COVID-19對台灣紡織成衣出口貿易商的影響

Abstract

2020年一開始，全球市場突然被一隻巨大的黑天鵝-COVID-19鋪天蓋地的襲擊。全球紡織成衣主要生產地中國大陸，工廠與運輸系統全部停止，供應鏈斷鏈。疫情造成了經濟的停擺，物流、人流全部停滯，效應擴大到了台灣，也蔓延到全世界。歐美國家開始封城，全球服裝成衣需求降到最低，也對台灣的紡織成衣貿易商帶來巨大的虧損與影響。本研究者從事紡織成衣出口貿易超過三十年，從未見過如此情況。透過自己公司（本研究中的T公司）在2020年的經歷，以及訪談五家不同經營型態的成衣出口商，我們發現這個產業在疫情前已經碰到了以下困境：生產基地的外移、貿易中間商角色的衰退、市場的典範轉移。

經過疫情的打擊，本研究者用質化及營收曲線分析，觀察到出口產品別、公司規模大小、地理涵蓋範圍、對客戶是否為主要供應商等因素，皆會造成貿易商在疫情下有不同的業績表現。新冠疫情帶來生活型態的變化，同樣也改變了消費者行為：休閒運動服的流行、實體店家衰退、網路購物盛行等成為主流。而終端市場喜好的改變、市場需求的不確定性又改變了零售品牌客戶的採購策略，例如訂單集中下給大型供應商、訂單少量多樣化等。供應鏈調整、市場以及消費型態的變化，使得出口貿易商必須在後疫情時代改變經營策略來因應。

研究觀察T公司以及其他五家個案後，我們對不同類型的貿易商，提出不同的建議與策略。在疫情後，希望台灣的紡織成衣貿易商們能夠強化供應鏈、加快數位化進程、定義新市場、永續供應鏈、以及開拓自有品牌上找到新的契機，開拓自己的藍海。The global market was suddenly attacked by a huge black swan - COVID-19 at the very beginning of 2020. All factories and transportation systems have been shut down in Mainland China, the world's main production place for textiles and apparels. The supply chain has been disconnected as we have never seen. The pandemic has brought about not only the suspension of the logistics and people’s migration, but also the economic stagnation. This situation has expanded to Taiwan, and later on to the rest of the world. The lockdown in western countries made the global demand for apparels drop drastically to a record low, which brought huge losses and impact to Taiwan's exporters.

Although theresearcher has been engaged in the textile and apparel export industry for more than 30 years, he has never experienced such an impact. Through the experiences of the T company (for which the researcher is working) in 2020, and the interviews with five apparels exporters in different business types, the researcher found that the industry had encountered the following difficulties before the pandemic: relocation of production bases, the fading roll of intermediaries, and the paradigm shift in the market.After the impact of the pandemic, with qualitative analysis and revenue curve, the researcher observed the factors resulted in different performances from the 6 cases in this thesis, such as category of the products, the size of the company, the geographic coverage, and that whether they are the core vendor or not, etc. The lifestyles change resulted from COVID-19 pandemic also made consumer behavior changed. The popularity of athleisure trend, the decline of brick-and-mortar retailers, andmore and more online shopping become main stream. The change of consumers’ preferences and the uncertainty of market demand have changed the purchasing strategy from the brands and retailers. For example, orders are concentrated to large suppliers, and orders become small with more styles. The exporters have to cope with the change of supply chain, market and consumers in the post-pandemic era by adjusting their strategy.With studying the T company and the five exporters in the thesis, the researcher tried to propose suggestions and strategies to them. Hopefully this research will help Taiwan’s textile and apparel exporters find new opportunities and their blue ocean markets by strengthening the supply chain, expediting the digitalization, defining new markets, sustainable management, and developing new brands in the post-pandemic era.