Sourcing Journal has released its Executive Sentiment Survey, polling leadership across the apparel, footwear and textile supply chain on order expectations, sourcing shifts and cost pressures for the year ahead.

The survey canvasses executives at brands, retailers, vendors and suppliers — the tier of the market that sets production volumes and country allocation decisions months before goods reach stores. Trade-desk readers use this instrument as a leading indicator: when factory-order expectations and sourcing-country intentions move at the executive level, capacity bookings across Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and the Western Hemisphere follow within one to two buying seasons.

What does the survey cover?

Executive sentiment surveys of this type typically track:

• Forward order-book expectations among brand and vendor leadership
• Shifts in country-of-origin preferences, including China exposure and nearshoring
• Cost and pricing pressure along the supply chain
• Tariff and trade-policy risk as a planning variable

Sourcing Journal has not yet published the full result tables in the publicly available summary, so specific percentage readings, sample size and respondent breakdowns remain unconfirmed at the time of writing. Readers should treat any figures circulating on social media as unverified until they appear in the survey document itself.

Why does this matter for sourcing desks?

Sentiment data of this kind sits alongside hard indicators — import figures, capacity utilisation rates, freight rates — as a cross-check on planning. A negative executive reading on order volumes, for example, gives vendors in major production hubs early warning to adjust capacity and labour planning, while a positive reading signals competition for slots at key Tier 1 factories.

For compliance teams, the survey also functions as a risk barometer. When executives cite trade policy or tariff uncertainty, that uncertainty feeds directly into decisions on dual-sourcing, China-plus-one allocation and the compliance audits that follow new country entries.

What should buyers and vendors do now?

The decision this release forces is procedural rather than transactional: sourcing and merchandising teams should pull the full survey once Sourcing Journal publishes the detailed findings, benchmark their own order-book and country-mix assumptions against the aggregate executive reading, and flag any divergence — particularly on China exposure and nearshoring commitments — to planning before the next capacity-booking cycle closes.