Four key practices crucial for brands enhancing purchasing compliance by brands and retailers were identified. These are paying prices in full, allowing changes to be made to prices being paid to suppliers when external costs fluctuate, paying prices that cover all the costs of compliant production that enables the supplier to make a reasonable profit, and confirming capacity in advance, according to the first annual Better Buying Commercial Compliance Tracker.

The survey included 11 questions that measure specific practices and expected performance for the key recommendations and uses net promoter type scoring to calculate a composite score reflecting the proportion of ratings that indicated that buyers were in compliance ‘all of the time’ as opposed to ‘never’, ‘rarely’, or ‘sometimes.’

The tracker has been developed as part of Better Buying’s participation in The Sustainable Terms of Trade Initiative, and measures adherence to minimum levels of performance outlined in key recommendations set forth by manufacturers as central elements to the terms of trade they wish to do business under purchasing practices that do not cause them ‘obvious and avoidable harm.’

Dr. Marsha Dickson, president and co-founder of BBI, commented: “The patterns of behaviour we observed, with most practices either being compliant or not, enables suppliers to better identify, and avoid if their business allows, buyers who will strain their businesses and add to the pressures on workers in global supply chains.

“The correlation of a number of practices related to pricing may help solve the issue of paying living wages. Brands committed to that goal should pay much attention to these in their work with suppliers. These and other measures are high impact areas for the industry to focus on, and Better Buying stands ready to help brands and retailers begin measuring their commercial compliance so they can identify and mitigate areas where they are deficient.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)