1. The New Trade Reality

Today, the U.S. announced a staggering 104% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles—and similar waves are hitting broader categories, from textiles to home goods. China still accounts for roughly a third of global textile production, and for most brands—whether you're in fashion, footwear, furniture, or accessories—that dependency isn’t easy to replace.

Unlike many other industries where only certain components or inputs are exposed, most brands source nearly 100% of their finished goods from outside the U.S. That makes tariffs not just a cost consideration, but a direct threat to survival. The idea of nearshoring or reshoring to the U.S. is great in theory, but in reality, the domestic capacity and technical capability simply aren’t there—not at scale and not for the wide range of categories brands rely on.

Uncertainty is the defining characteristic of the moment. Nobody knows how long this will last, whether tariffs will expand, or how global relationships will evolve. I spend most of my day talking with brand executives and design/product development teams, and I can tell you—optimization is not on their radar right now. Their focus is exactly where it should be: survival. That means making sure they have product they can actually sell.

But just like in 2020, when COVID upended everything, the brands that ultimately came out stronger used that disruption to digitize and modernize. The same opportunity exists today. When the fog clears just slightly, the smartest brands will already be setting themselves up for a more optimized, more resilient future.

2. The Cost Crunch: How Tariffs Are Impacting Brands

Brands are feeling the pinch—and it’s coming fast. Margins are being squeezed as tariffs spike input costs, and while some of those increases may be passed along to consumers in the short-term, no brand is getting away with a full 100% markup to offset duties—unless you’re in the ultra-luxury segment.

So something else has to give.

That might mean downgrading materials, simplifying construction, or cutting back on marketing and innovation spend. None of those are ideal. But when your costs spike overnight and your customers aren’t willing to pay more, your choices narrow fast.

3. Lessons from the Last Major Supply Chain Shock (and Why This Time Is Different)

COVID in 2020 taught brands just how fragile their supply chains really were. But what we’re facing now is more systemic. The pandemic created temporary disruption—this trade environment is creating long-term structural shifts.

Uncertainty still abounds, but the winners in this moment will be the ones who are fast and flexible. Speed will define success. The ability to rapidly shift production from one country to another—almost like turning on and off a faucet—will separate the leaders from the laggards.

That kind of flexibility doesn't come from wishful thinking. It comes from preparation, smart systems, and having real-time visibility into your product and supplier data.

4. What I See Brands Doing (The Good and the Bad)

The best brands? They started preparing months, even years ago. They’ve built resilience into their supply chains—not because they knew this specific crisis was coming, but because they knew something would. They’re exposed to tariffs like everyone else, but when the dust settles, they’ll be ready to act faster and more decisively.

They’ve prioritized their hero SKUs—the high-volume, high-margin styles that drive the business—and trimmed the long tail. They’ve built supplier relationships across multiple countries, so they aren’t overly dependent on a single region. And most importantly, they’ve centralized and retained ownership of their product data, so they can shift production without missing a beat.

On the flip side, some brands are stuck. They're single-sourcing from China or relying entirely on one supplier who owns 100% of their production. Worse, they’ve offloaded all of their product data—specs, BOMs, patterns—to that supplier. It may have been efficient once, but now it’s a liability. If they need to move quickly, they can’t. And right now, far too many brands are just sitting on their hands, waiting until the dust settles to then begin making moves--hoping they get lucky and their primary sourcing countries end up on the favorable end of tariffs.

Luck isn’t a strategy.

5. Strategic Moves: What the Smartest Brands Are Doing Right Now

Here’s what I’m seeing from the brands who are proactively adapting:

• Prioritizing high-performing SKUs first, then evaluating the rest. Simplifying the assortment by cutting long-tail items makes supplier transitions much more manageable.

  
  

• Matching product complexity with supplier capability. Brands that rely on variety need to find factories with technical versatility—not just low costs.

  
  

• Investing in PLM not just as a tech upgrade, but as a foundational shift. PLM becomes the system of record for product design and development—your source of truth for every spec, every material, every variant.

  
  

• Creating a global vendor strategy. Having a bench of capable factories across different countries, ready to go, is becoming a core competitive advantage.

A lot of brands are realizing they’ve outgrown spreadsheets and shared drives. This moment is becoming the catalyst for change.

6. Winners and Losers: Who Will Win and Who Will Lose

This is going to be one of the most significant realignments the industry has seen in decades.

Production will flow from high-tariff to low-tariff countries—but supply chain capacity isn’t elastic. The countries that avoid the worst of the tariffs are already starting to see massive surges in demand. The first movers are locking in capacity and favorable terms. The rest? They’ll be scrambling for leftovers, facing delays, higher prices, or worse—shut out completely.

Speed is critical. If your competitors secure production while you’re still emailing back and forth trying to assemble a tech pack, that’s game over. Imagine your costs going up 50%, while theirs only go up 5–10%. Can you absorb that? Can you compete?

And it's not just about having factories in multiple countries. It's about being ready to work with them. That means having the full set of product data—accurate specs, BOMs, construction details—ready to go. If your plan is to send a physical sample and ask a new supplier to reverse-engineer it, you’re weeks (if not months) behind the brands who can share that data instantly.

For brands importing to countries other than the US--this is actually a huge opportunity. These brands will be able to capitalize on a huge opening of capacity to secure favorable terms with manufacturers in China and other heavily-impacted countries.

7. How PLM Is the Answer

Modern PLM is the key enabler of all of this. It’s what allows brands to survive in the short term and win in the long term.

If your PLM doesn’t let you onboard new vendors in hours (not weeks), share tech packs instantly, and manage different costs or material options across vendors, you’re stuck in the past. You need a system that supports dual- and multi-sourcing natively, not one that was built for a single-vendor world.

The right PLM gives you a single source of truth for every product, SKU, and supplier—so you can move faster, make better decisions, and adapt as the environment changes.

8. How Onbrand Is Different—and How We’re Helping Brands Today

Onbrand was built for this moment.

Our platform is a modern, collaborative PLM that enables rapid vendor onboarding, real-time tech pack sharing, and dynamic project management across regions. Brands can track the status of development across multiple suppliers—even if different factories are working on the same product with different materials or timelines.

One prominent brand we work with is using this disruption as a forcing function to finally centralize their product data. They’ve been relying on spreadsheets and factory-owned files for years. Now, as they’re being forced to diversify away from China, they’re using Onbrand to bring all that data in-house—so they can move quickly, make decisions with confidence, and take control of their future.

This moment is difficult. But it’s also a defining one. The brands that act now—strategically and decisively—will be the ones leading the market on the other side.

Reach out to us to learn how we can help!