery shopping in order to investigate the provided services during the selling process.
Findings: The study showed that information about the customer should be collected carefully and as holistic as possible in order to assort a suitable outfit. The consumer is able to benefit from the service by saving time and enjoying a stress-free way of shopping. Nevertheless there are limitations in the personal service to give individual and inspiring advice by the curator caused by the physical distance to the customer.
Research limitations: The survey was conducted under 10 mystery shoppers and 4 curated shop operators in Germany, limiting findings to these mystery shoppers and operators.
Practical implications: One implication for the shop operators is to collect consumer information carefully and expand the assortment and brand portfolio in order to provide fashion goods to inspire the consumer. The shop operators are on the right track still there is huge potential to provide a more shopper-oriented service.
The wet chemical deposition of solution processed transparent conducting oxides (TCO) provides an alternative low cost and economical deposition technique to realize large-areas of conducting films. Since the price for the most common TCO Indium Tin Oxide rises enormously, Aluminum Zinc Oxide (AZO) as alternative TCO reaches more and more interest. The optoelectronical properties of nanoparticle coatings strongly depend beneath the porosity of the coating on the shape and size of the used particles. By using bigger or rod-shaped particles it is possible to minimize the amount of grain boundaries resulting in an improvement of the electrical properties, whereas particles bigger than 100 nm should not be used if highly transparent coatings are necessary as these big particles scatter the visible light and lower the transmittance of the coatings. In this work we present a simple method to synthesize AZO particles with different shape and size, but comparable electronical properties. We use a simple, well reproducible polyol method for synthesis and influence the shape and size of the particles by adding different amounts of water to the precursor solution. We can show that the addition of aluminum as dopant strongly hinders the crystal growth but the addition of water counteracts this, so that both, spherical and rod-shaped particles can be obtained.