(3/3)

Hello!

 

I am now on my last week at the internship, and it feels so crazy how fast these two months have passed by, but it is also so fun to see how much I have learned and experienced through this! My internship has given me the opportunity to do many different tasks such as measuring prototypes, handling different excel files and participate in meetings both with factories and producers as well as between different departments, among others. I really feel that I have gotten a realistic feeling of how it can be to work at a clothing company, and that I have gotten a better understanding of how the industry works.

 

As I am still doing my internship, I have gotten time to write the report during days with home office, which have worked good for me. As mentioned in my last blog I decided to dive a bit deeper into one of the projects I’ve looked into for my report: types of packaging in Nordic clothing companies. However, the more I have looked into it, the more confused I have become. It feels like there are so many aspects that need to be considered when choosing a type of packaging, which can make one alternative sustainable for one company, but not for another. And furthermore, one sustainable solution may cause damage or disadvantages in other areas. This is why it is hard to choose one solution and type of packaging that every company should follow. What is important to accomplish a sustainable choice is to look at how different alternatives will affect your company, and not be afraid to make changes.

 

I hope all of you are happy with your field study as well, and that you have learned something new! I wish you all an amazing summer (in a short while) and thank you for a different, but educational year!

 

Take care!

//Amanda R

Internship at the Retail Lab - 02

Hi once again!

Most students would be packing their bags for the summer vacations now.. Our meetings at the Handelslabbet also have officially come to an end. But we decided to keep in touch and complete our assigned tasks (which in my case includes ‘Poster designing’) before the vacations. The retail lab is a great platform where we can exhibit how the University is driving innovation in the textile and fashion industry. It has been quite exciting to be a part of an enthusiastic team here. It has connected me to the University quite much. 

When it comes to the research regarding AI in the fashion and textile industry, I have found that incorporating technologies like AI in the supply chains is becoming a compulsion for companies. AI is not only revolutionizing the industry but also it has great significance when it comes to the aspects of sustainability. Brands and companies are struggling to reduce their production wastes. Using AI technologies for demand prediction, trend forecasting and manufacturing the right products at the production end and also improving customer satisfaction at the retail end, reduces over production and product returns and thus helps the companies to achieve their sustainability goals. 

The research is going on and it is demanding a bit more attention and concentration. The weather is so nice and is almost always intriguing for a nice walk.

Hopefully, I will share some information about Handelslabbet’s reopening in the next post.

Have a nice weekend! Take Care :)

/Fatima

Ethical fashion, third post

Hi everyone!

Wow, time flies. This is my last and final blog post and I am happy to say that I'm basically finished with my field study report and are now working on my presentation. 

I'm so happy that I made the decision to conduct an individual field study. I've gained so much knowledge and actually it have made my future career ambitions even clearer. Social sustainability, female rights, ethics and moral are subjects that are close to my heart and this report have given me a deeper insight into these subjects. My report concluded into four identified challenges for the future of ethical standards within the fashion industry. So, my conclusion is that those four challenges are needed to be dealed with in order for the textile industry to be sustainable from a social perspective. 

Now, I can't wait for summer that rumor says are coming this weekend...

Take care!

Johanna

Company internship - A Norwegian fashion rental company

  Blog entry 3/3

Hi everyone, I hope you all are good and having a nice time at your internships still.

For me this has been an incredible journey, where as i have gotten to learn so much about the textile industry in relation to fashion rental...

- Did you know that it takes 2700 liters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt, and that approx. 150 million tons of textiles  are produced every year while 143 million tons ends up on landfills? 

The rental fashion industry provides an alternative solution to the use-and-throw society we live in and we can utilise the garments more, longer and even better if doing so. The fashion rental industry is at its beginning for everyday wear, more so there is an increased interest from consumer to rent or lend fashion items, which I predict will be the future of fashion. I believe that retailers and brands need to understand the benefits and opportunities there are with fashion rentals or even to invest in such circular business models to be able to survive the coming post pandemic world. 

"For example, if the number of times a garment is worn were doubled on average, GHG emissions would be 44% lower." - Ellen Macarthur Foundation (Check on the link at the end of the paper for reference, pp.73)

I have been focusing on observing how the rental company choose to work with suppliers, in this case suppliers are brands and retailers. There is a research phase, a selection phase and communication tooIs are the main observations my report will be about. Since I have been involved in the three mentioned gives me (the researcher) an opportunity to really provide insightful data to this industry, which I will analyse in the report. It is interesting to be a part of that and from my perspective, there is always room for potential for improvements. The norwegian rental business are only interested in unique brands that are small and stand out from the crowd and in some ways work with sustainability. The interesting aspect here is that retailers and brands who is interested in sustainability or to become more sustainable, are more likely to be interested in rental businesses in order to promote that. 

The internship is so much fun, and I have learned more than just having meeting with different nordic brands and retailers, I have learnt that to rent items, buy less, care and repair more indeed will help the environment. How facts are evident and why brands or retailers should invest in rental business.

However, my journey is not ending and i still have the internship until August, but I have been currently writing the report for the field study course and it is a puzzle to make time for everything! 

Hopefully we can meet each other later this year,
Until then - Have a nice summer! 

All the best.

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report.pdf 

Research in Impulse Buying 3/3

 Hello everyone,

 

Time really flies when it comes to writing the report! Well, I have had lot of thoughts churning up in my mind, as always, regarding impulse buying and often, I am not hopeful for the near future, if I specifically talk in Indian context and emerging economies. I will give you all one important aspect in this blog from my report. 

 

After reviewing all the interviews, the common trigger for making an impulsive purchase was price. Indian culture has had a long tradition of haggling, and are extremely price sensitive and conscious, which is their weakness, so to speak. All the respondents agreed to the fact that they are lured by discount offers, promotional offers, and any offer which has reduced their price. It is interesting to note that an economy as huge as India, which has high young population, rising aspirations, purchasing power and modern technology, will lead to a consumerist society, which has traditionally been different. There are various research showing cultural tendencies, and this study will throw some light on various tendencies specific to Indian context. 

 

I am glad to see existing research talking about the influence of technology in emerging economies, and how it aids to more consumption, an issue which will be widespread in coming years. Through this study, I will give some insight on such issues, which will have worrying consequences if not alleviated. Extrapolation of such research studies will bring out interesting results, some which may surprise the consumers themselves! I do not wish to make this blog an academic writing, so I will leave it as it is.

 

I said in the starting of the blog that I am not hopeful for the near future specifically in the context of emerging economies, as the consumption will rise, as aspirations and purchasing power rise, it is a cycle which will complete its destined route. It is a genuine feeling, and we all know that it is true, but I am hopeful with the fact that globalised economies and interaction is helping us to learn from each other. This blog is not exactly the summary of the finding but some of the feelings which emerged while writing this study. I took this platform to express it, as we all won’t meet each other during the seminars.

 

I hope you all are doing well, with your projects and health! I will see some of you during the seminars, and the rest of you, hopefully on the campus! 

 

Have a great summer and see you all soon!

 

Warm regards

Influencer Marketing part 3 - last weeks

Hi everyone, hope everything is good with you! 

Today is Monday, and I have already been here at my internship for 3 months. The time flys past so fast. I still feel like I have more to learn and more to give. But I had in general a very great time and my supervisors and colleagues have been amazing and supportive during my internship. It feels like I am a part of the team! 

Since last time, I have been doing the same thing repeatedly. It is part of influencer marketing. The main task is to find the right and suitable influencers and the next part is to contact them. The previous weeks I have been activating my influencers and they have been provided clothes and discount code for their followers. It is amazing to see how creative influencers can be and every time I receive pictures from them I have a big smile on my face. The past weeks I have seen different influencers within the category of outdoor, for example hiking, gardening, horse and dogs. I especially am in love with the picture I get from the dogs owners and they interact with each other so well. 

The last step in the influencer marketing strategy is to evaluate the profiles. The discount code is connected to Google Analytic and the tool is calculating the numbers for use. There have been positive and negative numbers, but regardless if it is positive or negative we never end a collaboration. You never know today, because influencers are growing daily or weekly. If the collaboration was not that positive this time, maybe you can try again after 3-6 months. 

I have about 2 weeks left (if I count this week as well) and I will try to use it wisely while learning as much as I can. As far as I have come, I think all of the learnings I have learnt during my 10 weeks I will take with me forever. The company, my supervisors and colleagues have taught me to work more individually, but also that you work better when you are in a team. You should never be afraid to ask or tell your opinion, because maybe I saw something they did not. As well, I think I have improved my detective skills a lot because searching for right and suitable influencers is not easy, even though there are millions of profiles you can choose from on the social platforms. 

I am very grateful that the company gave me the opportunity to do my 10 weeks internship and I am so thankful I have been working with such inspirational and wise people. This is definitely a work place I want to come back to. 

This was my last post. 

Hope you got a brief angle of influencer marketing. 

Best regards,

Michelle

Circular textile for hotel - post 3/3

Hello,

We are coming near the end of internship. How is everyone doing?

As mentioned in the previous post, I conducted a survey about consumers' awareness about sustainable textile in hotel and finally we will close the survey. With the data I have got in so far, I'm so excited to be able to share with you guys in the report. But one thing that really struck me is how little have been done in the travel and hotel industry in regards of textile, compared to what have been and are doing in the fashion industry. Although the possibility is much higher because here the textile is in controlled most of the time by businesses. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how slow big corps are in this game. And it is frustrating.

But I'm not negative about it. And that's what keep me enjoying and excited about my internship still today. From the survey, I realize that consumers somehow forget how much textile they use for their hotel stays, or just have been so poorly informed that they often mix textile with "housekeeping" service. And once you think something is a "service", you care less about its lifespan, its origin or its impact on the environment. I hope this will change, at least for people who answered my survey.

So for the remaining time of the internship, I will focus on creating marketing material for the company based on the survey data and my market research. I have been working closely with the PR manager of the company and learnt a lot. 

Hope everyone stays safe and can't wait to see you again soon in seminars.

Warm regards,

Ly

Inherently flame retardant regenerated cellulose fibres -1st update

Got a little bit long time to publish my 1st blog in the “Blogspot” since I had to face continuous changes during my Research Assistant Internship due to lab requirements as well as COVID restrictions. I am working with one of the projects of “Textile and Fashion 2030” where the school has been assigned by the government to establish and lead the national platform for sustainable fashion and sustainable textiles in collaboration with the (RISE) Research Institutes of Sweden. The main and initial part of the research has been done by the researcher at RISE and I had to conduct fellow testing procedures to see further criteria.

Untreated regular cellulosic fibers such as viscose, cotton, and linen can easily catch on fire and spread if not protected against fire. Flame retardants can be added to the fabrics to avoid ignition or slow down the fire spread for application in workwear used for firefighters and similar workplaces with a higher exposure risk. Most flame retardants were developed as finishing agents (coatings) to attach to the fiber/fabric physically or chemically. To ensure the proper functionality, coated flame retardants potentially must be reapplied. Moreover, the chemicals used in FR-coating lead to environmental and human health concerns.

As an alternative emerged inherently flame-retardant fibers, as for example regenerated cellulose fibers- viscose, can incorporate the flame retardant into the cellulose solution with the incorporation of silica nanoparticles. Silica nanoparticles are known as low-cost, earth-abundant material and potentially low environmental and human toxicity. Since a knowledge gap still exists for the technique, I am doing a literature review and leachability test to investigate this further.

Hope I can share, clear and more reliable findings of the above points in my next update.

The life of a research assistant (part two)

We’re nearing the end of the line now and I have to say it’s been so fun to read about all your different internships and projects and I’m looking forward to hearing about a few of them in the final presentation seminars!

In our team at Handelslabbet, things are running smoothly, despite a few speed bumps along the way, and next week we’ll have our last official meeting before the summer break. However, as the relaunch isn’t until September and there is still so much to do in terms of planning, I’ve decided to push my research presentation until later in the year so that I can gather as much data as possible for the report. Speaking of data, if you haven’t already, please fill out the survey that the team sent out to your school emails. The lab wants to create an exhibition space based on your opinions and preferences so this is a golden opportunity for you guys to influence the final outcome! If you’ve missed it, you can click the link below to access it:

https://sunet.artologik.net/hb/Survey/1678/en

In terms of research, the articles and journals I’ve found have given me such a great insight into what actually gets us to walk through the doors of a store and how vital visual merchandising and storefront windows are in terms of approachability and engagement. My biggest obstacle now is to find a methodology that fits my purpose, but I’m lucky enough to have a mother with academic research experience who’s been helping me find the right books and references to guide my path. All in all, this period has been great fun so far and I’m excited to see your responses in the survey so that the Handelslabbet-team can get to designing and building an exhibition space that can intrigue and excite you all by next fall! 

Stay safe,
Malin 

Internship in Neritude 2/3

 Hej everyone!

My name is Irina and I study Textile Value Chain Management. I´ve been helping with lauching a new plus-size fashion webshop to Finland the past weeks. We had a very tight schedule and tried to open the shop end of this month but because of delays in the orders the opening is postponed by two weeks. 

It´s been challenging to work from distance as I can´t help with the practical things that the company would really need my help for. But anyways I feel like I´ve managed to learn from this internship even from distance. There´s a lot to take into consideration when setting up a business from stratch. For example contracts have to be made with different retailers and logistics providers, how much time will the customs add to the delivery time of the products (this we learned the hard way) and where to get all the packing materials. 

It´s been also interesting to see how much work goes into photoshoots, product descriptions, editing and marketing. Luckily when the products got delayed we had time to pre-launch the webshop on Instagram and TikTok (go and follow @neritude) and the response has already been great. We´ve been able to get some followers including finnish plus-size influencers and give little sneak peeks for them about the upcoming products and the journey to become a company. 

Only few weeks and my internship is done. Can´t believe how fast time has gone by!!

Have amazing week

-Irina 

Internship at [a]industri, post 2/3

Hello everyone, 

Hope that you all are doing great and enjoy the last weeks of this semester even if it starts to be a bit stressful now with deadlines coming up! 

To remind you all I am doing an internship at a garment factory and design studio named [a]industri in Gothenburg and I have already been here for 7 weeks. Since my last post I have continued to take part in client meetings with different kinds of customers. Some of the clients need for example only help to realise their design ideas but don’t have any textile background or need help in the product development phase and some clients wants help in all the steps from initial idea to produce samples and have their hole production here. Beside this I also assist in planning the production and help where I can with for instance printing and final inspections. Because of this I have learned so much about how product development works and all the steps taken in the pre-production and production phases that we discussed in Ahsan's course last fall. It is really all from fabric and trim choices to the right measurements and all the different kind of samples. So it has been really fun to experience this in real and relate this to the courses we have had.   

Regarding my report, I will write about the use of 3D digital design tools in product development and relate this to sustainability. Here at my internship they use a program named CLO 3D where all garments that are going to be designed or produced are designed in this program first. One of the advantages that I have learned so far is how this can contribute to a more sustainable sample production since so many adjustments can be made in 3D in the program, both without and with an avatar so you can see exactly how the garment will fit and look like in a certain size. This then means that less samples in many cases need to be produced and sent all over the world since changes can be made and tested visually several times first without any physical material and shipments. More on this in my last post!

Good luck with your reports and take care!

//Anna

Company internship post 3/3

 Wow, times really travel fast and only 1,5 weeks are remaining of the field study. I feel relieved as I then can focus more on the report which I haven't had much time for. 

Since my last post here I´ve had a lot of days off due to the fact that I was sick (not covid puh) and Ascension day. However, I have still gotten some work done, believe it or not. ;) 

I´ve been in contact with a GOTS certifier to investigate how everything works and what it would mean to the brand to join. I've also done some calculations on what a membership with GOTS and BCI would cost and how it will affect the margin of the products. I've also started to map the different sizes of the polybags in order to order recycled ones to all of our suppliers. I´ve also finalised the product care guide and information text that will go up on the website. 

The company is in a lot of stress atm as they have had a tough year and also because it is high season on samples. Therefore, they have a lot of other things to prioritise and my projects take some extra time to conduct. For example the jeans project that I´ve been writing about in all of my previous blog posts, not much has happened there yet. But this is also due to the fact that no one knows who's responsible for it haha, the struggles… 

Hopefully my last weeks will include fully implementing the preferred fibre list and integrating it in the AW22 development, finalising the suppliers list and maybe start the jeans project once and for all. 

Looking forward to hearing some of your presentations now and good luck with the writing. 

Best regards, 

Hanna

Digital Marketing Intern . 3

 Hi everyone. 

Last week was hectic, as it was Ascension day the week was shorter at the internship and I had a lot to do. We have shifted my focus from emails now as we are done with the "email-journey" - which is a set of automatic mails that will be sent after the customer has made an order. We will analyze it further once we have enough data to see what needs to be changed. So, last week we shifted focus to ads! I worked on making an ad and it was a lot to think of. As it's a swimwear brand it is a lot of bodies in our content, and there are policies to follow when marketing skin at different sites, like how much skin you could show in a picture. I've never thought of that before. However, I think it's good even if it's a lot to think of and creates a lot of barriers. So, when I was done making the Ad we also published it to our target markets. The feeling is kind of surreal, but I'm so thankful for the company to believe in my ideas and thoughts. I hope that you also get to test your ideas in a way that you didn't expect! 

Now it's only 2,5 weeks left of my internship, and I hope the weather forecast for these weeks changes so I will have the chance of seeing how content is created with a photoshoot. It's predicted rain, rain, and even more rain and therefore we have waited with the photoshoot. Hopefully, the sun will shine in a few days!

/Sara

"Size and Fit" Research Assistant Internship Blog 2/3

Hi everyone!

I hope you guys are doing great and enjoying the rainy summer days especially those who are in Borås.

This is my second blog here after many weeks. In my first blog, I mentioned that I am conducting a Research Assistant Internship on the topic of “Size and Fit”. In connection to my previous blog about my responsibility in research assistance. I have made substantial progress in my work. In the past week, I have finalized my database for my research. I have also studied Boolean operations and other operators for the selected database. I have also developed my keywords and search strings. I already started working on an excel sheet and it is in progress.

Now I have my tentative research topic ie systematic Literature review on consumer satisfaction for Size and Fit. The focus of my research is online shopping and its consequences on customer satisfaction. The purpose of my research will be to analyze the effect of online shopping and digital technology on customer satisfaction for Size and Fit. My research will dig down into the detail of these technologies and will analyze the pros and cons of these technologies have on customer purchase behavior.

Have a good weekend to all  😊
Best Regards
Aiman ​​Khan

Looking Forward to an End - It's Hectic! 😑

Soooo...

At the edge of the cliff of the game design and planning to jump into a bigger ocean of academic writing. 

To make the game more complete and give the players a clear picture of the bigger part of the industry I had to add another module; Retail Module. In this module, player will get the idea how to maintain inventory, a glimpse of product costing, markup, markdown and a lot of decision making aspects. The main agenda of this module player will be to clear out the inventory of the running season before entering to the next one.

At this stage the finalised version will be a game-played by 5 persons: 1 person  for Purchase Module, 3 persons for Supply Module and 1 person for Retail module. I believe, now the game is more in a complete shape to reflect an apparel industry supply chain. Demand will be generated and purchasing responsible will place the order with the suppliers after considering the necessary points and negotiations. The suppliers will be responsible to manage the manufacturing or supply of the product and communication with the buyer with a view to maximise their profitability and gain a sustainable economic growth. Finally, once the order will be delivered, the retailer will be doing "stuffs (!)" to sell the order and manage the inventory.

Still a formula is pending to implement that is, the linear demand function to determine the possibilities of selling the inventories after markdown of price. Still studying that :p.

About writing, I am thinking more towards a research paper formate where I will be explaining different terminologies and the basics of the game with a framework of it. Hopefully, will be able to pen down in a licid format for you all :).

At this moment, enjoying EID vacation. Hope to drag me to the chair again on Monday!

Enjoy and stay safe!

21st Century Tailoring - (2/3)

Hello everyone, 

I hope you're all doing great and that you have some time to enjoy the nice spring weather (finally!). 

My days are busy at Blugiallo and right now they mostly consist of analyzing the data gathered in the survey and preparing for presenting it for the company and their business developers. The survey resulted in 500+ completed answers, which will hopefully generate valuable insights that can help drive business modifications in the requested direction. It's been a bit of coding and analyzing to do (including overcoming my fear of SPSS...) but it's great to see the enthusiasm and engagement among all the respondents. 

I have never done a quantitative study like this one before, so there were some concerns before starting the project. The biggest challenge was for me to distribute the survey to non-customers. We really wanted to reach those potential future customers, like law students for example, but we didn't know how to. It was tricky because Blugiallo was using their channels to distribute the survey, via social media or email marketing for example, but many of those are already customers or at least very familiar with the brand, and thus the figures customers/non-customers were very unequal percentage-wise. Ultimately, my solution to this problem was to write individual messages to all the guys I'm friends with on Facebook and Instagram and then move on to repeat the procedure on my boyfriend's, mom's, dad's, and sister's accounts. When I closed the survey a few days later, we had reached a number of 51% customers and 49% non-customers. VERY satisfied with that number! 

Once all the analyzes are done and presented, I will fully focus on the report. 

Looking forward to my last few weeks at Blugiallo in my dear hometown Borås, before moving to Stockholm in August.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

/Edith  

Circular development, blogpost 2/3

Hello everyone, hope you all are doing good!

Now I have started my fifth week on my internship in circular development at Boob Design. I have decided to write my report for the last two weeks instead of doing it in parallel, given that I collect information and the basis for it during the internship. I recently had a presentation for the company where I suggested some concepts for second-hand sales that I think would suit the company well. After the presentation, I received good input from co-workers to continue working with the remaining weeks. The plan is for me to work this out into a final concept and once again hold a presentation the last thing I do. Between these presentations, I have had meetings with, among others, Houdini, which has been very rewarding and exciting to hear about their second-hand project and how successful it has proved to be. Although I have learned a lot and appreciated my internship, it has also been challenging many times to work remotely. But for now, it is just to keep on going and do the best of the situation!

Really appreciate reading everyone’s posts, nice to hear that so many of you seem to enjoy their internships! I wish you all a wonderful week 😊

Best regards,

Hanna Skoglund

Research Assistant Intern: Size and Fit 2/3

 Second entry

Research project about color and consumer behavior 

Post 3/3

Hello everyone!

It's Monday again, the weeks are passing by so fast now and soon it's summer. The research project is proceeding and we have now coded all the transcripts we had. At first, I thought it was difficult to decide what themes to divide the interviews in when we were coding but now, we have found a few themes that suit well. It's really interesting to see how different participants have answered so similar to the questions we asked, and that color actually affects us more than we think. 

The last time I wrote here, I  had some trouble coming up with a good research question, but now I think I have one that will work for me and my report, which feels amazing. These coming weeks I will focus on writing as much as possible, but the most difficult part is to start and I feel that I need to find some motivation for that. I am happy that I have my daily meetings with Adina and that Anita is helping us when we are confused about something. 

This will be my last post, stay safe, and have a lovely week! 

Kind regards, 

Caroline

Deep Dive into the Game Design!

 I was thinking more like, making a game for student which will be as easy as a road through an empty field. Made that also. But after looking at that I found, a lot of areas student will be missing to learn by playing the game. Yes, it will be a bit extensive for them in the classroom, but most of them are going to know them anyway, either from theory or from industry work. From that point of thought, I decided to move forward to make it a bit extensive. 

Let me explain to you what I am onto even though at this stage, it is really a tough task to explain it in words (powerpoint might work better! :-D, Kidding)

A supply chain classroom game through which player will learn about order placement negotiation, how to keep an eye on the company profitability, working with production capacity, maintaining supply chain relationship while they have to be competitive within them as well and avail purchaser's satisfaction. There were 2 module (which I decided to move forward with 3 later on to give the game a complete view) "Purchase Module" & "Supply Module". Later added the "Retail Module". 

5 learners will be able to play simultaneously and communicating with the designated parties. 1 player will play as a Retailer, 1 will be playing the role of Purchaser and 3 person will be playing as Supplier/Manufacturer. Retailer and Purchaser can be under the same company or different as well. 

Purchaser will get the aggregated data of predicted demand and based on that the orders will be placed with the Suppliers/Manufactures. Prior to that, Suppliers will be able to select what product they will be producing and at what capacity based on their investment in hand $ 500,000 (a lot of money!). Once they will have their product categories and capacity ready, Purchaser will be able to place the order with them.

After the goods produced, the retailer will be selling those goods and then the predicted and actual demand will be dealt and based on that player will decide at what markdown price he/she wants to sell the goods and clear out the inventory before entering to the next season.

Oh! I forgot to mention, the game environment timeline will be for 3 season (1 year) and there will be 3 rounds. So, players will get an idea of working with/running a fashion brand for 3 years.

Sounds complicated, right? But trust me, once you will have the things in front of you visually, it would be as easy as Rudy's class...... Kidding again..  It will be very easy and clear. 

Till then, stay safe!

Internship update (post 2/3)

Hello again everyone!

In this post I will be sharing with you what happened during last weeks. I have good news and bad news. 

Good news is that we've successfully launched a campaign which was divided into two parts. First part of the campaign was about celebrating 1 year anniversary of the brand and we gave away a free bag as a gift to one of the campaign members / participants. In order to participate in the give away, candidates had to subscribe, like, comment and share the brand's Facebook post. This definitely contributed increased subscribers as well as customer engagement and new orders.

Another part of the campaign, which we've started right after the give away, involved incorporating 15% off on all handbags and wallets. We think that give away and sale combo was great, because first, we could attract more potential customers by offering a chance to win a free bag and after that (since we had more people) - offer current and newly joined customers to buy a bag/wallet using 15% off.  Therefore, we think that the first part was necessary to start with and not vice versa. 

The bad news is that I have limited bags to work with, since there is no possibility to produce more (yet). Interesting part is that all those subscribers that we've gained for give away, stayed and didn´t unsubscribed. Moreover, people continue to subscribe and order more bags. 

My next post will probably be about our showroom that we are about to open over the weekend. 

Trevlig helg! 

Natela 

Product Developement Internship

 (2/3)

I have now been at my internship for a month. It is crazy how time fly by! I hope you all are doing great and enjoy your field studies!

 

I have already learned so much about how the product development works by experiencing it in real life. It feels so good to be able to connect what we have learned in during the courses to my own experiences. The plan is that I should be at the office two days a week and work from home the rest, but as some prefer to work from home, I have been able to be at the office more than twice most of the weeks. After as much digital meetings and lectures we have had during the last year, it is really nice to meet people!

 

Regarding my report, I decided to change the theme from how the company work with vs. communicates sustainability to packaging in the fashion industry. This theme is closer connected to a project I am taking a closer look at during my internship, and I also believe that I can learn much by doing a deeper investigation. The packaging of the products is something I haven’t put much attention to earlier, but when I think about it, I realize how much waste it produces – especially since online orders and the number of parcels only gets higher. It is therefore important to find the best and most sustainable solutions in order to reduce waste or at least be able to handle it the best way possible, so it does not end up in nature.

 

Have a good weekend!

Kind Regards

Amanda R

Internship at the Retail Lab - 01

 

Hey everyone!

Finally, I am able to post my first blog post 😊 I am Fatima and I am doing my internship as a research assistant at the University of Boras, Retail Lab (Handelslabbet). It has been few weeks, since we started, but the idea was a bit foggy at the start and now it’s getting clearer. I think same would be the case with some others as well. The retail lab is being renovated and there will be a great reopening in September. I can imagine, it will be exciting...

As I have a background in designing, I got the task to create an interesting display on the artificial intelligence research in textile and fashion industry. First, I had a plan to create a video, which would show all the interesting projects that are being carried out and revolutionizing the textile and fashion industry. But later on, I have decided to go on with some posters that could fulfill the intended purpose. As, a poster with a lot of text could be boring, therefore, the plan is to create minimalistic, yet informative poster; that can be tricky as well.

We have weekly meetings, where we discuss ideas and progress and also get to know how renovation of the lab is going on. For the report, I will be exploring how Artificial Intelligence is influencing the textile and fashion industry. Artificial Intelligence is a vast field and it is transforming the world of textile and fashion in various ways. From robots in the manufacturing units to Smart mirrors and automated fashion stylists, artificial intelligence has great influence. I had meetings with some researchers at the University of Borås, to know more about ongoing research on artificial intelligence and its role on textile industry. There is a lot of literature to be read, so I am also trying to deal with that.

I hope everyone is enjoying their fieldwork. It is fun to hear how everyone is doing, on this platform.

Have a great weekend…

/ Fatima

Resarch project, post 3/3

 Hi everyone, 

Hope you all are good!

The research project is proceeding, we are now done with our focus group interviews and with the coding, it took time and effort but it's looking good now. We have found some interesting themes in the interviews and we are also noting the themes that we did not expect to receive from our questions, that could have a great impact on our findings, 

The process to actually start writing is hard, I need some inspiration and this sitting at home, meeting no people situation is making the inspiration harder to receive. I will just need to get in my writing mood.

Other than that I am really excited to start and see how the result will turn out, and to see how the research will use the material that we have gathered. We know that the information from the interviews are good and we have discussed some interesting themes that we found in the interviews with the researcher who were excited about the findings.

 

This will be my last post, so good luck everyone! Hope to see you soon!

Best,

Adina 

Circular textile for hotel - post 2/3

Hello,

It is Ly again. So this is my second blog of the internship and it has been 3 weeks full of new things for me to learn. As I mentioned in the first post, I'm doing a survey for the company to understand consumers' perspectives about sustainable textile in hotels. This is a very interesting topic to me. Since then, I have worked together with 2 colleagues to create and test the survey.

Finally I'm happy to share with you that the survey is up and running. And I'd be more than happy if you could spare 5 minuts of your time to answer the survey (sorry that it's in swedish). As a thank you, we will give out 5 climate-smart bathrobes & slippers, among those who respond.

https://www.survio.com/survey/d/E2J1V7C3E1W5T2V6U

Other things I have learnt during the internship is marketing tasks such as social media content creation, newsletter design and plan, as well as having many chances to talk with the founder of the brand to hear about their experience in starting up the company and working with different partners.

I have enjoyed the internship so far and very excited to getting to do things I never did before. 

See you in my next post!

Ly

Digital Marketing Intern . 2

(2/3) 

Another week has gone by since last time, but it feels like even more. Time flies! Just as a remember for you, I'm doing an internship at a swimwear brand as a Digital Marketing and Content Strategist. The focus this week has been on which kind of emails that we should focus on in the life cycle of a customer journey. It's a lot to think of, for example, the brand identity and brand image, but also when and what the customer want to have an email about, and how often we can send without it being perceived as spam. It has been fun, and I get to test my ideas a lot, which I'm so thankful for. Actually, I've made their new email template design, which they have used for a few emails now. Later we're going to analyze the content of the emails to see which gives the most loyal customers. This takes time as it's a small company and we want to have the clearest picture possible. 

The focus of my report will be on creating customer loyalty through emails, as this is what my internship is about. I've written a logbook, in which I write what I've done every week and what we are talking about. This will be my kind of result that I will connect to the literature. However, I'm still a bit confused over which type of paper I will write, which I have to talk with Jenny about on the tutoring. Well, this is probably a little bit late, but I've focused a lot on my internship as I think it's fun and I'm learning a lot - but now I'll take more time and focus on the paper! Hope the report is going well for you others as well, maybe it's not only me that is struggling. 

Take care!

S

Towards a New Supply Chain Classroom Game

Last time in my supply chain course when I played the supply chain beer game, I felt it quite interesting. There are lots of positive and negative sides of the game popped up in my mind and I was thinking why this kind of games couldn't be more related to the industrial reality?

I grabbed the opportunity of working in search of a new game which I couldn't find yet within the already existing games. From a lot of thoughts I decided to start working on the supply chain planning  and manufacturing field. Soon I started to explore new opportunities holding the hand of several researchers who already has done highly extensive research in this field.

Making a complete game within this short period of time is really really tough. Because while programming the game a lot of areas have to look in. And when it is a supply chain game within one of the most complex industries ie. Fashion retail industry, the number of areas to look in is literally a thousand. It is really a tough job, trust me! And to make it more challenging, I have added several more advanced theme into it so that, the players get a glimpse of the industrial reality through this game. 

I would say, pedagogically it has widespread ideas to convey to the students such as price negotiation, capacity maintaining,  competition within the supply chain, competition among different suppliers (market), keep an active eye on the profitability of the order and how to increase that with a view to give company a sustainable economic growth and so on. 

The game is based on a simple concept: a buyer has a certain amount of order which he/she has to place with suppliers. 4 persons can play the game simultaneously across 3 rounds. Several information is being shared across both buyer and supplier ends in order to have more precise decision. Still i am working on it and hopefully will be completed within end of week 18.

I would be really happy if someone would volunteer to play the game and get some insights of the supply chain practice within fashion retail industry.

Take care!
Saikot

Company internship pt. 2

 Hello to you all,

I hope you all are doing fine and that you have enjoyed the spring weather in the breaks of the field study. 

The field study is going good this far. I´m reaching out to more suppliers and getting more practical knowledge within sustainability which is really interesting. After discussing with the suppliers I noticed that some of the previously used materials are already of better fibre such as BCI cotton. This makes it easier to decide on which certificates that are worth investing in at the moment for the company. I have also started to work a bit more with their transparency and I am currently working on a suppliers list that can be posted on their website. Not much has happened with the leftover jeans project that I was supposed to start, this mainly due to that an internal decision needs to be made and this project isn´t prioritised at the moment. 

Usually I´m at the office 2 days a week which is great as I don´t feel very productive at home. It is also nice to meet some people 2 days a week. ;) However, this week I will work from bed as I have gotten a cold. Will take a covid test today as well so fingers crossed that it is negative!

Stay safe people!

Hanna

Influencer Marketing part 2

 Hi everyone!

It is Michelle again. I can not believe that I have already been here a little bit more than 1 month. I have already learnt a lot. By the end of April last month, my supervisor walked through the process of contacting profiles. By then I had already found over 100 different profiles from Norway and the Netherlands. I sort them by a contact list and a waitlist to save them to later. The profiles on the waitlist usually have fewer followers or lower engagement. We put them there to see if they will decrease anytime soon. It is better to save more than have less, my supervisor says. On the waitlist I also have collected over 100 profiles and it is assumed to be a good standard start contacting the profiles. 

The contact process is not that hard. The hardest task is to balance all the work because you can not email the profiles for a whole week and forget to continue to source new profiles. My daily schedule that I made for myself is answering email before lunch and afterwards I continue to source new profiles after lunch to keep up the pace and routine. Usually when we reach out to the profiles we primarily use email, if the profile does not have a published email we contact them by Instagram DM. Also the whole team is using the same email templates to inform the same information to all profiles and it consists of 6 email templates that look almost the same. It is very important that I keep a nice tone to everyone I write to, because they are our potential “customers”. 

During the email conversation the profiles have to agree on our agreement before starting the collaboration. When they have done that they can decide on a set of clothes (jacket + pants) and in exchange they have to make 2 post + 2 stories divided into 2 months. Then I just have to keep the profiles informed and decide the posting schedule and date after they have received the clothes. 

This is what I have learnt so far. 

See you in my next post!

// Michelle

Buying and Sustainability Internship at a Denim Brand Part 2

 Hej everyone,

It is nearly half-time in my internship. The time has been passing by very fast, probably because I have been learning so much every day over the last few weeks. As promised in my latest entry, I will give you an update on my projects at work as well as the report. Well, the progress of the latter can be summarized quickly, because there is not much to say about it yet. I was able to take a lot of notes while participating in various meetings and discussions during my work with the company. Sighting and structuring these notes, with the status quo of the literature in the field of supply chain partnerships for sustainability in mind will be the next step. To do so I will however have to review the literature first which is what I am currently focusing on regarding the report.

My projects at work have been progressing much more. I was strongly involved in the placement of production orders and the entailing follow up processes. Next to deciding which styles to produce the task involved determining the required quantities, the definition of the size breakdown of each article, the finalization of each style from a design point of view and summarizing all information for the suppliers. Alongside the production orders I was working on the collection orders which involved less work on quantities and more creative work on the styles. The entailing follow-up processes further involved the placement of fabric and accessory orders. Even though I have worked as a buyer before for a fast fashion company, I had to realize that there is still a lot for me to learn as a small brand works very differently and is facing much different problems than a large fast fashion corporation. This realization was very interesting for me and made me recognize that even though I can use a lot of my previous experiences I certainly have to adjust it to another setting. The work with the collection and production orders gave me a lot of insights in the current structures of the production and product development processes which will enable me to develop the structure further according to the requirements of the brand.

Furthermore, speaking to my co-workers and getting in touch with various suppliers I was able to get a better understanding of where the brand finds itself on its sustainability journey – I must admit they are much further than I expected in the first place. This showed me that communicating sustainability and being sustainable are not the same. In the case of the brand, I am working for, working to become more sustainable is a continuous process which has a bigger priority than communicating it. Looking especially at the social pillar of sustainability I found out that the suppliers are already taking active measures ensuring the compliance with the amfori BSCI code of conduct. All sourcing and buying decisions are made with the aim to decrease the negative social and environmental aspects and in the best case to foster a positive change. Currently the aims are however not clearly defined and collected in a strategy. As the decisions are made by a very small team who all agree on the same underlying values, criteria, and goals, not having a clearly defined strategy is not an issue. Especially as the resources to develop such a strategy are currently put into measures fostering sustainability, which I consider much more effective. In the long run however, the next step should be to dedicate some resources to the development of a strategy to continue the work towards sustainability and to uphold the values and rigorous criteria while the company is growing. A task I will not be able to tackle during my time with the company, which is why I will focus on smaller measures the company can take to move forward on the sustainability journey.

Have a great start into the week!

The life of a research assistant

A few weeks in to this field study period now and thankfully spring has finally sprung! I can definitely say that my motivation and energy levels have increased with the extra sun hours and warmer temperatures we’re experiencing each day. My name is Malin and I’m interning as a research assistant to the head coordinator of Handelslabbet at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås. During the last couple of weeks we’ve been having weekly meetings, going over research material and trend reports from WGSN to try and hone in on what effectively gets people’s attention in terms of interactive storefront window displays. As Handelslabbet is getting a make-over for the pending relaunch in September, I’ve been given the task to come up with ideas for the new window displays for the exhibition space - super exciting! 

For my final report I will be examining how window displays affect consumer perception, expected shopping experience and affective response, while also looking into how interactive window displays influence engagement of passers by and their commitment to entering the shop. So far I’ve found a profound amount of interesting articles and journals, so getting through those will be time-consuming but intriguing. The Handelslabbet-team is also conducting a survey, which will hopefully reach your inboxes by tomorrow afternoon, so I’m hoping that you will all be able to take a couple of minutes out of your busy schedules to answer it. 

In the meantime, I’ll be spending my time divided between the mountain of research articles that need to be reviewed and my balcony, trying to catch as much vitamin D as possible. Hope you guys can enjoy this weather too and best of luck with all your internships!

Stay safe,
Malin 

Research in Impulse Buying 2/3

 Hello everyone,

 

Three weeks have passed since my last blog, and I am finished with conducting the interviews. I am in the process of transcribing a few interviews which should be done in the next two to three days. Well, I must say I have had some interesting conversations over the past few weeks with the respondents but the process of transcribing them is equally tiring!

 

As soon as I will be finished with the transcription, I wish to code the conversations by diving them into specific sections. Few of the sections will be triggers for impulsive purchases, pre-purchase emotional drivers and post-purchase emotions and rationalisation. Broadly speaking, I will be looking at how the respondents look at impulse buying and what are the triggers which lead them to such purchases. I will be also looking at the post purchase emotions and how respondents perceive their impulsive buying behaviour. As I am looking at the Indian audience, I have an interesting outcome from the interviews, which is persistent throughout the respondents, having some worrying consequences if we look from one perspective. I will share that aspect in my last blog.

 

For the next week, I will code all my interviews into a spreadsheet/excel sheet and physically on a paper to analyze them. I have been having a tough time just sitting and reading on a screen, so I thought of mixing some old school techniques where we can write anecdotes on various papers and sit around them! (It may sound cumbersome but helps my mind to stay sane and gives me some time away from the screen)

 

All along the interview process I have been reading various articles and literature and now I will use them to finally support the empirical data which I have gathered. The process of writing report will not be done in the last two weeks, but it will be a gradual process in my case starting from next week. Yes, I will have various things going on simultaneously, not exactly a chaos but something near to it… 

 

In my last blog, I will share few insights from the analysis and discussion. 

As Daniel Kahneman often says that, “There is a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make”, analyzing these random thoughts about impulsive purchase is going to be interesting. 

 

It is always nice to read other blogs, as different perspective is what keeping us sane.

 

Warm regards.