This got brought up today, as a page-four type business story, with barely four lines.
For most people who ever shopped around in Germany for summer clothing....you know that the first big deliveries and switch from seasonal fashions....occurs around mid-April.
Ships would typically be arriving with cargo containers from China....with summer fashion items which were 'designed' in the fall of 2019, and production probably started in December, with ships leaving by mid-February.
Well....with the virus in full effect, the production cycle probably never got more than a quarter of the way into the schedule, and cargo containers are a lot less than normal.
So what happens in these German clothing shops in April and May? That's a curious question.
No one is really that worried yet over this, but you tend to market seasonal clothing to profit cycles. If you don't have x-amount of stock.....then you lose on profitability.
If I were the Chinese production 'boss', I might hype up the crew to come in and make a strong attempt to produce the requirements, and hope for last minute shipping to save the day. But if the cargo containers arrive six to ten weeks late.....what exactly will the clothing shops do with the late summer clothing delivery, and will customers buy at that point?
It's an interesting situation, with no clear end-point.
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