Whether you’re in the retail industry or not, your supply chain is likely feeling some impact from the effect of social media—most specifically social commerce. If you’re not familiar with the term, social commerce has become an incredibly effective method for manufacturers, particularly clothing manufacturers, to push products to consumers. Using social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and others, brands push advertising out to subscribers. Follow a bunch of runners on social media? There’s a good bet that during your daily scroll session, a running shoe or apparel company pops an ad into your feed. Intrigued, you swipe on the ad, and before you know it, you’re buying a new pair of shoes. Gen Z and millennials are most susceptible to this type of advertising, but anyone on social media can be swept up in this effective selling approach.
What does this mean for the supply chain? Some of these products are originating from “fast fashion” locations, often in Asia. Sourcing, cyberattacks, and bottlenecks have been frequent issues when sourcing from this region in the past few years. Perhaps the biggest ramifications from dealing in the social commerce pipeline, though, are the increasing number of regulations rolling out. Fast fashion comes with it many pitfalls, child labor and lack of responsible manufacturing practices among them. There’s currently legislation in Congress—an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act—that would establish a national garment industry registry to promote transparency throughout the supply chain. Should it pass, supply chain visibility software will become more important than ever. Given the fact that social commerce isn’t going anywhere soon, now’s a good time to look into the tools that will help you manage your role in this evolving world.
