Pursue Fast Fashion &Nbsp; But Grasp The Rhythm.

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GAP is coming.

A few days ago, news came out that GAP, the American clothing retailer, will start the layout of the Chinese market in the year.

Despite the fact that China's GAP executives say "it's not too late to enter China", the industry is still talking about this -- 3 years later than other fast fashion brands. Is it really too late, or is it the last bus that is "entered"?

There is no doubt that the good news of some fast fashion brands is constantly stimulating other clothing retail groups.

H&M reported in the first half of June, which reported in the first half of 2010, that its total number of global chain stores has reached 2062. In the first half of this year, there were 86 new outlets, and 33 of them were in China.

ZARA's parent company INDITEX announced that it includes 98 new stores in the first quarter, and INDITEX owns 4700 stores in 77 countries. China is, of course, the main market, with new stores occupying more than 10%. Gross profit margin increased by 60% in the first quarter, up 57% over the same period last year.

UNIQLO has increasingly valued the development of the Chinese market. At present, there are 64 stores in UNIQLO in China, and the company plans to sell more than 1 trillion yen in the Chinese market in the next 10 years, with more than 1000 stores, and fully enter the two or three line market.

In this way, GAP's actions and rhetoric are not difficult to understand.

In addition, it has nothing to do with its own development strategy.

On the one hand, GAP's overall sales growth in the first quarter of 2010 was 40% higher than that in the first quarter. On the other hand, the company wanted to spend 300 million US dollars as a budget to expand the global market and tried to recapture the market share by increasing investment.

According to industry analysis, compared with European design style ZARA, Nordic pragmatism H&M and Japanese style minimalist UNIQLO, GAP is the basic American style, and the price may be lower, so there is still room for it.

We can only wait and see if we can catch up later.

Anyway?

Shopping habits are changing quietly.

First, listen to one of the industry's own experiences - - Ms. Dai Chunhua, the chief consultant of the channel consultancy, describes how she has changed her own way of spending.

"Before, I often patronize a shop, the clothes on the shelves are very dense, not many styles, not very few, the size is very complete, the style is roughly the same.

But this year, I found that their shops were bigger than before, but the goods were less, and the display was there, and the sizes of each type were less, and the price was floating up. But when I went in to turn around, I could not seem to find anything to go.

What causes this change? The most fundamental reason is my inventory pressure. "

There are so many things on the market that once we can't catch the fashion pulse, inventory becomes the biggest "burden". Because of this worry, we dare not sell more goods. Especially for those agents, we try to sell a piece of money to earn one dollar, even if the turnover is not fast enough, we will not lose too much money.

Now there are more and more brands and agents with this idea.

Therefore, brand enterprises, especially small and medium-sized brands or channels, do not have completely established new brands. Once ordering, they will have a headache. "3 colors, 2 colors per color, and at most 3 pieces - how can I live?" it is said that they are now small batch and multi style, but for garment enterprises with machining links, ordering from the start will increase their purchasing cost.

The reason for this is that agents should minimize their risk.

"And a shop that I frequented regularly for the first time is the scene: shops are very large, probably 1000~2000 square meters, customers have great freedom and no shopping guide is on the side. The products on the shelves are very rich. Besides quantity, categories and styles are not very diverse, you can design countless kinds of clothes -- from top to bottom, from inside to outside, scarves and bags.

Even without any discount, this is the first time that I have selected 7 items in it -- enough to handle several combinations.

Holding the coat in his hand is still thinking, if it is not for such a proper sling in the shop, and how far it should go, how many stores can be matched so well.

Of course, there were second, third times...

I became a loyal "repeat customer".

No service, no story, and even the first time did not know where the brand came from, so what attracted so many people to visit Dai Chunhua as well?

What is "fast fashion"?

First of all, we can listen to President Li Kai Luo, President of Blue International Investment Consulting Co. Ltd.

Five or six years ago, when Li Kailuo organized an inspection team of Chinese clothing enterprises to study in Japan, he took them to UNIQLO. Many bosses shook their heads after seeing them, and felt that the brand was selling basic funds.

Li Kailuo explained to them: "I am not a designer, I am not showing you the trend of fashion, but the business path behind the clothing industry."

Last year's annual report showed sales of 830 billion yen (61 billion 800 million yuan).

In recent years, with the entry of ZARA, H&M and UNIQLO into the Chinese market and their good market performance, the awareness of domestic brands is also awakening. "Fast fashion" has become a business mode and has been widely recognized.

According to the Research Report of the Chinese urban residents fashion index, 39.2% of the middle and high income residents in 10 large and medium-sized cities in China will buy clothes every other month or so, and the fashionable clothing purchased in that year will be reduced to about 10% in the following year, of course, winter clothing is an exception.

Durable consumer goods, once considered long term, are now fast changing consumer goods.

16.5% of consumers will replace their phones in less than a year, and 26.1% will replace MP3 in about a year.

In addition, durable consumer goods such as digital cameras, notebook computers, private cars and so on have also been rapidly updated, and the frequency of replacement is much higher than that of other countries.

The reality is that most target consumers are hungry for fashion, but they do not have the ability to consume high-end luxury brands frequently. This determines that fast fashion can only be popular through parity.

ZARA and H&M have been able to see this point. They adopt the strategy of accurately identifying and rapidly launching corresponding clothing styles when the fashion trend is just emerging. They can quickly collect their best ideas for their own use, borrow the design power of luxury goods, sacrifice part of their quality, and update fashion quickly and frequently, so as to satisfy consumers' demand for following the trend.

The core of the "fast fashion" brand's product management is "fast, small, diversified", or even man-made shortages. This minute you don't make a purchase decision, and the next minute will be sold out.

"Fast" is its most prominent feature: rapid design, rapid production, quick sale and quick update.

The goal of ZARA is to complete products in 15 days, from design, purchase, production to the sale of stores on the global stores (the domestic garment enterprises usually have more than 30 days'), and distribute them to most stores in Europe within 24 hours, arrive in the United States 48 hours, and arrive in China and Japan in 48~72 hours.

"Fast" allows ZARA sales of over 10 billion euros, and behind all this is a rapid response system for the integration of product development, production, logistics, and direct sale of stores. This fast and powerful commercial chain system is the real support and guarantee for ZARA to make "quick" money.

Yang Dayun, President of UTA Fashion Management Group, has published a book called "mode Revolution: Fashion self owned brand successful profit model", which mainly refers to the "SPA", that is, the abbreviation of Speciality Retailer of Private Label Apparel, which is literally plated into the "self styled clothing professional retailer", that is, the official title of "fast fashion" brand "Dong Jia".

He said that with the rise of "fast fashion", the SPA mode is also presenting in a new image, and its invariable essence is speed and profit.

The global environment has changed since the crisis, and the purchasing power of the middle class in the post crisis era has decreased. Therefore, more and more consumers are willing to assume that "fashion is not expensive."

"The rapid popularity of fast fashion brands is based on the change of global consumption consciousness."

Yang Dayun said.

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Robbing time from factory to store

The success of ZARA is no accident. It is an inevitable product of global consumption development.

Yang Dayun believes that in twenty-first Century, Chinese consumers' demand for popularity became faster and faster.

In the past, if there was a quarter of pop, there would be obvious changes in 2~3 times, but now it has become a quarter of 4~6, or even more popular rhythm changes. This has prompted many female consumers to go to shopping malls frequently - otherwise she will feel outdated.

If a company can meet the needs of consumers 6~8 times in a quarter, it means that a brand store will sell more goods and gain more profits.

In the past many enterprises, the demand for profit was mainly produced through the order meeting, the futures of each dealer or distribution customer were produced at once, output to the terminal, and divided into several bands to sell, and the profits were 70~80% or even more.

But now 8~9 months ahead of time to set a large number of futures, for enterprises and agents, it means a great deal of risk.

This is a conventional marketing theory -- the closer the distance from ordering to manufacturing to the needs of consumers, the more accurate the prediction and judgement will be when ordering. The farther away the risk is, the greater the risk will be.

For example, changing weather factors, economic environment and other factors will make business operators' uncertainty about future expectations bigger and bigger.

This is why agents are no longer willing to pay deposits in advance, because they are not sure whether they are in the "next season" trend.

The core value of SPA lies in putting the key link of profit in the sales process, not before sales.

Sales accounted for only about 30% of profits, but 70% of the profits would be placed in the sales process.

And the so-called sales process is when the goods are in store, when the consumer's needs have been presented, who can produce the fastest speed, and when the consumer's desire for products is still there, put it in the store to become the consumer's right choice, then he can get higher profits, and the stock can also be reduced to the minimum.

This is the essence of SPA - shortening the time and distance from production to customers.

How to shorten the distance from factory processing to customer purchase

From planning to sales, apart from the manufacturing link itself, it is a systematic project that involves the management and coordination of the industrial chain.

Li Kailuo gave a successful example of Lining.

Li Ning Co has been trying to "promote consumption of popular products in the high-end sporting goods market", and to create "the world's leading sporting goods Brand Company" as a vision.

In the process of integrating the supply chain, Lining emphasized 3 matching: to match the supplier management system with the company's product strategy, so as to match the company's business activities with the company's positioning in the value chain, and the company's supply chain strategy matches the company's business development strategy.

In December 2008, what Li Ning Co most concerned about the industry was to choose Hubei Jingmen to build a business flow around the company - a super industrial park with both production and logistics functions.

It is said that after the completion of the industrial park, it will become the largest sporting goods production base and logistics distribution center in Central China. The annual output value will be around 5 billion yuan, and the employment of 50 thousand people will be solved.

After the industrial park is put into operation, it will account for the size of Li Ning Co's overall supply chain 40~50%. It is estimated that by 2011, there will be no less than 50% of shoe orders and 30% of garment orders in the new production base.

It is a concern of the industry that why the brand management enterprises of virtual operation build huge production bases.

In fact, Jingmen Industrial Park covers an area of 3200 mu, and Lining only owns 300 mu. The rest are jointly built by the core suppliers of Lining. 7 core suppliers will set up clothing group and footwear group respectively, and will be engaged in clothing and footwear production in the industrial park.

Guangdong Shunde Yongda Garments Co., Ltd., Guangdong Shunde Qin Shun Knitting Co., Ltd., Guangdong Foshan South China Sea KEE zipper company, Shanghai fabric suppliers and other four companies jointly organized the Hubei kinetic energy Sports Products Co., Ltd. to provide sports apparel for Lining.

The kinetic energy Garment Group has an annual capacity of 93 million sets, forming a complete set of industrial chain for textile, knitting, weaving, printing and dyeing, printing, embroidery, interlining, buttons, zippers, trademarks and so on.

From Guangdong Foshan Tian Tian Shoes Co., Ltd., Xiamen xiafi Shoes Co., Ltd., and Quanzhou shoe company's Quanzhou joint venture Co., Ltd., Hubei fule Shoes Co., Ltd. provides jogging shoes, football shoes, basketball shoes, casual shoes and other sports shoes for Lining.

The Li Ning Co is responsible for the construction of logistics base and R & D center, and becomes the real integrator, manager and distributor in the value chain and supply chain.

This is an extremely crucial strategic position for Lining to pform from "light company" to "fast company".

Among them, the most important part is how to effectively organize brand design centers, raw materials suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, distribution centers and channel traders under the brand pull. That is to say, how to optimize supply chain management so as to achieve the lowest cost and the highest efficiency.

Of course, not all clothing brands have such strength to integrate an industrial chain, but such an idea is what entrepreneurs must possess.

The premise of "fast" should be "yes".

Brand trains, terminal sales are locomotives and production links are cars.

In the supply chain, reducing the rapid response time is equivalent to reducing the number of cars, although it will bring some effect to the train speed increase, but it may not be too significant.

Wouldn't it be better to improve the power system directly from the retail end of the terminal?

Dai Chunhua uses this analogy to show that "fast" is not the core, and the premise is to do "right".

Otherwise, the faster the reaction is, the faster the "death" will be. - a lot of products that are unfashionable, unpopular and can't satisfy the needs are the most dangerous thing to enter.

This is not alarmist, but now the designer is "Mongolia" to develop, and the agent "Mongolia" orders a lot of brands.

Is it the designer deciding the terminal or the terminal deciding the terminal? How can we achieve "right"?

Yang solves this problem by using "MD" to decide the direction of commodity design.

He explained that commodity planning has become a top priority in many company departments to coordinate the core distribution of manufacturing, production, sales, marketing, merchandising, staff training and terminal channel commodity planning.

Many of the company's commodity planning departments are particularly important, and commodity planners are also very important for the market.

Planning is through the research and integration of the previous season's sales, through the analysis of the market, and the integration of global information, to decide how to make the target goods that can bring the established series and style in the next quarter to meet the needs of the market.

In this process, we should take into account who decides who issues, and the originality of the design should be subordinated to the mainstream of the market.

Dai Chunhua thinks that "right" is actualization by actuarial analysis. This requires a complete mathematical model to analyze the sales data before the new product plan, including the analysis and synthesis of the factors such as color, size, fabric, price and even weather changes.

In order to find the "password" of the popular product, it will open the next season's best seller.

This applies not only to product development, but also to the sales process -- using data to determine how long the goods will stay on the shelf, when to move to other stores, and when to start discounted sales.

"Fast fashion" brand needs to have "brand" first.

For example, Wang Xiangsheng is a famous brand chain expert in Hongkong.

He said that it is quite dangerous to see that some domestic brands are "ready to be" ready to be "ready" when they see "foreign visitors" making full profits.

In particular, those who do not understand the true profit connotation blindly are either hyping the concept or thinking of rushing themselves into "fast fashion" brand.

They may be aware of "fast" and "fashion" and forget that they really want to be a decent brand.

In other words, the reason why ZARA is successful and H&M is successful is because they already have a strong brand foundation and brand culture, and the design is recognized by the public.

Just imagine, a brand that people do not know at all, suddenly call themselves "fast fashion", will they be trusted? Of course not.

So we need to start with the implementation of our brand, otherwise, the "fast mode" can not be mentioned.

Li Kailuo's case is undoubtedly the best proof of Dr. Wang Xiangsheng's viewpoint.

Speaking of UNIQLO's early experience, Li Kailuo said, at the beginning, UNIQLO was not really accepted by local consumers.

Some consumers were attracted by the quality and low price of UNIQLO, but after they bought them, they threw out the uniqe bags and put them in GAP's bags.

"This is the problem of brands. Consumers may have accepted UNIQLO at the product level, but they are not fully accepted at the brand level."

Li Kailuo said.

In order to enhance its brand image, UNIQLO implemented two major strategies to change its image in 1998: first, to open up the UNIQLO store in Harbin, a thriving place in Tokyo, and the second is to change its image through media publicity.

Through a series of initiatives, UNIQLO's strategy of changing its image has been a great success.

In this way, UNIQLO is being accepted by Japanese consumers step by step, becoming the national costume of Japan.

In 2001, sales of UNIQLO amounted to about about 400000000000 yen, and about 80% of its sales came from the local market.

A world-class retail giant has had such an experience at the beginning of our business. Our brand needs to be more tolerant.

The image construction in the brand building is very important, such as those that have been successful and fast fashion brands.

We can see brands like ZARA and so on. They will always open stores in the most prosperous parts of the city, opposite or around some famous luxury brand stores, even if the rent is expensive. What's important is that they convey the value of the brand by "who stands with them". The feeling that consumers eventually bring is low price, but the brand value is not cheap. Many consumers are even willing to get a little vanity from the behavior of buying fast fashion brands - good things, good prices, good brands.

Who will earn such a brand?

Fashion is the first priority, so "fast" is what clothing companies must pursue.

But the biggest problem brought by "fast" is inventory, which is the biggest problem faced by garment enterprises.

This has become a group of contradictions, and it is also the biggest risk for garment enterprises to take the "fast fashion" road.

Dr. Wang Xiangsheng suggested that if you want to try the "fast fashion" mode, it is best to do the following: first, from design to sales, self control and rapid response are required; second, the supply of popular commodities that are preemptive to the list of famous brands will be listed on the market with high quality and a small number of products. Third, the supply of fresh goods is always on sale (usually 3 weeks). If it can be done, there will be no discount sale. Fourth, the innovative personalized business mode, including the unique brand culture connotation.

Li Kai Luo analysis, foreign fast fashion brands rely on collectivization operation, has huge financial strength and fashion information channels, the most important thing is that they pay more attention to the success rate in the channel development, that is to say, before they open the shop, they do enough research and demonstration, their preliminary work can sometimes achieve one or two years.

This effect is to open a family, a successful one.

On the contrary, the clothing brand in China is often opened by the boss.

The result is that the speed of the channel development is very fast, but the death is also very much.

In fact, domestic clothing brands have a great market advantage.

It has been counted that as long as we open 15 stores in every two tier cities in China, and then open three or four stores in county-level cities, the total volume will reach eight or nine thousand stores.

In fact, the number of terminal shops of some sportswear brands in China has reached seven and eight thousand respectively.

It can be said that when the foreign brands are ready to develop the "thousand store" plan, the domestic brands have moved towards "Wan Dian".

Therefore, funds and terminals are not a problem.

The "fast fashion" model tests the knowledge system and operation ability of enterprises. If the ability of integration and updating is somewhat deficient, they will soon be abandoned by "fast fashion" consumers.

Editor's comment: in China, a large number of local brands represented by the United States and its ME&CITY have begun to test the water "fast fashion". This year, the United States first put forward the concept of "national big brand", which is exciting. Because it sees the trend of the future, the domestic clothing brand can go out of its own "fast fashion" mode, and not all things go according to the foreign mode.