Digital Sourcing Platform - A New Business Model For Fashion Manufacturing

The fashion industry is traversing through an era of digital transformation. Innovation of digital technologies and platforms is paving the way for numerous successful fashion brands. Changing consumer buying patterns, market trends, and technology are forcing the fashion industry to adopt the digital revolution.

Although the digital revolution of the fashion industry started many years back, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has pushed this transformation into high gear. This radical transformation has helped drive ground-breaking solutions to longstanding challenges. Today, the traditional garment supply chain is changing rapidly. By adopting digital sourcing platforms, fashion manufacturers are altering the panorama of the fashion industry.

Digital Sourcing Platform – The Key to Streamline Fashion Manufacturing

Fashion manufacturers face several challenges in locating and contacting the factories that fit the brand’s needs and demands. The entire process of hunting for the right source is arduous, time-consuming, and expensive.

Manufacturers usually need to visit prospective factories across the globe and undergo numerous steps of the sourcing process before a trustworthy provider is found.

The hunt for the perfect material provider is a day-to-day challenge faced by sourcing managers – not all factories match each other. It is also hard to compare capacities and demands across the globe. Therefore, a digital sourcing platform for fashion manufacturers has become the need of the era.

The digitalization of apparel sourcing is worth investing in. It holds the potential to reduce lead sourcing times, surge production flexibility, reduce unreliable suppliers, simplify communications, deliver sophisticated products, and build proficient inventories.

Digital sourcing platforms are unique technological innovations that bring manufacturers and brands closer together. Garment sourcing managers are the first to say that a digital sourcing platform will pull in more revenues for fashion brands in the near future.

Adopting a digital sourcing platform can also improve unsatisfactory returns and satisfy choosy and demanding consumers.

New Age Fashion Brands to Change the Industry Game

In recent years, the next generation of fashion brands has transformed the fashion industry. It has also begun influencing the way consumers buy apparel. Many start-up fashion brands nowadays are born on trending social media and eCommerce platforms like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, or Shopify.

This enables them to connect directly to a broad spectrum of potential customers and offer their products at affordable prices. How? By cutting off wholesale and distributor expenses.

The next generation of fashion brands is also more prompt than incumbent merchants. They respond to the changing demands of today’s consumers by keeping up with the latest styles and trends consistently.

These new-age fashion brands cherish sustainability and transparency. They please their consumers by being transparent about their supply chains and using organic or recycled materials.

So how are these brands making all this possible? Through digital sourcing platforms.

These brands opt for a flexible supply chain that offers Minimum Order Quantity (MOQs), reduced lead times, and a full-service option from manufacturers.

A digital sourcing platform is a key player in enabling a smooth and flexible supply chain. Such a platform can expand business abilities, fill vacant capacities in factories immediately, and boost profits.

Key benefits of adopting Digital Sourcing Platform

Any blunders in an exceptionally time-sensitive garment procurement process can give rise to production & shipping delays. This can result in additional costs and, ultimately, losses for both manufacturers and purchasers. It is a sad reality that in the hastily progressing world of fabrics and garments, keeping up with the competition is a challenging task.

However, brands can retain their competitive edge by implementing the latest digital sourcing platform to reach potential customers and boost sales. Here are some of the top benefits of adopting a digital sourcing platform for a fashion manufacturing brand.

1. Improved Online Visibility and Awareness

Fashion brands that adopt a digital sourcing platform can boost their marketing game by automatically showing up in front of potential customers. A digital sourcing platform offers a contemporary online presence where brands can provide detailed information about their products. This aids brands in reducing costs related to customer acquisition and increases the quality and quantity of inbound leads.

2. Significant Leads and Request for Quotes (RFQs)

Fashion brands usually get several RFQs, but only a small number of them fit their preferences in terms of quality, cost, or brand value. A digital sourcing platform eradicates this commotion and ensures that only quality leads and RFQs that are truly significant and worth a dealer’s time are sent further.

3. Amplified Profits

A digital sourcing platform brings purchasers and manufacturers closer and simplifies communication from start-to-end during the entire supply chain. This saves all the money spent on intermediaries and distributors involved in the sourcing process. Brands can use the saved money to improve production capabilities, thus amplifying overall profits.

4. Streamlined Communication

A digital sourcing platform makes the entire communication during the sourcing process relatively easy. It eradicates unnecessary misunderstandings or wrong expectations among purchasers and manufacturers. Purchasers know exactly what to expect from a manufacturer. This ensures a loyal customer base and builds a good reputation for brands.

5. Stress-free Integration into Current Manufacturing Processes

A digital sourcing platform can easily integrate into a brand’s current workflow. It is in-built with various highly used communication tools such as email, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc.

6. Easy Access to Global Network

Fashion manufacturing brands and merchants can connect to fully assessed garment factories using a digital sourcing platform’s global manufacturer network. They can compare quotes and potential suppliers for the product they want to produce.

Besides, they can also place orders and manage product development and manufacturing processes using the in-built project management tools.

Key Takeaways

• To keep up with the ever-growing competition in the fashion industry, clothing manufacturers need to revamp their business processes and manufacturing approaches.
• Manufacturing vast quantities for a handful of big brands with 16 to 18 months lead times is an untenable and fading business model. Any progressive merchant will not appreciate this.
• Fashion manufacturers must hunt dynamic strategies to get closer to purchasers and better understand them. This can't be done through agents or trading businesses.
• The impact of a digital sourcing system on a fashion business can be electrifying.
• Fashion brands adopting a digital sourcing solution can decrease sourcing expenses and reduce their average lead time by 2 to 8 weeks. This will help attain the swiftness required in the demand-driven fashion industry. At Fashinza, we offer a tech-enabled manufacturing platform for fashion brands and simplify their sourcing journey. If you wish to tackle all the sourcing challenges in the fashion manufacturing industry, then partner with Fashinza today and adopt its cutting-edge digital sourcing and manufacturing services. This platform is developed to cater to the market's changing requirements of rising DNVBs. Fashinza digitizes the complete procurement process and makes the entire supply chain operation hassle-free. Fashinza helps wipe out the confusion in fashion sourcing and manufacturing processes. This improves supply chain transparency and lays the foundation for successful brand building.