Research On Japanese "SPA" Service Representative Youiku (UNIQLO)

Background information

The English name of UNIQLO is UNIQUECLOTHINGWAREHOUSE. As a famous Japanese casual wear brand, its brand connotation is to emphasize the self help shopping mode of human text, providing customers with good quality and reasonable price in a relaxed shopping environment.

UNIQLO, belonging to FASTRETAILING group, has been the sole brand of the group from 1984 to 2001. It is the core strength of the group's development so far.

At present, UNIQLO has an annual turnover of 685 billion yen, and the company plans to reach the target of 1 trillion yen in 2010.

Fast selling company was founded in 1963, when the business name was small county business, and then in 1991 by the current chairman and CEO Ryui Masa renamed as fast marketing.

It was willow well, who, in 1984, referred to the SPA sales mode of GAP company of America, began to try out the clothing sales mode of storage self help shopping in Japan, and opened the first UNIQLO clothing store.

Its outstanding features are low price and popular casual clothing, which has attracted a large number of civilian consumers.

In 1991, when the company was officially renamed as fast retailing, it began to develop the UNIQLO chain store rapidly from the commercial expansion mode of GAP company.

In 1994, UNIQLO was listed in Japan. Now it has become the top retailer in Japan, and has also played an important role in the world's apparel retailing industry.

At present, fast selling group also owns Theory in the US.

Business status

Although uniqo has been working on global business expansion, about 90% of its sales are in the Japanese market.

However, in recent years, with the increase in the number of outlets in overseas markets, the proportion of sales has begun to change.

By the end of August 2009, there were 750 Japanese stores and 20 franchised stores in Japan. The total sales volume in Japan was 538 billion 200 million yen, and 92 overseas outlets. Among them, the number of Asian shops increased exponentially to 76, so the proportion of overseas business revenue to total revenue increased to 28.8%, 37 billion 700 million yen.

At this stage

Despite the fact that most of the sales performance of the fast selling companies still come from the mainland of Japan, the overseas market is obviously higher than that of the Japanese mainland from the growth rate of market sales in recent years, and the development potential is huge.

The course of development in China

Since the establishment of the production management office in Shanghai and Shenzhen in 1999, the number of garments produced in UNIQLO has increased year by year.

Xun sells 70 clothing factories for UNIQLO, all from Asian countries.

Chinese factories account for 80% of the total output.

Since UNIQLO's direct entry into the Chinese market in 2002, it has made rapid progress. In 2006, fast selling companies began to set up production management offices in Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries, and the Chinese market began to pform from manufacturing base to core sales market.

With the pformation of business strategy, XXX (China) Trading Co., Ltd. was established in Shanghai in late 2006, mainly responsible for the sales and related work of China's UNIQLO brand clothing.

By the end of August 2009, UNIQLO had 33 outlets in China and owned an online flagship store.

Analysis of SPA mode management characteristics

Compared to ZARA, the operation mode of UNIQLO is more with the style of the earlier SPA mode, without its own factories, all of which take the form of overseas outsourcing, but the establishment of production management office in the production area, the supervision of production quality and the quality of every product, this operation mode has prompted UNIQLO's unique "low price, excellent quality" brand image.

From children to adults, the applicability of the product has made the concept of "national costume" of UNIQLO.

Over the years, UNIQLO has been insisting that each shop should be unified in accordance with a unified business manual to display, decorate, merchandise, and price levels.

By expanding the scale of production and achieving a low price in a small and large way.

The warehouse store mode saves goods warehousing costs and reduces operating costs.

SPA mode local competitiveness analysis

According to the 2009 fiscal year announced by Xun marketing company, the sales growth of UNIQLO's local sales as a pillar business of the company has increased significantly, making the company's revenue increase for the first time in 8 years.

UNIQLO, with its well-developed basic costume, has attracted local consumers who focus on the actual value of clothing. {page_break}

The deteriorating employment situation in Japan has led to a sharp decline in high-end products and luxury goods consumption.

So, in the case of a depressed Japanese consumer market, UNIQLO can still achieve strong growth momentum.

Sales scale analysis of SPA mode

According to the 2009 fiscal year report of fast retailing company, by the end of August 2009, there were 750 Japanese stores in UNIQLO and 20 franchised stores. The total sales volume in Japan was 538 billion 200 million yen, which accounted for more than 70% of the total sales of the year.

At first, UNIQLO, following Kendl Ki Macdonald's model, closely followed the GAP clothing store to set up shops. Basically, every GAP store nearby, there would be a UNIQLO shop.

With the development of the brand, UNIQLO began to set up shops near the gold trading area and the subway, and also increased the number of stores in the department stores. The size of the shops was also adjusted according to the location and environment.

SPA mode success factor analysis

UNIQLO's success stems from its successful application of SPA mode, changing the traditional fashion sales mode, promoting the rapid development of UNIQLO brand in Japan with the characteristics of low price and high quality.

High quality and low price clothing features attract mass consumer groups who focus on the actual clothing value.

In addition, Japan's own objective economic environment has provided room for development of UNIQLO's low cost and high quality clothing concept.

Analysis of the operation of SPA mode in China

The brand of UNIQLO officially entered China in 2002. Fast marketing (China) Trading Co., Ltd. was established in Shanghai in late 2006, mainly responsible for the sales and related work of China's UNIQLO brand clothing.

By the end of August 2009, UNIQLO had established 33 chain stores in China's Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Shenyang, Shenyang and post.

In April 2009, UNIQLO launched the first flagship store with Taobao.

Analysis of sales scale in China's SPA mode

The sales revenue of UNIQLO 2007 and 2008 in two is 121 million 290 thousand yuan and 371 million 570 thousand yuan respectively, with a total profit of 8 million 190 thousand yuan and 33 million 170 thousand yuan respectively. It can be seen that the strategy has been readjusted since 2006. UNIQLO started a rapid development in China, and its sales revenue and profits have doubled.

After a period of rapid development, at the end of 2008, fast marketing made a decision to increase total investment and registered capital. The total investment increased from US $15 million 627 thousand to US $50 million, and the registered capital increased from US $6 million 250 thousand to US $20 million.

By the end of 2009, the single store daily sales of the stores under the UNIQLO line were around 200 thousand, while the daily sales of UNIQLO Taobao store was nearly 400 thousand, and one day overtook two entity stores. According to the sales performance, the sales volume of its online stores reached at least 150 million yuan in 2009.

Analysis of the operation mode of SPA mode in China

Direct chain store is still the development mode of UNIQLO in China market, and it can achieve the purpose of market expansion by rapidly increasing the scale efficiency of the number of stores.

UNIQLO and Taobao, a well-known e-commerce platform, launched a flagship store in China, further expanding the brand influence and starting the expansion strategy of online shopping business.

Competitiveness analysis of SPA mode in China

With the use of SPA mode, UNIQLO has realized the brand core advantage of "relatively low price and high quality products", and is also an essential feature of its popularity with Chinese consumers.

However, with the entry of the three generation of SPA model enterprises such as ZARA and H&M, UNIQLO's development in the Chinese market is beginning to face a test.

This test comes mainly from the attitude of Chinese consumers. As the biggest weakness of UNIQLO, compared to ZARA and other brands, is the lack of fashion sense. The problem of homogenization is prominent. It is easy for Chinese consumers who have many choices.

UNIQLO's ongoing strategic adjustment

Keep the original style unchanged, but add color and increase the diversity of products in sensory sense {page_break}

Devote more efforts to the research and production of new fabric materials.

Start trying to develop new product styles and give consumers a sense of freshness.

At present, UNIQLO is using high quality fabrics as the biggest selling point of products, and has begun to introduce some subsidiary brand products that are collaborated with fashion designers to increase the brand's fashion sense.

Market prospects for strategic adjustment

From the current market reaction, UNIQLO's multicolor strategy has little effect, too superficial diversity, can not attract consumers from the same price, but really realize the diversification of products and styles of ZARA, H&M attracted.

On the other hand, the development of the new style will inevitably result in the conflict with the current operation mode of UNIQLO. The mass production system of single production line can not keep the low price advantage under the multi style strategy of the product, and at the same time, it can not guarantee the danger of avoiding overstock.

Therefore, as more SPA mode enterprises join the competition in the Chinese market, the market pressure of UNIQLO will gradually increase.

How to improve the responsiveness of the whole supply chain, namely logistics, information feedback and channel management, will be the key factor for the success of UNIQLO's competition.

Possession of customer database resources in China's SPA mode

The sales and inventory situation of each chain store is an important basis for UNIQLO to analyze customer demand. The flagship store established by Taobao has made UNIQLO get more abundant and fast customer data resources, especially Taobao has more than 100 million members with young consumers as its main body, providing the most valuable market demand information for UNIQLO, thus making the design of products closer to the Chinese market.