Consumer expectations are changing. Quality and affordability are no longer the only driving force behind purchasing decisions - a company’s social and environmental practices are under close scrutiny as well. In fact, people are increasingly willing to pay a little more, especially for clothing and food, if they can find out how something was made.

Brands that want to remain relevant in the future will have to adjust to these evolving customer expectations by collecting the sought-after information and communicating it well. Transparency, therefore, is the name of the game. And implementing it brings a lot of benefits to the involved parties - including brands themselves.

Providing Workplace Safety and Human Conditions for Workers

Money makes the world go round. For some brands, that sadly means taking advantage of workers in third-world countries, extorting their labour while paying them a pittance, in order to extract the highest possible margin from their products. This may even go so far as condoning child labour, or not taking action when there are obvious risks to life and health for workers.

Safety, for example, was not a priority in this textile factory making school bags in Delhi, India, which burned down on December 8, 2019, killing 43 workers out of the more than 100 sleeping in the building.

The factory was operating illegally and therefore didn’t have a proper fire licence - a common occurrence in Indian cities, where poor planning and lax enforcement of safety regulations tend to be the norm rather than the exception. To make matters worse, the youngest victim was reported to be aged 13.

Apparently, it’s also not uncommon for workers to sleep on site instead of going home, because they are often forced to stay and work until late when production targets aren’t met. After dark, it’s not safe for them to journey home, so they have no choice but to stay and sleep on the factory floors.

As Jennifer Ewah wrote in her op-ed Delhi factory fire fuelled by our materialism: “This tragedy is part of a wider systemic issue of injustice and oppression that is disgustingly commonplace in developing (and developed) economies where ‘cheap’ labour is exploited as part of the fashion system, under increasingly insatiable retailer pressure, for lower and lower labour costs. A fashion system that we are the beneficiaries of.”

Manufacturers who only care about their bottom line won’t change their modus operandi of their own accord. They have to be forced to implement changes to take better care of their workers and the conditions they work in by external pressure, like labour laws - or the demand for products not manufactured under such conditions.

Because people are becoming more aware of these unsafe practices and also deciding to take action by no longer buying from brands who allow their manufacturers to operate in this way. The number of people demanding to know “who made my clothes, and how?” is growing to the point where companies can no longer wave them off.

Creating a Sustainable Environment

“Sustainability” is the word of the… well, last decade. But its importance will keep trending as industries take their first steps into the new Twenties.

As a concept, sustainability focuses on meeting the needs of today without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their needs. From renewable energy over degradable resources all the way to reducing waste - sooner or later there will be no environment left able to sustain life if we don’t strive for sustainability in the way we consume and manufacture.

People are taking increasing measures to ensure they live sustainably and reduce their carbon footprint, for example by switching to electric engines or reducing their plastic consumption. But we still don’t know what impact the production of such alternatives has on the environment. Are the sustainable products that we use also made in a sustainable way? Statistics on vehicles powered by electrical engines, for example, suggest otherwise.

Consumers will never know if the products they buy are truly sustainable on the grand scale, if the companies producing them aren’t transparent about their supply chain.

Serving a Growing Demand

Today, 67% of consumers claim they want to know everything that goes into the food they buy, and nearly 65% of US households buy sustainable products in general. That’s a lot if you think about it. Especially millennials expect “proof of Self, Society, and Planet” (as in: how does my purchase benefit me, society, and the world we live in?) to start at the brand level and reach all the way back to the manufacturer. Brands would miss out if they were to ignore this growing trend.

Companies that don’t have an online presence centred around sustainability are likely to lose money - especially as online shopping is expected to reach 100 billion USD by 2022. More and more, consumers want to know the story behind the goods they buy, as well as the companies they’re buying them from. Transparency, both on the product and the brand level, is therefore increasingly relevant in helping consumers decide what to buy.

If this information isn’t available, consumers will go looking for it in other brands and other products.

Building Trust

It’s no news to anybody running a business and selling consumer goods that trust leads to sales growth. And these days, transparency is a critical factor in building consumer trust in a brand. According to this survey, 56% of consumers would be loyal to a company for life if it provided complete transparency, and 81% would be willing to sample the brand’s entire range of products if a comfortable degree of transparency were given.

The standards that consumers have for the businesses they buy from are rising. Brand recognition alone isn’t enough anymore; consumers want to feel that they made the right choice for themselves, others, and the environment in buying a product.

More precisely, more and more buyers want to be able to make a decision based on attributes broadly relating to sustainability, such as ingredients and origin, safety and health, environment, and human rights.

Committing to full transparency, therefore, is a business imperative and a way for brands to differentiate themselves and build dedicated customers for life, in a time where trust in businesses is falling to new lows.

Supply Chain Transparency with Bomler

As consumers, we are becoming increasingly aware of the impact our buying decisions make in the world; whether it’s our own health we’re looking out for or that of strangers halfway across the world; or whether we want a healthy environment to live in now or care that our children and grandchildren are able to experience this beautiful world we live in - we are increasingly demanding to know how our clothes are made, how our food is farmed, and how our daily consumer goods are manufactured.

By making it easy for people to obtain this information, companies can foster strong, authentic relationships and attract loyal, long-term customers.

Of course, providing full transparency is no cake-walk if it hasn’t been built into the company from the ground up. Companies face technical and operational challenges, in providing the information, and in obtaining it in the first place. It requires collaboration between many different entities along the entire, often global, supply chain, from the brand itself to distributors, manufacturers, retailers, and service providers.

Bomler’s BOMBOS Software closes the gap between buyer expectations regarding supply chain transparency and companies’ capabilities in providing it - and in so doing, strives to eliminate the disparity that is creating trust issues between consumers and brands. We make it easy for you to provide transparency to your customers, and also to obtain and keep track of it within your own organization.

Register here for free for the platform and start showing your own supply chain transparency to your consumers right now.

Pia Newman is a copywriter and translator for both English and German, who works remotely from all around the world as a digital nomad. In her free time, she writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels in English as P.S. Newman. Besides traveling and writing, she loves to go hiking and horseback riding, and is always on the lookout for the next best chocolate cake. Follow her writing- and digital nomad journey here, or check out her services as a copywriter and translator on her (German) website here.