In 30 Years, China's ZARA

The development of Adu has made many online merchants jealous, and has also baffled many traditional clothing enterprises. Why do many old Chinese clothing enterprises fail to enter the mainstream of e-commerce? An unknown city of Adu can kill out the siege in 30 years to make China's ZARA? How does this enterprise develop and operate? Who is the boss of the company and who is the secret weapon? With these questions and adoration, we interviewed Zhang Nengtian, an outstanding electricity supplier in Wuhan.

From the empty hands of college students to the annual sales of over 100 million brand women's clothing manufacturers, Zhang Nengtian's 13 entrepreneurial experience has three "big background":

One is Zhang Nengtian's graduation in 1998, which is the first year of University's total distribution. The first job started from pushing technology, and then it was transferred to the wholesale clothing market of Sichuan people, the wholesale clothing market of Guangzhou people, and the clothing factories of Taiwanese.

Two, in 1999, Disney, Snoopy and other famous children's clothing brands were first recruited in the mainland for fashion designers, and Zhang Nengtian was the first to be accepted. At that time, designers in Hongkong and Taiwan had a monthly salary of tens of thousands, while the mainland did not have the concept of product design.

Three, in 2006, Taobao launched the old mall to offer a free recommendation to the seller, so Zhang Nengtian touched on e-commerce.

Opportunities are always reserved for those who are prepared.

Zhang Nengtian said, "all studies." clothing People in this industry want to make their own brand, half of one hundred people will do it, but in the end they insist on only one. This person is stupid.

Five years to complete social studies

Zhang Nengtian was born in a Hubei public security tailoring family. In 1995, she was admitted to the Wuhan Textile Institute of Technology (now Hubei Textile University) with fashion design. The graduation of 1998 was just the first year when the University was totally not allocated. When the complacent Zhang Nengtian came to Guangzhou, he realized that "graduation is equal to unemployment". "You don't think this is a good business, but only he wants you." Zhang Nengtian sighed with emotion.

Zhang Nengtian did push plate technology in the only company that wanted him. He worked hard for two months and got only 300 yuan salary.

In the next six months, Zhang Nengtian was dressed in Sichuan costumes. Wholesale market Guangzhou's clothing wholesale market, Taiwanese clothing factories...

In 1999, Disney, Snoopy and other well-known children's clothing brands Zhongwei company first recruited fashion designers in the mainland. Zhang Nengtian came to the flood of applicants with a try. At that time, the main question was to draw different designs in an hour. One or two paintings were made by others, but Zhang Nengtian painted a lot of them, not only with bold colors but also with different styles.

"At that time, there was a big background. The designers of Hongkong and Taiwan had tens of thousands of salaries per month, but they thought that the mainland did not make the concept of product design. For the first time, Zhongwei came to recruit us and gave us a chance to do it. Design " Zhang Nengtian is glad to know how much pressure it will bring. "The company also gives you the" lifeline "part of the brand in the second half of the year.

Zhang Nengtian started the second line product from Snoopy and Mickey, carrying two big box like clothes, explaining products to offices throughout the day, and working at night by train became the norm. The highest record was 6 offices in a week.

Starting from 1500 yuan to 4000 yuan in two years, Zhang can become the fastest wage person in Taiwan funded enterprises. But at this time, Zhang Nengtian submitted his resignation letter. "I am embarrassed to do children's clothing, read children's magazines, do children's show guests, but I have no feeling from my heart."

Zhang Nengtian is best dressed for adults. After coming out of Zhongwei, he entered Baleno as the design director. "When I was shopping, it was all work. Four times a day, the shopping mall is opened from ten a.m. to eight at night. It is from the clothing to read the information and draw inspiration from the design. After this practice, I can get a general understanding of all aspects of the garment factory by looking at a row of goods.

In 2003, Zhang Nengtian, who was not comfortable, decided to go back to Wuhan to create his own brand. {page_break}
 

Three years to live and maintain the brand of "anding"

According to the original idea of starting a business: renting office buildings, registered products, and branding in Zhongnan mansion, Zhang soon discovered that he had underestimated the difficulty of starting a business, and everything had to start from the foundation.

Riding a friend's motorbike, Zhang Nengtian ran into Hanzheng Street to enter the fabric and board, and asked the workers to make the sample clothes. "What I didn't experience before was all that time, and I felt like I was bumping around everywhere, bumping into a bag, and losing my performance." Zhang Nengtian said to himself, "the most frustrating thing is that you just got home. The shop assistant said that the bulb was broken, and then I had to go back and change the bulb. It's a small thing, but it's very stressful.

To enter the shopping mall, open the street shop at the front gate and the public park, in order to make his brand grow fast, Zhang Nengtian established 8 stores and shopping malls in Wuhan in three. According to the operation experience of traditional industries, the development of Anding capital has reached a critical point. Once the franchise system is developed, the brand will enter the expansion stage.

In fact, Zhang Nengtian also took pains to "raise" the brand. "The first store opened at the door of the division, selling clothes designed by oneself, obscurity, half a year burned 200 thousand. In the past three years, making brand is basically a loss. In order to support the brand of "an Du", we have to work on it: to make the earliest work clothes for the liquor group, to make school uniforms for more than 10 schools, to make the back cushion of the bus, as long as the cloth business is done. In this way, Zhang Nengtian relied on relatively stable "private living" funds to ensure the livelihood of nearly 80 employees.

Taobao two venture

Zhang Nengtian knows very well that private life is not a permanent solution. With the rapid expansion of the brand, this hidden problem becomes more and more obvious.

High brand channel costs, higher and higher store rents and shopping malls, and longer and longer payment cycles, Zhang can calculate, wondering whether the road can go wider and wider.

In 2006, Taobao launched the old mall to offer a free recommendation to the seller, while Zhang Nengtian's experience of a schoolmate gave Zhang Tianxin a new way of thinking.

This student has no source of goods in the online shop, and commissioned Zhang Nengtian to produce it. In the process of this simple cooperation, Zhang Nengtian found that the online shop can solve the problem of brand channel, which is much higher than that of opening a physical store.

Zhang Nengtian then applied for a free promotion advertising site on Taobao. 5 days, 5 kinds of single products, 1000 pieces each, sold out in 5 days. Zhang can quickly get excited. "If you sell 1000 items every day, you immediately close the store."

In the second half of the year, Zhang Nai's 8 shops were shut down, and most employees did not understand it. Finally, Zhang Nengtian moved to Taobao with six or seven young people who would like to stay.

"Before starting eight stores, the transformation of e-commerce is more resolute attitude, also considered for a long time, in the end is online or offline to do together or just one. Finally, we must resolutely do electronic commerce only, and turn off all offline stores. This is relatively simple. What we do is just online sales, which saves conflicts between online and offline businesses. The most important thing is to focus on the Internet and operate with limited energy. Zhang Nengtian explained.

In this way, Zhang Nengtian led a group of baby soldiers to start the two degree venture, relearning Taobao rules, marketing skills, photo shoot, and so on. At the beginning of the shop, it was still very difficult, too small sales volume, lack of team confidence, overcapacity in the workshop, and the operation of the company was also caught. But at this time, Zhang Nengtian had more courage than his first venture. In his view, it was a problem before, and now it is not a problem.

"I felt that Wuhan was not fluent, employees were hard to get, and the information was poor, and so on. I think this is a disadvantage. After doing e-commerce, I think Wuhan is very cute, and its location is very good. In the middle of the country, where the goods are sent, the journey is short and half. In terms of personnel, there are quite a lot of talented people. Originally, I was also making clothes. Now, after changing the angle, I find that the original problems are basically solved, and there is not much confusion. " Zhang Nengtian said. {page_break}
 

5 million advertising fee leveraged 50 million sales

After Zhang Nengtian entered Taobao, he began to "drum up" the movement of an Du.

After being familiar with Taobao's "price from low to high" rule, Zhang Nengtian first launched a 9.8 yuan T-shirt on Taobao and sold 100 pieces without advertising recommendation.

In 2007, all of them began to try to put some advertisements on Taobao. The sales volume of products increased steadily. In 2008, Taobao launched the new Taobao mall to introduce brand enterprises and settled the first batch of enterprises. In 2009, Zhang Nengtian invested more than 5 million of the advertising fees in Taobao network, which brought 50 million overall sales.

Many people are very surprised that Ardo has been doing this for so long that he has not borrowed money from the bank, nor has he borrowed money from anyone. How did he do that?

Here is a place on the capital. TaoBao After the "transcript": 10 million, 20 million, 40 million... Zhang Nengtian's sales forecast is 160 million.

"I think Taobao is a platform with high cost performance. Taobao has given the overall environment of 8000 daily traffic, and Taobao has focused on its personality and brand. At the beginning, 40% of our old customers, with the fame of the city and the expansion of the user base, have kept the proportion of the old customers up to now. There are now 2 million old customers. Zhang Nengtian said.

Zhang Nengtian regards ANN as a production and creative enterprise in the Internet world. He is very optimistic about the whole industry mode. He hopes to only make clothes and sell clothes in the future, and save the middle links.

"The global fast fashion brand ZARA, from the design idea to the global sales network, has an average of 21 days, the fastest 19 days. We are also working in this direction. At present, the average speed is 15 days from design to sale, and the limit speed is 3 days. Here we have our target to improve the reaction speed from supply chain, fashion sensitivity, graphic design links and so on.

"Will Ando fight back to the physical front again in the future?" the reporter asked.

"At present, do not do entity, do not exclude future entity store." Zhang Nengtian answered.

In the second half of this year, the women's clothing of the capital of Shenzhen was smoothly injected into the capital of a venture capital company in Hong Kong. Zhang can say jokingly.

To some extent, the venture's injection or the women's clothing of the women's clothing are further pushing up the brand's action signals. Zhang Nengtian may have to think again about how to move, but his core goal has been very firm. "The brand of Adu should be at least 30 years, and we will continue to push higher brands out."