Geopolitical instability is increasingly a factor that needs to be planned for in sourcing decisions, says Parit Shah

The promotional products industry is comfortable talking about price. Lead times, unit costs, and minimum orders are the metrics that drive buying decisions.

We talk far less about why prices move, and what the increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape means for the products in client proposals.

As a business with its own manufacturing operations in India as well as a UK distribution presence, we see both ends of this equation. And what we’re seeing should matter to every distributor sourcing cotton-based promotional merchandise.

Beyond the freight invoice

When buyers think about global disruption, such as the Russia-Ukraine war or Middle East tensions, the instinct is to look at shipping costs. However, freight volatility is only one element of a broader risk assessment.

According to McKinsey, 45% of the global apparel and textile industry’s trade value is at risk from supply chain disruption. The true cost of conflict is embedded far upstream, long before a product ever reaches a port.

On the factory floor

Textile manufacturing is energy-intensive at every stage, and global conflict has driven volatility in oil and gas prices that flow directly into factory operating costs.

Some cotton dyeing mills in India have closed entirely as rising energy costs make processing unviable. When capacity leaves the market, it doesn’t come back quickly, and it puts pressure on those mills that remain.

Meanwhile, rising fertiliser costs, tied to energy markets, have pushed up input costs for farmers and, ultimately, the price manufacturers pay.

Not ship shape

Freight costs are the visible tip of a much larger iceberg. It is no longer just a question of how much it costs to ship a container from India to the UK. It is a question of whether that container actually arrives where and when it’s supposed to.

Container vessel traffic through the Suez Canal dropped by approximately 75% in 2024 compared to 2023, and data from mid-2025 shows there has been no meaningful recovery. More than 2,000 ships diverted around the Cape of Good Hope adding 11,000 nautical miles, ten days of travel time, and approximately $1 million in additional fuel costs per voyage.

A shipment from our Indian factory, bound for Europe was summarily offloaded in South Africa. Regional conflict meant urgent perishable cargo had not been unloaded earlier and that took priority.

This kind of disruption is not exceptional. For distributors, it means that lead time promises made in good faith can quickly unravel.

Currency and labour

Two further pressures are quietly building. Exchange rate volatility creates unpredictability for exporters, who simultaneously face higher costs for imported inputs. As energy and food prices rise, wage expectations in manufacturing regions follow.

Distributors need to understand that they are no longer dealing with isolated cost pressures but a system of interconnected variables.

What this means

Shorter quotation validity windows are not supplier tactics – they are rational responses to pricing uncertainty. Locking in pricing ahead of delivery is now in your interest as much as your suppliers. Building more buffer into lead time commitments to your clients is no longer overcautious; it is prudent. Open conversations with suppliers about what is driving costs will produce better outcomes than treating price as an adversarial negotiation.

If clients are still framing sourcing conversations purely around unit price, you are well placed to shift that narrative. Resilience, lead time reliability, and supply chain transparency are now as commercially relevant as cost.

A more informed industry

India remains a strong sourcing base for cotton promotional merchandise. But the operating environment has changed and the businesses that will navigate it best are those who look beyond the headline price and understand what is driving it.

Disruption often occurs in quieter, more structural, and more cumulative ways than expected. It is felt first on the factory floor, then in shipping schedules, and eventually in prices and lead times.

Getting ahead of it starts with asking better questions, sharing honest answers, and building supplier relationships that can absorb the shocks that are now an established feature of the world we’re operating in.

Parit Shah is director of JuteBag Trade