The world today distinctly understands the concept of fast fashion and it doesn’t take much time to recall the names of clothing bigwigs like Zara, H&M, Uniqlo, Gap, Primark, Mango or Topshop every time there’s a mention of fast fashion. However, now a new kind of fashion has emerged – one that shifts from the bricks-and-mortar retail stalwarts and moves majorly towards the fast and decentralised world of e-commerce. That’s ultrafast fashion!
It was not long ago that fast fashion had gained prominence owing to cheap, trendy clothing that sampled ideas from the catwalk world and then converted them into apparels in high-street stores. With every person able to buy trendy clothes – whenever and wherever – it wasn’t surprising to see fast fashion become a mania. But, as they say change is constant.
Today, the world is talking a lot more about ultrafast fashion – not surprising, considering it is quicker (yes quicker than fast fashion) and cheaper. To put it differently, ultrafast fashion is easily converting fast fashion’s weeks into days and dozens of styles into thousands of styles. What’s, however, noteworthy is the pace at which this new concept has been wooing the youth lately.
The craze that Zara, H&M or, for that matter, Uniqlo managed to generate amongst the youth in the first decade of the millennium is the same as that is seen amongst the youth of today for ultrafast fashion. These ultrafast fashion retailers that include the likes of Boohoo, Asos, Shein or Missguided have managed to carve a niche for themselves today owing to their shortest and leanest supply chain cycles which help them to also quickly match inventory supply with changing demand and strictly control inventory to create a balance between undersupply and markdowns.
Fast-fashion retailers, who once used to take pride in getting a new style ready for sale in just two or three weeks, are today finding the going tough. Expectedly so; after all, when an English e-tailer like Boohoo does the same in a matter of few days, it surely is bound to give headache to fast fashion superstars. So, what’s ultrafast fashion really all about!
What’s helping ultrafast fashion stand out today!
One factor that’s been working for ultrafast fashion retailers is their ability to understand their customers’ needs very well. These retailers study and analyse their target section closely and deliver only those dresses that are in demand at that time – and all this in just a week or 10 days. In fact, some of the in-house designers closely follow the live stream of popular fashion shows/events and come up with designs virtually in real time. That’s superfast to say the least!
Being online-only channels too has been instrumental in making ultrafast fashion stand out. Unlike the fast fashion retailers, these new-age superfast retailers do not have a single store of their own. On the contrary, one can see them all over online with tempting and trendy offers. Also, the overhead costs are generally low.
One would like to mention here that British clothing e-tailer Asos comes up with over 4,500 offers each week – something unheard of few years back. Missguided too updates its site every week with thousands of new styles, and if at all one sees the emergence of any popular fashion trend, the retailer intends to make it available in less than a week. Shein goes even a step further and releases around 1,000 styles everyday on its site.
The superfast/ultrafast fashion players have also been investing heavily on modern technology, with a continual focus on bringing the supply chain to a state-of-the-art level, even if it costs money. Notably, these retailers implement and use advanced data analytics tools and centralised communication platforms besides prioritising social media to meet core significant goals for their brands, which include trend forecasting and creating sense of urgency.
More on trend forecasting, these superfast fashion retailers use artificial intelligence image recognition technologies to carefully understand social media and analyse fashion images. The technology then helps them collect information about particular components and attributes of these images, such as fabrics, prints and colours, and use machine learning algorithms to forecast future trends.
Also, advanced software is being used to encourage consumers stay updated with their brand’s latest fashion trends. And how! By employing influencers and placing targeted advertisements across social media, these retailers have been at the forefront in enhancing connectivity – not to mention the efforts being put in to build personalised shopping experiences through data collected via online and mobile apps.
They also work closely on a central platform, which helps them in getting a holistic overview of all orders placed by customers. That’s the only way a short-term production change is passed along quickly and accurately.
Chinese e-tailer Shein has been using technology efficiently by algorithmically feeding its customers daily through Instagram advertisements, YouTube and TikTok. It’s been strategically on the forefront by reaching its target shoppers on social media and offering a newness level that calls for studying and analysing customer data through advanced software to inform new designs in just three days.
Some of these retailers invest in creating a more flexible inventory management model to enable them to produce smaller batches of inventory and monitor how each style performs in their catalogue. The data collected helps understand which styles to produce more or less of in the supply chain.
Additionally, most of these retailers manufacture apparels in their native countries, which helps them deliver products quickly and cheaply. Boohoo, which is based in Manchester (UK), manufactures nearly half of its apparels in the country. Similarly, most of Shein’s fabric and garment suppliers are based in Guangzhou, where several thousand manufacturers make clothes.
These fashion retailers have been able to tightly streamline their supply chains and move production closer to their key markets, making it easier for them to speed up their design and manufacturing process.
Ultrafast fashion has worked for these retailers and it’s just the beginning
With focus on local manufacturing, on-demand production, no excess inventory and shorter lead times (from a few days to a week), it isn’t surprising to see these ultrafast fashion firms translate their strategies to good numbers. After seeing its sales go up by 14 per cent for the year that ended 28 February 2022, Boohoo now expects its full-year profits to be in line with market expectations of £ 125 million. When compared to 2019, its sales rose by 61 per cent over the entire year. Boohoo adds some 100 items to its site each day and one can only see increase in these numbers.
Similarly, Asos also believes its revenue for FY ’22 to be in the range of 10 to 15 per cent and an adjusted profit before tax to be in the range of £ 110 million to £ 140 million. Asos continues to remain focused on improving the flexibility and speed of the retail model and increase the pace of delivery of its global growth strategy.
Shein’s pervasiveness, especially on TikTok, has helped it attain a cult status today amongst young women worldwide, besides succeeding in making the US its largest consumer market, amongst 200 plus countries. And the numbers say it! Its last year revenues have been no less than extraordinary with the e-tailer clocking around US $ 15.7 billion at a growth rate of 57 per cent.
Irony of fashion world
In an era where anything and everything is pertained to getting a product in a quick time, ultrafast/superfast fashion has been lapped up by fashion-savvy consumers. But isn’t it ironical that fast fashion – which is now being gradually displaced by ultrafast fashion – was and is rebuked for being an unsustainable model.
It doesn’t require a rocket science to understand that faster a garment is produced, more the clothes are disposed off by consumers – consequently creating massive textile waste.
Reportedly, over half a million tonnes of unwanted garments end up in landfill each year in both Australia and the UK. Similarly, the volume of garments thrown away by Americans every year has grown two-fold in two decades (from 7 million to 14 million tonnes).
Now, that’s something to think about, though these new-age superfast fashion retailers claim to not dispose off large numbers of unworn garments, as they produce only those number of clothes that are required. That’s some other day to write about!
As fast fashion continues to be one of the largest emitters of CO2, in addition to being constantly accused of exploiting workers to produce clothes cheaply and quickly, it makes all the more interesting to see the growing popularity of ultrafast fashion.
That’s the irony of the beautiful fashion world!
