Joseph is working to blunt the impact of a fresh surge in logistics costs after unrest in Iran pushed up freight rates and delayed stock moving from Asia to Europe, according to remarks by chief executive Simon Brown at the Drapers Supply Chain Summit in London.
Brown said both air and sea freight had risen by almost 30%, while sea journeys were taking about 10 days longer than usual. For a business built on tightly timed product drops, that has forced a change in emphasis: Joseph has moved a meaningful share of imports from sea to air to protect availability for its newest collection.
That decision is expensive, but Brown argued that missing sales would be far worse. “There is no way we can risk not having that product in,” he told the summit, underlining how important momentum is for the brand after its return to the London Fashion Week calendar, nine years after its last appearance, under creative director Mario Arena.
The pressure is not limited to logistics. Joseph, which runs six stand-alone stores in London and two in Paris, is also seeing softer demand, with weaker international footfall and a particular fall-off from Middle Eastern customers. Brown said broader consumer confidence is also deteriorating, adding to the strain on trading.
In response, the company has set up a dedicated Iran crisis team that brings together supply chain and sales specialists to monitor risk and agree countermeasures. Those steps include revised forecasts, scenario planning and closer work with suppliers to understand and manage inflationary pressure.
Brown said Joseph is trying to absorb as much of the immediate cost shock as possible in order to stay competitive, with any price rises expected to be small and gradual. “It’s about taking as much of the impact internally as we can,” he said.
The retailer’s approach reflects a wider lesson for fashion businesses, which have spent recent years dealing with pandemic disruption, shipping bottlenecks, port congestion and geopolitical shocks. Industry reporting has shown that many brands have become more willing to reroute stock, switch transport modes or hold more inventory just to keep product flowing into stores at the right moment.
Brown said the company is not seeking a wholesale reinvention of its sourcing model, but rather a rebalancing of it, including consideration of nearshoring alongside a diversified supplier base. He also stressed the importance of better internal coordination, arguing that supply chain decisions often suffer when departments work in silos. At Joseph, that has meant closer collaboration between commercial, design and logistics teams.
Technology is also being introduced carefully. Brown said the business is extracting data from older systems into a single warehouse before applying artificial intelligence to tasks such as stock management, collection planning and profitability analysis. But he said human judgement would remain central, with teams expected to own the output rather than treat it as an automated answer.
For now, Joseph is prepared to take a margin hit to protect sales. Brown said freight inflation currently amounts to only around 5% of total costs, which he sees as manageable compared with the damage caused by empty rails or missed deliveries.
“There will be some pass-through,” he said, “but not significant.”
Source: Noah Wire Services