New fashion marketing & management in a post-pandemic world

Abstract

While every sector has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in some way, the fashion industry has experienced extreme hardships, including drastic supply chain disruptions and sharp declines in sales and store traffic (Baum et al., 2020; Chakraborty & Biswas, 2020), leading to a 20% decline in the apparel market’s worldwide revenue between 2019 and 2020 (Amed et al., 2021). The pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis continue to take a toll on the fashion industry. In particular, brick-andmortar fashion businesses, whose struggles were greatly exacerbated by the pandemic, have experienced a high level of retail bankruptcies and a surge in store closures (Ettinger & McDowell, 2021). The crisis heightened uncertainties in people’s lives, shifting consumers’ priorities (they are now less inclined to devote their discretionary spending to clothes) and shopping habits (e.g. contactless payment, curbside pickup, and delivery services) (Knutson, 2021; Thomann, 2020). Fashion companies are now questioning their current business practices and putting effort into adapting to market situations and catering to their consumers’ changing values and behaviors (Liu et al., 2021). This has resulted in inevitable changes in business models to respond to the crisis and prepare for the next normal, thus creating new challenges and new opportunities. However, little information is currently available regarding how fashion businesses can secure business continuity and thrive in the post-COVID-19 world (Zhao & Kim, 2021). In this Special Issue (SI), we have aimed to expand the scope of the relevant multidisciplinary literature to understand what business practices and consumer behaviors will look like post-pandemic and how fashion businesses can thrive by adapting their operations and business strategies to minimize threats and take full advantage of opportunities in the post-COVID-19 world. The focal questions that we have attempted to address in this SI are as follows: How can researchers analyze consumer behaviors and industry practices to provide new insights that can enrich the field? How can marketing practitioners build upon their pandemic experiences and plan their strategies for a postpandemic future?