The clothing industry, as one of the oldest traditional industries in the world, has been accompanying the growth of human society. However, in the past decades of development, the clothing industry has become the second largest polluting industry in the world. Overproduction, overconsumption, excess textile waste, and use of harmful chemicals have had disastrous effects on the environment.
In addition, with the fashion revolution and consumption upgrades, consumers have begun to have stricter requirements for opaque prices, origins, raw materials, and environmental protection. Especially when the post-95 Generation Z has become the main force of consumption, they no longer flock to traditional famous brands, and disdain to pursue popular fashion, but pay more attention to environmental protection, pay more attention to inner feelings, and like to live according to their own way. This industry, which has been passed down for thousands of years, urgently needs to be transformed and upgraded.
The clothing industry is in urgent need of transformation, and many pain points hamper the development of the industry
As people pay more and more attention to environmental protection, the pollution problem of the clothing industry has been criticized all the time. Its pollution level is second only to the oil industry and has become the second largest polluting industry in the world.
According to the book Shadow in the Clothing Industry, to produce a pair of jeans requires 3.625 liters of water + 400 megajoules of energy + 3 kilograms of chemicals. Every kilogram of denim produced produces an average of 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases.
In order to pursue fast fashion, some brands have forced local farmers to abandon natural planting methods and use chemical fertilizers and pesticides on a large scale to grow cotton. As a result, the soil has been seriously polluted, which has led to many social problems such as sickness of farmers, high incidence of cancer, and birth of deformed newborns...
In addition to environmental issues, the transparency of the industry has also been questioned by consumers. Consumers can only trace the origin through a simple made in label, but there is no way to verify its authenticity. Because the routine operation of many brands is: produce clothing in other places, and then ship it back to the local area for finishing when the product is close to completion, so that the production place on the product label can still be marked as local.
Not only do we not know where a garment was produced, but we also have no way of knowing all the supply chain stages a garment goes through before it reaches a store shelf. In addition, in the process of purchasing clothing, whether it is online shopping or going to a physical store, the personal information of consumers has not been properly protected, and there is a hidden danger of personal information leakage.
Various industry stubborn illnesses have become the shackles of the clothing industry towards a new stage of intelligent and digital development.
Blockchain empowerment to create a more beautiful clothing industry
As a next-generation disruptive technology, the blockchain has notable characteristics such as tamper-proof, open and transparent, and decentralization. It is precisely because of these characteristics that the application of blockchain in the clothing industry can be expected in the future.
Improve supply chain transparency
Ensure product authenticity and trust transparency
Improve the quality and efficiency of inventory management
From producing clothing to producing big data
Make the clothing industry more environmentally friendly and safer
Blockchain technology is one of the few technologies that can increase the transparency of the production cycle. For a piece of clothing, the application of blockchain technology can not only allow consumers to ensure that the goods they buy come from genuine brand merchants, and eliminate counterfeit and shoddy problems in the production process; more meaningfully, consumers can pass Scan the code to trace the source to view the entire clothing industry chain and understand the stories behind the clothes.
The traceability, non-tamperability and high transparency of the blockchain can help the supply chain improve end-to-end data transparency, reduce costs and risks, and at the same time effectively solve the problem of information islands, and open up procurement, production, logistics, sales, supervision, etc. Links, all the information of the goods can be traced through the whole chain.
Under the empowerment of the blockchain, any manufacturer, retailer, and end consumer can access any product of any brand through the blockchain. Consumers can access a variety of data including location, name and inventory, which can prove the authenticity and origin of products, which is crucial for a fashion industry where counterfeits are rampant and urgently need technology-enabled changes.
Counterfeit and shoddy goods and some high imitation knockoff goods have always been a major stubborn disease that plagues the development of clothing brands. According to the Global Brand Counterfeit Report 2018, the total loss caused by global counterfeit goods in 2017 was as high as 1.2 trillion US dollars, and this figure is expected to reach 1.82 trillion US dollars in 2020.
Once a brand uses the blockchain to trace the supply chain, consumers can understand every process of product production, and the traceability of the source will greatly increase the manufacturing cost of fake products. Because counterfeiters cannot hack into the secure blockchain network, let alone replicate the complex and detailed production process of “genuine” clothing. Additionally, the blockchain will also endow each SKU with a unique digital authenticity ID. Once a product is sold, purchased, or resold, the transaction will be recorded on the chain and cannot be tampered with, which will help rebuild the trust mechanism of the entire industry.
According to relevant media reports, the inventory of Chinas clothing industry in 2017 was as high as 20 billion pieces, which means that there are nearly 20 pieces per person on average, and the society bears too much pressure on space and disposal resources.
Today, most inventory management uses centralized systems with limited visibility into product transactions. Through the distributed nature of blockchain data storage, excess inventory is expected to be minimized, and each transaction can be monitored and distributed, which prevents data from being leaked, tampered with, or deleted.
In addition, under the empowerment of the blockchain, the inventory system of the clothing industry will become more intelligent. Not only is the communication between retailers, brand owners and manufacturers more efficient and transparent, but consumer feedback can also be sent directly back to brand owners and manufacturers for iterative adjustments in product design and production.
Take a well-known sports shoes and clothing brand as an example. They no longer position themselves as a clothing company, but a technology company that can make clothes. Many of their clothes and sneakers are equipped with sensors to track heart rate, miles run and calories burned. These data are then uploaded into the personal information database as a basis for guidance on personal health, weight loss, and diet. Obviously, this is in line with the consumption needs and preferences of the current generation Z population.
The upgrade from a traditional clothing company to a technology company, from the production and sales of a single garment, shoes and hats to the operation of multi-dimensional data of users, is not only a huge change in the business model, but also provides a new direction for the future development of the entire clothing industry.
At present, many domestic brands of clothing that claim to be environmentally friendly have difficult to trace their production materials and processes. It is impossible to know whether the production process of clothing is environmentally friendly or whether the clothes purchased by consumers have used harmful dyes. At the same time, even if clothing companies use advanced environmentally friendly materials and processes, it is difficult to prove to consumers that they cannot form real advantages.
epilogue
epilogue
At present, Chinas garment industry is undergoing the transformation and upgrading of its business model, from the original labor and resource-driven business model to the dual-track business model driven by the market and original design. During this transformation process, the entire industrial chain will be restructured, and the value creation method will also be reshaped.
In the context of consumption upgrading, clothing companies can only be invincible if they have a deep insight into the needs of consumers, keep up with the trends of the times, and build their own unique business models. The blockchain undoubtedly provides strong backing support and a new development direction for the apparel industry, and saves costs and improves profits to a certain extent, but maintaining the ecological environment of the entire industry still requires everyones efforts and the implementation of technology .
As an innovative enterprise embracing blockchain technology, Wanglian Technology has always firmly believed that blockchain will become the core enabler of the apparel industry, and it will provide the apparel industry with simple, low-cost, high-efficiency, safe and reliable solutions plan. In this process, Wanglian Technology will actively cooperate with clothing companies to help build a smart shoe and clothing industry ecosystem, and continue to empower the traditional clothing industry to achieve intelligent transformation.
