As per the Boston Consulting Group, the global luxury industry is in for tough times ahead. Luxury sales are expected to contract 45 per cent this year and growth is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels before 2023. This year, small-scale or online only shows have replaced blockbuster catwalk shows at fashion weeks. However, few Italian and French luxury groups plan to host larger physical events despite limited international presence, absence of several high-profile designers and rising infection rate Europe.

One of them is LVMH, which reported a strong surge in summer sales from Asian countries like mainland China, Japan and South Korea. However, the group’s fashion and leather goods sales dropped 37 per cent with a halt in international tourism.

Small brands struggle with unsold inventory

The impact on struggling brands like Salvatore Ferragamo and Burberry and debt-ridden department stores like Neiman Marcus has been worse. Many of these brands are ridden with a large stock of unsold inventory from the spring/summer collections this year. And as Stefano Todescan, Managing Director, Boston Consulting Group says brands are using brick-and-mortar discount outlets or online marketplaces like the Dutch startup Otrium to dispose unsold inventories.

Few brands are exploring data to review unsold stocks, adds Todescan. This data allows them to move supply from the West to better performing regions like the Asian markets, China. The fastest-growing luxury market before the pandemic, China is likely to become even more important as North American and European markets are struggling to stabilize operations.

Pandemic sparks mobile innovations

The pandemic has forced all offline retailers to go online as consumers have also moved to digital shopping. Amazon, which sold one billion fashion items via its mobile app in the last 12 month, has launched a mobile-only luxury stores with one brand: Oscar de la Renta. The e-tailer plans to launch more labels on the platform in coming weeks. Digital marketplace Farfetch reported a 60 per cent surge in traffic for Q2 that ended last month with 500,000 new customers.

As the industry makes a fresh beginning post pandemic, TikTok plans to host an online fashion month for its 800 million users. The show will focus on smaller collections displaying timeless pieces. Currently, with most people being stuck at homes, demand for evening wear and suits has plummeted. However, despite a severe recession and ongoing layoffs, brands expect consumers to start buying high-priced items soon. Till then, luxury brands need to maintain resilience.

From October 22-24, 2020 Ningbo Fashion Festival and the 24th Ningbo International Fashion Exhibition is being held in Ningbo International Convention and Exhibition Center in China.

This time, Ningbo Fashion Festival is pooling fashion resource, advocate fashion concept, shape its brand image, promote the development of high quality fashion industry via Internet, transform traditional mode of exhibition, speed up the construction of the fashion industry ecology, promote fashion consumption upgrade, optimize fashion development environment, and boost Ningbo an internationally influential fashion cities.

On October 22, the opening ceremony of 2020 Ningbo Fashion Festival was held in the newly completed Peacebird Fashion Center, which fully reflected the mutual improvement and innovation between the fashion festival and the industry. The domestic related government leaders, clothing associations and other organizations, Harper's bazaar, China textile magazine and many other media, exhibitors and buyers from all over the country, guests and friends from business, fashion and other fields attended 2020 Ningbo fashion festival.

The opening show of 2020 Ningbo Fashion Festival brought by Peacebird, Beyond home textile, Samsonite and Zhongzhe group. Exquisite clothing and fashion style by models’ expression, attracting the attention of audience.

US consumers plan to spend less on apparel and accessories this holiday season, says a new KPMG report. The report, which surveyed 1,000 US consumers in September, found on an average, consumers had reduced their holiday shopping budgets by 18 per cent due to the financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, average holiday spending this year is expected to decrease from $627 in 2019 to $515 per consumer in 2020.

Shoppers are likely to spend less 27 per cent less on apparel and accessories this year. Their spending on electronics and gift cards is also expected to fall by 16 per cent and 14 percent, respectively.

Consumers are expected to purchase all product categories significantly more through e-commerce platforms than in previous years, with online spending on apparel and accessories predicted to increase by 25 per cent.

The reasons for the overall decrease in holiday spending include the impact of COVID-19 on the employment status of consumers. Around 36 per cent of consumers said that their income had been negatively affected, reducing on average 34 per cent.

Around 19 per cent of the respondents reported becoming more mindful of their spending habits due to the health crisis.

Wool prices in Australia have increased by over 30 per cent since September as Chinese processors boosted purchases to meet an expected jump in apparel demand after a coronavirus-related slump. According to Robert Hermann, Managing Director, Mecardo, wool mills and manufacturers have prepared for an anticipated increase in consumer spending after pandemic lockdowns. The benchmark Eastern Market Indicator wool price had slumped by 47 per cent in Australian dollar terms to A$8.58 per kilogram between the first week of auctions in January and the first week of September, as demand shriveled due to global Covid-19 lockdowns.

Australia typically exports about 80 per cent of its greasy, or untreated, wool to China. However, this figure surged to 96 per cent in the June quarter, amid COVID-19-related disruption in export markets, particularly in Europe, said Abares, a government forecaster. Still, the prospect of strict COVID-related lockdowns in the EU and consequently lower apparel sales are likely to limit price upside, said Dennis Voznesenski, Rabobank associate analyst, in the bank’s October agribusiness report.

Though further lockdowns in Europe would be negative in the short term, pent up consumer demand should cause the market to rebound strongly after restrictions ease, added Herrmann.

Technavio reports, the global market for high-visibility clothing is poised to grow at 2 per cent CAGR to $120.22 million from 2020-2024 The report states, the market is expected to be driven by increasing demand for high-visibility clothing from the manufacturing industry.

The manufacturing industry has different applications that can pose diverse risks to workers. Hence, high-visibility clothing needs to be used at manufacturing sites to ensure the safety of workers. This growing need has encouraged many high-visibility clothing manufacturers to offer a wide range of clothing. Having the largest high-visibility clothing market in 2019, North America offers several growth opportunities to market vendors during the forecast period. These opportunities include the use of green materials and processes for manufacturing of high-visibility clothing.

To save cash while dealing with sales slump bought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and competition from fast-fashion companies, Gap Inc plans to close stores in some European countries. The San Francisco-based company had 129 Gap brand stores in Europe at the end of July. The brand now plans to close outlets in the United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Italy by mid-2021 as it is struggling with out of fashion styles, which has pushed shoppers towards apparel brands like Zara and H&M. The coronavirus crisis has compounded troubles by stifling sales at brick-and-mortar sales across the globe. However, online sales of Old Navy and Athleta brands have surged since the start of the pandemic.

Gap Inc is also reviewing its warehouse and distribution model and its Gap and Banana Republic-owned e-commerce operations in Europe. It plans to transfer parts of its European business to third parties in a partnership mode. Earlier this year, Gap planned to close over 225 unprofitable Gap and Banana Republic stores globally as a part of a restructuring plan.

Hatch an innovation entity backed by PVH Corp and Joor, the world’s leading digital wholesale platform for fashion, beauty and home have signed a commercial agreement to include the Hatch Digital In-Showroom software in Joor’s service offerings to customers, accelerating the adoption of the innovative technology among brands.

The Hatch Digital in-Showroom technology offers brands an intuitive way to digitize their physical wholesale appointments. First developed in 2014 by PVH Corp., the Digital In-Showroom technology has since revolutionized the wholesale selling process for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. Hatch has been using this technology since , January 2020 through a SaaS model: a software licensing model in which access to the technology – hosted on the cloud – is provided on a subscription basis. Based on this expertise, Hatch also offers digital transformation consultancy services to ease a brand’s transition into the future of wholesale selling.

With the new partnership, Joor will offer select brands exclusive and seamless access to Hatch's Digital in-Showroom software. Founded in 2010, Joor has put the entire buying process online to make wholesale smoother and smarter for both brands and retailers. The platform connects over 8,600 brands with 200,000 retailers across 144 countries every day, with three quarters of the world’s luxury brands using the it to conduct their wholesale business.

Despite China offering duty-free market access to 97 per cent of Bangladesh products, more than a third of total apparel exports continue to remain out of duty-free benefit coverage. As Rubana Huq, President, BGMEA, says, out of 507 million worth of apparels exported by Bangladesh to China in fiscal 2018-19, only $308.4 million worth of apparels enjoyed duty free benefits. Garment products worth $20 million out of the remaining $198 million would be included in the latest duty-free scheme, she adds.

In June, the Tariff Commission of the Chinese State Council granted zero treatment to 97 per cent of tariff products of Bangladesh to its market effective from July 1. China then included additional 5,161 Bangladeshi products to enjoy zero-tariff treatment in its market. Prior to that, 3,095 Bangladeshi products were eligible for duty-free access to the market under the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement.

To get duty free benefits in China, Bangladesh would have to add 40 per cent more value to its exports, says Huq. Earlier, the threshold for value addition was 30 per cent for the China market. Bangladesh's RMG export to China declined by 34.35 per cent to $72.21 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2020-21. It was $109.99 million during July-September period of the last fiscal.

Figures released by National Bureau of Statistics and analyzed by Apparel Resources indicate, China’s apparel and accessories sales in September ’20 grew by 8.30 per cent to RMB 112.50 billion. Total retail sales of consumer goods in China grew by 3.30 per cent to 3,529.5 billion.

However, retail sales were severely impacted by the pandemic that hit China in the first quarter of 2020 as well as in subsequent months till May. This led to an overall drop of 12.40 per cent in apparel retail sales in the country during January-September ’20 period as against the same period of 2019.

August ’20 was the first month when retail sales increased by 0.5 per cent from the same month in 2019 and the figures are even better in in September. Most retail categories grew significantly in comparison to the performance recorded in July ’20. Garment sales increased by 4.20 per cent in August ’20 over July ’20 as compared to 2.50 per cent fall in July ’20 over preceding month.

China’s goods trade stats from January to September 2020 reveal textile and clothing exports in the first three quarters achieved faster growth than national trade in goods. From January to September 2020, China’s textile and clothing exports increased by 12.2 per cent to 1,515.67 billion yuan, as per General Administration of Customs. This included textile exports worth 828.78 billion yuan and clothing exports worth 686.89 billion yuan.

Cumulative T&C exports rise 9.3 per cent

From January to September 2020, China’s cumulative exports of textile and clothing increased 9.3 per cent to $215.78 billion. Of this, textile exports increased by 33.7 per cent $117.95 billion while clothing exports decreased by 10.3 per cent to 97.83 billion. In the first three quarters, China's total import and export value of goods trade increased by 0.7 per cent to 23.12 trillion yuan. Amongst this, the value of exports increased by 1.8 per cent to 12.71 trillion yuan, while the value of imports decreased by 0.6 per cent to 10.41 trillion yuan.

From January to September 2020, the total value of imports and exports of goods trade increased by 0.7 per cent to 23.1 trillion yuan. Of this, exports increased by 1.8 per cent to 12.7 trillion yuan while imports decreased by 0.6 per cent 10.4 trillion yuan.

In the first three quarters, the total value of US –China trade increased by 2 per cent to 2.82 trillion yuan. During this period, China’s exports to the United States increased by 1.8 per cent to 2.18 trillion yuan while its imports from the United States increased by 2.8 per cent to 640.86 billion yuan. During the period, China exported 1.31 trillion yuan worth of mechanical and electrical products to the United States, which accounted for 60 per cent of its total export value to the United States.

Cross border e-commerce platform leads to 52.8% trade growth

China's import and export through customs cross-border e-commerce management platform increased 52.8 per cent to reach 187.39 billion yuan. Of this, China’s imports and exports to ASEAN, the EU, the United States, Japan and South Korea increased by 7.7 per cent, 2.9 per cent, 2 per cent, 1.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent to 3.38 trillion yuan, 3.23 trillion yuan, 2.82 trillion yuan, 1.61 trillion yuan and 1.45 trillion yuan, respectively. ASEAN emerged as China's largest trading partner, accounting for 14.6 per cent of its total foreign trade.

China's general imports and exports increased by 2.1 per cent to13.92 trillion yuan. Textile and clothing exports increased 5.4 per cent to reach 2.59 trillion yuan. Among these, the export of textiles including masks increased by 37.5 per cent to 828.78 billion yuan. In future, the Chinese government needs to focus on exports of mechanical equipment, electronic components, textile and clothing, shoes and boots.