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Synopsis

• The powerful untapped potential of sourcing in most retail organizations.
• Sourcing caters to present retail challenges, and addresses supply chain disruption, increased consumer expectations, and margin pressures.
• Furthermore, sourcing offers insights and capabilities that help retailers innovate products, fuel customer value, and maximize profits through wise investments.
• Unwaveringly committed to transforming sourcing trends into a competitive advantage.

Sourcing: Strategic Assets for Retailers

• Retail organizations see sourcing as a cost centre, a behind-the-curtain team that functions and supports product and commercial teams. Consequently, with the disruption to global supply chains, consumer expectations are rising, and they expect suppliers to be more sustainable, responsible, and transparent.
• It is evident that sourcing organizations across the globe facing a crisis related to increased margin pressure on their margins. As a result, disruption led to an explosion in the consumption of products worldwide and was the tipping point for product manufacturers to boom.
• Sourcing organizations across the globe face a crisis related to increased pressure on their margins. The disruption led to an explosion in the consumption of products worldwide and was the tipping point for product manufacturers to boom.
• Sourcing organizations offer valuable insights and capabilities help retailers to make wise investments, fuel customer value and fight competitiveness. Unarguably, sourcing acts as an integral and strategic part of the retailer’s concept to the customer throughout the product journey.
• Undoubtedly, pandemic-infused uncertainty in supply chains is evident due to commodity volatility. Coupled with this, consumers expect transparency and personalized products at value prices. This all collectively impacts buying decisions and brand loyalty among customers. Indeed, retailers need to unlock the potential of sourcing to enable them to navigate and thrive in this storm concurrently.

Sourcing Must Be A Priority 

Efficient sourcing serves a purpose while providing valuable inputs that pivot to sophisticated ways of working from the back to the front of the retail business cycle. Early actions in the planning cycle lead to better business outcomes. For example, product sourcing provides meaningful insights and helps to address the following questions:

1. Which products are manufactured during peak commodity pressure with what materials alongside protecting margins?
2. How should retailers rethink investment in assets for surety of supply?
3. How will product customization and product personalization be profitable and sustainable through the right vendor partnerships?

Given these considerations, sourcing resolves issues related to product category, strategy, and pricing to deliver the final assorted decision to set the business’s direction. 

Solutions to Difficult Sustainability Problems

Significantly, sourcing partners handle every step from source to shelf and conform to sustainability standards within the regulations and compliance. Presently, consumers are more responsible and aware and expect transparency into the provenance of what they buy. It is important to realize that sourcing must take the lead in infusing sustainable practices into product design, development, merchandising and planning. Only sourcing has relationships with holding factories and can change mindsets and practices by optimizing end-to-end flows. Early involvement of sourcing partners aids in avoiding unnecessary zigzagging of material and products away from end markets.

Let’s understand this!

Imagine if any women’s apparel brand wanted to launch a sportswear line. To execute this, a strong product team, design team, and strategic vendor relationships are mandatory to maintain to keep it going. Furthermore, it may take 18–24 months from ideation to conceptualization to put sportswear on the shelf. However, apparel brands can achieve this with the right sourcing partner in 4–8 months. Undoubtedly, it accelerates your market entry while staying true to your brand purpose.

Supply Guarantee

Points often overlooked are that sourcing partners examine what-ifs and worst-case scenarios to prepare to handle sudden demand spikes, hiked commodity prices, or port closures. Undeniably, strong partner collaboration saves your ship if the unexpected happens. However, sourcing commodities from the commodity source to the shelf needs accurate contingency planning to ensure the surety of supply.

Collaboration With the Right Champion

World-class vendors with proven expertise, and know-how in the new categories and product lines that retailers want to pursue. In addition, by and large, suppliers possess advanced sustainable design and product development capabilities to provide a turn-key category solution. Henceforth, choosing a sourcing partner with deep analytics expertise helps assess market opportunities and enables the development of a clear vision of the right product for you.

In the end!

To conclude, unleashing sourcing can be a game changer for your brand. Truly, retail sourcing organizations that operate as innovators and collaborators offer a clear competitive advantage in today’s competitive, complex market dynamics. Without a doubt, finding a supplier is quite a daunting task and is the most stressful part of sourcing a product. Keeping in mind this anxiety pivot, don’t forget to look for communication, willingness, profile statistics, price, and quality. As merely showing up with a few fantastic product samples doesn’t guarantee mass production. 

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The India sourcing agent, GBSL, is well-versed in all aspects of sourcing products and offers assistance throughout the process. Above all, experienced and reliable sourcing specialists can not only carry out a visual inspection of the manufacturer’s facility but can ensure a fair deal while building a strong relationship with the local supplier. Here, the role of the supplier is not restricted to conducting a factory audit but instead includes an objective assessment of the staff, equipment, processes, and sustainable sourcing.

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