fabric & ESW: Tariff Mitigation Strategies for Omnichannel Growth

fabric and ESW on tariff mitigation strategies

Congratulations, retailers! You’ve successfully weathered a global pandemic, re-routed ships stuck in canals, and adapted to inflationary pressures. You deserve a pat on the back for navigating these hurdles. Instead? You’re hit with the next one: tariffs. One minute, they’re off, the next, they’re back on – upending your entire economic model overnight.

And now, the clock is ticking. As the last cargo ships carrying untariffed goods from China dock at U.S. ports, a new era of supply chain disruption is taking hold—one defined by steep tariffs, canceled shipments, and ever-increasing uncertainty. While some retailers can afford to lobby for exemptions, the majority are stuck scrambling to find strategies to mitigate their impact, keeping costs as low as possible while keeping customers happy.

How can you keep up? While there is no silver bullet, efficiency, flexibility, and speed are keys to adapting to the current, constantly changing environment. In this blog, we’ll break down how these three keys can help you not only keep up but also stay ahead.

1. Efficiency

Understanding your supply chain, including product information and origins, customs data, and fulfillment options, is the first key step in your tariff mitigation strategy. From this understanding, you can begin to take the appropriate steps towards building a more efficient system. An efficient supply chain is one that serves to simplify the complexities that are inherent in a bespoke system.

This can be a daunting task as no two supply chains are identical. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone. fabric and ESW can serve as your trusted partners in this journey, bringing our combined order management and supply chain expertise to your retail business. ESW has created a Tariff Task Force to help you through this journey. Their team of experts can quickly assess your current exposure and help you develop a tailored mitigation strategy.

2. Flexibility

It’s no secret that agility is key when the rules are constantly changing. ESW has long helped retailers develop B2B wholesale models, bonded warehouse strategies, and duty drawback programs. While initially built for other supply shocks in the past, those same approaches are applicable today, so you do not need to start from scratch.

Core to both ESW and fabric’s intelligent order orchestration capabilities is its ease of configuration. This approach helps to reduce cost and improve flexibility by allowing merchandisers and supply chain operations professionals to easily build and adjust orchestration logic without needing to bring in costly engineering resources to adjust hard-coded rules. Those capabilities are absolutely critical now. Operators must be able to pivot on a dime, and our solutions make it easy to do so. Soon, fabric’s order orchestration logic will be available directly within ESW, so this ease of configuration will be available to customers no matter which solution they are using.

Dropshipping is another flexible tool to lean on. fabric Dropship allows you to access and onboard local suppliers to fulfill an order and to help avoid redundancies in your supply chain. For example, Dropship could help you fulfill an order from Europe directly from a supplier in Asia. Instead of that item being manufactured in Asia, sent to a warehouse in the US where it would incur tariffs, and then shipped to Europe for fulfillment, it could be sent directly from the source.

3. Speed

It used to be that major decisions like tariffs or trade agreements came with long runways to implementation to give businesses time to plan and react. This is certainly no longer the case. It is almost impossible to stay ahead of any decision in the current environment, so the next best thing is being able to react quickly.

ESW’s Tariff Task Force helps you move from reaction to action, fast. This, coupled with their cross-border experience and knowledge, helps to quickly build revenue streams and optimize for supply chain disruption.

fabric Dropship enables retailers to take fast action, streamlines supplier onboarding, and provides tooling for automated enrichment and syndication in a matter of weeks. When paired with fabric OMS, the two solutions layer real-time inventory and OFL rules configurability to maintain brand promises to customers of fast, dependable fulfillment.

The bottom line

Tariffs may be unpredictable, but your response doesn’t have to be. The teams at fabric and ESW are working together to bring fast, flexible, and efficient solutions to retailers that help navigate uncertainty and unlock new growth opportunities. Find out more at fabric.inc/dropship-tariffs and esw.com/tariffs.