Fast Fashion Brand UNIQLO Ryui Masawa'S "Fast Selling" Philosophy

Uniqlo

New products

In terms of sales volume, what he pioneered

Unlike the manufacturing sector, the western world has the absolute power to speak and lead the trend in clothing, fashion and entertainment industries.

Sales volume is only the most superficial embodiment of brand influence.

Don't forget how GAP accurately resorted to the 1950s cowboy spirit to buttons and trousers, and how ZARA was fast.

As the only Asian brand that has squeezed into the top five, UNIQLO is not really easy.

But Liu well is not satisfied.

"The aim of fast selling is to become the world's first apparel retailer."

Ryui Masa said in an interview with reporters recently.

UNIQLO seems to have the ability to approach this ideal step by step.

In 2009, UNIQLO's global sales ranked fifth, and in a year alone, it surpassed Holland's competitive brand C&A.

This year, the industry situation continues to reverse in the direction of Ryui Masa.

At present, H&M, one of the targets to catch up, is in the most worrying stage of performance in the past ten years.

In June 21st, H&M announced that its existing stores rose by 2% in May, down from 5.4% of analysts' conservative estimates.

In the almost two quarter earnings forecast for the same period, earnings will decline by 16%, the three consecutive quarterly decline in profits in 10 years.

In contrast, according to the statistics in May, the profits of the overseas market of the XXX company increased by 60% this year. By August this year, its overseas operating profit is expected to expand 33 times from 300 million yen 3 years ago to 10 billion yen.

In the Japanese market, which accounted for nearly 80% of its total sales, its sales in the same store grew by 4.6% in April, which swept the haze of the slowdown in the previous three months.

The problem is how UNIQLO does all this. In common sense, UNIQLO does not seem to be enough to become an opponent of Zara in many respects.

Founded in 1984, the fast retailing company is the "younger generation" of the clothing industry. It is 37 years behind H&M and 9 years less than ZARA. In 2001, when it embarked on a global journey, ZARA has explored the base of UNIQLO, the Japanese market.

After more than 20 years of rapid development, UNIQLO has gone beyond the number of old clothing manufacturers in more than 800 stores, becoming the first Japanese clothing retailer, and has more than 2000 stores in 11 countries and regions.

But UNIQLO always lacks the distinctive characteristics of ZARA fashion pioneers, and the management mode of overturning the retail industry. Most of them are "family style" basic products, far from European brands.

Indeed, UNIQLO is not a standard fast fashion brand at all. It is a new market created by ZARA, which aims to satisfy young people's psychology of timely touch with the latest trend.

In the early stage of fashion pformation and high-grade pformation, Ryui Masanori takes the concept of "cheap casual wear" as the foundation, and develops a market space between leisure and fashion through the bright and rich basic funds, inexpensive and unique fabric innovation, which is the delicate distance between the basic needs of life and the expectation of life.

Everything is just like Ryui Masa said.

"People's definition of clothing is a cheap but low-quality non brand name brand besides high priced and quality first-class brand goods."

He said to reporters: "we are going to break this concept and create costumes that are affordable and excellent with fashionable elements."

All the founders of new business have implicit demands for wealth outside their hearts. In modern business history, such demands usually have a sense of innovation that changes the world.

Henry Ford wants to make cars for the people. Bill Gate hopes that everyone in the world has a computer, and ZARA is no better than that.

In April this year, when Liu Keyi attended the keynote speech at Ruyi 2011 China Fashion Forum, he said: "I think UNIQLO's mission is to develop innovative casual wear and improve the quality of life for all people in the world."

After the global financial crisis in 2008, many famous multinational brands declined, but UNIQLO became famous in the international apparel industry.

In 2009, UNIQLO stood out with its high sales volume, and Ryui Masa took the lead in Japan's richest man.

Last year, the National Retail Association (NRF) awarded him the international brand award, and praised UNIQLO for listening to consumer demand in the face of severe economic situation.

In 2010, "business week" ranked first among the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

With the silence of the old Japanese benchmarking enterprises such as SONY and TOYOTA in the dusk of idols, UNIQLO has become the best spokesperson for the spirit of the new generation of Japanese enterprises.

However, Liu is well aware that the only way to achieve the goal is to allocate the proportion of multiple elements at different times, which is a great challenge to the clothing companies.

The old man who is not tall (maybe only 1.60 meters), has grey hair, and is very taciturn. His autobiography is popular in mainland China. His name is "one win, nine defeats".

This represents his business attitude in the past ten years.

In 2002, Ryui Masa retired to the second line, and after three years, he rebuilt the company because of the company's difficulties. He led UNIQLO to start his two business.

After reaching the summit in 2009, UNIQLO wanted to increase the element of fashion, but suffered a decline in sales.

Now, in the nearly saturated local Japanese market, UNIQLO has no more explosive growth. Overseas expansion is the only way to achieve the ultimate goal.

"The world's most important market in China, and the habits of overseas Chinese influenced by China will affect Southeast Asia. From this point of view, China's influence will be bigger and bigger."

Ryui Masa said: "Whoever has the leading position in the Chinese market in the future will have a leading position in the global market, so I also want to take the lead in the Chinese market."

Recently, Naoki Otoma, chief operating officer of fast marketing company, announced that by 2020, the total number of UNIQLO shops in the Greater China market (including mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan) will exceed that of the Japanese market, reaching 1000, and will become the largest retail market of the brand.

It is difficult for Pan Ning, chief executive of UNIQLO Greater China, who currently runs more than 70 mainland stores.

In this market where the consumer environment is still in the advanced market, the development of the clothing retailing industry is facing too many challenges: the extreme shortage of talents, the market being too dispersed, and the diverse and changeable demands of consumers.

Pan Ning also told reporters that because of the challenges of talent and other aspects, for the development of stores, it is a good way to open to 100. From 100 to 200, the development is fast, but copying from 500 to 1000 will be a lot of difficulties.

At the same time, the 80% production of UNIQLO in mainland China will also meet the objective risks of rising labor costs and unstable raw material prices.

Besides, a Chinese imitator followed closely, and the founder of VIC said in public that "we are going to become China's UNIQLO".

A fan guest executive also told reporters: UNIQLO is a brand representative from below to top, and brand is built with rich collocation, which is the goal of everyone.

The road to glory is always full of thorns.

This is what UNIQLO is experiencing.

Against this background, the lofty UNIQLO is determined to return to the most original starting point: improving the flat effect (that is, the sales per square metre per month), and the most crucial weapon in the clothing retailing industry is the most powerful weapon.

An industry secret is that in China's current fast fashion industry, UNIQLO ranks 40 thousand on the top of the list, ZARA is 30 thousand yuan, while the number of local brand Metersbonwe is 20 thousand.

How exactly did UNIQLO do this?

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"You are the protagonist."

UNIQLO flagship stores in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai account for 10% of the total sales in mainland China.

Zhu Wei, a shopkeeper, can be seen as a witness to the Chinese history of UNIQLO.

But in his heart, there is always a matter of brooding.

It was 2003, and Zhu Weigang became an ordinary shop assistant at Zhongshan Park store in UNIQLO, Shanghai.

Every morning, when you arrive at the store, you should wipe the window glass carefully and repeatedly.

One morning, a mother and daughter passed outside the shop. The mother said to her three or four year old daughter, "you must study hard, or you..."

The mother pointed to Zhu Wei, implying.

The mother expressed a peculiar prejudice in Chinese society.

In this era of self actualization, it is hard to get the respect of mainstream values for such work as peddling clothes.

Moreover, as a traditional retailing industry, "boring and boring" is the feeling of most practitioners, and because of the lack of technical content, "anyone can do", and the wage level is low for a long time.

But on the other hand, the development of modern retailing in China has not been more than 20 years, and all kinds of reasons have led to the lack of outstanding talents in China's retail industry at all levels.

"At present, the biggest challenge in fast fashion apparel retailing in China is the lack of talent."

Me&City general manager Zhou Long told reporters.

For Pan Ning, this year's top priority is to rapidly expand stores for the coming stores.

This year, 300 college graduates joined UNIQLO. All of them started from the first line shop assistants and promoted by strength.

The reason why new employees are encouraged to work hard is very real: to improve the quality of life, "you can only drink white water with less money, you can drink soya bean milk when you have money, you can drink milk more money, and then buy a cow milking if you have the money."

Zhu Wei told reporters: "I encourage new people to say that in order to drink fresh milk every day, please work hard."

UNIQLO provides a pparent and detailed promotion system in order not to let simple and dull work burn away enthusiasm.

On job trainning is implemented through a unified educational tool.

There is a unified interview at the same level of promotion and examination, and the interview standard is rigorous and meticulous.

"In UNIQLO, black is black, white is white, wrong is right, right is right."

Zhu Wei said: "an enterprise that is completely fair and strong."

In China's UNIQLO, 40% of shopkeepers, like Zhu Wei, came up from their employees, earning 10 times or more of their salesmen, breaking the curse of low income in the retail industry.

In the case of UNIQLO, the store manager is regarded as the "top operator" of the company. "Without the management mechanism of" the manager is the protagonist of the company ", it will be very difficult for the retail industry to flourish.

Ryui Masa thinks so.

In 1998, UNIQLO in Japan was in a predicament of declining performance. Ryui Masa had a premonition that the fate of the company would be unthinkable. He launched a reform. One of them was that "business should not be dominated by the company's headquarters, but should be centered on the store. The store manager is the protagonist of the company."

Many of the company's headquarters are from stores. Pan Ning himself is the promotion template of UNIQLO: "I entered the company for 16 years.

At the beginning, it was also cleaned at the UNIQLO store in Japan, calling for welcome, folding clothes and repeating them every day.

It is reported that UNIQLO recruited 1500 graduates worldwide this year, of whom 1200 came from countries outside Japan.

"I want to train them to be middle managers, to set goals and achieve goals, and also to enable them to influence the work of the whole company.

This must be implemented, implemented immediately and implemented. "

Ryui Masa said.

Strength is only a driving force for employees to drive themselves. In UNIQLO, "thanksgiving" culture is the foundation of sales and brand promotion.

Like other fast fashion brands, UNIQLO adopts self-service shopping (Help Yourself), and shop assistants do not give advice to consumers.

This kind of shopping is common in the west, but many Chinese consumers are not used to it. They still ask the assistant for help, asking colors and sizes.

In China, the practice of shopping has raised high requirements for the service quality of stores, which is often ignored by European and American clothing brands.

In the first half of this year, ZARA brand was criticized repeatedly by consumers association because of the quality problems, and the price tag did not match the actual price.

According to insiders from ZARA, the real reason for ZARA's internal complaints this year has been attributed to the fact that the service is not in place.

But to carry out the "truth" of "customer is God" is easier said than done. It often means that all employees must have the same heart, keep repeating meticulous and trivial work, and even have to swallow it.

Zhu Wei told reporters that in the store, the most important test of employee service attitude is folding clothes, folded clothes will be opened again by customers at any time, just a few seconds, and then thrown back to the shelves.

Without strict training, the shop assistant is intolerable.

But in UNIQLO, shop assistants are required to smile quickly and fold again. When they fold their clothes, they need to detect whether there are customers next to them, so as not to disturb their selection.

Strict training brings fine service.

Pan Ning regrets that many employees give up halfway because UNIQLO's "nearly strict demands".

In order to train the staff to learn to smile, UNIQLO set up a practice of biting the chopsticks: let an employee bite the chopsticks, cover the eyes with paper, and let other employees realize that if there is no smile on the eyes, the shape of a smile alone is still invalid.

In order to train employees to develop the habit of folding clothes, the staff's wardrobe will be regularly checked. "If you don't even have your own changing boxes, you can hardly imagine that you can serve customers well in the stores."

Zhu Wei said.

Even with high intensity training, Chinese introverted personality and extensive service concept still hinder the quality of service.

When the store manager or the floor manager finds out that the assistant does not voluntarily deliver the shopping basket to the customer, he will immediately point out and ask him to work with the store manager for three minutes.

"Look at my work, OK?

Can I pass a shopping basket for my customers to see my smile?

It's a real smile, that's customer service. "

Every Friday, headquarters will send a special inspection team to every store to check the display of goods, shopping environment, poster posting and so on, and finally feedback to the store manager.

Pan Ning would also visit the shop from time to time, and Zhu Wei remembered that Pan Ning criticized Nanjing West Road shop by name at a regular meeting on Monday.

"I went to the shop to buy shirts and found that the size of the products was not complete.

When I was standing in front of the shelves and turned the merchandise, the employees only looked at their work and did not greet me, saying good morning.

Under strict training, UNIQLO shop assistants shop to see any customer shouting "welcome to come" regardless of whether the other person has responded. As long as the customer chooses clothes, employees must immediately pick up the shopping basket and deliver them to the customers.

Cashiers usually only start one or two machines, but when they find that the number of queues is increasing, there will be trotting salesmen at once, and then start a cash register.

On rainy days, the shop assistant will also put a pparent plastic bag outside the paper bag with "Uniqlo", so as to prevent the paper bag from getting wet.

"You have to be able to give customers more than they can expect to become your loyal fans.

Every day, you greet your customers, let him be satisfied, let him buy a piece of clothing, and get a little profit from the sale of every item of clothing.

You can get rewards from accumulating wealth from simple and repetitive tasks.

Pan Ning used to motivate employees.

The cultivation of gratitude is also a drop in the river.

In UNIQLO, employees will receive the same gift at the end of each training session: a DVD that has recorded the laughter and tears in the training, and will be viewed collectively on the last day.

At the end of each training, everyone will receive a Thank You Card from others. "Hello, these days' training has helped me a lot."

They go through rigorous training together and help each other to accumulate friendships. "Everyone almost cries."

Zhu Wei said: "the service industry is very, very hard, so that employees know, even if a little bit of things, we must maximize the appreciation of others."

From time to time, Zhu Wei will move the shelves with his employees: "this is not simply moving the shelves, but expressing gratitude to the staff."

When the staff tried to adjust the layout or sales volume, Zhu Weihui praised the company at the early meeting: "because of your hard work yesterday, the product is selling very well, very much."

Small insistence has accumulated the quality service of UNIQLO, which is regarded as the only way to reach the "world first" by Liu well.

"We often have a mouth for employees, which is the" world first "standard.

Pan Ning said, "then the corresponding service should be the best."

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$40 thousand secret

High quality service is the foundation to support UNIQLO China's 40 thousand yuan Gaoping efficiency.

"Gaoping efficiency is the key to ensuring profitability for garment companies."

Zhou Long, who is in charge of Me&City brand, told reporters: "we need to work hard on product development and commodity combination, make efforts in store display and management, and do well in sales of the last square meter."

For UNIQLO, which is not fashionable enough to emphasize basic freedom, it is not easy to realize Gaoping's experience. No bright new fashion design means that UNIQLO must work hard from other aspects.

In the stores of UNIQLO, models of human figures and posters are important people who communicate with customers and persuade customers to buy them.

In these models, various basic styles of clothing show a sense of fashion within the reach of different colors and ingenious collocation.

Such a way of collocation has even produced a new word in Japan, Decoqlo, which takes half the English words Decoration and Uniqlo, meaning that the basic clothing of UNIQLO is used as a dress matching product that highlights its personality.

Therefore, once some goods are not sold well, human models will be quietly replaced by these costumes to push customers to buy.

At the same time, the layout of goods in the store will also be adjusted accordingly.

Of course, if the product is really unpopular, when the shop assistant hears the customer "if some parts are slightly modified" or "this dress looks unattractive", it will immediately give feedback to the headquarters, which will stop production.

Similarly, front-line staff's suggestions will also promote the birth of best sellers.

In UNIQLO China, last autumn, men's fur coats were listed on the market as scheduled. After a week of listing, the store staff found that S was sold out. After careful observation, the employees found that the women who bought the S numbers were female customers. Soon after the feedback to headquarters, women's fur coats were quickly produced and shelving shelves. In the fast fashion world, this rapid feedback is particularly important. Seasonal changes and fashion trends lead to rapid changes in clothing demand, making quick decisions on the front-line staff's suggestions and often holding the business opportunities that are fleeting.

In addition, timely sales promotion is also an effective way to improve efficiency.

Before and after the Dragon Boat Festival this year, nearly half of the goods in Nanjing West Road flagship store are hung with "time limit" red brands, and many of the price cuts are new products launched in the coming season.

In apparel retailing, this is not a common practice.

General new products are rarely taken part in price cuts, but only when they are off season or grand festival are there any discount. Fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M are all the same.

Over time, this way will give consumers the suspicion that "the original price is too high", and the default psychology of "waiting for a while to lower prices", making the business of the stores not in the promotion period deserted.

Another disadvantage of this approach is that "the price is too early to lose the original benefits, and if it is too late, it will lead to no stock of money."

Ryui Masa's thinking is: "the operator needs to judge - what is the best time to cut prices?"

From this point of view, Ryui Masa created a new "special time sale" promotion method: in a certain period of time (3 days or a week), the price will be reduced from 20 yuan to 50 yuan.

This practice is similar to that of supermarkets.

In this way, consumers will not be stereotyped on the price of commodities, but will help to induce indecisive consumers to make up their minds to buy.

"If you buy a piece of clothing through a time limit,"

If they like it, they may buy another color or recommend it to their friends and family.

Ryui Masaru summed up the effect of "time limit".

The main push to restrict commodities has also become one of the important tasks of UNIQLO employees every day.

Every customer who comes to the store will be reminded by his staff, "Hello, this is our limited activity now."

"The probability of success is only 1%, but if you say 100 times, 1 people will buy it."

Zhu Wei said.

As we all know, promotion is also an important means to digest inventory.

In the clothing retailing industry, which is famous for its speed, inventory is related to the adequacy of the company's liquidity. A little carelessness and a backlog of stock will threaten the survival of the company.

UNIQLO stores are also key sectors of inventory management.

At the beginning of each month, each store manager will decide the quantity of the purchase of each item according to the sales situation of last month. "The store has a budget of turnover. If the turnover is 100 yuan, and the number of stores is 200 yuan, there will be an alarm."

Zhu Wei told reporters.

It is still hot in summer, but UNIQLO stores have started selling autumn clothes (this is a common way of many fast fashion brands).

"If it's still a summer commodity, it may be a bad inventory."

Whenever a store has a slow-moving product, the store manager will ask the headquarters to apply for a price change.

"Price change is a proposal to this department.

Today's proposal will receive feedback in the afternoon, and the sale price will be sold in second days.

Zhu Wei said.

In the Japanese business community, which has always been a long and conservative decision-making chain, the speed of half a day can be described as "alien".

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Atypical Japanese Enterprises

Despite the twists and turns in the past two years, and destined for the future to be bumpy, UNIQLO has created a rare success for Japanese companies in recent years.

This is a long lost honour for the Japanese business community.

Since the 80s of last century, SONY took the lead in the global business with the development of Japan's economy. Since then, there are few truly influential international Japanese companies.

"I myself experienced the breakdown of the Japanese economic bubble," said Pan Ning, who grew up from the Japanese store of UNIQLO to the top of the company. "At that time, Japan's R & D capability and manufacturing capability were very strong, and it did not develop very well. It was because of the closed thinking that Japan valued the domestic market only."

On the other hand, the closeness and conservatism of ideas made it difficult for some enterprises to achieve pnational operation in the form. TOYOTA motor, which was plunged into quality crisis in 2010, is a typical example.

To a large extent, Fast Retailing can be developed to the present scale because it is different from the openness of traditional Japanese enterprises.

This is closely related to Ryui Masa, the founder of the company.

"A lot of things in UNIQLO come from the outside world, which requires the operator to have an open mind."

Pan Ning said.

When graduating college students applied for UNIQLO this year, they asked Pan Ning if he needed to learn Japanese. Pan waved his hands and denied: "you learn English well."

From March next year, the common language of Japan's headquarters in UNIQLO will become English. "We are side by side with European and American enterprises."

Pan Ning himself has a deep understanding of this openness.

As we all know, although overseas expansion is realized, Japanese enterprises are often responsible for other areas, and the situation of seniority is quite serious.

But over the past 20 years, cooperation with Chinese garment factories has made Ryui Masa realize that China also has excellent entrepreneurs.

Pan Ning, a native of Beijing, won the trust of Liu well for his success in the Hongkong market.

Pan Ning entered UNIQLO in April 1995 and was promoted to be a store manager in half a year. He came to Guangzhou in 1999 to be responsible for the establishment of production management office and joined UNIQLO for 10 years. He was appointed president of Greater China and managed the mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan markets.

"He thinks that in China, the Chinese are doing well, and this idea is almost absent among Japanese companies."

Pan Ning said: "he has positioned himself in international enterprises from Japan, and if he wants to develop internationally, he must have local talent."

As an ordinary young man in the "post-war Japan" generation, why can Ryui Masa form this atypical way of thinking?

Young Ryui Masa likes to live with nature.

After four years of muddling through Waseda University, willow is working in the Japanese retail supermarket, Jusco.

Six months later, Liu Qiang, a student with strong spirit, resigned from his work and resigned. After wandering in Tokyo for half a year, the unhappy Liu Ting was returning to his hometown, to help him to the men's clothing store of his father's company.

Ryui Masa found that the men's shop's colleagues were ineffective.

With his father's trust, he took all the work of purchasing, selling, finance and so on. Suddenly, Ryui Masa realized the infinite pleasure.

"I always think of myself as an introverted and unsuitable person to do business," Ryui Masa said. "But for a while, I realized that I was very competent. The sense of accomplishment that eventually sold the product could make me happy in a moment."

In order to do business well, Ryui Masa began an overseas tour.

He was inspired by GAP and ESPRIT, who had begun to take shape. He also drew inspiration from the form of "Help Yourself" (self-service) in the American university record store.

He vaguely felt that the cheap casual clothes that young people wore at that time had hidden enormous business opportunities.

Until then, UNIQLO's supply chain system was also "learning from" Hongkong brand Giordano.

It should be said that Ryui Masa himself has an open attitude and ability to learn. Early in the early days of his career, he was rooted in the gene of UNIQLO.

From open innovation, it has become another source of success for UNIQLO's success.

Ryui Masano is content with simple and traditional garment making, but he should introduce the technological innovation to his own business.

For example, as early as the beginning of this century, UNIQLO began to try to sell online in Japan, and the e-commerce craze just broke out until today. In the Chinese market, UNIQLO also took the lead in other retail consumer goods brands, and launched its flagship store in Taobao in April 2009, which undoubtedly helped UNIQLO build brand awareness throughout the country.

Since then, in order to maintain Universo's global image, UNIQLO has also launched its shopping function on the official website platform.

In addition to the promotion of sales channels, in terms of more competitive product innovation, UNIQLO also has many representative works: HEATTECH with special thermal technology and strong sweat absorbing underwear.

These are the best single products sold in stores.

Of course, to a certain extent, because UNIQLO is known for its basic funds, it can not compare with ZARA and H&M in fashion innovation.

When the reporter threw the question of "how to keep innovating in traditional clothing companies" to Ryui Masashi, he responded with great dexterity: "in today's society, technology is so developed and there are so many good technologies. Why can't these technologies be used on clothes?"

We are indeed different from the traditional retail industry, and we will constantly pursue new things. "

Relying on the traditional business of selling clothes, Ryui Masami was the richest man in two years in Japan, where the consumer electronics and automobile industry were flourishing.

With the accumulation of personal wealth to a certain extent, the willow willow of free nature has reduced the obsession with wealth.

In March, after Japan's most severe earthquake, he donated 1 billion yen in his name for relief.

At the present stage, he is fascinated by the honor of Liu Jing, who is a "business operator" himself.

At the same time, he has been seeking to surpass the business itself. "UNIQLO is a new type of enterprise that enables everyone to wear high-quality clothing.

Fast Retailing wants to become a company that changes clothing, changes the city, and changes the world.