Wholesale fashion distribution
This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (June 2012) |
Wholesale fashion distribution refers to the global market of bulk clothing sales, in which producers, wholesalers and sellers are involved in a commercial, business-to-business process.
Procedure
Most
Wholesale businesses
Many intermediaries exist to assure product quality or to hold stocks until needed by retailers who often have limited storage and retail space; they also help smaller retailers avoid issues like
Risks
Business always involves risk, especially in a market strongly controlled by powerful fashion houses and manufacturers at one end and fickle consumers at the other. Fashion designers have to take into consideration the global supply chains and the seasonality of clothing which often means that clothing must be bought months or a year in advance and credit, transportation and warehousing arranged on tight deadlines.[3] Producers are the ones that set up the apparel stocks starting prices and consumers are the ones that choose to buy or not a product sold at a certain price. Despite increasingly sophisticated tools like
Related concepts
A related concept is drop shipping, a commercial process used in direct-to-consumer marketing. A drop-shipper relies on a third party, like an online fashion blog to generate consumer interest and initiate an electronic order that is sent to the drop shipper's warehouse for fulfillment. The profits are split between the drop shipper and the nominal seller at a pre-arranged rate, usually involving a commission structure. Because only the drop shipper has physical facilities, the notional online "retailer" faces much lower costs. This allows consumers to realize prices closer to the wholesale level, but it disadvantages retailers who lose control over many aspects of customer service, discounting, packaging etc.[4]
See also
- Wholesale marketing
References
- ^ "Tax History".
- ^ "Entrepreneur". February 2008.
- ^ "Distribution channels".
- ^ "Retailing".