Textile and Fashion 2030 - Use & Consumption

Hello again!
Now I am at the final stage of my course and my field study for the Textile and Fashion 2030 project. Since I last wrote I have had full focus on completing my literature review and my final report.
I would like to say that this work consisted of three main parts. The first part was about understanding and formulating my task and my contribution to the Textile and Fashion 2030 project, this part took quite a long time as this depended on the question being processed by a few different people involved in the project before it was clear and could be stated. The second part consisted of going through relevant literature and compiling it in my report and understanding the current state of research in the field. The third phase consisted of drawing conclusions through the literature used for the study, this through deductive reasoning. During this process I came up with several interesting conclusions about how the literature shows quite different results in terms of which process affects the environment most, depending on when it was written / published. Please read my report when it is available to share my findings.

Next week, the final presentation of the work will be done over Zoom - as a virtual defense - which will also be an interesting phase as this presentation method requires a new presentation technique where you need to be technically oriented to preform well. For this I am a little nervous and unsure, as it is new and hard to know what is experienced as most professional and smooth as I have no experience in presenting online on camera. What I guess would be important to think about is camera, lighting, audio and if I should stand up or sit down. Sitting down while presenting would feel kind of weird. Anyway, for this presentation I really need some practice to make sure everything works as expected.

I would really like to share my lessons after the seminar, to be able to give tips on what is important to think about while giving a virtual presentation..

Thank you for reading - and I would love to hear your comments on anything.

First Update About Product Management Internship at a German Luxury Fashion Company

Hello everyone,

My third month as an intern in the product management team has just started. Since my last blog entry, it has been a very busy time in the office due to forced process changes that occurred as a result of Covid-19. Since this department is in close contact with many other departments within the collection production process, such as Design, Operations and Sales, ever since there are many face-to-face meetings detained during the entire collection creation process. During one calendar year there are four collections designed based on the four seasons (Pre-Spring, Spring/Summer, Pre-Fall and Fall/Winter), each including three phases (pre-sales phase, sales phase and after sales phase).

Now that the world is restricted when it comes to personal contact and business travels and the company must generate liquid assets while reducing liabilities many procedures have to be adapted accordingly. 

On the one hand, sales clients from retail and wholesale customers can, for example, not attend the Pre-Sales collection handover in the showroom in Germany as it has been handled until now. Hitherto, all salespeople from all over the world were invited into the showroom in Germany for the collection presentation, happening four times a year. However, this pandemic does not allow such get-togethers and using Photoshop and InDesign, we created presentations and overviews to make it a vividly digital experience. We have been busy digitalising all Colour Cards (cards that include all style specifications for the relevant fabrics). The major challenge was to actually visualise the fabrics in a very good quality. In case the vendors are slightly bigger, many fabrics are digital already. But as the company also sources from very small vendors, those fabrics are most likely not digital yet. 

On the other hand, collections complexities (depth and width) for the Pre-Spring and Spring/Summer collections in 2021 had to be cut at the same time. Therefore, our department was in charge to reconsider all styles for the upcoming collections. This required fast action because they were already set up and ready for production. Instead of focusing on the next collections only, we had to revise everything and cut it by about 30% while considering all regulations and wishes. In other words: every third item had to be removed. Based on figures and facts from previous seasons, decisions were taken in consultation with the designers, operations team and those customers having the highest turnover. Nonetheless, it was also partly determined on the basis of experiences and gut feelings. Hence, amongst others I have been analysing margins, order units and order volumes and compared these with, for example, minimum margins that got to be achieved anyhow. 

In the meanwhile, new collections for Pre-Fall 2021 were created, also taking into account the effects that Covid-19 will still have by the time the items are delivered into the stores. This refers to new ways of working, such as home office and remote work along with new travel behaviours that are likely to occur and will impact the collection creation in the future. This is what I am still working on now to influence the decision makings for the new collection creations of Fall/Winter 2021. I will keep you posted on this in the upcoming blog entry. 

// Josephina

Digital Transformation of Circular Business Models

Hi all!

After immense work to complete the internship now it has come to an end. Digital technologies are considered as enablers to transform the businesses. The use of industrial 4.0 technologies is a stepping stone in this transformation. The textile and fashion industry is considered as one of the most unsustainable industries in the globe. Incorporating circularity practices is a solution to overcome the issue. The fashion system is originally considered as a linear model of take, make, and dispose. So this industry with a digital step can be transformed towards circular business models. Due to the prevailing condition of COVID-19 countries are lockdown and people are experiencing social distancing. Therefore the use of digital technologies to enable businesses is need ever than before.

This research is carried out to understand how digitalization enables the transformation of circular business models. Using the literature review approach it is able to identify digitally-enabled elements that can transform the business models towards the circular economy. Among them, reconfiguration of the value proposition of the design plays a major role. This design gives life to many business models. Bring back the materials into the system designs need to be developed incorporating circularity practices with digital technology. Further consumer is identified as the main actor since they are the sellers, suppliers, co-creators, and responsible actors of purchase, use, and dispose of. So consumer engagement via digital channels is important. Towards the roadmap, it is identified the need for collaboration with stakeholders. Further, the research identified the challenges that need to overcome in the process. They are lack of using digital technologies, financial barriers, security issues, consumer awareness, and lack of skills and capabilities.

The topic needs more action research to innovate designs enabled with digital technologies for the circular economy. From this research, I gained vast knowledge on the topic and the practice of conducting literature review research. For the successful completion of the field study, I received support and guidance from my supervisor Olga  Chkanikova. Also, the support and motivation from received from the peers are unforgettable.  

Reshoring: the influences on decision making process for fashion retailer

Blog 3/3

Here comes my third and last blog. Last couple of days, I have been fully engaged with my research. From different formats of papers, I choose to write research papers. After going through all the peer reviewed articles, I summarize my findings that work as an influence for fashion retailers to move their production facility back to the home country. 

Cost is the primary measure as the trend of offshoring started back in the 1960s to prevail the low labor cost of developing countries. Later other costs related with offshoring come into considerations like transportation cost to long distance, travel cost, increasing communication cost in two different geographical locations, cost of long inventory to support delivery delay. Bringing back production in a near proximity location helps to reduce these costs incurred for offshoring. In the meantime, in some previously offshored locations for example in China labor cost increases to a significant level that bounds retailers to rethink about the location choice. Development and innovation work can progress more smoothly when both design and production facility co-locates as sometimes it’s difficult to coordinate it from long distance. Also, communication challenge in two different locations hampers the progress of product and process innovation. Time to market i.e. lead time reduces significantly when firms reshore. Thus it becomes more flexible to react with customer preference. Manufacturing location to a long distance makes the supply chain more complex, less flexible with asymmetric flow of information and high level of inventory. Reshoring helps to adopt the trend of fast fashion that requires small batch production within shorter lead time. Besides, long distance transportation increases CO2 emission and unsustainable practices. Sustainability performance of a firm is badly impacted by the location decision where the manufacturing will take place. As a result, growing emphasis on sustainability encourages firms to reconsider their production location.

The findings of my research shed the light on the area of reshoring that will help future practitioners for further exploration. Firms offshore previously, now show the tendency to bring back the production facility by analyzing the benefits of reshoring. Most of the research papers in this area are conceptual and explore why firms reshore. So, future research can focus more on how firms reshore. I find the topic most interesting to invest my time in the last two months. Hope you guys also enjoy your time to find some new insight of your research area. 

Have a nice summer!!

Corporate Field Study Post III: A Certification Mark for Upcycling

Last week, we reviewed two examples of small- to mid-size businesses working with textile secondary raw materials to create upcycled products. This week, we discuss a certification mark for upcycling. 

Over the past weeks, this corporate field study has demonstrated that there is a current industrial movement to further develop upcycling throughout the textile and apparel industry. One example of this effort is an upcycling design and production system/manufacturing method and manufacturing certification called Upmade. This system enables textile and apparel businesses to implement industrial upcycling and become certified under the system. The benefit to a business of doing this is that it will be able to more easily source and turn textile secondary raw materials into useful products, which decouples economic activity from virgin textile material use and reduces waste. The certification criteria require a 90-100% share of waste materials in a product’s base material, although there is an exception for buttons, thread, zippers, fusing, and so on, which may be new. Interestingly, Upmade represents that it is scalable, which is something that many businesses struggle with when implementing upcycling production processes.

New, scalable, upcycling solutions like this one make it easier for designers to become inspired to upcycle with textile secondary raw materials. It also makes it easier for businesses to manage the sourcing of textile secondary raw materials. Easier access to sourcing such materials allows for better planning and more space for designers to decide where to go with their designs by using the details of the textile secondary raw materials to their best advantage.

In addition, this certification mark helps to manage the risk that comes with textile secondary raw materials and toxic chemical legacy substances that may lurk within. The Upmade certification mark intends to provide independent assurance of a manufacturer’s capacity for upcycling production that complies with textile quality, chemical toxicity, and fair labour standards. Transparency via the certification mark for consumers is also a welcome benefit.

My blog entry about the digital transformation of the supply chain and its influence on sustainability in upstream processes (3/3).

This is my third and last blog entry here, in which I want to talk about the development of my field study project. I have worked so far on all parts of my article, which is including the literature review, discussion, and conclusion. Additionally, I had a final meeting with Olga to talk about the last corrections I need to do before I hand in. My main concern for the field study now is to review my own paper and to give it a nice journal like outlook.

After my last blog entry, I worked mainly on the results, which is my literature review. The literature review has been made with 10 peer-reviewed journal articles and 10 webpages. All of them will answer the questions in which technologies exist do transform the supply chain digitally, how they affect sustainability in which challenges regarding sustainability do exist. Many results could be found, which needed to be processed in a concise but professional way. Afterwards I have been working on the analysis and discussion and wrote afterwards directly the conclusion, which will answer all questions. 

After finishing everything and receiving the recommendations from Olga I have been working on implementing them. Furthermore, I have been editing my article and I was looking for a way to have a journal-like appearance in the article. After I finished the report to upload this one I was working on my presentation, which I will do in PowerPoint. I was looking for a nice template in order to fill it with the necessary information. This has been challenging as much information has been collected which needs to be presented in a nice way. Therefore, I needed more time than expected for this task.

Personally, the field study has been an enjoyable task to do even though I miss due to Corona the lectures, and contact with my classmates. What has been challenging was the contradicting information about the field study on Ping Pong. Nevertheless, I can understand that it was hard for all parties to collect all information together to write them all down at ping pong in a systematic way. Still this has been stressful many times and was responsible for many discussions. In the end everything went as planned and all the work is done.

WargoTex – Research Findings and Method Evaluation

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I am currently waiting for the responses from the three collaborating companies of the WargoTex project in order to assess the opportunities and challenges for joint business model development in the fashion and textile industry. As it turned out, the current circumstances strongly influenced the company’s ability to cooperate, resulting in just one company submitting sufficient results. However, Björkåfrihet’s input was fortunately very valuable and helped me finalise my research findings. Besides their international engagement in sustainable development and social solidarity, Björkåfrihet operates several second-hand stores across Sweden and is already involved in a number of circular initiates that aim to reduce textile waste. 

While Björkåfrihet agreed to the high potential of joint business models for circularity to sustainably transform the fashion and textile industry, a number of current issues are yet to be solved. For Björkåfrihet, the main challenges are reported to lie in the pricing of the redesigned garments, the time capacity for the redesigning process, the access to skilled designers, the input quantity of post-consumer textiles, as well as the difficulty to scale up redesigning operations. The challenges for a successful development and implementation of a joint business model for circularity seem overwhelming compared to its opportunities, however, initial reluctance lies in the nature of change, particularly when aiming to achieve substantial change in an industry with a complex supply chain. The main opportunity for a joint business model for circularity is indeed the achievement of a sustainable transformation of the whole fashion and textile industry and if regarded as a flexible umbrella business model rather than a static determination of corporate responsibilities, a joint business model can avoid negative implications such as a loss of corporate autonomy and operational flexibility. 

Although the findings of my research proofed to be sufficient, I can confirm the expected difficulties an open-answer questionnaire might entail in comparison to in-depth interviews. While an open-answer questionnaire indeed gives a deeper insight into the respondents’ answers, it can definitely not be compared to the level of detail you would achieve in an in-depth interview. What has been revealed as particularly difficult is the risk of the respondent misunderstanding a question and as a consequence, providing empirical data that is not sufficient for content analysis. Therefore, even in times of social distancing, I would definitely recommend conducting interviews either online or over the phone rather than utilising an open-answer questionnaire, or alternatively, excessively explain the meaning of every question in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Approaches of visual communication in digital marketing from a fashion retail perspective.

Blog 3/3

In continuation of my research, through the literature review I found the fashion blogging, the influence of instagram influencer, digital competency and improvement of fashion apps, fashion films, selfie marketing and social media marketing are some of the effective approaches of visual communication in the field of digital marketing. The findings of this study will be beneficial for not only the fashion brands but also the fashion startup companies to select the suitable approach which fits with their communication and marketing strategy.

Fashion blogging and the Instagram influencers create an emotional twoway bonding with blogger/influencer-consumer and consumer-brands. The lifestyle, creative visual content and the personality of fashion bloggers create a positive impression among the viewers that drives themselves to become loyal to a brand. The digital competence of a fashion companies own website and fashion apps, boost engagement and create the trust of purchasing luxury products online. Another approach which is a comparatively new approach, fashion films act as a communication tool for the purpose of both education and entertainment. Despite having the effective traditional communication channel, fashion films make its place to fulfill consumers interest. To deal with the challenge with the negative review in social media, selfie marketing plays a very important role. Not only the paid advertisement of celebrities but also the “real persons” like us, the visual perspective of selfie engages us with brands and creates the brand positioning. Plus, social media marketing is regarded as the most suitable and the cheapest visual communication channel where brands-consumer and consumer-consumer can share their feelings and that increases the brand engagement.

Anyway, the selection of the most suitable visual communication approach is the limitation of my research due to the unavailability of empirical data. Apart from that, it may not be possible for fashion retailers or startup companies to integrate all findings into their marketing strategy. The nature, dimension of a company and the geographical location may have an effect on the selection of visual communication approach which will be a research guideline for future researchers. Plus, the recent pandemic situation of Covid-19, changed the lifestyle of peoples and we must adopt the changes as “the new normal”. Though it will be a long discussion how to adopt this, of course this will introduce a new lifestyle to all over the world. The enormous challenges and opportunities of fashion marketing strategy will move more into the online than offline. And the true and effective visual communication strategy will help fashion retailers to become successful in the digital platform.

Thank you.

The Challenging Increase of Online Customer Returns in Fashion - A literature Review (2)

Since my last blog post, I have started to write on my report. I have decided to do a conference paper format to not make it harder for myself, and focus on making quality content. The Introduction and Methodology are done so far, and I am currently summarizing and discussing the themes for the Results. Six themes has emerged from the literature review in total, and the first one will soon be finished. I actually do not think the report will be ready in time for the seminars in June because I realized that the deadline is already the 29th. I thereby aim for August instead. The thing is that I have some troubles with understanding the second part of the report, between the Introduction and Methodology, where concepts are to be brought up and clarified. Thus, some research needs to be done here to further clarify this part. But I will complete the themes first, and then focus on that. When the report is almost done I plan on showing it to my aunt and together sit down and read it through,

Corporate Field Study Post II: Examples of Material Reuse by Small- to Mid-Size Businesses

Last week, we talked about some of the challenges faced by small- to mid-size businesses working with textile secondary raw materials. This week, we will look at two examples. These examples are of interest in the field study as they relate to the new EU Circular Economy Action Plan for the textile sector adopted in March 2020, which has a focus on increasing the uptake of textile secondary raw materials.

One example of a small- to mid-size business working with textile secondary raw materials is Jouten. This studio in Finland produces experimental, unisex garments and accessories by repurposing high-quality, made-to-last fabrics, which in a prior life were used as hotel towels and bedlinen. The Finnish word “jouten” means “unoccupied” in English, but Jouten’s founders are certainly not idle. Jouten dyes and makes each product in Finland, taking great care with the design process, fit, and fabrication methods, not to mention the reclaimed material sourcing and selection. Through the studio’s creative work, decommissioned fabrics from the hotel industry find a new use, which reduces environmental impact and adds a unique quality to each piece created.

Another example is Sort Slips Hvidt Slips. This Danish studio produces garments for men, women, and children by using reclaimed fabrics sourced from discarded linens, waiter aprons, and hospital gowns. All pieces are made in Denmark. The focus of the brand is on the craft and tailoring. This attention to detail results in an attractive, long-lasting, durable garment.

There are several other inspiring small- to mid-size businesses out there working with textile secondary raw materials in brilliant ways. Unfortunately, their numbers are tiny in comparison to those businesses working with virgin or primary raw materials. That is a huge problem if we want to reduce the environmental impact of the textile and apparel sector through a reduction of the reliance on virgin textile fibres. So far, this corporate field study has supported the idea that it will take the EU’s strong regulatory interest in the recovery and reuse of secondary raw materials, such as discarded or decommissioned fabrics, so that they can easily move directly from a prior user to a garment and/or accessories producer. If this can be accomplished by the EU Commission, there is much potential to increase the number of small to mid-size businesses that work with secondary raw materials.

Crisis Management

Hi there,

Hope everyone feels good and hope that all of us pass these critical days and months easily. This is my first blog entry which is a bit late as having many things at the same time (which became my life style especially since I’ve started my master program). Well, after the Corona virus outbreak, the first feeling that I have experienced which I believe was almost a universal feeling, was the tension of this situation and a question that occupied my mind was, how the businesses especially in textile and fashion industry in any scale would manage this crisis and would survive?! As generally speaking, obviously clothing and fashion is not the top priority in critical situations like war, natural disasters or diseases outbreak, people would not even think about clothes in most cases and especially after the forced lockdown or even the voluntary quarantine, almost all ceremonies, parties and events were cancelled therefore, people do not need to purchase any outfit for a non-defined date.

I shared all my thoughts with Jenny and she encouraged me to conduct a research on Crisis Management. I decided to do a couple of interviews with business owners or CEOs of fashion/clothing brands then I wrote to a couple of them but so far I just received two reply and positive feedbacks from one CEO of a clothing brand that accepted to do the interview and one from a business owner of a car company in the USA ( I’ve chosen a car company because I just wanted to compare the crisis management policies in a different business) . Although Jenny predicted that this situation is very stressful and people might not accept to interview, and suggested me to do the literature review. All in all, I’m reading articles that are on crisis management and the problem is that I still couldn’t find what I expected, but I’m doing my best though. In my next blog I’ll tell you a bit more on my interesting findings.

I wish all of you best of luck and success.

Best

Kati      

Digital transformation of business models in circular economy

Hi all!

Here I’m writing to you the second blog entry of my field study. I would like to talk about the progress I had so far. During my discussions with my coordinator Olga we decided to consider sustainability and circularity into the topic. So my topic about the digital transformation of business models will be discussed in a circular economy perspective. My progress on the introduction to the topic, literature review, and methodology was discussed in one of the skype meetings I had with the coordinator. So we decided to improve the content with more information and motivate the research problem on my topic. I’m working on improving the content as per the valuable guidance.

The research is taking the form of a literature review with a content analysis approach. Therefore I’m following the methodology as per one of our course literature, Business research methods by Alan Bryman. Accordingly I have selected my literature systematically via a keyword search. So I used the keywords “digital” “circular” “business models” “Industry 4.0” “textile and fashion”. Also to gain knowledge in the practical scenario in the topic I’m using industrial reports as secondary data. Primary search resulted in 44 articles including 14 in the textile and fashion industry. Further screening the articles I narrow it down to 15 to incorporate to the analysis of the results.

Currently, I’m working hard to gain results from the selected papers and to draw a conclusion. In my next post, I would like to brief about the results and conclusion of the topic. So motivating myself to see the end of the field study I will meet next week with my last blog entry. So everyone cheer up. The better days are coming!

Reshoring: the influences on decision making process for fashion retailer

Blog 2/3

Since I posted my last blog, it has been three weeks now. I explored the area of my individual field study and felt it’s the time to share some of my progress with you. As mentioned in my first blog, I am doing the literature review so at first I selected some peer reviewed papers from search engine Primo and Google scholar. All of them are from the publishers for which university subscribe to Emerald, Springer, and Elsevier. Besides, I explored the topic “Reshoring” on a well established website of the textile industry. I found quite a good number of papers from the authors of different parts of the world. The most efficient way of literature search is to use keywords in the database. I use “Reshoring AND Textile” as the main keyword to find the relevant literature.

The textile industry has experienced an extensive move of offshoring due to globalization and economic trends that creates a fragmented and complex global supply chain, lots of supply related issues including many direct effects to sustainability, flexibility, controllability. Low labour and raw material cost of developing countries work as an influence to move the facilities, though now it creates the opportunity to move the production facility back to home country by reinvesting the total cost of ownership (TCO) related with the products. Thus reshoring is defined as the reversion of a previously offshoring decision, thereby ‘bringing manufacturing back home’. Previous choices of placing production in developing countries has now changed the focus as the visible and hidden cost come into consideration. Transportation cost to long distance, communication cost, handling cost, long time inventory carrying cost, asymmetric information flow all these made the choice of offshoring less attractive and encouraged retailers to move the production to reshore locations. Also, consumers are now much concerned and they intend to buy more eco friendly products believing it poses a traceable supply chain in its manufacturing process and has less impact on the environment. I am exploring the different aspects of reshoring and its effects on the overall supply chain that make it more visible and sustainable.

For the last couple of days, I abstract myself from the ongoing concern of Covid 19 and concentrate mainly on my research. I find some really good insight of reshoring and summerize all my findings in the final report. I am planning to submit the report by the end of this month and on a good track of following the report writing. I will share my findings in details on my next blog. Till then everyone be safe.

BestBefore - Washing Test & Learning outcomes

Hi all

It’s time for my third and final blogpost, it’s been 2 weeks since I last checked in, and a fair bit has happened since. Last time I had finalized the sample production and I’ve since sewn identification tags on  all the samples, which makes it easier for the experimental phase, as it’s essential to keep all the samples identifiable, so they will be washed according to plan. Prior to starting the washing test I needed to take pictures of all the samples and the pants, which was done in by setting up a small photo studio in the body scanning lab at the university. Documentation will then be needed after every 5 washes, which means that there will be a good amount of photo documentation of every stage of the washing tests, which allows us to have data which can then be analyzed and compared once all the wash tests have been done. I managed to start the wash testing last week on the 12^thof May. Every day I do 5 washes on two machines and following that the pants and samples are hang dried, to be able to recuperate overnight before a new day of washing starts. As I mentioned previously the pants will be washed between 0 and 70 times. Deciding on a number which would be the maximum amount of washes a pant would be washed was a bit difficult, because would it makes sense to wash it 10 times or 50 times or 100 times, but after discussing it in the team and with fjällräven we decided that  70 times would be a good number as this could mimic that amount of times a pair of fjällräven hiking pants could be washed within the lifetime, and it was an achievable number within the timeframe. I am now at a stage where I have washed 36 washes, so I still have 144 washes to go before I’ll be done with the wash tests, which also means that I won’t be able to complete the seam slippage tests within the field study time frame, but hopefully I can manage to get the wash tests done. It will be interesting to see what impact extensive washing will have on the pants, because I’m assuming that there will be some evident colour changes once I’m done with all the washes. 

It’s weird to think that 8 weeks has passed since starting the field study, it seems like I only just started the project, but I guess times pass by fast when you’re keeping busy, and even though a lot of alteration has happened and timeplans have changed due to Covid-19 I still feel like I have learned a lot, and it has been an educational experience, where flexibility has been a big focus point. 

The research assistant field study has enabled me to gain a better insight into the field of research and methodology of research. I managed to individually create a detailed design of experiment, which enables other researchers to replicate the experiments of this project, by following the design of experiment. I have learned that obstacles are there for you to find solutions, and this field study definitely presented some obstacles and at times I felt defeated and didn’t know my next steps, but I realized that I can overcome more than I thought individually, and once you set your mind to something, you can learn how to overcome obstacles and develop your skill base. 

I have enjoyed that this field study has been a combination of literature research as well as a practical hands on approach. It has confirmed my previous thought that I’m the kind of person who enjoys practical and creative work, which I hope to be able to find in a job in the future. The field study has given me a range of skills that I most definitely can utilize in the future, specifically for writing the thesis next year. It has given me ideas in terms of topics as well as enabled me to understand some of the strengths and weaknesses I have and that I can develop on in future work. 

Now I just have to finalize the washtest in the next couple of weeks and hand over the project to one of the other researchers so they can finalize the experiment and analyze the results. I look forward to hearing about the results and see if this project can be scaled and implemented into the industry, but I’m quite sure that it will need further research to get an even better understanding in effects of laundering of garments. 

That was all for me, hope you all enjoy the rest of your field studies. 

Have a great summer! 

Research Assitant Internship with the Handelslabbet, Blogpost #1

Hej,

As I have interned quite excessively before starting my masters, I decided quite quickly that I want to opt for a research assistant internship for my field study. Having had a quite practical and creative Bachelor's program, the way the curriculum of the Master’s program is built, was very new for me. Learning about methodology and the way research is conducted opened a new unknown world for me and I had difficulties grasping it in the beginning. Hoping to gain more practical insight by following a practiced researcher on their work, I hoped that methodology of science and conducting of research will become graspable for me.

As I have worked in retail, the research project of Jenny Balkow, dealing with sustainable and digital in-store communication caught my attention right away. I hoped that my practical experiences dealing with clients and selling goods could come at handy and was interested in how physical retail spaces can transform to stay relevant in a world where digital and mobile solutions gain speed. Talking with Jenny about the research made me excited and I looked forward to using the retail laboratory and be part of shaping future experiments.

But then Covid-19 hit Sweden, level yellow was induced and physical interaction on a professional basis, using the the physical retail laboratory became hard to execute.

After having discussed those issues with Jenny and having been presented with a wide variety of research topics and ideas she is working on, we decided to proceed on a more digital path and develop a digital retail lab instead, that can serve as a foundation for experiments on consumer behavior. Online retail has been significant for many years but the chaotic times of 2020 make it clearer than ever how important communication and interaction with clients on a digital basis is. Gaining insights into different digital communication and marketing tools is the goal of the digital retail lab which will serve as a canvas where different modules and treatments for experiments and surveys can be adapted to. Working together with the team of the Handelslabbet, Jenny invited me to a variety of zoom meetings where we discussed the idea and invited insights of website developers to find out which of our ideas can be implicated. So far, a base construction of a website, modeling an online shop, has been created which serves as a starting point for our research. As physical experiments are difficult to conduct right now, our goal is to find a common theme we are all interested in to proceed with and produce an attractive funding proposal.

Even though the change of topic wasn't planned and I have read and research digital solutions of physical stores for a few weeks, I enjoy the new, digital direction of the project. The research topic is very relevant to me and I hope that it can create valuable insights. The time researching and reading articles and books to gain a knowledge base for the project was very enriching so far, and I am excited to see where our project is going.

My blog entry about the digital transformation of the supply chain and its influence on sustainability in upstream processes (2/3).

This is my second blog entry here, in which I want to talk about the development of my field study project. I have worked so far on the introduction, problem description, literature review, methods, and results. In between, I had Skype meetings with Olga to talk about the research and the progress, which I am reporting to her every second week. In one of the meetings, we decided to change the introduction and the problem description to have more information in these parts and to have the chance to write a different literature review which is more about the topic itself I am writing about. This is what I have fixed now in the last days. 

After I finished, I went on with the methodology and results. Describing the methodology is hard because I want to be as informative and professional as possible. Additionally, many factors need to be considered. Therefore, I was reading the book of Alan Bryman about social research, which gave me a good direction on how to conduct my research. Afterward, it was time to focus on the analysis and the results.  For this, I found 10 reviewed articles by keyword research. The articles come from well-established research journals. My original plan has been only to use peer-reviewed articles, but the topic I am writing about is very new. The digital transformation has just begun now and therefore not many peer-reviewed articles do exist. As well for the websites, I used well-established webpages of the textile industry. Nevertheless, I was able to collect 20 sources by 10 articles and 10 webpages. Out of them, I formed my results. My next aim is to write a discussion and conclusion. After this, I want to reread the whole paper to improve the language or to add information, which is necessary.

The last days I tried to forget the chaos around me regarding Corona and everything else to write good research. This was working well and I feel that I was very productive in the last days. I want to continue like this to finish my research next week. Subsequently, I want to check every single word again to hand in my research on the 29th of Mai. I am motivated now and I think this is doable for me. Therefore, see you next week with my last blog entry here.

Corporate Field Study Post I: Driving New Business Models for Textile Secondary Raw Materials in the EU Market

It’s a simple business idea: take used textile material and upcycle it. Making that idea into a profitable business, however, is another matter. We know that the hurdles faced by textile and apparel businesses include sourcing material and scaling production in an efficient, sustainable way. Yet, when a business decides that it will work with used/reclaimed textiles (“secondary raw materials”) instead of virgin/new textiles (“primary raw materials”), it becomes a Herculean task.

For instance, if you have a brilliant textile product idea that requires sourcing and production using primary raw materials, you would know where to turn next. There is a supply network already in existence for you. Even if it has recently been devastated by a pandemic, it is still in place, albeit, delayed, reduced, or temporarily inhibited. There will also be a production agent available to help you source production for the needs of your brilliant idea. Yet, in the case of a textile product idea that requires sourcing and production using secondary raw materials, there is often nowhere to turn. It is most likely that you will have to build your sourcing and production network from zero, as presently, there are few facilitating supply networks in place for such an idea. For small- to mid-size businesses, of which the EU textile sector is predominately composed, the obstacles involved in doing this are often insurmountable.

Presently, the European Commission is attempting to level the playing field for textile secondary raw materials in this regard. In March 2020, it adopted a new Circular Economy Action Plan as part of its European Green Deal, which proposes both legislative and non-legislative measures for the textile sector, among others. For instance, some of the measures are intended to ensure the future uptake of textile secondary raw materials and to improve the future business and regulatory environment for such materials and production processes. This will include guidance on the required separate collection of textile waste by 2025 for all Member States, as well as improving the sorting, reuse, and recycling of textiles through proposed extended producer responsibility regulation. In addition, an EU Strategy for Textiles is due in 2021, with several groups weighing in with their proposed solutions, like the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) and a broad coalition of civil society organizations across Europe.

Will these efforts fully address the legal and practical problems faced by small- to mid-size businesses in the EU textile and apparel sector that source textile secondary raw materials and use them in production? Based on the challenges presented in this corporate field study, the answer is probably not in the near future. This is because prevailing domestic and international tax and trade systems have no straightforward mechanisms now or on the horizon that contemplate the ease of textile secondary raw material sourcing or use in production. For example, there are no clearly designated Harmonised System (HS) codes to accurately classify shipments of textile secondary raw materials to production countries solely for production purposes. Moreover, when such shipments reach foreign special economic zones for production, the secondary raw materials are often refused the standard exclusions from import-export customs duties, tariffs, and fees. Despite the entire shipped volume’s export immediately after the production value-adds, i.e., the shipped materials do not enter the production country’s local market, the shipment is still taxed as if it did. This creates a massive competitive disadvantage. As another example, domestic VAT legislation often considers store discounts offered as part of used textile product take-back schemes as “voucher purchases”, which require VAT payment on the discount offered. Yet, this results in taxes paid on an amount that does not generate an income for the business. In other words, in practice, it means paying tax on the used textile products collected, which is a tax disincentive. 

Law and finance matters, such as the duties, tariffs, fees, and VAT discussed above, are generally not considered thrilling topics, but it is imperative that these problems are remedied for the future success of small- to mid-size businesses whose circular production models include textile secondary raw materials. These issues make a massive difference as to whether such businesses will sink or swim financially. With continued perseverance on the part of the EU Commission and policy advocacy groups, perhaps it will become easier to do business with textile secondary raw materials in the long term, which will be good business for all of us.

WargoTex – Qualitative Research and Social Distancing

As mentioned in my last blog post, I am currently conducting a research assistant internship on business model experimentation as a part of the WargoTex project. My research focusses on the opportunities and challenges of developing a joint business model for circularity in the fashion industry. Within the first four weeks of my field study, I reviewed literature on various relating topics in order to gain an overview over the recent developments in this field of research. After finishing the literature review, I started developing a small-scale example of a joint business model based on shared business processes and knowledge transfer. Since Björkåfrihet, Lindex and KappAhl are the featuring companies within this part of the project, I specifically included them into the process flow diagram in order to both enable them to better imagine the specific opportunities and challenges they might face and to enable me to assess these opportunities and challenges in more detail. 

Starting with a general overview of circular initiatives from various clothing retailers, I discovered that fashion brands have indeed tried to incorporate circular processes into their linear business models, however, innovating the business model in its whole often seems to be a prerequisite for truly sustainable change. Therefore, I researched different approaches to business model experimentation as a means for business model innovation. In the case of circular approaches, developing a joint business model based on a collaborative network has been proven to be the most successful, including opportunities such as increasing bargaining power and market share, as well as achieving substantial cost reduction for joint investments. Nevertheless, the development of a joint business model can also contain certain challenges such as legal uncertainty, decreased corporate autonomy and flexibility, as well as a lack of interorganisational trust. 

While I am still waiting for responses from the companies, I also wanted to address the challenges of conducting qualitative research in times of social distancing. Originally, I was planning to conduct in-depth interviews with representatives from various departments, but due to the current circumstances, I had to revise these plans. I opted for open-answer questionnaires instead since I didn’t want to compromise the depth of results. Open-answer questionnaires can be categorised as a qualitative data collection method since they are similar to an interview with the exception that the interviewee is not answering the questions verbally, but in writing. Obviously, certain advantages of interpersonal communication such as explaining the questions, reassuring the answers or steering the conversation cannot be achieved, however, the interviewees can still openly respond without being restricted to certain multiple-choice answers. Nevertheless, the apparent advantages of interpersonal communication can also cause a distortion of results, e.g. through influencing the respondents to focus on one specific aspect of their answer while neglecting others. In fact, while utilising open-answer questionnaires, this distortion of results can be minimised. The last blog post will include an assessment of the sufficiency of open-answer questionnaires as a qualitative substitute for in-depth interviews. 

Approaches of visual communication in digital marketing from a fashion retail perspective.

Blog 2/3

"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." 

                                                                                                                             —Miuccia Prada

To deliver the message and interpret the language is possible through the lens of visual communication in the effective digital marketing channel. While continuing the search for suitable approaches to visual communication in digital marketing, I reviewed around forty plus peer reviewed articles in the last couple of weeks. Specifically I use primo -university website, Google Scholar and Emerald insight to find out those articles. I narrowed down the keywords and limited myself to around five. 

Visual communication is the practice of graphically representing information to efficiently and effectively that creates meaning. There are many types of content in the realm of visual communication- infographics, interactive content, motion graphics, and more. While considering the suitable approaches of visual communication, I understand the importance of fashion blogging and instagram influencers who play an important role in fashion digital marketing. Selfie marketing of celebrities is another approach of visual communication which plays a vital role in digital or social media marketing (SMM). Not only that but also the customized mobile fashion retail apps and visual contents published in the e-commerce websites influence the purchase decision of consumers. It has been said that purchase through mobile phones referred to as m-commerce is the extension of e-commerce.

The word “fashion brands” search in google can generate more than 700M search results and a lot of different brands of different categories. SEO (search engine optimization) technique can play a very important role in the digital marketing perspective. Where the social media marketing, fashion films, infographic presentation by personalized fashion bloggers and selfie marketing of celebrities creates a significant effect of brand positioning among the customers. Efficient and skillful use of video, photos, flip book, memes in both brands' websites as well as customized mobile apps creates the positive impression of fashion retailers among the potential customers. 

The role of visual merchandising in the physical store is essential in the context of store management and brand identity. In the same way, the effective and skilfull presentation of l visual contents in the online platform creates the brands identity and positioning. 

I am looking after to figure out more. Thank you.

The Challenging Increase of Online Customer Returns in Fashion - A literature Review

Since I have been sitting at home for over seven weeks without visiting the school, it is easy to forget everything you have to do and all deadlines. Blogging has been one of those things. So, here I am writing my first post. With the literature review method, I am doing an individual field study about online customer returns in the fashion industry (as you probably could tell from the heading). The purpose incorporates giving an overview of the field of customer returns in e-commerce and the applied conceptual frameworks from the last ten years. This will also present the gaps where further studies are needed.

The first two or three weeks of the field study course were dedicated to the search for journal articles. Over twenty journals have been search in total, most of them by systematically going through them year by year from 2010 to 2020, but towards the end I realized that it takes to much time and it was not that much written about customer returns overall. So I changed method and used keywords such as "returns", "online returns", "customer returns" within journals that could be of interest. In addition, google scholar was used to utilize the function of citations to find more related articles. All in all, fifty-nine articles has been found treating customer returns in some way. Another two or three weeks has passed, dedicated to quickly skim the articles to find some notable keywords, used method, the focus of the study, what industry is being investigated and with what empirical material.

Right now, the articles are divided into different groups using the keywords so that I eventually can find themes for the literature review. I will also start on the introduction of my report. At first I planned on doing an journal article format but now I am thinking of just doing an conference paper and do it really good, since that is the easiest method. But we will see towards the end, if there is time left to design an journal article format since they are similar in structure and content the possibility exists. I had tuition this morning with Jenny, which made me feel a little less stressed so that is always good. Now, back to it!

A research on exemplifying strategies for increasing scalability strategies of CBM activities

I am currently assisting the doctoral student E. Hultberg in researching strategies for increasing the scalability of circular business models (CBM) in the fashion industry. Here fore, a framework categorising scalability strategies used by fashion companies has been established. With regard to this framework, my contribution will be to exemplify scalability strategies from the current fashion industry and thereby assess the framework's usefulness. Thus, my research questions are:

1. What strategies do fashion retail companies currently use to scale up their circular business model activities? 
2. Can the developed framework be used to map/categorise strategies for scaling up circular business model activities in fashion retail?

In order to answer these research questions, I plan on first defining what CBM activities I will be looking for in companies' reports, whereafter these activities shall be mapped within Hultberg's framework of scalability strategies. The focus should lay on the analysis of CBM activities performed and how they are exemplified by the framework established. For the purpose of mapping CBM activities following strategies of upscaling, I will use an Excel table. Here, one dimension are the four quadrants of Hultberg's framework indicating scalability strategies within growth/connection orientation and efficiency/adaptability orientation. The second dimension are CBM activities to be mapped in reports.

First, to grasp the full picture, I read reports concerning CBM in general and then in how far the fashion industry acts upon it. This step was useful to acquaint myself with benefits as well as challenges of implementing CBM and which activities it encompasses. However, even though this research provided me with a theoretical background, I got lost in the vastness of information and confused the original purpose of my research questions; after all, the research is about upscaling already implemented CBM and not on how to implement CBM in the first place. Nonetheless, I decided to use gained insights for my field study report as it answers why CBM are implemented and supports the necessity of upscaling CBM activities.

Currently, I am revising literature to select CBM activities I will be looking for. At this point, I find it hard to cluster these activities as the subject is quite broad and literature uses different wording for concepts, strategies, patterns and so on. However, since my supervisor suggested to focus on one guiding article to define CBM activities, I am mainly using the construct provided by this source.

So far, I am very happy with the balance between the guidance provided by my supervisor and the degree of freedom wherein I can choose on how to proceed. Even though the current situation of COVID-19 has required us to make changes to my original task of establishing a semi-structured interview, I am positive about the revised approach.

DiTex at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research in Berlin (1/3)

It has been a month since I started my internship as a research assistant at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research in Berlin. The institute was founded in 1985 in Berlin, since then researchers with various backgrounds contribute to the field of sustainable economy. The research is done in two locations: at the main office in Berlin and in Heidelberg. The initial motivation to create the independent institute was a lack of an ecological focus in economics. Nowadays there are four research sections: “Corporate Management and Consumption”, “Ecological Economics and Environmental Policy”, “Sustainable Energy and Climate Protection” and “Ecological Product Policy”. I am a part of the last section “Ecological Product Policy” and its DiTex-Project. The project deals with digital technologies as an enabler of a resource efficient circular economy. Within two years the project creates recyclable textiles, analyses its ecological effects and examines new circular business models within that context. 

I will contribute to the project by focusing on the laundry textile service as part of the textile loop. I plan to examine the status quo and the requirements for a digital infrastructure in these facilities in order to enable a product circularity. I started with a literature analysis as well as I tried to understand the structure of the project and the institute. Due to its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary character it was quite challenging to locate my field research within the project. Therefore, it was very important to join every meeting with the partner organisations and companies especially with the collaborating tech-start-up and to clarify their interested in the sustainability and digitalisation topic. 

Although my research group is kind of familiar with online formats due the distribution over two locations (Heidelberg and Berlin) it is still an unusual situation for me. I never worked with people and for a company that I have never seen before. During the first week the institute and the team seemed very far away and not graspable for me. By reading more and more about the project and doing online lunch breaks with my colleges I was able to build up a connection. The future weeks will show whether I will be able to conduct interviews with several laundries or if I must rely on the existing interview material. I expect many changes and rectification of my initial plans due to this special situation and I am excited about to upcoming weeks.