Five Ways to Boost Your Brand’s Sustainability

Consumer demand for sustainable fashion has skyrocketed amidst the global pandemic. A recent McKinsey survey indicated over 60 percent of respondents changed their purchasing habits to select products in environmentally friendly packaging. According to JOOR’s most recent Trends Report, one-third of retailers indicated they would be seeking out more sustainable brands to carry as soon as the Spring 2022 market season. There’s never been a more pertinent time for your brand to improve its business sustainability practices.

Leveraging technology to increase your brand’s sustainability provides wholesale buyers a smoother, faster, and more responsible experience and helps reduce energy, excess waste, and costs. 

Let’s look at the top five ways your business can increase sustainability this year.

1. Use Virtual Showrooms

Top brands are increasingly using virtual showrooms to deliver the online buyer experience of choice. Thanks to innovative technology partners Orb360° and VNTANA, JOOR’s Virtual Showrooms feature  fully-rendered 3D imagery and videos, providing buyers with a physical buying experience, while shopping virtually. More importantly, virtual showrooms are a sustainable way to offer personalized shopping to buyers without the waste associated with sample production and costs of sample set distribution. JOOR’s Virtual Showrooms provide brands with the opportunity to share curated collections digitally with lifelike quality and detail. For one, Orb360° allows brands to shoot and display 360° degree imagery to communicate product detail so vividly, it gives buyers the confidence to place orders digitally. Coupled with The Edit—which provides brands the opportunity to create personalized presentations consisting of dynamic multimedia assets, high-resolution imagery or shoppable looks—virtual showrooms are the future of sustainable retail.

2. Conduct Business Virtually

Since 2020, businesses have embraced hybrid work models on short notice. Because of this, conducting business virtually from anywhere in the world is now the new normal, and technology that facilitates this transition is in demand. 13,200+ brands and 365,000 retailers are already conducting business virtually using JOOR, leveraging our innovative technology to maintain business continuity every day, from anywhere in the world. By intentionally reducing physical travel in this way, brands are taking real steps to reduce the impact of climate change by lowering their overall plane and car emissions.

3. Make Informed Purchasing Decisions

Remember the days spent at tradeshows, writing orders by hand? With the right technology, those days and the associated environmental costs of printing physical linesheets, can be a thing of the past. JOOR’s iPad app and wholesale management tools are examples of B2B technology that enables streamlined order management, collaboration, and payment processing, all in-platform. To further support sustainability in the buying process, JOOR is spearheading initiatives to deliver product sustainability data to retailers to keep them informed about buying decisions.

4. Make Secondhand Grand

Although the fashion industry has long had a track record of unsustainable practices, there is new consumer interest in reversing the trend. Current trends show us that second-hand or sample products are becoming undeniably popular. According to thredUP, one of the largest online thrift stores today, the used and re-sold market grew 21x faster than the retail market in the last three years. It’s time for brands to make secondhand and refurbished products grand again by taking part in this sustainable movement.

5. Prevent Overproduction

Believe it or not, sustainability and manufacturing can be aligned. Brands and retailers can make a difference by preventing overproduction to reduce unnecessary fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. An easy way to do this is by leveraging a platform that can forecast and streamline order volumes based on demand. Doing so means brands can ensure they’re creating the exact number of items needed to avoid overproduction and disposing of overstock.

With consumer demand for eco-conscious fashion continuing to rise, retail buyers are on the lookout for wholesale businesses operating with sustainability at their forefront. Is your business ready to take on growth by adopting sustainable practices? 

A more sustainable future benefits everyone. Transform your wholesale business with JOOR’s full-service platform. Request a demo today.