How has the housing crisis affected home fashion retail?

So everyone knows that we are going through a recession right now, and the effects are obvious seen through the buying habits of Americans. They are buying less now since money is tighter, and so fashion companies have to be more innovative in order for consumers to buy their products. Home fashion is a good example of this, and there are so many aspects in this department. From furniture to home accessories, there are endless possibilities of choices for things to decorate and furnish your home.





Since Americans have less money to spend on everything now days, consumers are buying cheaper pieces of furniture and in lesser quantities. Home accessories are becoming more popular for the average buyer since they are smaller and more affordable. Everything from vases to mirrors, and rugs to picture frames are available for consumers to purchase. The accessories are fun and are easy to use in order to change the look and feel of a room.

The colors are playful and change with the seasons and trends. Even if someone is tight on money, they can afford to buy something small for their home. The image on the right, taken from http://mocoloco.com/upload/2007/06/interior_lifest_4/interior_lifestyle_accessor.jpg, is a good example of the way home accessories are used in everyday life.

challenges of apparel retail

There are many problems and challenges that retailers face in the fashion industry today. These can range from trying to figure out retailing strategies and distributors, to deciding initially what type of retailing that company want to have. A few of the types of retailers include department stores, specialty stores, warehouse retailers, supermarkets, or discount retailers. As you can imagine, a lot of challenges have to be overcome for the retailer to be successful!

According to the textbook The Business of Fashion: Designing, Manifacturing, and Marketing, retailing can be defined as "a business activity of selling goods or services to the final consumer". This means that retail has a lot of components to it since it has to appeal to the consumer, and there are many different types of potential buyers. The retailer has to target certain groups of people and every season needs to be up to the consumer's standards if they want the items to be bought.

The distribution process is also important for retailers, and plays a key role in the process of selling to the consumer. Quick Response, supply chain management strategies, and product lifecycle management are a few of these components. They tie the company and the retailers together, and provide the success that they each require. If any part of this process goes wrong, then the outcome with be problematic and the results could be disastrous.

sweating about sweatshops

One topic that many people think about is that of sweatshops,and whether or not they should be used when producing something. Personally, I think that there are both good and bad points to using a sweatshop. Say you owned a company that wanted to sell a pair of jeans for $45.00, but still be able to bring in a large profit. The best way, economically speaking, would be to use the workers in a sweatshop and have them manufacture the product. This would be very cost efficient in the sense that they get payed very little for what the make, which also means that you pay very little for what is made. If it only costs you 5 or 10 dollars to have a pair of jeans manufactured, then your profit will be a lot more lucrative than if you payed more to have it put together.

Of course, sweatshops are very sad places of employment, and most times have harsh working conditions. These places provide very little pay to it's workers, and there are often times only one or two breaks offered throughout the entire working day. According to coopamerica.org, a Honduran worker got paid 43 cents an hour to make clothing for Wal-Mart. These wages are incredibly low, and for many people that are forced to work under such conditions, it isn't enough to live on. Some people are working to support families of large numbers, and more often than not, children are also forced to work in the same conditions just so their families can afford food and shelter.

Sweatshops are an ever-present issue all over the world, and companies and economies are caught up in the circle. "Since multinational corporations are constantly pressuring suppliers for cost-cutting measures, workers most often find conditions getting worse instead of better"(coopamerica.org). This is very sad, but it is something the company and the buyer have to decide upon. You can either choose to pay a little bit more for clothing not mad in a sweatshop, or you can buy cheaper things that have been made by people in harsh conditions. Whether most people will admit it or not, sweatshops are good economically speaking but bad socially and humanely.