I N D U S T R Y A N A LY S I S Small Retailers SMEs (small/medium-sized enterprises) innovate, upskill, inspire and enthuse key industry players to ‘demonstrate that British fashion is at the vanguard of sustainability-led creativity’ (BFC, 2019:4). Despite RL/CLSC research within large businesses, research in the context of smaller retailers has proven limited. Complexities including multiple stakeholders, uncertainties and competitiveness implications present challenges (Ilgin and Gupta, 2009). Further research is needed to advance fashion towards sustainability through RL/CLSC and to challenge this rationale. Small retailers often provide more bespoke services/products, coinciding with Hans et al. (2010) study of product lifecycle management at item level, investigating the requirements that item-level PLM systems must fulfil in order to support sustainability in RL processes appropriately (Govindan et al., 2015:15). Smaller retailers selling investment pieces risk accessibility to return materials through their own sales-based return systems.
RL /CLSC Capacities for Small Fashion Retailers
Establishing Rapport Return decisions are influenced by clarity of instructions, buyer regret; other varying reasons (Ronald and Dale, 2002:275), all possessing potential control factors. Greater rapport is often established amongst smaller brand scenarios, providing more uniformed balance of bargaining powers of both suppliers and consumers (highlighted in Porter’s 5 Forces industry analysis framework (Luenendon, 2014:online)). Suppliers can influence consumer behaviour by justifying slow fashion investment pieces and persuading take-back recovery scheme participation (‘buyers’ become new resource ‘suppliers’ to retailers in RL/CLSC). Marketing RL/CLSC products can be complicated. ‘Vendor concerns about brand equity can constrain brokers or secondary market retailer’s ability to market product’ (Ronald and Dale, 2002:280). Reemphasising the importance in establishing brand loyalty; consumer and supplier rapport.
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