News Room

Every year more than 100 billion apparel items are created by the industry — enough for every person on Earth to get 14 new pieces of clothing each year, and more than double the amount of clothing produced in 2000. And because of our "buy-and-return" culture, a lot of that clothing is getting sent back to retailers. Despite what many people think, most clothing returns are not restocked, repurposed, or reused — they end up in the garbage.

I recently had a conversation with Carlos Crespo, Chief Operating Officer of Zara parent company Inditex, in which he mentioned a software tool created by Netflix over a decade ago to institutionalize system resilience. The name is catchy, and for supply chain leaders trying to reinvent their supply networks for turbulent times, it is irresistible. And yet, a GoogleGOOG -0.2% search for "supply chain chaos monkey" yielded exactly one citation, from 2012.

Technology companies are shedding jobs at disturbing rates. Those with experience in computing are being laid off, sometimes with little warning. Freshly minted computer science graduates are facing employment headwinds not seen for well over a decade. Is this the next dot-com bubble burst, which could send the economy spiraling downward to new lows?

One marketing expert says consumers who game the returns system are not helping the situation