The Epidemic Has Led To A Decline In Retail Sales, Which Will Eventually Lead To A Better Life Waiting For Us.

The sudden outbreak of a new crown pneumonia in early this year disrupted the pace of work for all enterprises, including UNIQLO. In March, the annual spring and summer new product conference of UNIQLO will be welcomed, but now it will stop abruptly, but this does not hamper brand collection and transmit new ideas to the outside world.

Recently, Wu Pinhui, JALIN, chief marketing officer of UNIQLO, UNIQLO, received media interviews. This is the first time that the brand has made an external voice since the outbreak of the epidemic. In addition to the routine promotion of 2020 spring and summer new products, UNIQLO is particularly concerned about the psychological construction, product demand and lifestyle changes of consumers in the post epidemic era.

Consumption insights from LifeWear to Livable City

1, restart healthy life and vitality.

UNIQLO 2020 spring and summer "LifeWear suit life" brand book will "Livable City (suitable for residential city)" as the theme. For the content creation of this magazine, the brand creative team has spent a lot of time visiting all parts of the world, and has gone to Copenhagen, Tokyo, New York, Shanghai and other cities to explore Livable. The connotation of City is deeply thinking about the relationship between cities, people and clothing, interpretation, or humanities, or technology, or creativity, or natural, or more free way of life. It leads readers (consumers) to think about what kind of environment is the life that everyone yearns for, and presents the interaction and intersection between people's life and clothing in a colorful environment.

The theme of the magazine was set before the outbreak, but now it seems that UNIQLO is obviously more ready to enter the role of fashion lifestyle proposals earlier than other brands.

The impact of the epidemic is not only a shock to the retail business market, but also a change or even reinvention of the lifestyle of the general public. These changes all point to the same bull's eye, consumer psychology and behavior. A period of one or two months' "ban" period allows people enough time to think quietly about what the essence of life is and what to pursue.

At the clothing level, UNIQLO hopes to build a new quality life from four quadrants of health, vitality, fashion and comfort, so that consumers can restart healthy life in their home scenes and limited space. This has a specific interpretation in the 2020 new spring and summer products of UNIQLO. For example, Sport UtilityWear life sports series, advocating life is sports, formerly practiced in the gym. Now, the time of home, shopping and commuting can also be lighter, more functional and breaking the boundaries, and combining sports and life closely.

Whether it is the Sport UtilityWear life sports series or the spring and summer vitality series, the designer cooperation series, sun protection clothing series and star products UT series will all practice the quality of life, attitude towards life and aesthetics of life created by art and science that UNIQLO advocates. An interesting life can not be separated from the blessing of Wen Chuang. At the same time, Wen Chuang is one of the ways to display the core concept of UNIQLO art, which has different emotional recognition and consumption stimulation in the special period of "staying at home".

As the world's literary and creative bridge, UNIQLO's spring summer UT series has introduced calligraphy art series, AmbushxDisney cooperation series, cat series, and manway cooperation series. From March, there will be Anna Sui series, up to 40th anniversary series of models, and many other cooperation series UT to go public.

2, the source of sustainable life.

Thinking about how the brand can make use of the innovation of goods and services to help people open a more quality and sustainable way of life is what UNIQLO is doing now. Sustainable life stems from the ubiquitous insight into "comfort" and responds to people's needs at all times.

When people in the industry are keen to stand on the fashion trend to explain the trend to consumers, UNIQLO chooses to focus on people and life. Casual clothing premise is based on the needs of life to design, the pursuit of detail perfect and high quality, cost-effective, so that consumers can choose. In Wu Pinhui's words, clothing should have aesthetic rationality and diversity. First of all, it is embodied in the unbounded and universal nature, followed by the sustainability of quality, design and fabric. Finally, it is constantly innovating according to the evolution of life.

After the outbreak, people's priority in life is also being broken down, and healthy life is undoubtedly regarded as the first. Wu Pinhui said that Asian consumers generally do not have the habit of active sports, which is a great opportunity for brands. Clothing should not only focus on fashion and good-looking, but also combine the functional and emotional needs of clothing with the needs of consumers' health and vitality, so as to lead a sustainable and healthy way of life. In fact, it is precisely because UNIQLO's continuous development and adherence to fabrics has won the hearts of consumers.

　　 Two

Building brand differentiated value on the basis of Digitalization

The epidemic crisis has accelerated the pace of digitalization of garment enterprises, while the digital moat built by UNIQLO early in the morning has continued to play an advantage and further highlights the value of brand differentiation.

Liu Chi Cheng, founder and chairman of UNIQLO, has pointed out that enterprises must transform themselves into "digital consumer retail companies", that is, from design, production, manufacture, sales to the whole working mode, all of them are digitalized. To this end, UNIQLO has been working in depth with Google, Accenture, DAIFUKU and other international front-line enterprises, with artificial intelligence and big data technology to predict customer purchase behavior in advance, rapidly increase customer demand into product and service speed, and achieve warehouse automation.

During the epidemic, consumers' shopping behavior basically migrated to the line. Facing the incline influx of passenger flow, UNIQLO ensured the smooth and smooth operation of online transactions through the optimization of inventory and operation system, plus the close cooperation of logistics and services.

In the daily digital operation and maintenance of social media platforms such as micro-blog and WeChat, UNIQLO quickly pulled the connection with consumers through brand stories, design concepts and interactive games. During the epidemic, UNIQLO donated more than 7100 pieces of high value warm clothing, worth 2 million 520 thousand yuan, to the medical team in Wuhan, through the Wuhan Charity Federation, to support front-line medical staff. At the same time, through the above self owned media platform, every day, we publish epidemic prevention and epidemic prevention information to every consumer concerned about the epidemic situation. In the view of UNIQLO, taking the responsibility of corporate social responsibility and caring for consumers is also the essence of brand sustainable development.

For a long time, UNIQLO has explored new opportunities of products through continuous good interaction between brands and consumers, thus opening up a broader space for clothing business. Realizing that public recognition of quality of life is getting stronger and stronger, UNIQLO will invite consumers to share their views on life through micro-blog, WeChat, jitter and other media platforms, and launch a communication between brands and consumers in lifestyle.

　　 Three

The driving force behind the development of post epidemic Era

Because of the current epidemic prevention and control needs, UNIQLO will slow down the development of new stores strategically and postpone the progress of channel sinking this year, but this does not mean that it is worried about the development prospects of the physical stores, but on the contrary, it is full of confidence and vision. "In the long run, we are absolutely optimistic, and our commitment for China's growth remains the same." Wu Pinhui said that the Chinese market still has great opportunities. In the second half of this year, UNIQLO will have greater input, including more active interaction with consumers.

In the post epidemic era, consumers' pursuit of quality life requires not only a higher demand for clothing products themselves, but also a shopping experience that goes through the whole consumption process. In fact, this is related to the brand's innovation and construction, and from the determination and action of UNIQLO, we will see more vivid display and collocation of the lifestyle in the store.

In the short term, the epidemic results in a decline in retail sales and physical retail sales, but the black swan will eventually go away and life will eventually return to its original position. Through this "epidemic", those platforms and enterprises with brand power, commodity strength and more service operation can survive and grow well. And the retailers who are in trouble may think more about how to face the same consumers after the disaster, to satisfy their original and new needs, and to empower the consumers in the future.