About half of US consumers have urged retailers to cut back on sourcing from China, according to astudy released this week by Coresight Research. Two-fifths of these American consumers were less willing to buy products made in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was the first time the retail research firm’s weekly survey asked US consumers about their sentiment toward things made in China in the wake of the pandemic.
The most recent survey also pointed to the continued challenges facing US retailers as the US economy reopens—over three-fifths of consumers expect the crisis to last for more than six months.
Just as the issue of sustainability is no longer an afterthought in the fashion industry, the coronavirus outbreak has again highlighted the vulnerabilities facing a global supply chain driven often only by lowest costs and over-dependence on China, known as the world’s factory and the biggest source of imported goods to the US.
The coronavirus pandemic is drawing attention to the ways in which the United States and other economies depend on critical manufacturing and global value chains that rely on production based in China, the non-partisan think tank Congressional Research Service said in an April study.