Apple's Inspiration To China's Clothing Industry

From 2001 to 2009, the revenue of Apple outlets increased from 0 to US $6 billion 600 million, while Apple's total sales revenue increased from US $5 billion 400 million to US $36 billion 500 million. This means that sales revenue has increased by US $31 billion 100 million, other than direct outlets.

Seek Apple The secret: what happened in 2001?

Few people understand that the opening of Apple's first direct store in May 2001 has implications for Apple's subsequent success.

In the 10 years from 1990 to 2000, Apple's performance has been fluctuating, and its total revenue has reached US $11 billion 100 million in 1995. Even if Jobs returned to apple in 1997, the sales revenue of the company would still be hard to break through.

It was not until 2001 that all this changed. Starting from Apple's first direct store in May 2001, Apple's total revenue began to hit a new high. In 2009, Apple's annual sales revenue has reached $36 billion 500 million.

Beginning in 2001, Apple's total Sale Income and revenue from direct stores increased simultaneously. By 2009, the revenue from the direct store had reached 6 billion 600 million dollars, accounting for 18% of its total revenue.

For Apple's success, many people attribute it to a steady stream of products. innovate 。 From iPod to iPhone, and then to iPad, every new product is launched, and the world is crazy about it. This may sound good, but it is not comprehensive. For apple, the most important thing in history is innovation. From the earliest visual interface operating system, it has become the standard mouse now. Even during the time when Jobs left apple, Apple also had a series of forward-looking designs, such as PowerBook, Newton MessagePad, Power Macs and so on. However, even if some of the products were successful, they soon withdrew from the market with technological upgrading.

Obviously, after 2001, apple must have seen something new than before.

These new things, let Apple start not limited to the continuous introduction of new products, but also began to explore extended services, from iPod to iTunes, and from iPhone to App Store, so that apple is no longer just around the pursuit of perfection, but also around the needs of customers to develop product lines. This changed apple from a technology computer company to a retail entertainment company.

These new things, Jobs, who consistently adheres to Apple's closed culture, did not insist that iPod support Mac system only when it launched iPod. In 2002, the next year, iPod launched the "Windows version iPod" which can connect mainstream PCs. This allows iPod to no longer be exclusive to Apple enthusiasts, but that all Windows users can use it.

The potential market was suddenly opened. IPod was not bad at first, but it was never as good as it is today. It can be said that it is compatible with Windows and iPod to achieve today's success, so that iPod is not as quiet as Apple's refreshing innovations in the past.

So what are these new things?

The answer lies behind the decision of apple to set up a direct store in May 2001. {page_break}

Apple's Channel Innovation: breaking the 5% curse

In the 2001 earnings report, apple explained the original intention of setting up a direct store: the purpose of setting up a direct store is to attract new consumers, and increase the market share of Apple by providing services to users who use computers for the first time and from other operating systems to Macintosh systems.

For a long time, Apple products had a 5% curse. When Apple's market share drops to around 5%, it will never drop. Of course, it will not rise, but at this level.

The explanation for this phenomenon is that Apple products are a niche design. Apple has a group of enthusiastic fans, but it also makes it seem too far away from the general public. These enthusiasts constitute a stable niche for apple. The ordinary consumers outside the fan group will have an appreciative attitude towards Apple products, commenting that it is really beautiful, and then go away. Since no more consumers follow up after the purchase of fans, this makes Apple product life cycle very short.

Apple's new product was launched with great acclaim, but once the enthusiasm was over, the company's performance immediately returned to its original form. Apple is like an addicted drug addict, constantly needing a new morphine to refresh itself. After the excitement of every new morphine, health does not get better, but it gets worse.
From 2001 to 2009, the revenue of Apple outlets increased from 0 to US $6 billion 600 million, while Apple's total sales revenue increased from US $5 billion 400 million to US $36 billion 500 million. This means that sales revenue has increased by US $31 billion 100 million, other than direct outlets.

In 1997, Jobs returned to apple. In 1998 and 1999, two new products, both iMac and iBook, were introduced. IMac was hailed as the fastest selling personal computer in history. Apple's revenue rose to $8 billion in 2000, stimulated by new product sales, and then began to fall rapidly.

This allowed Jobs to admit that today's apple lacks new consumers.

Why is Apple's product short of new consumers? The explanation in the industry is that Apple's design is not in the public's taste, and Jobs does not believe it at all. Moreover, we often see that Apple's innovative design has been introduced and imitated by some manufacturers, and has been successfully introduced into the mass market.

Jobs realizes that behind the 5% curse is not that Apple's products are not good enough, but that the public consumers are too strange and unfamiliar with Apple products, especially for those new consumers. Apple's products have been distributed to consumers through distributors. For distributors, the process of education and training of consumers is too long and cumbersome. Instead of selling Apple's new products to those 5% enthusiasts, they will sell other brands such as IBM PC, which are easy to sell, and do not bother to recommend apples to new consumers who are not familiar with apple.

Distribution channels cut off the communication between apple and new consumers.

Jobs began to understand that Apple had to break through the 5% curse if it wanted to take off, which meant attracting new consumers to Apple products. In order to achieve this, apple needed to have its own direct store, which could make consumers feel the benefits of Apple products through dialogues directly with new consumers.

Jobs took the lead in building Apple's direct network. {page_break}

Strategic positioning of the direct camp system: attracting new consumers

The strategic positioning of Direct stores is to make brand names. Some manufacturers regard the direct outlets in the primary market as the means to show the strength of the company and attract agents to join. These positions have their own reasons. But apple is the most essential and the most important to locate the camp in order to attract new consumers.

The definition of direct battalion is different, and subsequent actions will be different. The way of thinking determines what direction the resources of an enterprise are allocated to. The unclear location of direct battalions often leads to inefficient allocation of enterprise resources.

The Meters Bonwe (hereinafter referred to as MB) brand separation and the subsequent expansion of Me&City (hereinafter referred to as MC) are an example.

For a long time, the state garments are famous for their light assets: production is handed over to the foundries, and sales depend on franchisees. Only the middle design and management are their own. This mode has made the asset return rate of American Apparel very good. In August 2008, Smith Barney was listed on A shares, with huge sums of money in hand. It is a challenge to achieve the profitability of new assets no less than the historical level.

For the clothing industry, the most prudent way to do so is to invest money in shops, especially in scarce gold shops, and build their own outlets. Mei Bang clothing began to buy shops, some of which are often tens of thousands of square meters. When the big shop opened, the pride of the state made the management very happy.

However, MB's franchisees have long been dotted with each other. It is always a thorny business to open up the barn stores to the original franchisees. The solution to this problem is brand segmentation. As a result, the United States and the original MB brand under the campus and the city two series of spin off, for students in the Campus Series in MB, for the office city series named MC. The newly established MC has a slightly higher positioning than MB, and is mainly direct battalion.

In hindsight, this is more like a series of rushing answers, because in the end, which intentions failed.

By the 1 quarter of 2010, the radical strategy of Smith Barney led to a sharp decline in performance. The company decided to slow down the expansion of MC direct network and reduce the growth of related sales expenses. At the same time, the United States bought many super large direct stores, but also found that the operation is not good. From the experience of famous brands such as ZARA and H&M, the store area is usually about 3000 square meters, which is usually more efficient. The management of the US state has learned from the pain and decided to rectify the inefficient large storefront and plan to reduce the super large store area to a more appropriate level. The company's direct strategy has also undergone a major adjustment.

In contrast, in 2010, Apple's strategic positioning of Direct stores remained unchanged, as it did in 2001. This highly clear and stable strategy ensures that Apple has gone through the global economic crisis after 911, and has steadily increased.

The split of MB brand by American state also seems to have been neglected. In fact, the original MB brand said that there are two series of campus and urban, but to the specific products, the two series of styles are not very different. This is because the two series come from the same design culture, on the other hand, MB is a franchisee ordering, even when there is a style difference in design, in the order of franchisees, it is naturally mixed into one. Franchisees do not have two distinct styles in mind to order.

Therefore, when the original MB was split into two brands of MB and MC, the effect was only equivalent to diverting the original consumers to the two brands.

From 2001 to 2009, the revenue of Apple outlets increased from 0 to US $6 billion 600 million, while Apple's total sales revenue increased from US $5 billion 400 million to US $36 billion 500 million. This means that sales revenue has increased by US $31 billion 100 million, other than direct outlets.

The original clenched fist was loosened into five fingers. It seemed that the number of words became more and more. But when it was struck forward, it could not only beat the sandbag but also stab the fingers. The integrity of the brand has been destroyed, resulting in the loss of US state customers and the competitive brand opportunities of JEANSWEST and YISHION.

All this shows that in the past few years, the position of the United States and the United States has been drifting constantly and constantly trying to take into account all the advantages. First, a large amount of money was spent to buy super large shops to meet the visual impact of flagship stores. Then, the MB purchasing power workers were split into their own direct MC. Next, after buying less than two years ago, they demanded a wide range of profits, so that the store continued to discount under the pressure of performance, hurt consumers' impression of the brand, and also worsened mutual trust with franchisees. {page_break}

Channel Transformation: planning and moving

Of course, in the long run, it is of positive significance for us to establish direct stores and accumulate experience in learning. The strength of the direct camp system is likely to be the commanding point of the next stage of domestic clothing brand competition and the cornerstone of the enterprise scale spanning 10 billion yuan from 5 billion yuan.

But in specific ways, the United States should learn from the experience of Apple channel transformation.

In addition to the location of Direct stores, there are many references for Chinese clothing brands to learn from Apple's channel transformation.

Apple's product line is very rich, before establishing a direct store, there is a distribution network that is geographically distributed around the world. Products are sent to consumers through wholesale channels through classified agents.

Today, Apple has successfully imported its own outlets and online sales on the basis of its original cooperation channels. Moreover, during the whole transformation process, the performance has maintained steady growth, and has maintained close cooperation with distributors.

Apple can do this, and its layout when direct shop, plan and move carefully arranged are inseparable.

1. all things are done first. 　　

When Jobs had the idea of direct camp, he first asked the people around him, "who is the top American retailer?" The people around him told him that it was GAP's legendary CEO de la se. "Well, then, let's dig him up." Jobs said. But the people around him told him it was impossible. Instead, Jobs invited him to serve as Apple's director and to direct Apple's direct strategy. Later, he told Jobs the most important thing was to make him build his own direct shop like apple products.

Jobs found another favorite person in fashion department store chain corporation Target, that is Ron. Luo Enzheng was vice president of Target at that time. In 2000, Ron accepted the invitation to join apple in charge of retail business.

After Ron came to the company, apple did not rush to open shop. Instead, Jobs and Ron, together with an old warehouse, built the future outlets in proportion to 1:1. Think twice about every detail. As long as it doesn't fit, tear it down. 9 months later, there was a satisfactory solution. Since then, every apple store has opened around the world, and the bright design itself has become Apple's best advertisement.

2. do not make a snake that eats its own tail.

When the direct shop and the franchisee compete to kill the price, the whole enterprise becomes a snake that eats its own tail. It looks like the mouth has eaten something, actually it is its own tail.

From the very beginning, Apple has been paying attention to the single store performance and efficiency of a direct store, not relying on low prices, but by attracting the perfect experience of consumers to attract new consumers. This has opened the doors to every direct store, which has increased the popularity of Apple locally.

If we look at friends around us, it is easy to find that many people who use iPod or iPhone today have never bought Apple products before. They certainly knew Apple brand long ago, but always felt that Apple was far away from itself. But now it is different. The place where Apple's classic glass house is located will become the place frequented by locals. The perfect service in the store will soon make these people an apple product.

In this way, Apple's Direct stores not only hurt other distributors, but also promoted the sales of distributors.

Of course, in order to do this, Apple has also paid great patience. It is necessary to provide first class products and services, as well as a defender of market order rather than a price breaker, which greatly improves the profit and loss balance of a straight store. For apple, this is equivalent to annual sales of more than 15 million yuan, or equivalent to 22 million 500 thousand passengers a year. Starting in 1999, the first store opened in 2001, and until 2004, Apple's Direct stores began to make overall profits.

Apple's pay is also worth it. From 2001 to 2009, the revenue of Apple outlets increased from 0 to US $6 billion 600 million, while Apple's total sales revenue increased from US $5 billion 400 million to US $36 billion 500 million, which means that sales revenue increased by US $31 billion 100 million in addition to direct outlets.

Instead of selling Apple's new products to those 5% enthusiasts, they would sell other brands that are easy to sell like IBM PC, and would not bother to recommend apples to new consumers who are not familiar with apple. After the original MB was split into two brands of MB and MC, the effect was only equivalent to diverting the original consumers to the two brands. The integrity of the brand has been destroyed, resulting in the loss of US state customers and the competitive brand opportunities of JEANSWEST and YISHION.