Shifting global supply networks and fast fashion: made in Turkey for Marks & Spencer

Abstract

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was noted that retailers in Britain had started providing increased variety and fashionability to their customers, had added mid‐season purchasing to their previous two‐season calendars, and that a high fashion and low price ‘throwaway market’ had appeared on the retail scene. Since then mid‐season purchasing has evolved into purchasing throughout the year; and the ‘throwaway market’ (now called fast fashion) has become almost the norm. Here we revisit one of those British retailers (Marks & Spencer) together with its Turkish suppliers and observe a trend towards the diffusion of design capabilities to suppliers that is more widespread than is suggested in the literature. We also consider the question of how most appropriately to conceptualize the nature of these retailer‐ supplier relations in today's circumstances. We especially look into the manner in which these relations are reflected in price negotiations, the eventual distribution of the value‐added, and the nature of everyday interactions such as accreditation and reclamation practices. We conclude that even though Turkish suppliers seem to be successfully upgrading into design–a high value‐added activity–the question of whether or not this development has entailed a renegotiation of power between retailer and supplier remains a complicated one.

Retailers, supply networks and changing articulations of ethicality: lessons from Flower Valley in South Africa

“…It is certainly the case that some local operators have been better able to manage downward pressures than others. This supports the applicability of a more relational notion of power in supply networks, as suggested by Tokatli et al (2008). Manager to ensure that retailers' requirements are more effectively managed through the pack shed and communicated more efficiently to farmers in order to increase lead times for them and to reduce any unnecessary uncertainty concerning orders.…”

“…Most significantly, Marks and Spencer was very quick to devise and implement voluntary ethical trading codes for its supply chains. This came at the same time as its traditional policy of sourcing garments only from UK suppliers was systematically dismantled in a context of rapid globalisation (Crewe, 2004;Tokatli et al, 2008). Marks and Spencer was one of the early members of the UK's ETI at its inception in 1997 and continues to be one of its most advanced and influential members.…”

“…Moreover, the increasing globalisation of retailers' supply chains within a political-economic context of neo-liberalisation, liberalisation of retail foreign direct investment, and rapidly expanding transnational retail activity (Durand and Wrigley, 2009;Neilson and Pritchard, 2007;Reardon et al 2003;Wrigley et al 2005) means that this buying power is exercised by retailers frequently through globally-stretched supply chains covering a wide range of industries and localities (Coe and Hess, 2005;Coe and Wrigley, 2007;Dolan and Humphrey, 2004;Konefal et al, 2005Konefal et al, , 2007Tokatli, 2008;Tokatli et al, 2008).…”

Conceptualising business mobilities: Towards an analytical framework

“…In contrast, in transnational retail firms there are enormously complex sourcing networks for the products sold that involve mobility for goods 'buyers' and other employees of retail firms (c.f. Tokatli et al 2008).…”

Intra‐firm and extra‐firm linkages in the knowledge economy: the case of the emerging mega‐city region of Munich

“…First, the study of the actual geographies of value chains has remained relatively underdeveloped (Brown et al this issue). Coe et al (2004) even argue that the Global Commodity Chain approach still remains preoccupied with the nation-state as the main geographical scale of analysis (for example OECD 2008; Tokatli et al 2008). A second, more specific limitation in value chain research is that the empirical scope of analysis has mainly been concerned with a small number of primary commodities and industrial sectors (for example Hassler 2003;Palpacuer and Parisotto 2003;Pilat et al 2008;Rothenberg-Aalami 2004) and pays little attention to APS enterprises.…”