Literature Review for Weather Impact on Apparel Sector

When we wake up, we need make a decision based on the weather: what should I wear for today? Should I purchase a new clothes for my comfort in the coming season? The weather status affects our purchasing decision obviously. The following is a review for the following article, which discusses about the relationship between weather and clothes sale and supply chain: Use of Weather Factors in Clothing Studies in Korea and its Implications: a Review

Apparel industry highly influenced by the weather factors

Although fashion production plan is rigorous, the weather influence is intrusive to many different parts. The sales and marketing of fashion industry is based on fixed calendar for trade show and marketing events. Their supply chains involve globally scattered and multiple layer structure, so it’s hard to change the plan. However, the production of raw material of clothes textile and fabric, such as cotton, is influenced by weather factors. Meanwhile, the distribution of clothing product is affected by weather as most of industry. In addition, the bad weather status would stop from going shopping. Thus, to incorporate weather forecasting on the supply chain and demand is important for apparel sector.

The relationship between weather factors and customer sales

From the literatures, the most convinced weather factors related to customer sales are temperature and precipitation. No matter hot or cold weathers, the temperature trigger people to purchase the seasonal clothing. For precipitation, no matter rain or snow, it extinguish people’s motivation to shop. There are other weather factors are evaluated to affect the customer sales, but many weather factors, including relative humidity, sea level pressure, and event windchill/heat index, are more complex to interwoven. For example, relative humidity depends on temperature, so the relationship between it and clothing sales could become non-linear.

Weather forecasting incorporated to supply chain and demand phases

For the needs of different phases of supply chain and demand are discussed as following:

• Fiber and textile producers need bi-annual to inter-annual for planning and producing material.
• Manufacturers and designers need 6 months to 1 year forecast, so they can design suitable weather outlook in the coming season.
• Retailer and distributors need monthly forecast for them to plan launch timing and need 8-14 day short-term forecast for determining logistics, promotion, and pricing strategies.
• Brick-and-mortar store and online store use nowcasting for promotional events and adjust inventory and cash flow.
• Consumers use nowcasting and short-term forecast, so they can make decisions for the purchasing.

In the conclusion of the article discussed: Since weather status influences apparel sector significantly, it’s important to develop demand forecasting model related to weather information.

Besides, because online shopping is popular in this age, it’s worth to investigate how the weather affects e-commerce sales.

Reference:

Oh, J., Ha, K. J., & Jo, Y. H. (2022). Use of Weather Factors in Clothing Studies in Korea and its Implications: a Review. Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 1-13.