US-China trade war to trigger price inflation to effect fashion-retail businesses

The ongoing US-China trade disputes will impact the American fashion-retail businesses in 2019, according to a report. In the report "Big Issues Will Affect Retail in 2019", the California Apparel News magazine quoted business insiders as saying that the shrinking of consumer spending caused by the cooling economy this year might be amplified by the trade disputes between the two biggest economies in the world, reports Xinhua news agency.

"If the trade war continues, we're going to see some real price inflation of low-end and moderate-priced product," Paula Rosenblum, managing partner for Retail Systems Research (RSR), said on Friday. "Since so much of apparel is a discretionary spend, the impact will be swift."

Online returns and voice-activated retail are other main factors to affect the industry, said the report. However, Rosenblum did not forecast the scale of the impact, saying: "I can't remember the last time US retailers dealt with the fallout from a trade war."

(With inputs from agencies.)