Factory evaluator Panjiva expanding into home rankings

-- Home Textiles Today, 12/10/2008 1:15:00 PM

New York – Factory rating group Panjiva next year will expand beyond apparel to global manufacturers of home textiles, furniture, accents and a host of other product categories.

The company also warned that the global supplier base has been hard hit by the worldwide credit crunch. The number of apparel suppliers actively serving the U.S. market dropped over 70% in just three months this year – from 22,099 suppliers in July to 6,262 suppliers in October. Among the 70,000 apparel factories tracked by the company, 40% on now on the Panjiva Watch List because their volume shipped to U.S. customers dropped 75% or more year-over-year.

According to Panjiva ceo Josh Green, "These numbers paint a frightening picture of the state of the world’s suppliers. U.S. companies who maintain their customer base through the economic downturn may nevertheless find their survival threatened by the disappearance of their supplier base."

Green told HTT Panjiva will begin tracking home textiles manufacturers early next year. “Anybody serving the U.S. should be in the database by the end of the first quarter,” he said.

Panjiva has developed a program that pulls information from U.S. Government and international databases to rank suppliers on three dimensions: business basics, U.S. track record and standards compliance.

It also tracks what types of products a supplier ships, which materials it has used, what types of customers it serves (premium, mass, discount or niche), whether it is sending shipments to the U.S. in excess of its own capacity or whether its shipments to the U.S. suggest available capacity.