The World'S Three Largest Apparel Retailer "Fast War" China

In the past 11 months, the biggest clothing retailer in the United States

From ZARA and H&M, which have entered China for three or four years, China is becoming a "world market". China is a great help to it. Has the newly arrived GAP copied the success of the first two? Many people are not optimistic because "it's too late".

Yang Deming, President of GAP China, does not agree with this view. He said that in China, no chain clothing seller occupies a large market share, and there is still room for development.

China's clothing retailing industry gathered in three big tycoons

ZARA: only fast.

In terms of income, the world's largest fashion chain corporation is currently the Spanish Inditex group. ZARA is its main force, contributing more than 70%.

In February 2006, ZARA opened in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, the first store in China. This store, located on the opposite side of Hang Lung Plaza, has become a classic case in the industry.

In order to open in the most prosperous area, it waited patiently for a year, until a small bunk lease expired, and then through the ingenious design, the outside world could no longer see the traces of the past bunk.

On the first day of its opening, the store created a record of 800 thousand yuan of daily sales, so that competitors have been talking about it.

It is reported that ZARA's store design in China has been copied from Europe, and even the clothing props are shipped from Europe. Due to cost factors such as freight, ZARA's clothing in China is selling around 30% more expensive than Europe.

ZARA this store strategy comes from its founder.

Every time a new market is landed, ZARA will first open a shop in the most prosperous section of the big city center, then extend its tentacles to smaller towns, and let the brand influence radiate across the country without advertising.

It's like a drop of oil spreading slowly on the fabric surface.

In Inditex group, this strategy is called "oil pollution mode".

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ZARA production base in Spain, only the most basic style clothing in Asia and other low-cost areas production.

ZARA has set up 20 highly automated dyeing and cutting centers, and has outsourced human intensive work to 500 small factories and even family workshops.

The business mode of ZARA is to deliver the latest international fashion to consumers in the shortest time, but the price is much lower than that of Armani and other international brands. ZARA can accomplish the design, production and delivery within 15 days.

This story has been known as "the 15 day myth of ZARA" by Harvard Business Review.

After that, the new clothes will arrive at the store within the slowest 72 hours, no matter where they are pported to the world.

ZARA in every terminal of the world, it is necessary to change the new products within two weeks, and really turn the goods round. This fast fashion is the most attractive thing for Chinese clothing enterprises.

Speed is also reflected in store expansion.

ZARA, which entered China in February 2006, now has 65 stores, and has entered China's Japanese clothing chain retail companies UNIQLO for 4 years, and opened 64 stores as of May this year.

But selling ZARA is not without weakness.

Quality is the most frequently attacked area.

This year, the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of industry and Commerce inspected the quality of imported brand clothing. Some of the products of ZARA were not qualified for "wet rubbing fastness" and "use instructions".

Last year, the Shanghai city commerce and Industry Bureau exposed the unqualified sandals brand had ZARA, Beijing Consumers Association also detected ZARA a coat coat, the amount of cashmere is not qualified.

"ZARA is characterized by always walking in the forefront of the trend. Target customers are fashionable women who dress very well. This group of people like to follow suit most, and the quality requirements are relatively backward."

Insiders say.

Young and inexpensive H&M

"H&M, a clothing store in Xidan, opened in the city of Da Yue city in the first few days. The sales area of more than 1000 square meters is nearly 2 million yuan a day.

If we want to know how to sell several knitted vests in Beijing, it seems that the best way is not to reduce the price in the street store, but to pull it to the height of H&M.

Similar to it, enterprises in the whole industry chain can also elevate the positioning height of enterprises in the industry.

The director of COFCO, Changning Gao Ning, made this impression when he was interviewed by the media in July this year.

This year, H&M single store daily sales of 2 million yuan, set an industry record.

H&M also pays special attention to popularity compared with its rival ZARA.

All the costumes of H&M are designed by nearly 100 designers in the company.

H&M is making use of the star effect to create popularity, allowing celebrities to design costumes and attract fans.

However, its attracting customers are obviously much younger than ZARA.

In addition, unlike our competitors, H&M does not set up its own factory and relies entirely on order purchase.

Considering the cost of procurement, H&M put 60% of its production in Asia and the rest in Europe.

Analysts estimate that about 1/3 of H&M products are manufactured in China.

Generally speaking, regular fashion and children's wear are small and popular garments produced in Asia, usually to European suppliers.

So H&M designed two supply chains: the efficient supply chain that controls production in Asia, and the fast response supply chain that controls European production.

Compared with ZARA, the time from design to final production of H&M products was about 5 days late.

However, the cost of these 5 days has earned H&M a cost advantage - its clothing price is 30% to 50% cheaper than that of ZARA.

Some basic clothing prices are lower than that of Japanese clothing chain UNIQLO, so it can better reflect the concept of parity.

In terms of price, H&M is more competitive and attractive.

In terms of style, H&M emphasizes pure color, such as black and white, simple and fashionable design.

At the same time, H&M has covered a large number of advertisements in cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

Since the first store opened in Huaihailu Road, Shanghai in 2007, the number of H&M stores in China has reached 33 as of the first half of this year.

Insiders revealed that Huaihai store's current monthly sales remained at around 8 million yuan.

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GAP's Chinese tactics

Adopting the concept of "small amount, multiple prices and parity" to react quickly to fashion is the common ground between ZARA and H&M.

Compared with them, GAP has played a lot of stability.

In 2008, when Spain's Inditex outperformed GAP for the first time in its business earnings, it was widely observed that the upheaval of the fashion industry meant that a small number of ZARA had defeated a small number of GAP.

Catch the fashion trend of top brands and integrate into their own design elements. Finally, the cycle is 15 days in ZARA, 21 days in H&M, and 90 days in GAP.

GAP also spent several years deciding whether to enter the Chinese market in the strategy of entering the new market.

In addition, compared with the fashion of the former two, GAP is especially good at making casual casual styles such as jeans, khakis and T-shirts.

Yang Deming believes that the advantage of GAP lies in the quality of goods and shopping experience.

First of all, GAP's design requirements for the storefront comply with the principle that customers can easily find the clothes they want.

Some shortcomings of the existing clothing chain stores, such as poor lighting, poor fitting environment, too long queuing, and some sizes are easy to break, Yang Deming claims that GAP will be avoided.

As a late comer, another killer of GAP against competitors is electronic commerce. It has already worked with Shanghai Yi Shang Network Information Co., Ltd., the online shopping website has already started operation, providing free delivery service to the whole country, and the price of the product is the same as that of the store.

This step ahead of the competition.

However, Yang Deming did not disclose the current GAP network sales, he just said that "the situation is in line with expectations".

According to the insiders, compared with Europe, the price of ZARA in China is lower than that in Europe. The price of GAP in China is slightly cheaper than that in the United States, and the price is lower. So it must have its late market considerations. From the current pricing, it is more competitive in the market.

However, it is difficult to make such a store without dozens of scale, so the expansion speed of GAP may prove its success in China.

Yang Deming hopes to stabilize the first four stores and consider expanding into the capital city after 2-3 years.

At the size of Shanghai and Beijing's stores, he just said GAP opened 12 stores in Toronto, Canada, with a population of only 3 million, in order to calculate that the chain store in Shanghai would not be less than 12, and that the national market should be able to open to 1000 stores.