February and March 2020 is the worst month for all the business. This is all started back in December 2019, in Wuhan wet market. Just after 3 months, the number of reported cases shot up to 100,000. The virus outbreak reduced the supply of products to online sellers. Especially fashion, cloths and wearables. The majority of the products are from China. China is a global manufacturing hub. One can observe the hesitation in customers to buy items with the stamp “Made in China”. Also, fashion week cancelled across major cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Japan, Seoul, Bologna, Paris and Geneva. Some of the fashion events streamed live in respective sites and youtube.
The huge number of clothes and related products exported from China. The virus is trembling the fashion industry. Also, some of the digital marketing firms are coming up with new ways to reach a wider audience by streaming the show live on online sites. Many fashion designers stopped working on projects. Germany, Italy, and Spain government told people to avoid mass gathering.
Disruption in the Fashion Industry
Coronavirus initially hit the shipping and airlines industry. Both industries are the backbone of the eCommerce business. The fashion market is also a very big space in the eCommerce area. Many people are avoiding clothes shopping. In China, Nike and other prominent shoe store are all closed in February 2020. Also, one can observe that many programmes and main events cancelled across the world. This will seriously disrupt the fashion sector.
Europe is the hub of many famous fashion shops. Coronavirus threat across Europe is growing. One can see the reports that the number of cases growth in France, Italy and Spain. In early March 2020, across Italy tourists advised returning to their country immediately. Many famous locations like Milan and important historical sites are shut. The hotel business is down because of no tourists and retail fashion stores as well.
Many luxury fashion products are sold in shops. Normally, online shopping for luxury fashion products is very less. However, the reports showing improvement in eCommerce business for the luxury fashion sector. Traffic to store sites are increased and enquires also rose. But the problem for some stores is that their manufacturers are located in China. Hence few luxury brands are unable to manage the orders online as well.
Finally, the fashion industry has taking hit due to a virus outbreak. However, a lot of new doors are opening. Retail store is almost closed across the prime fashion cities. Hence, many luxury brands have seriously started the option on eCommerce. Also, many firms started to open doors for other suppliers like India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Let us hope for the best and everything will come to normal soon.
