Apparel

AI Apps May Redefine Brick-and-Mortar Fashion Retail

October 27, 2016

Picture yourself entering a department store and, instead of wandering around searching for the correct department or product, you are guided by an expert personal concierge. The concierge is not a person, but rather a humanlike smartphone assistant. Whether you want to know "where are women's shoes located?" or "is this dress available in size six?" this concierge is always at hand to assist you. This is what retail shopping may be fast becoming, thanks to the mass proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies.

Retailers Say They Are Increasingly Turning to Sustainable Cotton

October 26, 2016

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Cotton, the most widely used natural fiber, is considered the world's dirtiest crop because of its heavy use of pesticides - its cultivation accounts for 17.5 percent of global insecticide sales. So in recent years, several apparel and home-goods companies, including Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, and Nike, have used organic cotton, grown by farmers who eschew pesticides and enrich their soil with compost. That's good for the environment but raises another big problem: Organic cotton is too expensive for average shoppers.

Reebok's Liquid Factory Could Change Process and Speed of Footwear Creation

October 26, 2016

Apparel

A new generation of footwear manufacturing, spearheaded by Bill McInnis, head of future at Reebok and a former NASA engineer, is allowing the fitness brand to design and create a high performance athletic shoe faster and more efficiently than ever before, the company says.

Robot Sews Entire Garment for First Time, Startup Announces

October 24, 2016

Apparel

Startup Sewbo has announced that it used a robot to sew a T-shirt, producing the world's first robotically-sewn garment, which could mark a significant change for the global garment industry.

Macy's Announces RFID Tagging for 100 Percent of Items

October 20, 2016

RFID Journal

Macy's plans to have all items in every store tagged by the end of 2017, according to Bill Connell, senior VP of logistics and operations. To achieve this goal, the retailer is asking all of its product vendors to supply merchandise already fitted with passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags based on the Electronic Product Code Gen 2 standard.

Footwear Manufacturer Increases Fill Rates 10-15% with Supplier Collaboration

October 14, 2016

Challenge: This top-tier athletic footwear manufacturer relied on manually-intensive methods for managing purchase orders and found it difficult to track inbound shipments for complete end-to-end visibility. The company needed quicker access to supplier information and purchase order information with several hundred vendors and factories more efficiently.

Etihad Cargo To Begin Fashionable Delivery Service at Rickenbacker, Carrier Announces

October 14, 2016

Air Cargo World

Etihad Cargo has signed a deal with forwarder Trinity Logistics USA, Inc., to operate a weekly widebody freighter service to deliver couture clothing items from Sri Lanka to Rickenbacker International Airport (LCK) in Columbus, Ohio, Etihad announced.

REI's New DC Is 8 Times Faster, Energy Self-Sufficient, Retailer Says

October 12, 2016

RIS News

Outdoor apparel retailer REI has designed its new distribution center to be both energy and workflow efficient. The DC, in the Arizona desert, is a net-zero energy facility and will provide to co-op retailer with 20 years of free energy, according to Rick Bingle, REI's vice president of supply chain.

Finish Line Sees Sales Increase After Fixing Supply Chain Shortfalls

October 11, 2016

RIS News

Last year some well documented supply chain miscues trimmed more than $30m in sales from The Finish Lines' bottom line, and left the retailer with unsold inventory in their DCs and disappointed customers in their stores.

Software AG Teams With Detego for Retail Analytics, Visibility

October 4, 2016

Software AG

Software AG is partnering with Detego, a vendor of business intelligence for the fashion industry, to provide retailers with item-level merchandise location, visibility and analytics in real time.