The hidden cost of ignoring what happens after the sale

It’s May 2025, and global fashion looks nothing like it did six months ago.

Tariffs across major manufacturing hubs - from China to the EU - have driven up costs on everything from fabric to finished goods. Brands that once thrived on fast production and smooth supply chains now face steep price hikes, import barriers, and unpredictable disruption.

But the real issue?

It’s not just where we make fashion.  

It's that we’ve never truly measured how it performs - after we sell it.

The missed metrics no one is talking about

The fashion industry is built on creativity, individuality, and continuous reinvention. 

But with shrinking margins and rapid economic shifts, many brands are stuck in survival mode - chasing the next collection drop, the next delivery date, the next season’s sales curve.

Meanwhile, every unit shipped now costs significantly more to produce or import. When “new” becomes expensive, you can no longer afford for product performance to end at the checkout.

The truth is, most brands have no idea:

• whether customers are still wearing key items
• whether products fit beautifully or flop after first wash
• whether pieces are circulating in resale without any connection back to the brand
• about entire communities of secondhand customers that buy the brand but don’t engage

That’s not just a data gap.  

It’s a massive gap in business intelligence.

The shift: from first sale to lasting impact

If tariff pressure has added 30–60% to product cost, squeezing all profit from a single transaction is no longer realistic.

To protect margin - and deepen relationships with customers - brands need:

• real post-sale visibility into product longevity and usage
• ongoing signals from owned and secondhand buyers
• smarter design, pricing, and forecasting driven by real-world wear data
• ways to turn circular behaviours (resale, repair, rewear) into brand opportunities, not lost channels

Modern brand value isn’t just about reach.  

It’s about relevance.  

And relevance is earned in the ownership experience - not just the moment of purchase.

What consumers expect - and brands need to hear

Whether brands are tracking it or not, their customer has already entered the circular economy. And they’re…

• reselling  
• repairing  
• renting  
• gifting to friends or giving away to charity
• recycling it 

And when they can’t do those things seamlessly, an item just stays at the back of a wardrobe / closet - or worse, ends up in landfill, removed from the brand's universe completely.

What consumers want is simple:

• a digital way to manage what’s already in their wardrobe  
• the ability to capture and share product history, repairs, and resale value  
• a simple, transparent method to pass items on - with provenance intact  
• a way to stay connected with brands they love, even secondhand
• to feel like they're doing something good for the environment

When better becomes easier, people don’t need to be convinced to change their habits.  

They just do.

That’s what LAYBL enables:  

Smarter consumption, made seamless - for the customer and for every brand smart enough to meet them where they already are.

What LAYBL makes possible

At the centre of that transformation is a smart, simple foundation: the Digital Product ID.

With LAYBL, every product gets a live digital record - not just a SKU, but a system of record that extends beyond first purchase and connects every future interaction.

Here’s what brands can access when LAYBL is integrated:

• see which products are still being worn - three months, six months, a year after sale  
• track how garments actually perform: fit, quality, variation in real use cases  
• learn what types of products generate loyalty vs. one-time churn  
• understand pricing and engagement signals from the resale market  
• build connections with secondhand buyers you never knew existed  
• get compliant with upcoming Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation - with no extra overhead

This is active, live data on the products a brand produces - and the ones existing already. It’s brand-rebuilding intelligence.  

The kind of data that fuels design, refines production, and roots a brand's storytelling in lived experience.

And the best part?  

It doesn’t require breaking huge budgets, time or a tech team to get started.

LAYBL is no-code. Fast to set up. Live in days.  

Because tracking post-sale product performance should be as easy as selling it in the first place.

Fashion doesn’t need more guilt. It needs better systems.

And the moment better becomes easier - that’s when habits change, both on the street and in the studio.

Fashion has always started with vision. Style. Identity.  

Now, it continues with ownership. Connection. Longevity.

A brand’s next breakout product might already be in someone’s resale listing - loved, lived in, ready for its next chapter.

Let’s make sure it’s working for them.  

And for you.

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Ready to track what you’ve already sold? Let's get started today.

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