With closer links between lean retailers and manufacturers, more inventory risk has been shifted onto manufacturers. Instead of making big before-season orders, retailers are moving towards almost continuous restocking. Economists and sociologists point towards an increasing number of new products, an infiltration of the notion of fashion into even the lowest-cost apparel goods, and a rise in the number of selling seasons as signs that demand itself has become more volatile. Fast delivery, high quality, and other services such as attaching the price to a garment, have become as important as cost for U.S. retailers. These forces of change mean increased pressure on manufacturers to respond quickly to restocking orders or style changes.
Manufacturers now share the burden of inventory risk that was once borne by retailers.
The changes in the retail sector, coupled with a large increase in apparel imports, have had a dramatic impact on the U.S. garment industry. Employment in the apparel manufacturing industry reached its peak of 1.45 million in 1973. New York, once the mainstay of garment firms, has been supplanted by California as the largest garment-producing state. Florida and North Carolina are also large producers of apparel products. Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to sweatshop conditions because of their limited English skills and lack of knowledge of U.S. labor law.