From the Sector

Viele wollen sich etwas leisten – und das Klima schützen. Im Spannungsfeld dieses scheinbaren Dilemmas operiert der florierende Onlinehandel in Europa. 60 Prozent der Deutschen sogar 64,2 Prozent der Franzosen halten den E-Commerce für eine Umweltsünde. Damit liegen sie falsch, wie wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen belegen. Das geht aus einer vorgestellten Studie von Seven Senders zur Nachhaltigkeit im Onlinehandel hervor. Sie führt die wichtigsten Forschungsergebnisse zum Thema zusammen, ergänzt sie durch eine aktuelle Umfrage unter Konsumenten in sieben europäischen Ländern und bündelt sie zu Praxistipps und Best Practices für E-Tailer.

Wo die Potenziale liegen …
In der Generation Z, der junge Menschen zwischen 18 und 24 angehören, meinen neun von zehn, dass jedes Unternehmen Umweltverantwortung übernehmen sollte. Dabei interessieren sich 85 Prozent der europäischen Firmen für eine Reduktion ihrer Emissionen. Das betrifft auch die E-Commerce-Branche, obwohl sie – verglichen mit dem stationären Handel – in Sachen Umweltbelastung deutlich besser dasteht: Durchschnittlich ist der berechnete CO₂-Ausstoß pro im Internet verkauftem Produkt um den Faktor 2,3 geringer. Dennoch gibt es in Sachen Klimaschutz noch Luft nach oben: Der Löwenanteil der im E-Commerce generierten Emissionen entfällt auf den Transport – First und Last Mile zusammengenommen. Er macht zwischen 35 und 65 Prozent der Gesamtumweltbelastung aus und bietet damit, neben Verpackung und Retourensteuerung, den größten Hebel für Verbesserungen.

Bewusstsein ist nicht gleich Handeln
Die Studie zeigt: Mit dem wachsenden Umweltbewusstsein der Onlineshopper in Deutschland, Österreich, der Schweiz, Frankreich, Italien, Spanien und den Niederlanden stieg zuletzt auch die Bereitschaft an, für nachhaltige Lieferoptionen mehr Geld in die Hand zu nehmen, und zwar von 54 Prozent 2021 auf 70 Prozent in diesem Jahr. Dies bedeutet nicht automatisch, dass die Option beim Checkout auch tatsächlich genutzt wird. Best Practices in der Studie von Seven Senders zeigen, dass eine gute Nutzerführung und Information über die Umweltwirkungen verschiedener Versandlösungen dazu beitragen, dass nachhaltige Optionen um bis zu viermal häufiger angenommen werden. Die Studie macht deutlich, dass der Onlinehandel für das Erreichen seiner Klimaziele auf die Mitwirkung seiner Kunden angewiesen: Eine Senkung der Retourenquote, die für vermeidbare Umweltbelastungen sorgt, oder mehr Akzeptanz für eine Zustellung an Out-of-Home-Sammelstellen schaffen Quick Wins fürs Klima, die jeder E-Tailer nur gemeinsam mit seinen Kunden erreichen – und damit tonnenweise CO₂ einsparen kann. Wie viel genau, das beziffert Seven Senders im Rahmen eines DEKRA-zertifizierten Rechenmodells: Demnach verursacht die Zustellung an eine Out-of-Home-Sammelstelle im Vergleich zur Lieferung an eine Privatadresse durchschnittlich 300 g weniger CO₂ pro Paket.

Nachhaltigkeit ist (k)ein Zukunftsthema
Trotzdem ist der Weg hin zu einem Onlinehandel, der keine Emissionen mehr verursacht, noch weit – und die Realisierung von CO₂-neutralen Logistiklösungen, wie der Einsatz von E-LKWs, wird noch Jahre brauchen. Der Klimaschutz braucht schnell wirksame Lösungen, hier bietet sich die Kompensation von kurzfristig nicht vermeidbaren CO2-Emissionen als „goldene Brücke“ in eine emissionsarme oder sogar -freie Zukunft an, in der entsprechende Maßnahmen umsetzbar sind und greifen. Dass eine solche Strategie auch ein Wettbewerbsvorteil und Wachstumsimpuls für verantwortungsvoll agierende E-Tailer sein kann, zeigt die Studie ebenfalls: Durch die Skaleneffekte der E-Commerce-Logistik und abweichende Konsumgewohnheiten in den unterschiedlichen europäischen Märkten kann sogar eine Expansion zu positiven Effekten in der Klimabilanz führen. Thomas Hagemann, Gründer und Co-CEO von Seven Senders, sieht die E-Tailer auf einem guten Weg in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit: „Kaum eine Branche entwickelt sich so dynamisch wie der Onlinehandel, der sich mit Disruption auskennt wie kaum ein anderer. Frühzeitig auf die Wünsche von Konsument:innen einzugehen und diese rasch und effizient umzusetzen, gehört zu seinen Stärken. Die intensive Debatte um Umwelt- und Klimaschutz sowie mehr Nachhaltigkeit im Konsum können E-Tailer einmal mehr nutzen, um zu wachsen und an Stärke zu gewinnen.“

• Revenue Increases to HK$8,316 Million with Net Profit After Tax Surging Significantly
• Recording a Turnaround to HK$381 Million
• Re-Establishes ESPRIT’s Market Leadership

ESPRIT HOLDINGS LIMITED has announced its audited financial annual results for the year ended 31 December 2021, highlighted by a significant increase in both revenue and profit attributable to shareholders of the Company to HK$8,316 million and HK$381 million respectively, in which the profit attributable to shareholders of the Company also recorded a turnaround versus the loss attributable to shareholders of the Company of HK$414 million for the six months ended 31 December 2020. Gross profit margin was 48.6%, 7.0% higher than the Corresponding Period. Please refer to the Company’s results announcement for the Current Year for further details.

Such financial improvement was attributable to various reasons, including (i) the new infrastructure and strategies instituted by the current management team; (ii) improvement in sales with higher gross profit margin; (iii) positive results of efficient cost control measures; (iv) improved inventory management; and (v) growth in E-commerce.

Although revenue in the Current Year was affected by lockdowns in the Company’s major European markets during the first quarter of 2021, and due to increased restrictions on entry requirements into stores during the fourth quarter of 2021, the Group generated revenue via three main channels: E-commerce, wholesale, and owned retail stores. As the ESPRIT brand website and third-party E-commerce partners continued to trade during lockdown, a large portion of the Group’s sales were generated online. This business model allowed it to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the Pandemic in the retail segment. Another driver of growth came from selling fewer discounted products from the Company’s retail business compared to 2020.

The Group has not forgotten the ESPRIT mission and long-standing commitment to sustainability. The Company has continued to work tirelessly towards developing cutting-edge materials that set new standards in terms of environmental sustainability. The Company has formulated and further advanced its ESG strategies to establish ESPRIT as an industry pioneer. Such strategies involve the greater use of sustainable fibers, developing new and innovative product options that support a circular economy, and ensuring environmental awareness is a key message that underpins all of the Group’s projects. To achieve these objectives, the Management has identified four key pillars of growth (Sourcing and Procurement; Marketing and Product; IT, Internet, and E-commerce; and The ESPRIT Brand Story) that are paramount in maintaining the loyalty of existing ESPRIT patrons and attracting new customers.

Looking ahead, the global economy is anticipated to be negatively affected by the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. The already unstable logistics industry and disrupted supply chain will likely be further impacted, which in turn will result in higher logistic service costs. Despite the unfavorable global economic outlook, the Group believes that under the leadership of its current management and with the support of dedicated staff members, the Company is on track to ongoing profit growth.

The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), representing the full spectrum of U.S. textiles from fiber through finished sewn products, issued a statement welcoming House passage of the America COMPETES Act, a legislative package that will help close the de minimis loophole on duty-free imports from China and also renew the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB), both important provisions to U.S. textile manufacturers.

“We commend the House for passing this sweeping legislation, which contains several critical trade provisions beneficial to American manufacturers,” said NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas. “This legislation contains a provision that would effectively prohibit China from exploiting the Section 321 de minimis mechanism in U.S. trade law, a win for U.S. textile producers and workers.

“We sincerely thank Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) for working diligently to include and preserve his Import Security Fairness Act in the underlying U.S. competitiveness bill. This bill would help close the de minimis loophole, which allows imports valued under $800 to come into the United States without paying duties and taxes, bypassing inspections by U.S. Customs and providing a backdoor to Chinese goods produced with forced labor. The loophole has not only fueled the rise of imports from foreign e-commerce companies and mass distributors, but it has also put our domestic manufacturers and workers at a competitive disadvantage.”

Another important provision in the legislation renews the MTB for two years, which would extend limited tariff relief on a range of manufacturing inputs used by U.S. textile producers.

In closing, NCTO’s Glas stated: “NCTO worked closely with our allies in the House on these provisions in the underlying bill and we commend their hard work and support. We will continue to push for these critical provisions that benefit the U.S. textile industry in Senate-House conference negotiations in the coming days.”

Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles concluded its 27th autumn edition in early October. Held alongside four other concurrent textile shows, the fair was the only major event for this sector able to take place in China during this season, providing a much-needed business platform for 735 exhibitors and 20,106 trade buyers. The fair was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

Ms Wendy Wen, Senior General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd expressed: “Due to the valuable cooperation of many parties and the continued support of our exhibitors and other partners, we were able to hold the fair as scheduled despite a number of challenges. Since the pandemic situation was brought under control in China last year, we have expended considerable resources to ensure our textile fairs still take place to provide trading platforms that connect the global industry. This edition was especially important as it was the only major fair to take place in the country at this time.”

While a number of international exhibitors participated this year with individual booths, the Belgium Pavilion presented home and contract products and five Chinese regional pavilions from Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Haining, and Tongxiang also featured. Two trend forums also provided inspiration for 2022, while the IKASAS Japanese Home Design Gallery, New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers City Roving Exhibition and China International Fiber Art Exhibition gave further insights into various aspects of the industry.

Fair’s fringe programme highlights sustainability, design and more
As with all of Messe Frankfurt’s textile fairs around the world, sustainability is a big focus. A number of events under this focus took place in the fair’s fringe programme, including a half day forum titled How Sustainable Fashion is Reshaping Lifestyles, with a range of innovative companies and prestigious universities participating as speakers.

The Design Talk session featured a series of presentations from leading international designers, including from China, Japan and Europe, to share their design insights. And a new concept this year, titled New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers – Intertextile Upholstery Design and City Roving Exhibition, showcased the work of six groups of young local designers from across China who presented the interior design ideas of their generation through displays and a forum. And reflecting the changes that continue to accelerate in the industry, a number of e-commerce and cross-border trade events took place, including sessions from the likes of JD Home, AliExpress and Tmall.

The 2022 Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles – Spring Edition will take place from 9 – 11 March, while the Autumn Edition is scheduled for 23 – 25 August 2022.

Kornit Digital announced that United Kingdom-based GoCustom Clothing has installed the Kornit Avalanche HD6 system for on-demand, direct-to-garment (DTG) digtal production. This installment coincides with GoCustom Clothing’s implementation of the KornitX platform, which provides a streamlined end-to-end workflow between the brand’s online customer stores and their production floor.

GoCustom Clothing offers print and embroidery services, and began by providing workwear for local businesses before branching out to school hoodies and uniforms. As their e-commerce business grew and orders became more diverse, GoCustom Clothing determined it was best to add digital DTG production capabilities, which could accommodate both orders of 1,000-plus pieces and single pieces. GoCustom originally invested in a Kornit Storm system for on-demand production, before upgrading to a Kornit Avalanche HD6 for increased capacity.

Kornit Avalanche HD6 can digitally produce numerous apparel types without considerable setup time.  Pallets can be changed quickly to handle different sizes and applications, versus the costly and time-consuming processes associated with screen printing operations. Furthermore, digitizing operations with KornitX,  Kornit’s operating system for on-demand sustainable fashion, means increased control and management of the end-to-end fulfillment process, from front-end steps including design, order management, and virtual catalog to smart routing of orders, production, packaging, and shipping.

The REACH4texiles project just kicked off. Funded by the European Commission, it aims at exploring solutions for fair and effective market surveillance on textile products.

Every year, about 28 billion of garments circulate across Europe, 80% of which are imported from outside the EU and its jurisdiction.
 
Inevitably, such huge volumes pose enormous challenges for market surveillance authorities which are called to ensure that uncompliant dangerous products are kept away from the EU citizens.

The European Union has the world most comprehensive chemical legislation which is set to protect consumers, the environment and, theoretically, even the competitiveness  of the business.

Such EU chemical legislation evolves constantly, increasing scope and ambition. New restrictions impact authorities and sectors like the European textile value chain and generate new costs for all actors.

Evidence suggests that such advanced regulatory framework is not completed with an equally advanced or effective EU-wide control system capable of ensuring compliance, especially in the case of imported products.

The REACH4texiles project aims at exploring solutions for fair and effective market surveillance on textile products; it pools together the key actors to address three objectives:

• Keep non-compliant products away from the single market.
• Increase skills and knowledge.
• Support a Network addressing chemicals in textiles and applying the EU regulation 2019/1020

The 2 years project will share best practices, identify efficient approaches against non-compliant products, offer training and support for a more effective surveillance and for level playing field.

The project welcomes collaboration with concerned authorities across the EU Member States.

Details:

A well-functioning EU market surveillance system is an essential prerequisite to protect citizen, the environment and competitiveness of responsible business. When it comes to textiles, the broad range of products, the large set of REACH subjected chemicals used in textiles as well as industrial strategies like fast fashion make this a challenging task.

Challenges may include lack of resources, difficulties in identifying higher risk products, cost and management of chemical tests, lack of test methods and knowledge of best practices. These challenges are yet likely to increase with the upcoming REACH restrictions and the growth of e-commerce.

Because of this, products that do not comply with REACH regulations encounter today little or no barriers to enter the market. This creates not only a health risk for Europeans but also undermines the competitivity of responsible businesses that take all necessary measures to comply with these regulations.

Addressing the challenges requires more knowledge at market surveillance and stronger collaboration between these authorities, the textile and clothing industry and testing laboratories. More knowledge about the identification of risk baring textile products and REACH chemicals likely to be used in these products, suitable test methods and strategies such as fast screening on REACH chemicals, trustworthiness of labels, etc can increase the effectiveness of market surveillance considerably.

The REACH4Textiles first objective (keep non-compliant products away from the EU Market) will be pursued by increasing knowledge on market surveillance functioning by and working on a risk-based approach to identify products at higher risk.

The second objective supports a network to address the specificities of chemicals in textiles with market surveillance authorities and involving other relevant stakeholders. The third objective focuses on sharing knowledge with market surveillance actors on textile products and suitable test methodologies.

Supported by the European Commission DG Growth, the project team is coordinated by the Belgian test and research center Centexbel and include the European Textiles and Apparel industry confederation, EURATEX, the German national textile and fashion association Textile und Mode, t+m, the Italian association Tessile e Salute. Several other European industry associations and national authorities are welcomed to become involved through the project activities.   

Lectra announces the signature of an agreement to acquire the entire capital and voting rights of the French company Neteven.

The transaction concerns the acquisition of 80% of Neteven for 12.6 million euros right now. The acquisition of the remainder of capital and voting rights will take place in June 2025, for an amount between 0.6 to 0.9 times 2024 recurring revenues.

Founded in 2005, Neteven has developed a particularly innovative offer, based on a SaaS platform and associated services, which enables brands to simplify and effectively monitor the distribution of their products on the world’s largest online marketplaces.

The SaaS platform centralizes the product catalog and information on stock levels, sales prices and orders, in order to automate and facilitate distribution on online marketplaces.
Neteven helps its customers save time when managing their distribution channels and gain greater local and international visibility of their products in order to reach more consumers. The Neteven team provides its technological and services expertise to prestigious brands to help them optimize their e-commerce strategy.

Kornit Digital, specialised in digital textile printing technology, announces Johannesburg, South Africa-based apparel decorator Vic Bay Apparel has implemented two Kornit Storm HD6 systems for sustainable, single-step production on demand. This installation answers increased demand for small orders and high-colour graphic designs, resulting from a dramatic growth in their e-commerce operation.

Vic Bay Apparel has been a manufacturer, supplier, and wholesaler of basic t-shirts and golf shirts for 25 years, supplying blank apparel to decorators and resellers of promotional clothing. They predominantly service resellers in the tourism, workwear, printing, embroidery, and advertising markets.

National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) President and CEO Kim Glas sent a letter to Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Robert Fairweather, requesting the agency reconsider and approve a proposal to direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect Section 301 penalty duties on billions of dollars of Chinese goods currently shipped duty free under Section 321 de minimis waivers.

“There has been an exponential growth of shipments to the United States in recent years that qualify for Section 321 duty-free treatment,” Glas said in the letter. “U.S. manufacturers of textiles, apparel and other consumer goods that routinely sell for less than the $800 de minimis threshold increasingly find their markets and workforce threatened by this tariff avoidance scheme.”

The letter details how the current Section 321 provision is now being coupled with e-commerce to provide billions in duty avoidance on these imported products, including:

• Increased import price pressure on domestic manufacturers of various types of consumer items that routinely sell for less than $800 such as – apparel, footwear, home furnishings, toys, consumer electronics, flatware, auto parts, etc.
• An inability to properly identify and block the importation of adulterated products posing a health and safety risk to consumers.
• An inability to properly identify and block imports of counterfeit products that violate intellectual property laws.
• Enhanced ability of countries like China to access the U.S. market, despite their failure to provide reciprocal access to their markets and their persistent illegal and unfair trading practices.

“Imported merchandise from China that enters under a Section 321 waiver is exempt from all normal tariffs and any penalty duties assessed under the current 301 case. This unreasonable and unnecessary duty exemption severely undermines the purpose and value of the existing Section 301 determination against China as an effort to address its longstanding predatory trade practices,” Glas stated.

“The Biden administration should undertake an exhaustive review of this problem to develop the policy changes needed to mitigate the damaging impact of Section 321 waivers on U.S. workers and manufacturers,” Glas added. “In the interim, it is critical that the OMB and CBP take reasonable steps, such as denying Section 321 benefits to goods covered under the existing China 301 determination [tariffs]. Doing so would be a valuable first step toward limiting the dangerous and growing exploitation of this tariff waiver mechanism.”

Kornit Digital announced global on-demand printing and warehousing provider Printful will be adding more than 50 Kornit Atlas systems during 2021 for direct-to-garment (DTG) production on demand, representing a considerable expansion of their current production capabilities. This coincides with the print-on-demand leader’s addition of new production facilities in Los Angeles, Dallas, Charlotte, Mexico, Spain, and Canada, as well as expansion of existing facilities globally.

Printful has provided a consistent model of success for on-demand fulfillment to B2B and B2C customers in the e-commerce age.

“Consumers today want customization and personalization, social media engagement, responsible and eco-friendly business practices, and instant gratification—whether they’re buying, designing, or building their own personal brand,” said Davis Siksnans, Printful Co-Founder and CEO. “Kornit’s agile, versatile, efficient technologies power our success by answering those demands with ease, and their quality, reliability, and scalability are a key reason we’re now shipping more than a million finished pieces every month. By bringing our proven production capabilities to more corners of the globe, Printful will be positioned to meet and exceed the demands of today’s creative digital natives for years to come.”