E-Commerce in the Textile and Apparel Supply Chain Management: Framework and Case Study

Abstract

The development of e-commerce technologies in relation to textile and apparel management have been improved significantly in the recent years and are perceived as a mainstream to improve productivity and information flow as well as communications. Many researchers give a special attention to e-commerce technology or supply chain separately. However, until now, not much evident research has been conducted to pursue successful applications of ecommerce technologies to the Textile and Apparel supply chain. The paper aims to understand the current state of ecommerce technologies applications in the Textile and Apparel supply chain and provide recommendations for future improvement. We begin with a brief look at the current competitive landscape in the"bricks and mortar" apparel industry, introduces the concept and relevant research of e-commerce and supply chain firstly, then enlightened by the successful practices of e-commerce recently, the paper puts forward that the effective textile and apparel supply chain management system should be designed integrated e-commerce. A thorough analysis of the mechanism of e-commerce has been made and framework of e-supply chain analyzed accordingly. Finally, the paper concludes and set up an effective and efficient supply chain management mechanism with e-commerce technology for Textile and Apparel industry.

International e-commerce for fashion products: what is the relationship with performance?

“…Many works have highlighted the benefits of e-commerce in supporting companies’ businesses (Wang and Ahmed, 2009); whether e-commerce has started diffusing several years ago, fashion and luxury companies have been slow in embracing these technologies (Okonkwo, 2009). To date, around 40-50 per cent of fashion luxury manufacturers do not sell online (Kluge and Fassnacht, 2015), despite the recognised importance of e-commerce in modern contexts (Jinfu and Aixiang, 2009; Wang and Zhang, 2009). These phenomena have completely upset traditional business models and the introduction of e-commerce has contributed to a radical change in how international business is conducted (Colla and Lapoule, 2011; MacCarthy and Jayarathne, 2013).…”

“…E-commerce improves company’s flexibility as well, in terms of capability to respond to new customers’ requirements (Iyer et al , 2009; Li et al , 2009). For instance, Louis Vuitton offers customers the possibility to buy online products with specific personalised features that requires high company’s flexibility but also companies lacking interest in customisable products can, however, improve their market flexibility through e-commerce: an analysis of previous sales data can in fact drive companies to make products more aligned with customers’ every-changing demands (Wang and Zhang, 2009). For the latter, e-commerce can also be used to improve flexibility through a better management of the order process that reduce delivery time, by centralising orders based on customers’ geographical differentiation (Koellinger, 2008).…”

“…This topic is particularly relevant for the fashion industry because it is a highly dynamic and global industry characterised by international, complex and fragmented networks (Yu et al , 2012; Macchion et al , 2015). Despite the greater attention to the field of e-commerce, only a few contributions have investigated its adoption in the global fashion industry (Jinfu and Aixiang, 2009). The focus is on Italian fashion companies for the high relevance of Italy for fashion industry worldwide, in spite of the delay in terms of e-commerce adoption.…”