China's Garment Industry Continues To Slow Down, Can "New Retail" Revive The Fast Fashion?

In the first half of the year, sales in China's clothing industry continued to slow down, and the cost continued to grow, and profits continued to decline.

Against this background, the fast fashion that was once in vogue could not escape the fate of sinking. Sales growth in H&M9 month was the lowest in nearly a year, and profits declined for the 5 consecutive quarter. Gap's performance has also continued to decline, and plans to close 1/4 stores. The old fast fashion Mango also plans to close 450 stores in the department store.

After all the triumphant progress, the fast fashion industry is showing signs of weakness and bottlenecks. Not only has the ambitious plans for opening up shops have shrunk, but according to incomplete statistics, as of the end of October, only 530 fast fashion retail outlets in mainland China have been closed.

In the new era and new situation, fast fashion not only lost its aura, but also became a follower from the earlier leader. However, there is no shortage of excellent enterprises in the more difficult industries.

During the double 11 period this year, UNIQLO Tmall flagship store not only took the lead in the whole network, but also finished the inventory clearance in only 10 hours, and hung the "welcome to the next store".

In the first half of the year, the fast fashion brand ZARA also showed strong growth momentum, and its 16% growth rate was far away from most of the competitive brands.

The excellent performance was also KM, a fast fashion rookie. In the beginning, the majority of peers began to shrink the front line. KM did the opposite. It completed the 300 store opening plan in 2016, and it expanded more aggressively than ZARA and UNIQLO.

In the predicament of the whole industry, why do UNIQLO, ZARA and KM grow up and ride on dust?

In my view, it is the growth momentum brought by new retail, which is manifested in 3 aspects:

First, a truly good product can lead all the way.

OabloIsla, chief executive of Inditex, a well-known Spanish fashion group, has attributed the outstanding performance of ZARA to three reasons in the speech of "decryption of ZARA's successful gene". The first two are "customer centered" and "strong supply chain", which hit the pain of fast fashion industry. These two reasons are actually two sides of one body, each other causes each other. They share the same essence of Retailing: content is king. This has been accepted by more and more brands and enterprises.

The reason why the fast fashion industry is from hot to cold is of course very complicated. However, the "short and fast" thinking of "quick success and instant benefit" and "impetuosity" prevail in the world: "to be quick" and forget the brand building and cultural precipitation; in pursuit of the so-called "low price", neglecting the quality management and quality control, some fast fashion products become the pronoun of low quality, low price or even fake and inferior products. In recent years, the exposure report of the famous fast fashion brand is not good enough.

Although mediocre brands have their own shortcomings, excellent brands are always similar. ZARA, UNIQLO and KM have invested heavily in the supply chain construction. They are not afraid of taking heavy assets to ensure efficient operation of all links, and avoid being affected by price fluctuations of raw materials, and do not relax control over quality standards. Relying on the dense line shop network, with a strong IT system, UNIQLO and KM have established a super information system. The market "gun sound" is first introduced to the decision-makers in "ears", can timely touch the pulse of the market, popular heartbeat, hear the consumers' breathing anytime, anywhere.

Excellent fast fashion brands are fast, slow, fast and slow, and take KM as an example to pursue speed, but that means more about new speed, efficiency of circulation and touch of service, and always strive to build up the best balance between fast and slow, low price and high quality, fashion and classic, rapid expansion and fine operation in brand building, quality building, cultural precipitation and customer maintenance.

In recent years, under the tide of consumption upgrading, the tendency of some excellent fast fashion brands to "go fast fashion" is very obvious. For example, Muji is active and fast fashion cutting, claiming that it is not fast fashion brand. UNIQLO insists on "cold" and basic line. KM is slowing down in brand building and cultural precipitation, putting more energy and more patience in the planning and design of shop planning and creative marketing, though different strategies, but the same way.

Fast-paced, high-pressure urban life, more and more people yearn for comfort, leisure and quality of "slow life", just like the Nordic culture reflected by KM, KM elegant and leisurely design style, natural, environmental protection, quality cultural concept, young, passionate and dynamic brand image, which is highly consistent with the "Minimalism" and post-modern style of Nordic culture, perhaps this is also an important reason why KM is welcomed and loved by more and more consumers.

Second, consumption and entertainment will be fully developed.

Just 11 of the past two, under the international famous director's trading plate and many stars' big cafes, the Tmall double 11 evening show has a great impact on CCTV Spring Festival Gala. The live broadcast of Zhejiang satellite TV has created a great momentum for the double 11's continuous popularity and perfect ending.

In addition to the high standard and high professional entertainment entertainments, the entertainment forms of young people such as live broadcast and VR are also widely used in this year's double 11. In the stores of Hangzhou's Yintai business, the "cat and cat" based on virtual reality black technology also attracted a large number of customers, laying a huge "mass base" for the strong growth of offline sales.

This year's double 11, Tmall delivered 120 billion 700 million of the transcript, but it is said that if the offline retail business data statistics, may be far away from this figure, according to public reports, double 11 period, in the consumer entertainment, happy marketing under the tide, the growth rate far exceeds Tmall's hard to count:

Wanda Plaza has launched a 11 day "national crazy visit Festival" with a 107% increase in sales.

BBK chairman Wang Tian personally endorsed "reliable Shopping Festival" and recorded "Meng version" video, entertainment entertainment marketing, recorded a growth of 83%;

New world department store 42 stores across the border "I am not Pan Jinlian" movie IP, and fly APP jointly launched a series of entertainment experience activities, sales increase of up to 180%......

Recently, Ali group CEO Zhang Yong proposed "2016 pairs of 11 is the new retail starting point", and "consumption entertainment" as one of the four main characteristics of the retail industry change. But for UNIQLO and KM, "consumer entertainment" has not only stayed at the conceptual level, but has become a real action. This is also the key reason for these brands to stand out in the downturn of the industry.

In March of this year, UNIQLO launched the spring and summer UT series jointly with New York contemporary art master KAWS, adding more original design and entertainment elements to the four main themes of "cool and interesting". In August, UNIQLO invited Chen Kun, Ni Ni and people to wear fashionable pants in UNIQLO Shanghai global flagship store for potential stars to promote new products. Recently, UNIQLO flagship store in New York unveiled the Christmas window program, the first application of Lumisty technology, full of technology.

Compared with the caution of Japanese brands, KM has a much better way of "entertainment and entertainment" and is more popular with young consumers.

As early as this summer, the KM shop on the third floor of Guangzhou's good Plaza has played the "international buyer + net red live broadcast". Although in the international metropolis of Guangzhou, designers in Europe and America have been shopping guides, and the cashiers and fitting room staff still have a sensation of "blond hair and blue eyes" and "language barrier but love each other". The live broadcast of the whole live off has set off a mass carnival on the line, off the field, staff and customers. It is said that the 2 hours of live broadcast attracted hundreds of thousands of people to watch it.

Also in the KM shop of Beijing Road Pedestrian Street in Guangzhou, the performance of the GUN rock band from the United States has resonated with countless young people. In KM hundreds of shops in more than 20 cities across the country, similar entertainment activities are staged almost every week. Shops that are fun, interesting, strong participation and excellent experience can always bring customers surprise and moving. Fans are changing everywhere.

Business has already entered the era of "no entertainment, no consumption". The so-called experiential retail is largely another form of consumption entertainment. Retail should not only innovate and develop, but also exist and present in the form of entertainment. Who will make consumers happy and satisfied will have more opportunities. UNIQLO and KM have fun playing, playing, playing new tricks and new horizons, and undoubtedly contribute a lot to their performance.

Third, the value of physical stores is being magnified.

In the past, the value of the entity store was seriously underestimated. Many people mistakenly believe that only the electricity supplier is the representative of the new economy and new retail. Until nearly 2 years, with the increasingly exhausting dividends of the electricity supplier flow and the higher cost of new customers, the industry gradually recognized the value of the entity store.

Not long ago, Ma Yun first put forward the concept of "new retail". He said, "pure e-commerce will become a traditional concept". At this year's World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Ma Yun added that "the next 30 years belong to those who make good use of Internet technology".

This can be confirmed from Ali holding Yintai business, strategic investment Suning cloud merchants, and buying shares in Sanjiang. If we do not look at the real stores, Ali will not be able to smash up billions of billions of dollars to the mainland even if he is a local tyrant again.

The Internet giant is far more than the Ali family.

Amazon, which has the benchmark of global electricity supplier, has set up a crazy shop plan. Following the proposal to open 400 physical bookstores last year, it now proposes to open 2000 grocery stores.

Dangdang was also announced last year. It opened 1000 real bookstores in 3 years. The first store was launched in June this year, BBK Changsha Mei Xi new world complex.

Jingdong said earlier that it would open 1000 mother and baby experience stores online, and its strategic investment Yonghui supermarket will become an important partner.

The rise of millet technology and three squirrels on the Internet have launched their own "thousand store plan", which undoubtedly has very strong index significance: the store is coming back strong!

The revival of the entity can also be verified from the loss of the brand. This year's double 11 brand, which once dominated the screen, including Yin man, rip, silk, aka and Chu language, lost almost all of the line, giving full play to traditional brands. Whether brand or business, whether hot or unpopular, ranking the forefront, the traditional well-known brands and offline well-known businesses are the absolute main force.

According to the analysis of the personages in the industry, the brand name of the Amoy brand has been marked by low price and explosive money from the beginning of its birth. It is very common to find small factory OEM, get goods from the market and so on. In the early days, because the electricity supplier was not taken seriously by the traditional brands and merchants, Ali had to support the Amoy brand, so once the sales leader was in the lead. In recent years, more and more traditional brands began to transform. They attached great importance to the offline channels. Under the strong supply chain support, they relied on the hard volume and quality to recover the "online land lost" quickly.

Just saw the news, H&M group returned to growth track in October, sales growth of 10%, an important reason is that the brand opened 12 new stores in that month, as of the end of October, the number of stores in the mainland market is more than 370.

ZARA's strength has also left its solid support. Data show that as of July, the group opened 7096 stores in the world and opened 83 new stores in the first half. The group said it would continue to invest in offline stores and increase its integration efforts.

The reason why UNIQLO dares to show its high cold stance to the electricity supplier platform is the confidence in its physical stores. Although UNIQLO has become the unbeaten champion of double 11, its flagship store, the most important business channel, has contributed only 5-10% of its total sales, and the performance of more than 9 of its flagship stores still comes to more than 400 stores under its line. "Tmall" "The store is an important brand position, bringing real product and service experience to consumers," said the head of e-commerce in UNIQLO.

It is understood that in 2016, UNIQLO expanded nearly 100 new stores in China, which is very bright in the closing of traditional brands. Its relevant person in charge said that UNIQLO's confidence in offline business has never wavered. It will maintain the speed of 80-100 each year and win the three or four line market in China.