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Explore Nina Mesh's board "Trends SS19" on Pinterest. | See more ideas about Color palettes, Colors and Trends 2018.

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Cotton - facts and general information from Swicofil

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Swicofil is the trusted name in the textile industry for cotton yarns, especially in fine counts.

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History, uses, and manufacturing of polyester.

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Viscose rayon - the oldest man made fiber - versatile fiber yarn

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Rayon viscose is the first man made natural filament yarn and staple fiber for versatile end uses such as apparel, domestic textiles, automotive applications, embroidery and in rubber goods

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Garment Tech Pack Check List _ Chris Walker _ Pulse _ LinkedIn

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Tech Pack- Specification Sheet (Front) 30072018 V2

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Click here to read our new and updated 2018 Gen Z Shopping Survey. For the purpose of this blog and infographic, Gen Z refers to those aged 14-21, Gen Y 22-35 and Gen X 36-55.
Generation Z. Born post-1995, in the age group 14-21, they've proved a difficult bunch to define; previously upcoming 'influencers' within the retail and hospitality market but now with new-found buying power and a disruptive influence that makes them the most lucrative market to target.

They're switched on, price conscious, and hyper connected to their surroundings - including social media and technology. They want it now, they won't wait, and have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips ready to influence their buying decisions.

After researching Gen Y and Gen X shopping habits last year, Retail Assist's latest survey has revealed some critical information regarding Gen Z shopping habits, and debunked some common myths that might surprise you...
Here are our top 5 takeaways from the survey:

The high street is not dead for Gen Z, with 58% of respondents choosing this as their favourite method of shopping.

Click and collect is not popular with Gen Z: 61% have never used it.

Nearly three quarters of Gen Z don't have their favourite retailer's app installed on their smartphone.

73% of Gen Z would made a purchase due to a social media recommendation.

When shopping, 84% of Gen Z make it a social activity, i.e. a part of their day out, lunch/coffee/cinema.

Please feel free to share the following full infographic of our findings.
Analysis
So, of the Gen Z-ers surveyed, what surprised us here?
High St reigns supreme.
Thought Gen Z was all about the online experience, clicks over bricks, and ecomm dominance? Think again. 58% of those we surveyed prefer to shop on the High Street, the highest percentage of any generation, compared to 40% of Gen Y and 48% of Gen X. Analysing the practical reasons behind this: not many 16y/os have online spending power - unable to transact online without a debit card, most shop with cash. With a lack of patience and a desire to acquire fast fashion "now", the high street is also the best place to do so with no waiting for deliveries and the ability to take the product literally straight off the shelf.
'Appy shoppers? Not for Gen Z.
Although Gen Z admit being glued to their smartphones, 74% of them do not have their favourite retailer's app installed. There are subtleties to be considered with Gen Z: just because they browse for products on their smartphones and devices, this doesn't mean they desire an app to complete a purchase. The reason? Many of this age range don't have big enough data contracts on their phones to support multiple app downloads. Instead, they prefer to use their devices to browse social media in order to discover more about product ranges.

What was concretized?
Social media addiction.
Gen Z idols are YouTube stars, vloggers, and Insta-famous fashionistas. They live in constant "FOMO", fear of missing out, especially when something new is released. And all of this revolves around social media as their primary method of research.

73% of Gen Z would made a purchase due to a social media recommendation, compared to 60% of Gen Y and only 52% of Gen X. For Gen Z, social media is the real targeted sweet-spot for retailers to tap into.
The generation of leisure.
There is a strong synergy between retail and hospitality for Gen Z, reflected in the fact that 84% of those surveyed make shopping a part of their day out, whether than be visiting the cinema, grabbing lunch or a coffee. If Gen Z prefer to hit the high street to shop rather than shop online, this might explain why the shopping experience is viewed as more of a leisure activity. For the younger Gen Z members, having social freedom to venture into their nearby town is often new and exciting, and they demand a retail/hospitality experience to meet that expectation.

This means ensuring that your products are always in stock in the appropriate range of styles and sizes to keep this experience fluid, allowing Gen Z members to browse online and come into your store to purchase. Implementing an efficient retail stock management system is a way for retailers to meet these expectations.

What took you most by surprise about Gen Z and their shopping habits? Do you think retailers need to change their current tactics when it comes to targeting the next generation? Post your comments below.

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Gen Z vs Gen X vs Gen Y: Shopping Habits Survey | Retail Assist

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Click here to read our new and updated 2018 Gen Z Shopping Survey. For the purpose of this blog and infographic, Gen Z refers to those aged 14-21, Gen Y 22-35 and Gen X 36-55. Generation Z.

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Three issues hold the key to working successfully with Chinese suppliers.

Five years ago, flights to China from Europe, North America, and Japan were filled with sales managers seeking markets for their companies' products. Today those flights have as many procurement and supply chain managers as marketers. Leading Western and Japanese companies are no less eager to source Chinese parts and products for developed markets than to sell into one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

The country's rapid rise as a low-cost manufacturing hub is what draws these men and women. Retailing giants such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart Stores are going to China to buy an expanding range of goods-from televisions and tools to clothing and crockery-for 25 to 50 percent less than the cost of comparable goods made in developed countries. Automakers around the world are pressing their leading suppliers to open operations in China or are themselves trying to source components there (see " Global sourcing in the auto industry"). Although the proportion of goods sourced in this way remains small even for companies that began buying Chinese-made goods more than a decade ago, the pace is accelerating, particularly in high technology, consumer electronics, retailing, and some industrial goods. The result is that leaders in these sectors are gaining cost advantages over competitors that source components or finished goods mostly in the developed world.

Although the opportunity is certainly enticing, it can be hard to get the many pieces of a procurement operation in China right. Lessons learned ten years ago by companies as they set up purchasing operations in other low-cost regions, such as Brazil and Mexico, travel only so far. Finding high-quality suppliers and negotiating agreements with them is a problem that companies face in any new locale, for example, but the greater geographic distance between suppliers in China and headquarters makes the job tougher for companies based in North and South America. Another challenge is coming to terms with the widespread use of sourcing agents, which can be a boon or a bane, depending on what individual companies need. Then too there are issues-such as sorting out logistics, securing reliable broadband connections, and cultural and language differences-that companies rarely face at home.

Those that do establish successful sourcing operations in China concentrate on a few fundamentals. They make changes at the home office to address the organizational inertia that can slow down the introduction of a purchasing program in China. They attend to the details, monitoring suppliers as closely as possible. And like one Western company that set and exceeded a $100 million first-year target, they establish a firm goal for sourcing and do what they must to achieve it. Such companies also learn to build local capabilities by staffing teams carefully and using third parties to support them in important tasks, such as quality assurance and logistics.

In these ways, companies lay a foundation they can use to relocate bigger and more crucial pieces of their supply chain operations. They gain cost and operational advantages that competitors can't match and capabilities that competitors can't easily replicate.

Opportunities and hurdles

Manufacturing accounted for 60 percent of China's GDP growth over the past decade. Multinationals set up operations there, and domestic companies expanded to make goods for export and to sell products and services to multinationals doing business in the country. But that was just the start of the boom.

Even though Ford Motor and General Motors have considerably beefed up their supply lines from China during the past few years, for example, those goods constitute only a fraction of the components used in their vehicles. If the two automakers sourced half of their basic parts (such as carpets, castings, electronics, tires, and wiring) from China, they could together save more than $10 billion a year. Both say that they expect to increase their purchases of Chinese-made parts vastly.

Companies in other sectors are also racing up the Chinese sourcing curve. Wal-Mart bought about $10 billion to $15 billion worth of goods from China in 2003 and hopes to almost double that amount by 2007. Other retailers, including Best Buy, Carrefour, and Tesco, have equally ambitious plans.

The potential is impressive, but so are the difficulties, ranging from intellectual-property infringements and customs delays to poor communication between headquarters and suppliers. Ford reportedly did not meet its target of sourcing $1 billion worth of components from China last year, largely because the job of evaluating suppliers and establishing supply chain connections was bigger than the company had thought. But these hurdles, while daunting, can be overcome. Our work with companies that source goods in China suggests that three important issues should be addressed at the outset; other problems can be resolved later.

Inertia at headquarters

One of the biggest barriers to a Chinese sourcing program is resistance from middle managers at home, who often have a limited perspective. If their performance is measured on inventory turns, for example, they might worry that distant and uncertain supply lines will require them to hold larger inventories, thereby driving up costs and reducing turns. Similarly, logistics managers, who are evaluated on their ability to economize, warn that using far-flung suppliers will push up costs. Procurement managers wave the yellow flag about the quality of goods, while product designers, manufacturing chiefs, and plant managers all have objections of their own.

And they are right, from their specific points of view. Inventory and logistics costs will rise. Adjustments will be needed to deal with the new risks of managing suppliers in China. But companies that succeed there have demonstrated that the benefits of lower-cost purchasing almost always outweigh the increase in operational costs and risks. Even after accounting for them, one retailer recorded overall savings of more than 20 percent in its sourcing operation.

Managers at such companies see the bigger picture. They commit the time needed to make the case for change, sell it internally, and transform organizational structures, incentives, and performance measures. And as we have seen in our own work, there is also clear direction from the top. Without unambiguous support from senior executives, programs languish when procurement departments or operational managers try to implement them.

Executives can overcome resistance to change by making a persuasive case for it. Some sponsor efforts to develop total-cost-of-ownership models that show whether the benefits of sourcing in China outweigh the additional logistics costs, lower inventory turns, and risks to quality (exhibit). At one high-tech company, for instance, managers from functions such as logistics and procurement worked with the CFO to create such a model. This exercise not only encouraged them to buy into the final assessment but also helped middle managers identify cross-functional sourcing issues, including how to get the logistics, inventory, and marketing teams working together to manage longer supply chains.

In addition, executives must find ways to minimize the pain of process changes and to make them acceptable quickly. One manufacturer began by using its existing processes to select, approve, negotiate with, and manage vendors instead of setting up a special Chinese initiative staffed by employees whose powers usurped the authority of sourcing and product managers. Processes and sourcing roles changed only after the company became comfortable working with Chinese suppliers. This manufacturer believes that the experiment helped its managers design a better sourcing program by allowing them to learn gradually about new approaches to purchasing, logistics, selecting vendors, and negotiations.

As a short-term measure, companies might redesign their performance incentives in order to encourage purchasing managers to buy goods from China. One retailer introduced "incubation" incentives to motivate its buyers, rewarding them with bonuses for the volume of products they sourced there.

Building capabilities

To source goods directly from China, a company must learn a set of basic capabilities. These include ensuring quality and control (evaluating a supplier's ability to meet requirements, for example), testing preproduction prototypes or samples, and assessing packing procedures. Logistics activities such as satisfying customs regulations and arranging shipments are important as well.

During the transition phase, a company might work with China-based agents-trading intermediaries that buy and ship goods-until it had identified and trained the internal talent needed to deal directly with Chinese suppliers. The first of the intermediaries to go will be those that merely buy and sell, because they offer the least added value. Naturally, these agents are likely to pull out all the stops to keep their treasured positions by arguing that they understand local business practices better than overseas managers can. They also claim to do the heavy lifting so foreign companies don't have to spend time trawling for suppliers, negotiating deals, and establishing infrastructure and organizations to manage supply. Ultimately, they will contend, they can "do a better job for you than you can do for yourself here."

In our experience, foreign companies can actually learn to do quite well for themselves, whatever the agents' persuasive claims to the contrary. The real issue is how to decide when to use third parties. If a company sources more than $100 million a year in goods from China, it makes economic sense to have a unit there that can go directly to suppliers, because the cost of running a direct-procurement operation is a third or less of what agents charge. But though they should generally be used as sparingly as possible and according to strict criteria, there are reasons to take advantage of the specialized services that some of them offer: certain agents are skilled at handling delicate materials or complex product categories, for example, or have exclusive rights to particular factories. Moreover, a steady flow of agents through a procurement office can promote market-led innovation and provide useful information about changes in the supplier base.

Direct sourcing may be cost-effective even if a company procures as little as $40 million a year in goods. In this case, however, it can turn to an array of specialist third-party providers that help it identify reliable suppliers, provide quality assurance and control, and perform logistics tasks. Combining in-house activity with the use of third parties permits a company with lower levels of direct sourcing to set up its own office in China and start reducing its reliance on intermediaries while capturing significant savings.

Companies that set up their own procurement operations should focus on building their leadership teams. Four important posts must be filled: the heads of the office, procurement and merchandising, quality assurance and control, and logistics. The ideal candidate for each role will have a knowledge of the company, the industry, and China-and be fluent in Mandarin. As many companies have discovered, the perfect candidate rarely exists. If no single person can be found for a job, it might be necessary to build a team that amalgamates these qualities.

Attention to detail

Direct sourcing is a complicated set of activities involving many detailed decisions, from selecting suppliers to managing production, quality, inventory, and logistics. Executives know that companies can stumble in any of these activities as they expand their sourcing options around the world. What surprises executives about sourcing in China is the number of details that can go wrong and the effort required to hold a program together. Companies find that they have to pay much more attention than expected to monitoring their suppliers' flow processes-working back from expected delivery dates to check that suppliers receive raw materials on time and meet every subsequent milestone until the products ship. In other words, you have to be there. Without hands-on supervision and quick action when milestones are missed, companies face delays. Intensive monitoring is required in every industry and with most suppliers in China.

This level of attention, though not unheard-of elsewhere, isn't common. What makes China particularly tricky is geographic distance. Managers must not only spend more time on tactical details but also-particularly in the case of North and South American corporations-must do so in vexingly different time zones: they might have to get on the telephone in the middle of the night to communicate with colleagues half a world away. Companies that haven't mastered the details incur shipment delays and additional costs. More important, some find that because they are constantly fighting fires, it is difficult to scale up the sourcing they do in China.

Setting the stage

Solving the leadership conundrum at home and establishing effective sourcing capabilities in China are today's challenges. Companies that get it right will be in a position to establish a long-term source of competitive advantage by taking the operations they build in China today to the next level.

One way would be developing additional capabilities in China to cut cycle times. Upstream activities such as the approval of prototypes and samples could be moved there and kept close to the manufacturing operations of suppliers, thus reducing the need to rely on headquarters. Streamlining this back-and-forth process could trim by a third the time-currently half a year or more in many cases-needed to develop and make new products. Bringing them to market more quickly can have a tremendous impact on a company's economics by improving its understanding of consumers, increasing the accuracy of forecasts, and reducing stockouts and markdowns. European "fast-fashion" retailers such as H&M and Zara have shown the possibilities of this model close to home. The next such opportunity is applying it to products from China.

Another possibility would be to relocate postproduction tasks there. Attaching price labels, ironing and hanging garments, packing consumer electronics product kits, repacking pallets for delivery to points of sale-all of these activities, currently undertaken in Western warehouses, could be completed more cheaply in China.

Shifting responsibility for procurement or even warehouse activities is a challenge. Not least important, a company that goes down this road will find it necessary to create a local staff that can make the correct decisions. Talented engineers and designers will have to be moved from headquarters or recruited and trained in China. More problematic still, headquarters staff will be required to surrender some decision-making power to counterparts based in that country. Processes and IT will have to change so that people can share information and images (for example, of designs or samples) and feel comfortable about decisions made under the new arrangements.

Procurement practices may well prove to be a source of competitive advantage. Companies that have strong ties to suppliers in China could work with them to adopt best practices that cut operating costs and improve lead times, as Toyota Motor has done in past years. Manufacturers, which already know how to run factories efficiently, will find this approach easier to implement than retailers will. Although retailers will have to learn new skills, they won't find it beyond their powers. Companies could also introduce sophisticated procurement tools, such as clean-sheet costing, to drive down supply costs further and to set targets for future cost benefits that could be shared by supplier and buyer.

But efforts to build for tomorrow must begin today. The significant competitive operating advantages that companies could begin to harvest in China within three to five years will be possible only for those that establish the proper fundamentals right away.

About the author(s)

Robert Campbell is a consultant and Jimmy Hexter is a principal in McKinsey's Beijing office; Karen Yin is a consultant in the Shanghai office.

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Three issues hold the key to working successfully with Chinese suppliers. Five years ago, flights to China from Europe, North America, and Japan were filled with sales managers seeking markets for their companies' products. Today those flights have as many procurement and supply chain managers as marketers.

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sourcing from china

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Zara, Next, Mango Slammed for Leaving Workers Without Wages in Turkish Factory

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The workers have sought justice in Turkish court and won their case. Legally they are owed the full three months of wages and severance payments. As over one year since the closure of the factory in July 2016 there is no satisfactory solution in sight yet, the workers, supported by the union, decided to launch an online petition. They are calling upon conscious consumers to support their campaign for reimbursement for their three months of unpaid labour.

"We demand what is rightfully ours. We only demand the compensation for our labour. Nothing else, nothing more," Yeliz Kutluer, a new mother and former Bravo Tekstil factory worker, says.

The workers had been employed making clothing products for Zara, Next, and Mango. Despite 75% of the factory's overall production being for Zara, and Zara making record profits for the first quarter of 2017, Zara has refused to ensure that the workers producing the clothing that made them those profits were fully compensated for their labour. Next and Mango have also refused to take responsibility for all 140 Bravo Tekstil workers who are now left with nothing. The amount the workers are asking for is 2,739,281.30 Turkish Lira (about 650,000 euros), which in case of Inditex's, Zara's parent company, constitutes less than 0.01% of for only the first quarter of 2017.

"Brands are principal employers. They have proven time and again that they control every aspect of their orders to their suppliers. Therefore, it is clear that it is in their power to make sure that all workers who produce their apparel receive their monthly wages and are working in safe conditions, and morally they must do so," says Bego Demir of Clean Clothes Campaign Turkey.

After more than a year of negotiation Zara, Next, and Mango have not been able to come with a settlement to fully compensate all 140 workers in the factory. The brands' offer would cover only about a fourth of the amount agreed upon by the workers. Azem Atmaca, a former Bravo machinery operator, stresses that it would be unacceptable to find a solution for less than the full group of 140 workers: "One worker would get his money and the other wouldn't. We all have families and children."

Sudden factory closures are not uncommon in the garment industry, in which competition is fierce and capital flexible. Within the garment industry supply chain, power is concentrated at the top, where major brands such as Zara, Next and Mango make high profits and have a lot of leverage over the factories vying for their orders. Past precedents in Indonesia, Cambodia and Latin America, involving major brands such as adidas, Nike, H&M and Walmart, have shown that brands can and should take responsibility to ensure that abandoned workers in their supply chain are paid their legally owed back wages and severance.

"My father worked so hard. I know well how he worked non-stop, day and night. So I want him to have what he is rightfully owed... (Zara, Next, and Mango) should hear our voice. That's all I want," says the daughter of Hikmet, a former Bravo Tekstil worker. She has been unable to enroll in her second year at university because of her father's financial strain caused by the brands' refusal to compensate him for his work.

Clean Clothes Campaign supports the Bravo Tekstil workers in their struggle for justice and calls on Zara, Next, and Mango to pay the 140 Bravo Tekstil workers what they are rightfully owed.
The workers' petition can be signed here. The workers explain their difficult situation since the closure of the factory in an online video.

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Zara, Next, Mango Slammed for Leaving Workers Without Wages in Turkish Factory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Workers at the Bravo Tekstil factory complex in Istanbul, Turkey are demanding their back wages and severance after working without payment for three months followed by the sudden shutdown of their factory. As the factory was producing for the apparel brand giants Zara, Next, and Mango, Clean Clothes Campaign supports the workers' demand that these brands take responsibility and pay up.

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Zara, Next, Mango Slammed for Leaving Workers Without Wages in Turkish Factory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The workers have sought justice in Turkish court and won their case. Legally they are owed the full three months of wages and severance payments. As over one year since the closure of the factory in July 2016 there is no satisfactory solution in sight yet, the workers, supported by the union, decided to launch an online petition. They are calling upon conscious consumers to support their campaign for reimbursement for their three months of unpaid labour.

"We demand what is rightfully ours. We only demand the compensation for our labour. Nothing else, nothing more," Yeliz Kutluer, a new mother and former Bravo Tekstil factory worker, says.

The workers had been employed making clothing products for Zara, Next, and Mango. Despite 75% of the factory's overall production being for Zara, and Zara making record profits for the first quarter of 2017, Zara has refused to ensure that the workers producing the clothing that made them those profits were fully compensated for their labour. Next and Mango have also refused to take responsibility for all 140 Bravo Tekstil workers who are now left with nothing. The amount the workers are asking for is 2,739,281.30 Turkish Lira (about 650,000 euros), which in case of Inditex's, Zara's parent company, constitutes less than 0.01% of for only the first quarter of 2017.

"Brands are principal employers. They have proven time and again that they control every aspect of their orders to their suppliers. Therefore, it is clear that it is in their power to make sure that all workers who produce their apparel receive their monthly wages and are working in safe conditions, and morally they must do so," says Bego Demir of Clean Clothes Campaign Turkey.

After more than a year of negotiation Zara, Next, and Mango have not been able to come with a settlement to fully compensate all 140 workers in the factory. The brands' offer would cover only about a fourth of the amount agreed upon by the workers. Azem Atmaca, a former Bravo machinery operator, stresses that it would be unacceptable to find a solution for less than the full group of 140 workers: "One worker would get his money and the other wouldn't. We all have families and children."

Sudden factory closures are not uncommon in the garment industry, in which competition is fierce and capital flexible. Within the garment industry supply chain, power is concentrated at the top, where major brands such as Zara, Next and Mango make high profits and have a lot of leverage over the factories vying for their orders. Past precedents in Indonesia, Cambodia and Latin America, involving major brands such as adidas, Nike, H&M and Walmart, have shown that brands can and should take responsibility to ensure that abandoned workers in their supply chain are paid their legally owed back wages and severance.

"My father worked so hard. I know well how he worked non-stop, day and night. So I want him to have what he is rightfully owed... (Zara, Next, and Mango) should hear our voice. That's all I want," says the daughter of Hikmet, a former Bravo Tekstil worker. She has been unable to enroll in her second year at university because of her father's financial strain caused by the brands' refusal to compensate him for his work.

Clean Clothes Campaign supports the Bravo Tekstil workers in their struggle for justice and calls on Zara, Next, and Mango to pay the 140 Bravo Tekstil workers what they are rightfully owed.
The workers' petition can be signed here. The workers explain their difficult situation since the closure of the factory in an online video.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Zara, Next, Mango Slammed for Leaving Workers Without Wages in Turkish Factory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Workers at the Bravo Tekstil factory complex in Istanbul, Turkey are demanding their back wages and severance after working without payment for three months followed by the sudden shutdown of their factory. As the factory was producing for the apparel brand giants Zara, Next, and Mango, Clean Clothes Campaign supports the workers' demand that these brands take responsibility and pay up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The workers have sought justice in Turkish court and won their case. Legally they are owed the full three months of wages and severance payments. As over one year since the closure of the factory in July 2016 there is no satisfactory solution in sight yet, the workers, supported by the union, decided to launch an online petition. They are calling upon conscious consumers to support their campaign for reimbursement for their three months of unpaid labour.

"We demand what is rightfully ours. We only demand the compensation for our labour. Nothing else, nothing more," Yeliz Kutluer, a new mother and former Bravo Tekstil factory worker, says.

The workers had been employed making clothing products for Zara, Next, and Mango. Despite 75% of the factory's overall production being for Zara, and Zara making record profits for the first quarter of 2017, Zara has refused to ensure that the workers producing the clothing that made them those profits were fully compensated for their labour. Next and Mango have also refused to take responsibility for all 140 Bravo Tekstil workers who are now left with nothing. The amount the workers are asking for is 2,739,281.30 Turkish Lira (about 650,000 euros), which in case of Inditex's, Zara's parent company, constitutes less than 0.01% of for only the first quarter of 2017.

"Brands are principal employers. They have proven time and again that they control every aspect of their orders to their suppliers. Therefore, it is clear that it is in their power to make sure that all workers who produce their apparel receive their monthly wages and are working in safe conditions, and morally they must do so," says Bego Demir of Clean Clothes Campaign Turkey.

After more than a year of negotiation Zara, Next, and Mango have not been able to come with a settlement to fully compensate all 140 workers in the factory. The brands' offer would cover only about a fourth of the amount agreed upon by the workers. Azem Atmaca, a former Bravo machinery operator, stresses that it would be unacceptable to find a solution for less than the full group of 140 workers: "One worker would get his money and the other wouldn't. We all have families and children."

Sudden factory closures are not uncommon in the garment industry, in which competition is fierce and capital flexible. Within the garment industry supply chain, power is concentrated at the top, where major brands such as Zara, Next and Mango make high profits and have a lot of leverage over the factories vying for their orders. Past precedents in Indonesia, Cambodia and Latin America, involving major brands such as adidas, Nike, H&M and Walmart, have shown that brands can and should take responsibility to ensure that abandoned workers in their supply chain are paid their legally owed back wages and severance.

"My father worked so hard. I know well how he worked non-stop, day and night. So I want him to have what he is rightfully owed... (Zara, Next, and Mango) should hear our voice. That's all I want," says the daughter of Hikmet, a former Bravo Tekstil worker. She has been unable to enroll in her second year at university because of her father's financial strain caused by the brands' refusal to compensate him for his work.

Clean Clothes Campaign supports the Bravo Tekstil workers in their struggle for justice and calls on Zara, Next, and Mango to pay the 140 Bravo Tekstil workers what they are rightfully owed.
The workers' petition can be signed here. The workers explain their difficult situation since the closure of the factory in an online video.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Zara, Next, Mango Slammed for Leaving Workers Without Wages in Turkish Factory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Workers at the Bravo Tekstil factory complex in Istanbul, Turkey are demanding their back wages and severance after working without payment for three months followed by the sudden shutdown of their factory. As the factory was producing for the apparel brand giants Zara, Next, and Mango, Clean Clothes Campaign supports the workers' demand that these brands take responsibility and pay up.

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How ensuring social compliance can help grow Turkey's textile industry

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How ensuring social compliance can help grow Turkey's textile industry

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Social compliance is essential in any manufacturing sector. In the apparel industry, adhering to set standards, practices, industry rules and government regulations can mean the difference between brand failure and brand success.

However, remaining socially compliant is often neglected in garment factories around the world, mainly due to the organizational costs involved with being socially compliant. Moreover, many brand's manufacturing facilities are located in developing countries where worker exploitation and environmental damage often goes undetected. This is where the help of textile specialists comes in. They conduct various social audits to ensure that a brand's entire supply chain conforms to recognized standards of production in order to produce high-quality products while maximizing profits.

In this blog post, we take a closer look at textile social compliance in the Turkish garment industry and what impact social & CSR audits can have on the industry.

The Turkish Textile Industry

The Turkish Textile Industry experienced widespread industrialization between 1920 and 1970 and began developing its thriving garment exporting industry on a mass scale in the 1980s. After China and Bangladesh, the Turkish clothing industry is the third largest cotton importer in the world, because their domestic output does not fully meet its demands.

Between 2009 and 2013, the sector experienced significant changes which lead to the gradual loss of its cost advantage. This was because of the trade liberalization as well as the constant search for educated and qualified workers which caused a nearly doubling of the textile industry worker's salaries in Turkey. The garment sector also experienced a decline in exports in 2014 from $18.5bn in 2014 to about $17bn in 2016.

However, Turkey managed to recover from its cost advantage loss towards the end of 2016 as the Turkish Lira devalued by 40% against the Euro making exports easier. Because the Turkish textile industry is integrated, the negative effects of devaluation were only limited to raw fiber imports and energy costs. The apparel and textile industry in Turkey continues to experience consistent growth and still has growth potential for the future. Among the top 3 in the world, Turkey is the number one supplier to Europe in yarns and accounted for 16.7% of the EU's total textile imports and 11.7% of clothing imports in 2015. Furthermore, the Istanbul Apparel Exporters' Association (IHKIB) states that in 2016, textile exports to the EU rose 8.6% year-on-year in 2016 to $4.01bn. The UK was the textile sector's biggest export market in Europe after Germany, accounting for 9% and receiving $2.01bn in ready-made garments in 2016.

Optimism runs high within the country's textile sector, as exports have increased to markets like Iran, the Us, Algeria, Poland, Israel, and Bulgaria. Even though the sector has gone through several negative experiences in the past, an ambitious export target has been set, specifically for the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic of $72bn which is almost triple.

What are some of the problems?

As a result of last year's ongoing war between Turkey's neighboring countries, Syria and Iraq, many Turkish garment factories have been scrutinized for employing unregistered Syrian refugees who are subject to low wages and long working hours. Unfortunately, many garment factories owners may not be aware on how to register the refugees for a work permit, and they don't have necessary systems put into place such as labor contracts and training needed to employ them.

There are a few typical employee and workplace grievances such as pay and benefits, workloads, working conditions, union and management relations and poor labor relations. Implementing grievance systems are crucial for adhering to international garment compliance standards, but, these methods are rarely enforced in factories in Turkey, and those that do, don't always present best practices. Another problem that often arises is that employers use manipulation tactics to coach their workers to say the right thing when anaudit is being conducted.

How can textile specialists help?

Working with third-party textile quality specialists will ensure that compliance standards are met throughout your entire supply chain. In some cases, brands may not be aware of the worker exploitation that occurs in some of their second-tier and third-tier suppliers' factories. Quality specialists put a stop to any social issues through remediation. They provide adequate education to factory owners, management, and workers about communication and how to do so efficiently within the factory across all departments.

They allow factory owners to experience the full benefits of grievance systems which are the increased happiness and productivity of employees, a better working environment and a decrease in absenteeism and employee turnover. To prevent any management from interfering during their factory assessments, they start interviews with employees on the production floor as well as in the lunch hall. They also begin the social audit from the minute they walk into the factory to prevent management from hiding any unregistered laborers.

Social audit risks tend to be prominent with subcontractors. Therefore, textile specialists use audits as a tool to investigate and map subcontractor's activity to bring visibility to the supply chain as well as set further action to mitigate the reputational risks. However, social audits are not only used to assess a factory's compliance but also to help educate both management and employees about labor laws, safety regulations, and best practices.

For example, Turkey has set up a clear and well-structured legal framework which makes it very easy to get work permits for refugees who are under temporary protection. Specialists can assist factory owners with obtaining work permits for refugees by getting them registered with the government after which they'll receive a temporary identification document. Since Syrian refugees can't provide a high level of documentation (diploma, birth certificate, wedding certificate, etc.), the legislation requires no physical paperwork for refugees who apply for work permits as foreigners under temporary protection. The application can be made online by the employer via the e-Government website ( www.turkiye.gov.tr or www.calismaizni.gov.tr ).

However, in many cases, social noncompliance is a result of lack of awareness and resources, rather than the unwillingness to be cooperative. Therefore, working with textile specialists is the best way to ensure textile social compliance for your apparel brand.
Do you have any questions regarding social compliance, social audits or the apparel industry in general? We're the experts and would love to help! Please feel free to leave a comment below, we'll happily respond! ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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How ensuring social compliance can help grow Turkey's textile industry

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Social compliance is essential in any manufacturing sector. In the apparel industry, adhering to set standards, practices, industry rules and government regulations can mean the difference between brand failure and brand success. However, remaining socially compliant is often neglected in garment factories around the world, mainly due to the organizational costs involved with being socially compliant.

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Turkey violence: How dangerous is Turkey's instability?

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Turkey violence: How dangerous is Turkey's instability?

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Turkey's biggest cities have witnessed a spate of deadly bombings and a bloody attempted coup.

For so long a beacon of stability between Europe and the Middle East, Turkey has entered a period of high tension.

It has long fought Kurdish militants in its restive east. Now it is trying to prevent Islamist militant violence spreading from Syria and is cracking down on suspected supporters of the failed July 2016 coup.

How dangerous is the current crisis?

Turkey's main population centres of Ankara and Istanbul have endured a wave of deadly bomb and gun attacks, as well as a failed coup that saw tanks on the streets and fighter jets targeting parliament.

In a matter of months, Istanbul has seen rebel soldiers take over the bridges across the Bosphorus, a double bombing outside Besiktas football stadium, and a gun attack blamed on jihadist group Islamic State (IS) targeting New Year revellers at an exclusive nightclub on the waterfront.

Ankara has witnessed the assassination of its Russian ambassador. Other cities such as Izmir in the west and Kayseri in central Turkey have been targeted too.

The human cost has been immense. At least 270 people died on 15 and 16 July 2016, when Turkey's government survived an internal rebellion blamed on a movement led by a US-based Islamic cleric.

Thirty-nine people lost their lives on New Year's Eve in the Reina nightclub.

Until recently, the bloodshed was largely confined to the mainly Kurdish areas of the east and south-east, where the Turkish military has battled the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for decades.

But the conflict in Syria and turbulence in domestic politics has created new tensions. And a ceasefire with Kurdish militants proved short-lived.

The message for Turks is clear: that the risk of violence is not limited to the border and it is on several fronts.

Is Turkey safe for tourists?

Turkey is no longer the safe destination that made it one of the world's biggest tourist draws. The coup is over but since July 2016 the country has been under a state of emergency. And yet the main tourist resorts on the coast have avoided the violence seen elsewhere.

France has urged its citizens to exercise great vigilance while travelling and in tourist areas; the UK says that while it is generally safe to travel to Turkey, additional safety precautions should be taken. The US warns its citizens of "increased threats from terrorist groups throughout Turkey".

Tourists are not a target for Kurdish militants but they are for IS, which targeted Istanbul airport last June because it has become one of Europe's busiest transport hubs, attracting almost 42 million passengers in 2015.

According to one calculation, Turkey suffered 269 attacks in 2016. Turks themselves have become afraid of going to shopping centres and open spaces, and yet they remain defiant in the face of violence.

"I think we are seeing a downward spiral towards more violence," warns Prof Menderes Cinar of Baskent University in Ankara.

Turkey's tensions: Read more

Why is Turkey challenged on so many fronts?

Turkey sees itself targeted by three groups of "terrorists": IS, Kurdish militants and coup-plotters.

Since the failed 15 July coup, Turkey's government has detained thousands of suspected sympathisers in the security forces. Officials say 41,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 dismissed from jobs in public life.

The focus of the crackdown is a shadowy movement described as a "parallel state", said to owe its allegiance to cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in the US.

But as the purge continues, so too do Turkey's internal security threats.

A long-running internal conflict with Kurdish militants had been quiet for a couple of years, until an IS suicide bomber targeted a rally of young Kurdish activists near the Syrian border at Suruc in July 2015.

Violence in the main cities tended to target party offices, particularly those of the left-wing and pro-Kurdish HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party). The banned Marxist DKHP-C has periodically carried out attacks on police and Western embassies.

But then the ceasefire collapsed. In one year, more than 600 members of the Turkish security forces were killed in attacks blamed on the militant PKK.

A splinter group, the TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Hawks), carried out a string of bloody attacks that killed civilians as well as police and soldiers in Ankara. On 13 March 2016, 37 people died when the TAK targeted a busy transport hub in Ankara and 44 were killed in December when two bombs exploded near police outside Besiktas's Vodafone Arena in Istanbul.

For many Turks, the PKK is no different from its offshoot.

But some of the deadliest and highest-profile attacks have been blamed on IS:

October 2015: More than 100 people died, many of the Kurds, in a double bombing on a peace rally near Ankara station

January and March 2016: Suicide bombers murdered tourists from Germany, Israel and Iran in attacks on Istanbul

June 2016: Forty-five people were killed in a coordinated attack targeting Turks and foreign visitors alike at Ataturk airport in Istanbul

August 2016: A suicide bomber was blamed for murdering 54 people at a wedding party in the southern city of Gaziantep. Twenty-nine of the victims were children

1 January 2017: Gunman kills 39 people at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul

Why is IS targeting Turkey?

Much of the IS violence inside Turkey in recent months, such as the Gaziantep attack, can be put down to reprisal attacks for the Ankara government's policy on Syria.

Although Turkey has long backed Syrian rebels, it has become a major player in the conflict in recent months. In August 2016, Turkey launched a campaign against IS in northern Syria and there has been fierce fighting as it tries to seize control of the group's stronghold of al-Bab.

Together with Russia it organised a halt to fighting in Aleppo, and then a nationwide ceasefire in late December.

But Turkey had initially been a reluctant participant in the Syrian conflict. PKK leader Cemil Bayik even accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of " protecting IS", to stop Kurds advancing against the jihadist group and carving out their own territory in Syria.

Turkey did nevertheless agree in 2014 to take part in the US-led operation against IS and was seen as part of the Nato alliance targeting its bases in Iraq and Syria.

It then sealed off the jihadists' supply of militants crossing over the previously porous border with Syria.

Why has violence erupted with Kurdish militants?

When IS bombed a rally of Kurdish peace activists in Suruc in 2015, there was a clear benefit in seeing Turkey drawn into renewed domestic conflict with Kurdish militants.

Turkey's security forces have since become bogged down in a military campaign against the PKK in the east and south-east. Curfews were imposed on towns and cities for months in 2016 as the Turkish military hunted down Kurdish militants.

Kurdish communities live on both sides of the Turkish border with Syria and have long battled the spread of IS.

But Turkey has no interest in seeing Kurdish territorial gains across its border and part of the incentive to seize al-Bab from IS was to prevent Syrian Kurds from increasing their hold in the area. Turkey has vowed to prevent the creation of a contiguous Kurdish autonomous region along its border with Syria.

Turkey is particularly worried by the rise of the Syrian Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

"Turkey is feeling a very serious existential threat from the PYD and PKK," says Burhanettin Duran, executive director of Turkey's pro-government Seta research institute. "It's a very solid fact that the PYD and the PKK are the same."
Syrian Kurds set sights on al-Bab Profile: Kurdistan Workers' Party - Turkey's decades of armed struggle

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Turkey's biggest cities have witnessed a spate of deadly bombings and a bloody attempted coup. For so long a beacon of stability between Europe and the Middle East, Turkey has entered a period of high tension. It has long fought Kurdish militants in its restive east.

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Group revenues reached £591.7m for the year, with profit before tax reaching £68.8m for the same period.

The brand's growth this year was fuelled by a 10.4% rise in retail sales, to £442.5m. Wholesale sales were also up by 14.6% to £149.2m and licencing income increased 17.6% to £21.4m.

Ted Baker's ecommerce channel continues to thrive, with sales up 39.8% to £149.2m.

Ted Baker founder and chief executive Ray Kelvin told Drapers: "This year's performance is down to the fact we're a brand, and not a retailer - so we have a retail, wholesale and territorial licensing business, but not hundreds of shops in the high street. It's not just about more and more shops. We're reasonably protected and in a very good place."

The brand operates 23 leases in the UK, seven in US, with the rest of the business driven through wholesale and licensing arrangements.

Kelvin said that going forward, the brand will increase its average retail space by 4%, where in the past it "averaged around 11(%)".

"We're not opening more and more shops - we're taking our time and growing the business on the three fronts: shops, wholesale and licensing," he added.

While UK and European sales form the core revenues, up 7.7% to £301.1m, retail sales in the US and Canada grew by 16.2% to £120.1m. The company currently has plans to develop its US presence, with stores opening in Austin and Orlando.

Despite these positive results, the business noted that tough market conditions, as well as adverse weather in Europe and the US, has had an impact on early trading in the spring 18 season, although it highlighted that the collections had been received well and the business remained on track in long and medium term developments.

Kelvin said: "The weather has been pretty awful. This year barely got started and as a global business we've had problems with the weather in the US as well. We had to shut shops last night because of the snow storm in the States. [The situation is] not good at all."

During the past year the business has shifted from three distribution centres to one central European hub, where all logistics operations for retail, ecommerce and wholesale in the UK and Europe are now based.

It also opened new stores, including at London Luton Airport, plus licenced stores or concessions in the likes of Kuwait, Australia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

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Group revenues reached £591.7m for the year, with profit before tax reaching £68.8m for the same period. The brand's growth this year was fuelled by a 10.4% rise in retail sales, to £442.5m. Wholesale sales were also up by 14.6% to £149.2m and licencing income increased 17.6% to £21.4m.

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Ashley Graham: Plus-size? More like my size

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When Ashley Graham first started her modeling career, she was followed everywhere by a label she hates: "plus-size model." Defying such regressive pigeonholing, she explains how she stopped devaluing herself and reclaimed her body as her own.

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Ted Baker in fashion as HSBC Securities starts with ‘buy’, says firm “well placed in challenged markets”

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Ted Baker in fashion as HSBC Securities starts with ‘buy’, says firm “well placed in challenged markets”

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Ted Baker PLC ( LON:TED) shares got a boost on Tuesday after analysts at HSBC Securities initiated coverage on the FTSE 250-listed fashion firm with a 'buy' rating.

The global banking giant's analysts also set a 2,900p price target on the stock, which was trading at 2,286p a share in late morning trading, up 3.8% on Monday's close.

In a note to clients, they said: "We see strong global potential including EM (emerging markets) and online accessed via a flexible, low risk multi-channel operating model."

The analysts added: "We forecast an inflection point in the rate of growth in cash generation from FY19e and earnings from FY20e".

They also pointed out that Ted Baker shares are down around 40% from a three-year peak.

Register here to be notified of future TED Company articles

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Ted Baker in fashion as HSBC Securities starts with 'buy', says firm "well placed in challenged markets"

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Ted Baker PLC ( LON:TED) shares got a boost on Tuesday after analysts at HSBC Securities initiated coverage on the FTSE 250-listed fashion firm with a 'buy' rating. The global banking giant's analysts also set a 2,900p price target on the stock, which was trading at 2,286p a share in late morning trading, up 3.8% on Monday's close.

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The Millennial Pink Bag That Never Weighs Me Down

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The Millennial Pink Bag That Never Weighs Me Down

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THE EDITOR News editor Alyssa Bailey

THE LOVE Ted Baker Earie Bag, $319

Little bags look great on an #ootd Instagram, but the appeal lies in more than the aesthetics. After carrying a heavy work bag all week, wearing one when you no longer need to carry the biggest, heaviest purse in the world is wonderful.

#ELLEloves is a daily place to share the things ELLE editors love. Because sharing is caring.

When I got this Ted Baker accordion bag, I wanted to wear it immediately. Inside, there are three compartments so all my essentials fit in easily: my iPhone, a little wallet, my keys, and hand sanitizer. And with any outfit the purse just pops.

The price is a bit high, sure, but the quality is there. The rose-gold chain strap is very cute, and the burst of pink makes me so happy inside. Whenever I want to give my outfit a little injection of on-trend pink joy, this is what I reach for.

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The Millennial Pink Bag That Never Weighs Me Down

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THE EDITOR News editor Alyssa Bailey THE LOVE Ted Baker Earie Bag, $319 Little bags look great on an #ootd Instagram, but the appeal lies in more than the aesthetics. After carrying a heavy work bag all week, wearing one when you no longer need to carry the biggest, heaviest purse in the world is wonderful.

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Ted Baker distances itself from high street woes as profits climb 

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Ted Baker distances itself from high street woes as profits climb 

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Ray Kelvin, who founded the business in Glasgow in 1988 and remains chief executive, said: "We are a brand, we're not a high street retailer. Everything has been falling into place with our licensing business, wholesale and retail and that bodes well."

Ecommerce sales grew by almost two fifths during the year to £101m, which Mr Kelvin attributed to upgrades in its technology and an improved website.

He added: "We've got new platforms, we've got new warehousing, we've got new logistics, we've got new systems, things we've been working on for the last seven years. So everything is shiny new."

The strong performance sets Ted Baker apart from others in the sector. Earlier this week New Look signed an insolvency deal to close dozens of stores, Carpetright indicated it was likely to follow in its footsteps, and suit rental firm Moss Bros warned profits would be lower than expected.

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Ted Baker distances itself from high street woes as profits climb

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Ray Kelvin, who founded the business in Glasgow in 1988 and remains chief executive, said: "We are a brand, we're not a high street retailer. Everything has been falling into place with our licensing business, wholesale and retail and that bodes well."

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How Ted Baker is using longer-term activations to further connect with consumers

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How Ted Baker is using longer-term activations to further connect with consumers

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How Ted Baker is using longer-term activations to further connect with consumers

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Two years on from the EU Referendum, and the UK's decision to leave the European Union remains as controversial as ever. You don't even have to tune into the weekly slanging matches on political news shows to hear both sides of the story argued with equal passion.

Just consider the torrid time being had on the UK High Street. Retailers are closing doors and going into administration at a rate that's probably unprecedented outside of a recession.

Even the betting shops that flooded into many empty properties in the last downturn could soon face tougher times. With new legislation set to curb the income from their lucrative fixed-odds betting terminals, I wouldn't be surprised to see more vacancies appear as those chains retrench too.

Many who fear for the economic impact of Brexit pin the woes of retailers on the vote to leave, whether because of cost inflation caused by the weaker pound, lower wage growth on the back of a slower economy, or simply consumers generally growing more fearful due to all the uncertainty.

"Nonsense," say Brexiteers in response - the High Street has been challenged for decades, first by out-of-town shopping centres, and more recently by the massive pressures exerted by Amazon and other online retailers as consumers fundamentally change their shopping habit and anyone not thinking ahead gets caught out.

Who's right? I suspect, like the wider debate, there's a bit of truth in both, but I don't propose to get into that today.

What is more interesting from an investing perspective is that not all companies are suffering equally in UK retail's annus horribilis.

Here are five firms bucking the trend - all of which you can invest in if you fancy their long-term chances.

B&M European Value

B&M European Value(LSE: BME) just reported great results, with pre-tax profits rising nearly 24% to £226m. Management explicitly credited the "current difficult economic environment" as partly responsible for the firm's success. It focuses on selling good value merchandise (and increasingly food, following a recent acquisition) to cash-strapped consumers. To date, it has deliberately avoided selling goods online, believing it would hurt its margins. Instead, it concentrates on opening and running stores wherever its customers are, adding 47 new B&M outlets in the past financial year to bring the total to 567. Bricks-and-mortar ain't dead here!

Metro Bank

The major High Street banks keep closing branches and talking up their online offerings, but Metro Bank(LSE: MTRO) is still opening new physical stores in the centre of cities. It looks to be working. In April, Metro announced its total lending had surpassed the £10 billion mark, thanks to year-on-year growth of 69%, while total deposits also grew in the first quarter to £12.7bn. Its customers seem to value having local stores on the High Street, and the bank plans to open another dozen in 2018.

Shoe Zone

Like B&M, Shoe Zone(LSE: SHOE) thrives in the value end of the market. Revenues continued to climb in the first six months of its financial year - not by a lot, but better than the soggy performance of many High Street rivals. The footwear seller has been making a big fuss about its new out-of-town Big Box outlets, but the bulk of its estate of around 500 stores is mostly in traditional shopping destinations. Crucially, Shoe Zone has closed around 5% of its stores since it floated in 2014, and it says this phase of weeding out the loss-makers is now complete. With no debt, I think Shoe Zone should survive the High Street meltdown.

Ted Baker

Okay, so affordable luxury clothing brand Ted Baker(LSE: TED) is no longer a mostly British play - only 195 of its 532 stores are located in Britain, thanks to many years of successfully exporting its brand abroad. However, Ted still seems to be as popular as ever at home, and while recent trading has been a little more difficult, it pins that on the terrible weather. Globally, retail sales jumped over 10% in the past year, and while Ted's online sales are growing fast, too, management believes that "stores remain key to the success of the e-commerce business" as they act as a showcase to customers as well as enabling click-and-collect. Investors don't seem convinced - the share price has slipped lately - but I believe this fancy brand remains well placed for the long term.

Tesco

The past few years were torrid for Tesco(LSE: TSCO), with over-expansion and the incursion of discounters Aldi and Lidl provoking a supermarket price war that crushed its margins (and that's not to venture into the murky financial shenanigans). But Tesco now seems to be getting back to doing what it used to do best - grow. Its traditional superstores grew like-for-like sales 1.9% last year and its convenience stores put on a 2.7% spurt. Yes, its online business is advancing at an even faster clip at over 5%, but that's from a much lower base. For the foreseeable future, I think Tesco's Express stores will remain a feature of our High Street, whatever else comes and goes around them.
Owain owns shares in Amazon and Ted Baker. The Motley Fool has recommended shares in Ted Baker.

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Not everyone on the high street is down in the dumps

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Two years on from the EU Referendum, and the UK's decision to leave the European Union remains as controversial as ever. You don't even have to tune into the weekly slanging matches on political news shows to hear both sides of the story argued with equal passion.

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pricing strategy

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Research on options

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Five basic tips on merchandising and conversion

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Five basic tips on merchandising and conversion

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Merchandising a website takes many forms and is often considered separate to conversion management, but they are in fact deeply integrated.
If you're selling a physical product which requires delivery then merchandising activities could evolve around the category, product, range, accessories and indeed delivery itself.

If you're merchandising a less-tangible product like a service or piece of software, you could merchandise a need, benefits, the service, related products as well as payment options.

Having been asked a few months back to create a presentation on basic merchandising tips I felt compelled to share them with fellow marketers.

Price, Place, Promotion, Product.

The tried and tested 'marketing mix' plays an important role in online merchandising. However, knowing what to do with this and how to translate this into an effective trade plan will differentiate your offering from your competitors.

Knowing how to complement this will help you stand out, and conversion management will provide the edge you need.

Before I start out, this isn't intended to be a nitty gritty in-depth guide to online trading, but instead a view of merchandising and conversion management basics I've found useful over the years.

1. Perceptive propositioning

Between your product and marketing is the proposition. Selling ice to Eskimos is all well and good to prove you're a great salesperson, but in reality it'll not generate brand trust or when reality hits and they discover the product's not right for them.

Getting the proposition right isn't as easy as it sounds. The first touch point is usually through marketing; online, in-store, TV, direct mail to name but a few channels.

Understanding that your online merchandising journey doesn't necessarily start online, let alone start on your website, is a significant first step to getting the proposition right.

The message must carry itself consistently and clearly across the customer journey. And even then there are multiple messages being carried by your marketing yet one website to deliver this, not 10 sales assistants in your store.

Consider the selling of a hotel stay. Are you selling a place to sleep or an experience? Is it functional or aspirational? How does your website make the customer feel? How do they want to feel? Does this carry across your marketing message through to the website?

A low-cost budget hotel sells on price and functionality. The hotel room the customer buys into is the end goal. Conversely the high-end hotel is selling an experience. Sleeping in the room is only part of the experience.

The proposition in both cases is what you're ultimately selling, not the product. It's rarely as clear-cut as this though. Brands serve many types of customer and so getting the proposition right in the way you merchandise your products or services requires a deep understanding of your customer and product affinities.

Getting into the mindset of your customer will also help you get into the forefront of your customer's mind.

2. Pricing and promoting effectively

Cornered a niche? Playing in a competitive field? High-end? Budget brand? No matter where you are, getting the price and promotion mix right is critical.

Consider a subscription site. If you overcharge, you may lose business to a competitor. Undercharge and you may have reduced your revenue potential, yet possibly claim more market share. Are you growing a long-term business or short-term profit?

This is as much about your business and trading objectives as much as the products and target consumers. If you're a high margin retailer, then you may have more bandwidth with price and subsequently offer more price based promotions.

This certainly has its drawbacks, especially when you discount so often that customers refuse to pay full price knowing that if they hold out they'll grab a bargain. If not, a competitor will jump in. Do you act first? Or wait for a competitor to gain the early advantage.

For a low margin product or business, reducing price becomes the last resort and promotions pivot around added extras. Loyalty schemes often drive repeat business through additional rewards for ongoing loyalty, deferring the hit on margin. Or perhaps you focus on high profile loss leaders, creating a perception of price competitiveness.

If you're in a competitive niche, with a limited set of suppliers you'll need a unique selling point to stand out or strong brand advocacy to attract and retain customers.

Another point of differentiation is effectively packaging your price. From experience in travel, this has certainly come out as a key concern for customers over the years in not knowing or understanding the full price of a product until they pull out their credit card.

Pricing effectively takes on many forms yet one of the most common, overlooked aspects for e-retailers is the final price. I won't attempt to try and explore the nuances and annoyances of pricing and checkout abandonment - there's already much written about this.

The key finding I'd share from over the years is that no matter how good or bad your user experience, in a price sensitive economy, customers will more often than not persevere.

This is certainly not a good excuse to skip over a good online experience but optimising your site without getting these two P's right may well leave you spinning your wheels. Get the other two P's right in Product and Placement and you're well on your way.

My tip would be to ensure you remain competitive within your market as much as decreasing attrition.

3. Context is king

Here's the end goal of online trading: to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time at maximum profitability.

Merchandising within the right context is as much about the position within the conversion funnel. Taking a potential customer from prospect to customer to advocate is a key fundamental of conversion management.

Merchandising is concerned with getting the right message or product to the customer, presenting the product in the right way and at the right time.

Merchandising should pivot around the customer's needs, but can also be based on what the customer doesn't think they need. They don't need the latest touch screen gadget but they may like one, or may not even know they'd be interested until you show it to them.

Merchandising doesn't directly concern itself with the user experience, yet this is the foundation of good merchandising. Matching a customer's needs, whether apparent or not, to your product.

As digital marketers we realise consumers shop in many different ways. Some dive straight into a product, others will take a more general browse.

Merchandising context can take into account many aspects of the user journey. Here are a few examples:

First visit? Second?

Prospect? Existing customer?

Time of day - important if you're targeting at-home mums during the day.

Demographics - this could include affluence or life-stage.

Geographic location - think of local targeting.

Source of visit - such as search engine, email, direct, landing page.

I've known businesses that employ a role to simply merchandise the company's various homepages and nothing else, such is the importance placed on the 'shop window', or teams which literally update offers and prices throughout the day based on demand and availability.

Consumers are savvy creatures. I certainly am. I should be, after all, I know the tricks of the trade right? Yet I'm still duped into buying things online that I don't need or didn't intend to buy because it was surfaced at just the right time.

That's clever contextual merchandising. And I love it.

4. Lubricate your path to purchase with a good user experience

A good user experience lubricates your purchase funnel, merchandising provides momentum and direction. This is where the lines of traditional merchandising and conversion rate optimisation can blend into an awesome user experience.

You could argue that Amazon doesn't offer a great user experience yet it somehow drives phenomenal sales. I'd disagree. The experience is efficient. The one-click add-to-basket is addictively good as a consumer.

It's actually far easier to purchase on Amazon than many of the leading e-commerce sites. Yes, there's a lot of clutter and as a usability practitioner it goes against many recommendations, yet the impressive sales figures suggest otherwise.

Have you visited Jacob Nielsen's web usability website? I've been an avid follower for over a decade yet the design has barely changed. His principles have endured. However, I'd argue Jacob is not trading his website.

If the user experience reduces friction, strong merchandising guides them through your site, motivating and inspiring customers. Many websites suffer from fragmentation when it comes to merchandising.

It is extremely difficult to fully merchandise and tailor a website for each consumer. But you can get pretty close. Which leads me onto the next point...

5. Choose the right tools, but moreover, the right people

The range of tools available for your website right now is quite mind-blowing thinking back a decade. Just take a look at this small, but useful list:

With so much access to data and insights, websites continue to struggle with conversion. Whilst you can debate the exact split, for me it falls back to the 80:20 rule of resourcing, your emphasis should certainly be on hiring the right number and expertise of people to operate those tools.

I've lost count of the number of conversations I've had about companies struggling to create insight due to a lack of resource. It can be difficult to justify costs but if you're trading a medium to large website you'll soon hit barriers in keeping the user experience together; you can't put a price on experience and knowledge to turn insights into revenue.

Finally I'll end with what has been the theme for the past few years. The days of silos are in the past. Online and offline marketing is continuing to diverge.

If you run a bricks to clicks business, glean insights from your stores. If you run a sales call centre alongside your website, listen to calls, understand why they're calling. Complement the experience across your channels and indeed devices.

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Five basic tips on merchandising and conversion

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Merchandising a website takes many forms and is often considered separate to conversion management, but they are in fact deeply integrated. If you're selling a physical product which requires delivery then merchandising activities could evolve around the category, product, range, accessories and indeed delivery itself.

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merchandising calculations sheet