Material Exchange establishes new benchmark across Footwear and Apparel industries with the launch of the inaugural Annual Digital Sourcing Market Report

Material sourcing in footwear and apparel continues to be a traditional and analogue process that has lacked the evolution into digital. However, over recent years we have seen the rise in brands leveraging digital materials for product development processes and for virtual product creation. The advance of the global pandemic accelerated digital sourcing propelling it to the forefront as a way for brands and suppliers to collaborate across the globe digitally, and a way for brands to continue to deliver products, even as travel, trade shows and face-to-face meetings all came to a halt. 

To understand this shift deeper, Material Exchange has launched their first benchmarking survey aimed to assess the state of material sourcing process and see what stage the industry is at on their digital transformation journeys. Material Exchange aimed to understand how fragmented the industry is in terms of traceability, transparency and sustainability, and gather insights and a deeper understanding about the relationships between brands and suppliers. Lastly, Material Exchange seek to understand how brands source materials – past, present and future – and how they plan to mitigate further supply chain risks for the future now the world has changed, prost covid. 

A huge thanks to all who took part in the survey, we are pleased so many of you took time to help us, our friends and colleagues in the industry understand much more about the industry we all love. If you didn’t take part, don’t worry, the report is available to view within the Material Exchange Marketplace, brands and suppliers can sign up via the website to access the report.