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发帖数: 11508 | 1 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-16/gap-wal-mart-clothing-suppliers-raise-prices-on-terrifying-cotton-costs.html
Gap, Wal-Mart Clothing Costs Rise on `Terrifying' Cotton Prices
By Bloomberg News - Nov 16, 2010 2:48 AM GMT+0100
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Gap, Wal-Mart Clothing Costs Rise on Cotton Prices
“We are going to be mindful of our competition,” John Ermatinger, Gap’s
Asia president said in a Nov. 10 interview in Shanghai. Photographer: Qilai
Shen/Bloomberg
Gap Inc., J.C. Penney Co. and other U.S. retailers may have to pay Chinese
suppliers as much as 30 percent more for clothes as surging cotton prices
boost costs.
“It’s a little terrifying to deal with cotton suppliers now,” said Vicky
Wu, a sales manager at Suzhou Unitedtex Enterprise Ltd., a closely held,
Jiangsu province-based clothes maker that counts Gap and J.C. Penney among
its clients.
Cotton futures in China have surged more than 70 percent this year and were
at a record earlier as the global economy emerged from recession, allowing
people to spend more on clothes. Production of the fiber in China, the world
’s biggest user and importer, is forecast to lag behind demand for a 12th
year, cutting its stockpile to the smallest since 1995, according to the U.S
. Department of Agriculture.
“American consumers better get used to rising prices on the shelves of Wal-
Mart and other retailers,” said Jessica Lo, Shanghai-based managing
director at China Market Research Group. “China’s manufacturers are
getting squeezed not only by rising cotton costs but also soaring real
estate and labor costs.”
John Ermatinger, Gap’s Asia president, declined to say whether it would
raise prices. “We are going to be mindful of our competition,” he said in
a Nov. 10 interview in Shanghai. “We are going to be mindful of our
consumer. That’s how we’ll ultimately establish our prices.”
Shandong Zaozhuang Tianlong Knitting Co., which makes Polo Ralph Lauren Corp
. T-shirts and track suits for Le Coq Sportif Holding SA, has raised prices
as much as 70 percent from a year earlier, said sales manager Fred Hu. “If
cotton keeps rising like this, we will need to lift prices by 30 percent by
the Spring Festival next year or we lose money.”
T-Shirt Price Increase
Closely held Tianlong ships 80 million yuan of clothes to Europe, North
America and Japan annually, and raised the price of T-shirts it sells to
Ralph Lauren to $4 each, from $3.20 in July, he said.
Unitedtex, which sells $24 million worth of shirts and jackets annually to
Gap, plans to raise prices by 5 percent to 30 percent for products that will
be available in April, Wu said in an interview. The supplier plans to
increase capacity to meet the retailer’s demand, she said.
“It’s very hard to budget for input cost, if prices are as volatile as
they are,” said Peter Rizzo, Sydney-based managing director at FCStone
Australia Pty. "It heightens the awareness of Chinese textile manufacturers
to look at risk-management tools.’’
Cotton-silk blend fabric has surged about 70 percent to approximately $2.3 a
yard since July and prices are now quoted on a daily basis, manufacturing
executives Wu and Hu said.
One-Week Pricing
“We can give clients a price now, but it will only be valid for a week,”
said Tianlong’s Hu.
Some manufacturers aren’t taking orders for next year because of
fluctuating cotton prices, J.C. Penney Chief Executive Officer Myron Ullman
said Nov. 12.
“If cotton goes up 50% or 70%, or wherever it lands, there will be an
impact on pricing that everybody in our industry is going to feel, but our
objective is to have a competitive advantage, particularly on key price
points the customer would expect us to maintain,” he said.
China’s demand for cotton outstripped domestic production by 3.6 million
metric tons in 2009 to 2010, widening a supply deficit, the China Cotton
Association said Sept. 27.
Cotton production in China, forecast to consume about 41 percent of the
global harvest, may lag behind demand by 17 million bales in the year that
began Aug. 1, according to the USDA. That’s more than enough to make a pair
of jeans for every person in China and India, according to Bloomberg
calculations and data on the National Cotton Council of America’s website.
Crimped Margins
Clothes makers are beginning to lose money on some orders, Unitedtex’s Wu
said. “Even if we know we’ll lose money with this order, we’ll still do
it, hoping to make up the loss in the next deal,” she said.
Gross margins for clothing retailers’ suppliers are between 10 and 20
percent, and net margin is usually between 3 percent and 5 percent,
according to Wu and Hu.
Zhejiang province-based Ningbo Seduno Group, which sells about $30 million
worth of men’s and women’s clothes to Hennes & Mauritz AB annually,
increased prices by almost 20 percent since July, said sales manager Fiona
Xu. Seduno also supplies Adidas AG, Inditex SA’s Zara and Nike Inc.’s
Umbro Plc, and will keep raising prices as cotton costs increase, Xu said.
H&M Monitoring
“H&M is constantly monitoring the price of cotton and other costs,” said
spokeswoman Jenni Tapper-Hoel, who wouldn’t comment on whether it would
raise prices.
Adidas sees a “limited impact” from cotton prices, said spokeswoman Katja
Schreiber.
Zhejiang Datu Garments Co Ltd., which shipped $4 million worth of pullovers
to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. last year, raised prices to $9 a piece from $7.50 in
August, said sales manager Bella Weng. Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner
declined to comment.
Zhejiang-based Datu plans to further raise prices by 20 percent to 30
percent, she said earlier this month at her Canton Fair booth, which was
filled with polo shirts and pullovers that she said were made for Wal-Mart.
“We’ve been holding up fairly well even with the yuan rising,” Tianlong’
s Hu said. “Cotton prices are just more unpredictable. We’re facing a real
test.” | y***l
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: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-16/gap-wal-mart-clothing-suppliers-raise-prices-on-terrifying-cotton-costs.html
: Gap, Wal-Mart Clothing Costs Rise on `Terrifying' Cotton Prices
: By Bloomberg News - Nov 16, 2010 2:48 AM GMT+0100
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