Fast Fashion Supply Chain Meets Quality Dilemma

When product prices are agreed well, some OEM workers may have a fluke mentality. raw material Cost. This brings the test to the brand monitoring system.

Queuing in, queuing, fitting, checking out... This is international. Latest fashion The grand occasion of the retail chain giant H&M's flagship store in mainland China. But at the beginning of the new year, the quality and Technical Supervision Bureau of Shanghai city released the latest quality inspection results of wool knitwear, and the brand of "fast fashion" from Sweden once again boarded the "quality blacklist".

According to incomplete statistics, since 2008, H&M has been disqualified at least 4 times by quality inspection departments of many industrial and commercial departments in China. The information displayed by reporters shows that H&M The wool content of the knitted sweater marked by the sample is 38%, the actual measurement is only 28%, and the product origin is China.

On the 1 day, Fu Xiarong, manager of Public Relations Department of H&M China's mainland, admitted in response to the interview by telephone. "This is a mistake in the factory. We apologize to consumers. If you buy products that involve problems, you can return them unconditionally. "

On the "quality blacklist", H&M is not the only "frequent visitor". Fast fashion The giant, the famous Spanish brand ZARA. Since 2006, China has entered China. market ZARA was detected at least 5 times for quality problems.

The "fast fashion" brand, which is popular among young people, has been criticized for its quality. Sun Yueyao, director and commentator of the brand research center of Shandong University, said in an interview with reporters on 2 th, "under the market competition environment, the possibility that the brand intentionally cuts corners is very small. It is very likely that the problem of the foundry factory commissioned by the company is a problem. When product prices are agreed well, some OEM workers may be lucky to reduce the cost of raw materials. This brings a test to the brand monitoring system.

First time off the shelf.

In recent years, H&M has expanded the Chinese market at an alarming rate. By the 18 th of this month, the number of H&M stores in China has reached 88. But for Ji'nan, H&M was late, not until the second half of last year. It opened second stores in Shandong province.

1, the reporter came to the H&M flagship store on the first floor of Ji'nan harmony square. When asked about the failure of the sampling inspection, the store manager said, "our shop was opened last September 30th. According to the unqualified product number, the goods were produced in June last year, so it is estimated that there is no sales in the store."

Fu Xiarong told reporters, "when we received the notice of rectification in January 5th, all the stores in the country had gone off the shelves that day." However, when the reporter asked about the quantity of the product sold, H&M did not answer it on the grounds of trade secrets. "The unqualified product detected is only a label which is inconsistent with the actual logo, so it will not cause harm to the human body, but if consumers still have objections, they can return it." Fu Xiarong said. Reporters noted that the marked fiber content and measured fiber content does not match, has repeatedly become a part of the clothing brand product quality unqualified "culprit".

In May last year, a test report released by Beijing Consumers Association showed that a ZARA product label was "cotton content 75%, wool 20%, polyester 5%". The actual test results show that its cotton content is 68.2%, wool content is only 10.6%, less than half of the label; polyester fiber, that is, polyester content is 15.7%, more than two times the mark.

Ms. Wang, who works in a large garment enterprise in Shandong, told the reporter. "Since last year, because of the high price of cotton, many clothing brands have been more and more inclined to use polyester and other chemical fiber fabrics to reduce costs."

"We can say responsibly that although the price of raw materials increases, H&M would rather reduce profits and guarantee product quality." Fu Xiarong emphasized. {page_break}

　 Is there any difference between domestic and international standards?

In fact, apart from the fact that the label label is not in conformity with the actual situation, H&M was still in the "pH value exceeding standard" incident two years ago. In June 2010, the Shanghai Quality Supervision Bureau issued a notice that the H&M value of a knitted T-shirt is 8.5. According to the domestic GB18401-2003 standard, the pH value of textile products is between 4.0-7.5 and H&M is obviously over standard.

"There are sometimes deviations between domestic and international standards. Last year, when the pH value was adjusted, 8.5 of the tested values were in line with the standard. Fu Xiarong guide newspaper reporter explained.

Fu Xiarong's "standard retune" refers to the "basic technical specification for national textile products" issued by China in January 14, 2011, GB18401-2010. The specification was originally implemented in August 2011 and extended to August 1, 2012, which will replace the current GB18401-2003 standard. It is worth noting that the pH range of textile products directly exposed to skin is revised from 4.0-7.5 to 4.0-8.5 in the new code. An industry guide newspaper reporter said, because clothing in the production process often use acidic or alkaline chemical substances, its residues may have irritation on the human skin, so we need to detect pH. After washing the clothes, they generally improve pH. Taking into account the relevant requirements of water quality and resource conservation in China, the new standard should appropriately relax the scope of pH without affecting the health. These people said. However, in November of last year, the list of unqualified samples released by the Wuhan industrial and Commercial Bureau showed that the H&M of men's casual pants was 9.2, which is still 0.7 higher than the new standard.

　 Challenges of quality control

H&M, ZARA and other brands, which are repeatedly trapped in quality problems but are still popular all over the world, are all representatives of "fast fashion".

"Fast fashion", also known as "Mc-Fashion", is a new word created by the British guardian. Its prefix Mc is taken from McDonald s, a founder of fast food culture, which means McDonald's fast fashion and price friendly fashion.

The business mode of "fast fashion" brand has always been the object of research and analysis by domestic industry experts and domestic garment enterprises.

Take Spain's ZARA as an example, a garment can be completed in 15 days from design, production, to shelves. ZARA has been called "the 15 day myth of ZARA" by Harvard Business Review. The new clothes will arrive in stores around the world in 72 hours. H&M's product is only 20 days from design to sale.

It is understood that the vast majority of products of H&M and ZARA are manufactured by OEM, which is distributed around the world. Based on cost considerations, they also put most of their production in Asia.

After frequent quality incidents, the management mode of "fast fashion" brand has been repeatedly questioned. Especially for OEM products, while shipping speed increases, it also brings great challenges to quality control. H&M has denied this whether the quality problem is caused by the lax control of the OEM factories.

"We have been very strict in quality control. H&M has more than 150 quality surveyor. It conducts more than 500 thousand quality tests every year in factories, external laboratories or third party inspection organizations." Fu Xiarong said that H&M has a large volume and a wide variety of products, which is unavoidable. "We have communicated internally with headquarters."

"The West adopts credit management for OEM processing. Once a brand finds a problem in a foundry factory, it will cancel its partnership. " Sun Yueyao said.