US companies Mercado, Public Habit join hands to reduce textile waste

08 May '21

4 min read

Pic: PR Web

Mercado has joined hands with sustainable fashion brand Public Habit to change the way fashion is sourced, produced, and distributed throughout the international supply chain, by introducing a groundbreaking 28-day or less direct-to-consumer model. Through this partnership, Public Habit believes it can inspire other companies to move toward this model.

Overproduction is a huge problem for a majority of fashion brands around the world. Across the fashion industry, an average of one out of three garments produced are never even sold. This equals out to about 92,000,000 tons of textile waste that is burned or ends up in landfills every single year.

Public Habit flips the typical nine to 18-month fashion production script on its head by producing all orders on demand, ultimately getting their entire production and delivery process — from Asia to destination — down to 28 days or less. Suppliers only manufacture quantities based on consumer purchases through the brand’s eCommerce website, eliminating waste and building a longer-lasting wardrobe for customers. Even celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Hailey Bieber, and more are onboard with Public Habit’s revolutionary mission.

This industry-defying model hasn’t come without its challenges. In order to meet consumer demand and maintain the brand’s fast turn-around times, the business model dictated the need for a way to easily and accurately manage the end-to-end process and ensure visibility and connectivity at every step.

“Mercado was the natural choice,” Sydney Badger, co-founder and CEO at Public Habit said. “We knew we needed a technology partner to help us seamlessly integrate our supply chain with our e-commerce business. Mercado had the same vision we did in bringing our suppliers closer to our buyers through technology.”

“We were so ecstatic to have Public Habit use Mercado because topics like Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) as well as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are crucial to our overall mission here,” said Mercado CEO Rob Garrison.

Garrison and Badger recently spoke with Sourcing Journal about the effects of improving supply chain efficiency throughout the fashion industry by transforming the first mile of the supply chain.

Providing for better connectivity throughout the first mile of the supply chain means reduced lead time and enhanced visibility into customer demand — allowing Public Habit and its manufacturers to stay in the loop more easily and ultimately leading to eliminating extra inventory.

“I think about Mercado as the Shopify to our supply chain,” Badger said during the discussion. “The huge power that I think is yet to be unlocked that Mercado is onto is embedding really simple technology that is ingrained in our manufacturers because if they have visibility into demand, we can unlock so much value.”

This is crucial to Public Habit’s success. The factories they use in Asia can produce minimum order quantities of as low as one, which means Public Habit doesn’t have to worry about overstock or keeping garments in a warehouse. Their one-on-one relationships with both supplies and customers might not be traditional in the fashion industry, but is revolutionary in its efforts to reduce waste, improve supplier relationships, and increase customer satisfaction.

Through this partnership with Mercado, Public Habit believes it can better educate and inspire other companies to move toward a more efficient direct-to-consumer model, with Mercado’s leading technology platform able to support this vision and bring upstream and downstream operations together for fashion brands and those in other industries.

Mercado Labs is a digital supply network solution designed to help businesses rely less on email and spreadsheets to manage millions of dollars of inventory across their supply chain — from first mile to final mile.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SV)

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