It’s no secret that the fashion industry has an inventory problem. A complex set of market forces has left brands and retailers with historically high input costs, as well as significant volumes of unsold product sat in different channels for the 2022 holiday season.

But while this is a uniquely difficult time for retail, the root cause is nothing new. For a long time the fashion sector has relied on a difficult combination of forecasting and offshore manufacturing. This creates a calendar that starts from a prediction, and ends with a finished product that, in many instances, has missed its prime window for success due to the length of time it spent in production and distribution.

The outcomes are familiar to everyone: deep discounts, disposal of unsold garments, and serious difficulties in planning and creating products that are well-calibrated for current market conditions.

The Interline and Printful are predicting a different future, where on-demand production and digital printing – at scale – can help the fashion industry to react to opportunities faster, produce more garments near to consumers, and dramatically reduce overproduction and inventory pile-up. In fact, we just published an exclusive interview about it.

In early 2023, we’ll be publishing a report that looks at both the scale of the problem and some potential solutions. To help inform that report, we’d value your perspective on how the relationship between demand and supply shaped your business in 2022.

You can provide your anonymous responses using the embedded form below, or by visiting our survey page. It should take no more than 3 minutes to complete, and your responses will help us to define the best ways for digital, on-demand production to help fashion outgrow overproduction.

While our fashion overproduction survey is anonymous, you have the option of providing your email address before submitting your responses. This is not mandatory, but if you do enter your contact details, The Interline will get in touch with you directly once the report is released, in early 2023, to debrief you on the results.

We appreciate our readers’ perspectives.

In the meantime, once you’ve completed The Interline‘s fashion overproduction survey, you might consider reading some of our past features that directly or indirectly address the topics of overproduction in fashion, digital, on-demand manufacturing, and other manufacturing and supply chain topics:

Be sure to return to The Interline in 2023 to download our free report – in partnership with Printful – which will study the results of this survey as well as charting a new course for fashion that addresses not just the outcome of overproduction, but the root causes of fashion’s disconnect between supply and demand.

A collaboration from The Interline and Printful - part of a roster of carefully-selected stories from key partners.