25% of fashion retailers in the UK and US say they have “limited or no visibility” of textile items in factories and distribution centres.
The report by Avery Dennison is based on a survey of 250 senior fashion retail supply chain decison makers in the UK and US and found many were limited in item-level visibility.
The research also revealed that their supply chain is “highly problematic with regular disruptions” for 30% of respondents, while only 22% categorised it as “efficient and responsive”.
The Boosting Margins – The Power of Enhanced Fashion Supply Chain Visibility report found that 61% of the smaller companies, those with annual revenue between $1m and $9.99m, feel they have full visibility.
The research split the companies surveyed into six different revenue categories. Larger companies appear to be impacted the most by a lack of visibility, with 44% of firms with annual revenue above $1bn believing they have a complete view.
Full visibility was found to be most challenging for medium-sized retailers with only 11% of the $250m-$499m revenue cohort saying they had achieved this. Only six out of the 250 companies surveyed had “no visibility”.
50% of those surveyed said their company has “visibility into most items”.
Delia Glover, vice president of product, innovation, and solutions development at Avery Dennison, commented: “Trying to operate without clear visibility into your supply chain – essentially operating in a supply chain fog – makes it impossible to track the movement of inventory and deploy data analytics to reduce waste.”
The research also asked the decision makers to select up to four challenges they face due to a lack of item-level visibility in their supply chain.
Almost 30% cited last-minute changes to garment labelling, which rose to 42% for firms in the $500m and $999.99m revenue size bracket.
26% selected identifying supply chain disruptions in real time, 25% selected reduced agility in diverting orders to alternative suppliers or destinations, and 25% selected inability to meet compliance requirements on materials traceability.
