GST rate on fabrics has been hiked to 12% from 5% from January 2022 and GST on the apparel of any value has also been increased to 12%, compared to 5% earlier with cost of up to Rs 1,000 per piece.

This is where AI, Blockchain, and emerging technologies present an opportunity to leverage sustainability, social impact, and ethical sourcing in one of the world’s biggest industries.

Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are often referred to as the yin and the yang of predicting and recording reality through the use of algorithms and cryptography.

Blockchain, as the name suggests, are chunks of blocks used to store and contain transactions sequentially in an open-source ledger that is accessible to all the stakeholders of that transaction. It is distributed and verified across a peer-to-peer network, designed to efficiently manage enormous amounts of data in real-time on a decentralized platform. Simultaneously, its encryption model effectively keeps unwanted eyes off the network, with no possibility of tampering with the same by a central authority or intermediary.

The concern regarding the duplicity of goods runs deep in the fashion industry, particularly in the luxury brands section, where consumers constantly are fearful of acquiring unoriginal and counterfeit products. The application of Blockchain technology enables brands to narrate a story and give credit to all the people involved in the process by spreading throughout the supply chain. Consumers may now avail information ranging from the procurement of raw materials and factory details to how finished products were packed and transported. The complete disclosure of facts and transparency also offers customers with the knowledge they may need to select/reject counterfeit items, products, or materials that violate environmental, ethical or moral codes of conduct, thereby confirming authenticity across the supply chain.

By leveraging this technology, manufacturers and designers can also protect their brands against replicas and counterfeiting by providing traceability and eliminating all duplicate materials at the source. The mandatory registration of merchandise helps fashion brands to preserve and secure their digital identity in a convenient manner. Moreover, the immutability and decentralisation of records simplify royalty tracking, allowing designers to generate an unalterable proof of production and track both licenced designs and trademarks, encouraging corporate social responsibility and adding confidence and security to the fashion sector.

E.g., For example,The Shanghai Fashion Week witnessed Babyghost collaborating with technology providers to enable everyone in the supply chain, including customers, to validate the legitimacy of its apparel. The firm embedded little chips inside its clothes and accessories, which anybody could scan to establish if the authenticity of the outfit.

In contrast, cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging from a position of continually learning, analysing and documenting an individual’s attributes based on their search. It creates high predictability of fashion websites, where machine algorithms frequently produce advertisements, posts, articles, and searches that cater best to our tastes and preferences.

With over 50% of the world’s population using social media^[2], the fashion and style industry is deeply entwined to act as an expert tool by connecting brands directly with the consumers. AI algorithms are responsible for providing well-informed and relevant product recommendations to online retail clients. Fashion brands develop advertisements for target audiences using internet cookies that marketers can track. Scrutinising customer’s trends and purchase habits, these cookies are subsequently delivered as adverts to chosen persons who then function as possible clients. This not only assists marketers in meticulous Market Segmentation and Geo location-based sales but also helps in improving business operations, demand forecasts and inventory optimization. Manufacturers obtain a good understanding of inventory checks and restocking depending on seasons and establish locations based on ongoing trend forecasting.

The intended result is to elevate customer experiences via personalization that helps foster long-term growth and success.

Apart from that, AI is bridging the gap between brand owners and customers by introducing product development strategies that aid in the interfaces with employees, partners, and consumers, enabling the large-scale creation and development of a new company.

Their influence is felt primarily through the optimization and improvement of Visual Searching in the fashion industry by utilising its investigative history and predictability to accurately forecast trends and product demand, allowing retailers to better manage inventory and cater to customers’ needs and demands. This is accomplished by helping consumers visualise their ideas by capitalising on their personal dilemmas and limited understanding and exposing them to AI chatbot, Virtual stylists, organising prizes, reacting to posts comments, and getting consumer feedback.

Other examples of customer service optimization include GAP’s use of kindred AI(robots) for automated clothes sorting^[3], Birchbox’s personalised clothing recommendations^[4], Burberry’s virtual garment rooms^[5], Alexa’s voice command, and so on.

A common downside to this, however is the sharpening of mere “wants” to “needs” by deluding customers into growing inquisitive and consequently enthusiastic about items they have no need for in the first place, making them obsessive and compulsive shoppers.

To conclude, while the intelligent automation and predictive analysis of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence have proven to be successful in setting up a decentralized and more democratic platform by promoting self-executive smart contracts that help enhance users shopping experience, retail management, and sales processes in the existing intellectual property regime, it does not address various evils of Modern slavery, overstepping lines of privacy, unlawful competition, control over designs, and tracing the reuse of materials over multiple life cycles, etc. Moreover, it suffers from a generic lack of checks and balances for audits of suppliers and intermediaries in addition to difficulties in mapping out their relationships.

Assuming that more than 10% of the global GDP will be stored in blockchain technologies over the next decade^[6], it is high time to draw attention to address, and amend the aforementioned issues and order to attach necessary accountability to all relevant heads to achieve a more sustainable circular economy in the Fashion Industry.

NOTES-

1. The Global Brand Counterfeiting Report, 2018 estimates that online and offline counterfeiting of clothing, textiles, footwear, cosmetics, handbags, and watches has reached $98 billion.

 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171222005383/en/Global-Brand-Counterfeiting-Report-2018-Counterfeited-Goods

1. Thomassey S., Zeng X. (2018) Introduction: Artificial Intelligence for Fashion Industry in the Big Data Era. In: Thomassey S., Zeng X. (eds) Artificial Intelligence for Fashion Industry in the Big Data Era. Springer Series in Fashion Business. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0080-6_1
2. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/manintpr266&div=6&id=&page=

^[1]  https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics/

^[2]  https://backlinko.com/social-media-users

^[3]https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2020/06/12/retail-giant-gap-improves-supply-chain-with-kindred-sort-robots/32996/#:~:text=Gap%20installed%20Kindred’s%20robotic%20picking,maintaining%2099.8%20percent%20in%20uptime.

^[4] https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-rctom/submission/birchbox-suffering-from-an-identity-crisis/

^[5] https://www.harpersbazaararabia.com/fashion/fashion-now/burberry-launches-augmented-reality-search

^[6]https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/blockchain-technology-an-emerging-public-policy-issue.aspx#:~:text=In%20a%20recent%20survey%20on,government%20via%20blockchain%20by%202023.

Even though some of this price disparity can be speciously explained by gender-neutral factors such as variations in the cost of materials, ingredients, labour, and marketing, the tacit reality of the tax rests solely upon discrimination based solely on gender and extends to a diverse group of consumer products such as clothing, toys, bicycles, disposable razors, shower gels, deodorants, shampoos, and services such as dry cleaning, haircuts, clothing alterations, and other retail activities.

In a world deeply rooted in race-based versioning, sexual-orientation-based versioning, or religion-based versioning, the gender-based versioning in the form of pink tax leaves nothing but a bitter taste in my mouth. While Pink Tax takes root in societal and cultural norms, it is undoubtedly the businesses responsible for continuing the economic disparity among women consumers. This often takes place in the form of brands capitalising on the opportunity to overprice female items to reinstate the norm of female consumption. Generations of psychic numbing coupled with pre-conceived beauty standards create deep inherent biases to convince women regarding the necessity of such products, thereby compelling them to be less price-sensitive than men.  Marketers often target women in the form of appealing packaging and features owing to their value held for aesthetic beauty in products while consequently remaining neutral in the packaging of most men’s products.

To add insult to injury, experts often justify Pink Tax on personal-care products as mere keystones of effective pricing strategy. This perspective denotes the distinction between how men and women view and value personal care products. Additionally, just because women care more, it is assumed that they would be willing to pay more and are hence charged a higher price.

This logic is not only flawed but also exploitative in the sense that it uses a broad brush-stroke categorization to create a meaningless differentiation by selectively charging one sex more money than the other. The underlying premise itself of such selective consumption tax is based on slothful, clumsy generalizations. The assumption that women are more concerned about personal care, so they will be willing to pay more sounds almost as irrational as the logic adapted for the gender wage gap where it is assumed that women would be willing to work for a lower salary than men, hence it makes sense to pay them less. What’s fascinating is how these gullible presumptions, when applied to both the sexes(male and female), get called out and repealed immediately, as noticed over a decade ago when Coca-Cola tried introducing vending machines with changing prices depending on the fluctuating temperature outside. The idea was purely cynical and profit-oriented, intending to increase prices of chilled soft drinks on hot summer days and decrease them on wintry days. Consumer and media outrage, however, caught up and put an immediate end to it. Similarly, the possibility and profitability of differential pricing of personal-care products between genders is nothing but unethical, unfair, and rudimentary in nature and needs to be done away it.  This shrewd and sneaky attempt to discriminate prices on the basis of sex is not only unethical but also latently targets women as naive and credulous consumers.

Another crucial facet behind its problematic nature is the existence of a wage gap in the country that doubly troubles women solely based on their gender. The presence of a structured and ever-widening wage gap combined with the evils of pink Tax creates a vicious cycle where women, with lesser income and more significant expenditure, stay in a constant loop of “earn less, pay more.” Even though in 2018, the Government of India slashed the 12 percent GST on menstrual sanitary products, it only led to tokenistic change. What’s particularly interesting about this is that while contraceptives remain tax-free and are considered “essential goods,” tampon tax was still imposed on women’s sanitary products as they were considered a luxury instead of a necessity. It is in this purview that one requires to recognize this draconian Tax on necessary products and the lack of proper legislation to accrue to the same.

Ways to Combat the Pink Tax

• Pay close attention to all prices. – Ever noticed that male and female versions of the same products are often placed into separate aisles instead of simply being kept side by side? This is done by marketers in order to trick the consumer into not paying enough attention to checking and comparing prices, which is why they can profit from charging the premium processes for superficially different products. Hence, it is pertinent to be circumspect before buying such products.
• Buy Unisex Products. –It is outrageous to spend rs 325 on a pink/purple color razor compared to Rs 65 for a blue/black colored one, mainly when they both belong to the same brand. Hence, It is high time that we get done away with gender binaries of “pink” and “blue,” and ramify ourselves by adopting genderless, Unisex products that are both gender-neutral and inclusive.
• Boycott and negotiate a lower price. – To avoid the gender surcharge, one may boycott companies levying huge pink taxes and shifting to their substitute brands that levy lower taxes. Additionally, they may simply play the loyalty card and ask a store employee whether a better deal is available or bargain while purchasing services that usually have hefty gender-based pricing differentiation. Eg- Haircuts or dry-cleaning, where service providers often enjoy humongous discretion in the pricing strategy.
• Education and awareness- As mentioned above, generations of psychic numbing have pushed women to acquiesce to pink Tax without challenging it. A survey revealed that as many as 67% of adults in India had never even heard of the Pink Tax. The first time this gendered pricing was brought to the public eye in India was through the movement against the 12-14% GST levied on the tabooed sanitary napkins and other women’s hygiene products. It’s vital to thus raise awareness about this concept at an individual, social and societal level through debates, discussions, advertisements, and social media.
• Increasing women in leadership positions – The acute shortage of women in positions of power is an issue of critical nature highlighted exceptionally well in 2020, during the onset of the first lockdown in India. There was no inclusion of pads and sanitary items in the “essential items” list of the Central Government. This speaks volumes about the degree of care and consideration men in positions of power extend towards women’s issues in the country, further reinstating that it is in fact high time to be proactive instead of reactive.

REFERENCES:-

[1] Is the Pink Tax Ethical? – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201903/is-the-pink-tax-ethical

[2] Why Do Women’s Products & Services Cost More?- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201512/why-do-women-s-products-services-cost-more

[3] Jacobsen, Kenneth A. (2018) “Rolling Back the “Pink Tax”: Dim Prospects for Eliminating Gender-Based Price Discrimination in the Sale of Consumer Goods and Services,” California Western Law Review: Vol. 54: No. 2, Article 2. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr/vol54/iss2/2

[4]  The Pink Tax: The Persistence of Gender Price Disparity- http://research.monm.edu/mjur/files/2020/02/MJUR-i12-2019-Conference-4-Lafferty.pdf

[5] Pink Tax- The Additional Cost of Being a Woman- http://gjle.in/2020/08/19/pink-tax-the-additional-cost-of-being-a-woman/

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