An Overview of Fashion Business Models in Big Data Environment

The competitive pressure in the fashion industry not only exist between companies, they also exist between the networks of linked partners (known as supply chains). Consumers' needs are changing faster than ever before. Textile and garment manufactures are forced to lower the production costs and increase the efficiency so that they can respond quickly when there is a new trend in the market. Big data (BD) has been a hot topic for the last decade; this concept is mainly about extracting valuable information from voluminous data. In the fashion business, big data is playing a more and more important role in trend forecasting, consumer behavior studying etc. This paper reviews the history of conducting business in different developing stages of information technology. The basic garment supply chain in the traditional business era and in e-business era, as well as the development in fashion industry has been critically viewed.