If the supply of a well established fabric was stopped for good it would be a huge loss for Boohoo. We would have to spend a lot of time and money into either sourcing a new fabric with similar qualities or creating a blend that can mimic the lost fabric too. This could cause issues regarding production, as we may have to source the fabric from further away, which could add higher transportation costs for us.
When finding new fabrics there are a lot of fabric tests that go along with it. They possible fabrics would have to be tested for both safety and durability – which again takes time and money.
This scenario links to the supply and demand model which means that as supply decreases price increases. As supply is cut costs of the remaining fabric would increase significantly, meaning we would either have to increase the costs of our garments or take a hit in our profit margin. We would more than likely have to do the latter as customers would not understand a price increase and at Boohoo our USP is affordable fashion, price increases may go against this.
A good example of how this could affect China would be to imagine if the cotton supply stopped – it would be drastic for their economy. They are one of the largest exporters of Cotton in the world and it makes up a large percentage of their employment and therefor economy. There would be a large number of job losses until new ones were found.