WHY FASHION BRANDS NEED EXPERT NAVIGATION NOW: PART ONE
By Briana Swords, Consultant, Merchandising, Retail and Sales Expert, Customer Experience, Start-Up Specialist
Every Thursday, THE BOARD BRIEFING brings you curated industry insights directly from our Members to your inbox.
This week’s Board Briefing is a Special 2 Part Series - Part 2 drops next Thursday!
PART 1: WHEN TARIFFS THREATEN EVERYTHING
As a fashion consultant specializing in merchandising, retail, and customer experience, I am used to helping brands navigate disruption. But what I'm hearing from brands now at trade shows, in showrooms, and across my client portfolio is unprecedented: an entire industry grappling with changes that threaten the fundamental economics of fashion.
I'm a Member of THE BOARD, a Collective of Executive level Consultants who've led transformations at the world's most influential companies. My perspective—as I am seeing patterns across many brands simultaneously—is what I want to share.
THE UNFOLDING CRISIS
"A Canadian Retailer just cancelled our entire Spring order!! We spent three years building that relationship."
This was the reality check I heard from a US fashion brand at NY Market this year. Despite their products technically qualifying for CUSMA exemption, the retailer simply didn't want to deal with the paperwork uncertainty. They weren't alone—I spoke with brand after brand grappling with decisions that could determine their survival.
The fashion industry is facing its most complex trade disruption in decades. It's not just the tariffs themselves—it's the cascading uncertainty that's paralyzing decision-making at every level. When SSENSE, with its primarily US customer base, faced new Canadian goods tariffs threatening their cross-border model, it became clear: no brand with international operations is safe from this disruption.
THE NEW REALITY: UNDERSTANDING THE FULL IMPACT
This isn't a simple price increase that can be passed along to consumers. The current tariff structure is creating interconnected challenges most brands are unprepared to navigate:
THE IMMEDIATE SHOCK: When potential tariffs ranging from 10% to 60% were announced, Fashion brands faced an overnight existential crisis. Brands manufacturing in India are grappling with 50% tariffs that essentially double their landed costs. Chinese fast fashion retailers face even steeper challenges. The elimination of the de minimis exemption—that $800 duty-free threshold—has affected giants like SHEIN, and destroyed the unit economics for hundreds of Tik Tok brands that built their entire fulfillment strategy on drop-shipping individual orders from Chinese manufacturers.
THE RIPPLE EFFECTS NOBODY SAW COMING: What makes this crisis particularly acute is how it's fragmenting the global fashion market. Canadian retailers are turning inward, focusing exclusively on domestic suppliers. European partners hesitate to place orders, unsure whether US brands can maintain consistent pricing. The psychological impact on consumers is equally devastating—when customers see different prices for the same product across markets, or when they're asked to pay an "import fee" at checkout, both perceived value and brand trust erode.
Years of carefully cultivated brand value can unravel in a single confusing transaction.
THE FAST FASHION RECKONING
While many in fashion rightfully question the rise of ultra-fast fashion, SHEIN's forced transformation offers critical lessons for all brands. This company built a $100 billion valuation on a model that exploited the de minimis loophole—individual packages shipped directly from Chinese warehouses to US consumers, duty-free.
When tariffs and de minimis elimination threatened to triple their prices, SHEIN was forced into a complete business model transformation:
Building North American warehouses (hundreds of millions in infrastructure)
Shifting from drop-shipping to traditional inventory holding
Fundamentally changing how they forecast, plan, and fulfill orders
This isn't a success story—it's a cautionary tale.
If a company with SHEIN's vast resources struggles to adapt, smaller brands with legitimate business models face even greater challenges. The same policy changes forcing fast fashion to reckon with its unsustainable practices are also threatening responsible brands caught in the crossfire.
THE DECISION PARALYSIS TRAP
EVERY POTENTIAL SOLUTION CREATES NEW PROBLEMS:
OPTION 1: ABSORB THE COSTS Some brands maintain prices and accept margin compression. But absorbing 25-60% tariffs isn't sustainable—this is a guaranteed cash flow crisis.
OPTION 2: PASS COSTS TO CONSUMERS Fashion is discretionary spending with specific psychological price thresholds. In my experience redesigning price architectures, when products jump pricing tiers, brands often see conversion rates crater as they enter competitive sets where they have no established position.
OPTION 3: RELOCATE PRODUCTION Moving production takes 12-18 months minimum for new supplier relationships, sample development, and quality control systems. Meanwhile, you're paying tariffs on existing production while investing in new supply chains—a double hit not all brands can sustain.
WHY TRADITIONAL APPROACHES ARE FAILING
The playbooks from previous disruptions don't apply here.
This isn't a demand problem solvable with discounting or a temporary supply chain disruption. It's a fundamental restructuring of global trade requiring entirely new strategic frameworks.
Fashion brands typically plan 12-18 months out, but tariff policies can change overnight. Most brands lack trade policy experts, customs classification knowledge, and economic modeling capabilities. Even well-capitalized brands struggle to fund both crisis management and growth simultaneously.
MERCHANDISING AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN CRISIS
1. Assortment Architecture in Chaos Smart brands are discovering that strategic SKU rationalization actually increases sales while reducing complexity. The key is identifying which categories to protect versus sacrifice.
2. Pricing Psychology Expertise Moving prices isn't just math—it's behavioral science. Understanding threshold resistance and reference pricing makes the difference between customer retention and mass abandonment.
3. Customer Journey Redesign When tariffs force changes, the entire customer experience needs recalibration. Successful brands map friction points and redesign touchpoints to maintain conversion despite higher prices.
4. Inventory Intelligence In volatile times, inventory becomes either a brand's biggest asset or liability. Sophisticated open-to-buy planning, markdown optimization, and flow strategies protect cash while maintaining freshness.
5. Loyalty Economics in Crisis When acquiring new customers becomes prohibitively expensive, retention is survival. Brands that restructure loyalty and service programs to accelerate purchase frequency and increase basket size can offset tariff impacts through customer behavior rather than price increases alone.
REAL IMPACT: HOW EXPERT GUIDANCE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
Here's what successful tariff navigation can look like in practice:
Merchandising Transformation: A contemporary brand completely restructured their assortment strategy by identifying their "fortress products"—the 20% driving 60% of margin—and protecting those while strategically editing the rest. Result: double-digit sales growth despite significant cost increases. The key was recognizing which products truly matter to both customers and margins.
Price Architecture Revolution: An accessories brand moved from single price points to a good/better/best strategy that maintained opening price points while moving margin to higher tiers. Customers self-selected into higher margins, feeling they had choice rather than facing forced increases. This psychological shift from "price increase" to "options" made all the difference.
Customer Experience Elevation: When a luxury contemporary brand had to raise prices substantially, every touchpoint was redesigned—from website to packaging to customer service scripts—to communicate enhanced value. The price increase became a brand elevation opportunity, with customers embracing the premium positioning.
These transformations share a common thread: success came from reimagining the business model, not just reacting to cost pressures.
THE HIDDEN OPPORTUNITY IN CRISIS
Disruption creates opportunity for those who move decisively. While competitors are paralyzed by analysis, brands that act with expert guidance can:
Capture market share from hesitant competitors
Negotiate better terms with desperate suppliers
Lock in customer loyalty through superior crisis communication
Build capabilities that provide permanent competitive advantage
The brands using this crisis to reimagine their business models, rather than just preserve them, are positioning themselves for success whether stability returns or chaos reigns.
THE PATH FORWARD
The question isn't whether tariffs will fundamentally change your business—they already have. Every day you operate with yesterday's model in tomorrow's market increases risk.
The expertise to transform exists—the question is whether you'll access it while you have room to maneuver, or wait until crisis forces your hand.
This is where specialized expertise becomes invaluable.
As someone who believes in the power of products to tell compelling stories, create genuine customer connections, and spark inspiration, I help brands navigate these challenges through strategic product planning, expert merchandising and buying, and customer experience design. These aren't just services—they're the tools for building meaningful relationships between people and brands, especially when those relationships are tested by economic disruption.
THE BOARD provides tailored, short-term, dedicated expertise—the competitive advantage fast-growing companies need in times of unprecedented change.
THE TIME IS NOW
Whether you need merchandising restructuring, customer experience transformation, or retail innovation, the time to move is now. As part of THE BOARD collective, I bring not just my own experience, but access to a brain trust of fashion's most seasoned experts.
Look for part two of this conversation next week: BEYOND TARIFFS: BUILDING FASHION BRANDS THAT THRIVE IN PERPETUAL UNCERTAINTY
THE BOARD is a vetted collective of C-Suite talent from Fashion, Beauty, Tech, and beyond — ready to build DREAM TEAMS or provide on-demand 1:1 strategic guidance and project execution.
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