How Many Chinese Brands Are There To Win Against Foreign Brands?

On the afternoon of May 30th, Shanghai was the most prosperous Nanjing West Road. It has been half a month since the opening of the global flagship store in UNIQLO, but the "spectacular" scene of the waiting team stretching from the entrance to the side of the store for more than 50 meters in the afternoon is still showing the craze of this monster.

"It's crazy. I used to buy this kind of rush only on the day of opening up. Now it seems to be a regular program they continue to perform every day." A journalist who also witnessed the popularity of UNIQLO was slightly exclaimed.

The persistence of time is not all. ZARA, H&M, UNIQLO and other "fast fashion" foreign brands seem to have fully penetrated our lives and have penetrated into the hearts of Chinese consumers. When the subway is on the way, there is a fast fashion brand billboard outside the window. When the station is out, the logo appears to be almost replaced by the map guide; the fast fashion billboards are lined up on both sides of the street; the most prosperous streets in the city, whether in groups or in twos and threes, are bound by several "fast fashion" shopping bags; the topic of the dinner table is always related to a "fast fashion" garment. Even the peers in the clothing industry are willing to become the fans of these fast fashion brands.

Thanks to such a "growth" market reaction, ZARA, H&M, UNIQLO and other fast fashion have launched a high-speed expansion in China's first tier cities. For example, Sweden's clothing brand H&M, its franchised stores expand in the world from 10% to 15% per year, while the expansion rate in China has far exceeded its global average. Last year, H&M opened 13 stores in China, along with flagship stores that just landed in Guangzhou, and H&M has 30 stores in China. As early as the Spanish clothing brand ZARA, the pace of Japan's UNIQLO layout of the Chinese market has been very fast. It has opened two flagship stores in eastern Guangzhou Po Tai Road and Beijing road. At present, the number of stores in UNIQLO in China (including Hongkong) has reached 65, and plans to open more than 100 new stores a year in fiscal year 2012.

According to some analysts' views, because H&M and UNIQLO brands have shown signs of saturation in the domestic market, it is natural and urgent to look overseas, especially in the rapidly developing Chinese market. In addition to the crazy opening of franchised stores, there are also garment processing plants supporting investment in the same period. Take UNIQLO as an example. 85% of the goods on the rack come from 70 Chinese foundries.

In this way, with the upstream production support synchronized and the expansion of downstream channels simultaneously, and with the layout of the first tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou as the center, the strategic layout of the development of second tier cities is also taken into account. After the completion of the first tier cities, efforts are made to expand to the second tier cities. This is almost the other successful strategy for other retail brands to enter the Chinese market.

What is obvious now is that ZARA, H&M, UNIQLO and other flagship stores, which are set up in the first tier cities, in addition to huge sales, one of the purposes is to train consumers' brand awareness in China's two or three tier cities. The long line of fishing is obvious.

Local brands began to "challenge"

The hunt has already begun, and the domestic clothing brands can't wait until the site is lost. However, it is gratifying to note that in the field of "fast fashion" pioneered by foreign brands, the strength of Chinese local clothing brands has finally begun to emerge.

Just in the Shanghai market where fast fashion brands are already competing, the eighth day (URBAN EIGTHDAY) of a new Chinese brand city begins to join the "positive competition" against foreign brands in the name of "fast fashion".

"Be the real ZARA of China." In May 31st, after finishing the first month's performance in the eighth day of the city's opening up, LILY, general manager of the city's eighth day brand founder and Shanghai Jiacheng Garments Co., Ltd.

WANG (Wang Xia) made a high-profile claim at the "fast fashion" profit model Investment Summit. Prior to May 1st, the eighth day of the city opened in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, where ZARA, H&M and UNIQLO have all settled down. At the Investment Summit, LILY

WANG said it will open 4 direct outlets in China in the year, and complete the contract signing of the provincial capital city direct branch store in the second half of the year, and highlight a three year listing plan.

LILY

WANG even said that China's local brands are more involved in fast fashion than H&M knows what "Chinese consumers wear" and daring to expand to the three or four line cities that foreign brands do not have. It is more likely to be a fast fashion brand that understands Chinese local culture.

The eighth day's "public bidding" is actually not an isolated case. In the past, enterprises that saw fast fashion business opportunities in China have been eager to compete or rush to scrambling for food.

The first thing aimed at H&M fast fashion for competitors is Metersbonwe, which is a prosperous young casual wear.

Metersbonwe founder Zhou Chengjian even launched a brand called "Me&City" as its fast fashion pioneer. Designed by French designers, it launches more than 3000 clothing styles every year. It completes almost 70 steps to complete the design, trial and assembly, finalization, sample making, volume statistics, bulk production, logistics and distribution, and so on. It is almost the same step with H&M fashion designers.

In contrast to the rapid expansion of H&M, ME&CITY has also launched a nationwide "fast buying shop" and more than 1000 square meters of mass volume shop. According to the China Commercial Daily reporter, last year, Zhou Chengjian bought 39 commercial real estate in 19 provinces and cities by way of buying or renting, involving a total of 785 million yuan, expanding the store for ME&CITY, and expressed his ambition to open hundreds of Direct stores in 2009 to catch up with the fast fashion.

Similarly, the domestic brand ME&KAR of the United States Kali apparel Limited has officially announced its entry into the international fast fashion. It also wants to build China's first fast fashion brand and become China's "ZARA". ME&KAR (Mei Kali) apparel said that it would provide high quality and low price international fast fashion women's clothing through the collection of the best selling single product of the season and the brand marketing director, through the way of revision and group payment, to the customers who are sensitive and consumptive.

In addition, Guangzhou based Yi Miao also started trying "fast fashion" mode last year. The first model store of Yi Miao has opened in Guangzhou.

At the same time, what can not be ignored is the Vero, known as the "golden generation" after 2005.

Moda, Jack&Jones, Esprit and so on also began to pursue the clothing chain brand of "quick delivery", "parity" and "fashion".

What does local brands rush to eat?

However, for the current reality, the fast fashion brand competition can be described as "strong hand like a forest".

In fact, even though Zhou Chengjian, known as "China's clothing industry wizards", has fallen a lot in the "fast fashion" of many people.

In the third quarter of 2009, ME&CITY was not only in a state of deficit but also failed to achieve 100 stores in a year. Now it has also been stranded. And because of ME&CITY's drag, the US bond net profit fell by nearly 60%.

In the positive confrontation with the international fast fashion brands, most brands, including ME&CITY, which tend to be fast fashion mode, are still at a disadvantage. It is obvious that in most Chinese clothing brand shops, regardless of popularity, number of consumers, fitting frequency or volume, ME&CITY, the eighth day of the city are also quite different from foreign brands.

"The reputation of the brand is not enough, and the degree of consumer recognition is not high." ME&CITY's shopping guide said frankly that it is impossible to cultivate more loyal customers with the current popularity. "Those loyal ones are not loyal brands, but discounts."

However, local brands still have their own advantages which are not rare.

LILY

WANG's "killer mace" is a Chinese fast fashion business model after two years of deliberation and preparation. "Global buyers and designers of international procurement + localization trend trend guide, supply chain guarantee 8 days to complete the new product production and delivery of the bet agreement, logistics and distribution system to adopt the allocation system to set up a transit warehouse, the introduction of ICBC to implement the third party protection of funds, liberalize franchise chain to build a fast terminal operation system." LILY

WANG said, in addition, she also saw the employment difficulties of millions of Chinese college students. Therefore, combined with this social difficulty, the eighth day of the city was built into a training, internship and employment system to cultivate college students' entrepreneurship, and also to solve the talent gap for the eighth day development of the city.

As we all know, at present, foreign brands are fast fashion without exception. In China, the direct operation system is adopted in China. The eighth day of the city, however, has solved the difficulty of joining the chain with the introduction of the distribution system and the third party guarantee.

Therefore, in the view of dealer Jin Shaowu, such as the eighth days of the city's fast fashion model design emphasizes the distribution system, ICBC's third party funding protection is the difference between Yu Yang brand's own advantages.

Relying on the original channel advantage of Metersbonwe brand, Me&City has gone deep into small and medium-sized cities such as Guangxi and Baise to prepare for the franchisee strategy launched in other parts of the country 1-2 years later.

However, many dealers still say that although Chinese domestic enterprises have many advantages, the key to the outcome of foreign brands is to see the integration power in the later stage.