It's a challenging market, but Italian spinners have finally found a way into China's complex supply chain.

Brands and retailers are wrestling with finding the right balance between speed and transportation costs. The big win: having the right product, in the right place, at the right time.

By mid-August China had sold an estimated 2.2 million tons of cotton from its stockpile, with the sales close rate at about 90 percent.  However on August 9, the China National Cotton Reserve Corporation (CNCRC) announced that China state cotton auction would be extended one month to end on September 29, 2017.Many believed that since that CNCRC has already met its sales target and cotton prices were already relatively low, there would be less motivation for the nation to extend the auction....

Competition is forcing even the most stalwart companies to seek more agile inventory management.China’s legacy retail purchasing model has come under fire. Facing an increasingly competitive market, many of the nation’s biggest retailers, including Joeone, Cabbeen. Fordoo, and Z.L.Shijia, are starting to reform the traditional purchasing meeting model. These companies are increasing the frequency of purchasing meetings (the meetings with vendors when orders are placed) while reducing...

The combination of a huge population and high e-commerce penetration rate has laid a solid foundation for China’s online retail development. In the first quarter of 2017, Chinese consumers spent US$ 204.1 billion dollar (RMB 1,404.5 billion) shopping online, more than twice the US$98.1 billion dollars U.S consumers spent online during the same period, according to latest statistics released by National Bureau of Statistics of China.

La Chapelle has built a fast growing billion-dollar retail company by following their customers’ tastes, rather than fashion trends. As the largest single consumer market (in terms of number of population), China is a notoriously competitive market for fashion retailers. As an increasing number of international brands enter the China market, many major Chinese brands are struggling to maintain their market share. Some of the leading domestic brands have been forced to close stores and...

The sun is once again shining on China’s textile sector. The industry that the nation was allegedly planning to abandon in favor of higher tech alternatives has proven that it not only provides jobs to millions of workers, it can also be financially profitable.China’s textile sector has clearly started to rebound this year. As a whole, industry profits rose 11.6 percent during to the first 6 month of 2017, according to report from the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC...

Merino costs rise as manufacturers move into high value products.Wool prices have surged this year, rising 45.7 percent with the average EMI (Eastern Market Indicator) going from US$8.05/kg to US$11.73/kg by the end of July. It is the highest level since 2011, according to AWI (Australian Wool Innovation Limited).The price spike is mainly for super fine gauge merino wool, with the margin between fine and coarse crossbred wool expanding from 10 percent to 25 percent over the past six months. The ...

“Consumers want something unique and interesting and they want to be able to buy it immediately,” said Stephen Trigg, Creative Director at UPW, at an Inside Fashion special event at UPW’s exquisite new showroom in Dongguan, China. “There is a revolution happening in the industry, the key is to be able to offer consumers the right product at the right time,” he added.“Some of the designers and niche brands are now experimenting with a ‘see it, like it and...

Chinese suppliers have come to realize that the only way out is up. Even the most volume-driven, mass-market suppliers have realized there is no future in making basic products in China. Increasingly, we see suppliers trying to upgrade their products and moving up the value in China, but now even in Southeast Asian countries as well.Today we see suppliers trying to add value or make a better version of their existing products in order to appeal to a higher market.Performance is one of the k...