Is "Fast Fashion" Catfish Or Epiphyllum?

　　 H&M ZARA, C&A, GAP and other fast fashion brands have always been a topic. These years ago brand The overall entry into the Xujiahui business circle adds more youthful flavor and flavor to the fashionable landmark of Shanghai. But after a year, a sampling inspection report from Shanghai quality supervision department revealed the defects of H&M in product quality.

Fast fashion, retail in recent years market Quite popular formats, while expanding rapidly, do not seem to be able to escape the "low price, low quality" accusation. Are these brands stirring up the market and bringing new ideas into catfish, or will consumers quickly fade away after three minutes of heat?

　 Catfish bring "lipstick effect"

Two times a week is the conversion frequency of new window products; the 7 day is the time for capital reflux; the 12 day is the collection of fashion information, the integration design to the production and sales time; the 15 day is the longest product storage time; 80 thousand hours per hour is the delivery capacity. ZARA's famous "15 day myth" is a typical representative of fast fashion.

Many consumers may not be familiar with the word "fast fashion". But if you look at the typical brand operation modes such as H&M, ZARA and C&A, it is easy to understand the connotation of "fast": these overseas brands will change their display and flagship products in one or two weeks on average. The product line covers all the costumes of underwear, underwear, accessories and so on, while the style design takes the "international brand" route, and the designers from time to time cooperate with the first line designers to offer limited products. Although the price is not cheap, it is not easy to discount, but it is more affordable than some local "foreign brands".

Accordingly, fast fashion has been summed up as three key words: fast, ruthless and accurate. The so-called fast is that fast fashion clothing always follows the trend of the season, and the speed of new product listing is extremely fast, which is considered as "fast food" in the retail industry. The so-called ruthless means fierce competition among brands. list And the market cycle is short, so we can not use discount war to promote sales, providing a competitive "one price" become the same choice of many fast fashion brands. The so-called "quasi" emphasizes the vision of fast fashion brands. Designers of these brands are often the masters of the trend. They can not only design fashionable clothes in a short time, but also ensure that these styles are the next season's popularity.

These characteristics of fast fashion are quite different from those of domestic retailers. Generally speaking, the listing period of domestic retail enterprises is slower, and production enterprises usually have to design and popularize new products one quarter ahead of schedule. In the way of marketing, domestic retailers are not willing to give up the discount war, and prefer to use large concessions to attract consumers. This makes many domestic clothing prices high, but there are endless benefits. Many consumers sigh with emotion: "do not know when to start is the most cost-effective." In addition, many domestic brands like foreign brands, and the works of local designers are advertised as overseas designers to further raise their prices.

These differences make fast fashion very popular among domestic consumers, especially among young consumers. China has been in China for many years, but fast fashion brands can still see the great crowds of consumers when they open a new store. In contrast, domestic retail enterprises are somewhat deserted and need to find ways to attract customers. From this point of view, fast fashion is undoubtedly a catfish in the domestic retail industry. They come from the preferential price of global purchase and the speed of simultaneous listing at home and abroad, which have challenged the original pattern of the domestic retail industry and triggered the "lipstick effect" of the retail industry.

　 Quality defects have been repeatedly criticized.

Fast fashion "catfish effect" has made many consumers taste the fashion of parity, but it is not entirely accurate to say that they are cheap and fine. Shanghai quality supervision department recently announced the results of spot checks showed that a H&M product was found that the results of the fiber content of the project is inconsistent with the product label. It is reported that the wool content of this garment is 38%, and the quality supervision department's results are only 28%. In June 2010, the Shanghai quality supervision department found that H&M had a knitted leisure jacket pH value failed in the sampling inspection. Experts said that clothes wearing unacceptable pH values could cause skin inflammation. Fast fashion brand ZARA also can not escape the quality of mediocre fate. Interested consumers found that ZARA has been on the Beijing quality blacklist for the 7 time since August 2009. The main problems are "formaldehyde content", "pH value", "color fastness", "fiber content" and "identification mark".

Fast fashion will have problems on these indicators, and it has nothing to do with their way of doing business. It is easy to see that these indicators are mainly related to product fabrics. As for fast fashion, since it is a "fast food culture" in retail industry, little consideration is given to choosing high quality fabrics because most consumers focus on their styles. However, fabric is a key link in the competition of garment industry. For garment enterprises, too frequent fabric replacement is a major taboo of suppliers. But fast fashion requires continuous introduction of new designs, with frequent replacement of materials and introduction of new materials. In order to ensure the price is approachable, fast fashion brands also need to lower the cost of fabrics as much as possible, which makes the final product quality unsatisfactory. {page_break}

The way of global sourcing produced by fast fashion also leaves hidden danger for its quality. According to industry sources, many fast fashion brands in Europe and the United States mainly undertake high value-added processes such as design, or use high-tech production equipment to finish dyeing and cutting processes. However, manpower intensive processes such as printing, hot drilling, flocking, embroidery and water washing are outsourced to factories in other countries. But those outsourced factories have different production techniques, and some are even very backward small workshops. Some media have reported that a fast fashion brand has only 400 outsourced parties in the garment industry, of which only 20 are modern production organizations, the rest are manual factories which are very backward in production, and outsourcing companies are subcontracting production business again. A large number of producers have speeded up the listing speed of fast fashion brands, and reduced the production cost of brands. However, the vastly different technical conditions and working conditions will inevitably sacrifice the quality of products. In addition, the fast fashion global sales mode also makes it difficult to cope with different quality standards in different countries. This is also the reason why many fast fashion brands are generally qualified, but often fall on the label of products.

Retail market looks forward to "blue ocean"

Despite the constant quality problems, the popularity of fast fashion makes many companies want to share the market. In the domestic retail industry, it is easy to find that some local brands are transforming their marketing methods to fast fashion, while some other fast fashion brands still abroad have released plans to enter the Chinese market. Against this background, the competition in the fast fashion field is becoming more and more intense, and the disadvantages of rushing into battle are becoming more and more obvious. Both consumers' evaluation of fast fashion brands and the profits of fast fashion brands have gone downhill. No wonder that some people say that "Haste makes waste" is very suitable for fast fashion brands. If we do not adjust the direction in time, fast fashion is likely to become a market history like a flash in the pan.

Therefore, even if local enterprises want to enter fast fashion, it is necessary to develop new "blue ocean". From the development of fast fashion, the reef which has been exposed needs local enterprises to retreat, and its vitality development concept still deserves reference. From the disadvantages, fast fashion has been declining in terms of design capability. At present, "fashion followers rather than creators" are the positioning of many fast fashion brands, and the "big trend" in fast fashion comes from imitation of front-line brands. This approach makes fast fashion not only face the end of market aesthetic fatigue, but also let producers bear the cost of infringing intellectual property rights. Some consumers find that the logo of some fast fashion products is removed. The designs of these costumes are very similar. It is difficult to find out the differences between different brands from the design. Coupled with the weak links in fabric and quality, some fast fashion brands are denounced by consumers as "stalls", and the brand vitality has come to an end. There are also some fast fashion enterprises, because design involves plagiarism, and often fall into intellectual property protection cases. Even if they finally lose money, they lose their money, but the loss of brand image is hard to compensate.

However, some new strategies adopted by fast fashion brands deserve our attention. For example, ZARA put forward the goal of developing eco friendly shops, hoping to reduce energy consumption by 20% through new management mode, and combine sustainability and efficiency organically. It is revealed that this management mode covers store design, lighting, heating and refrigeration system installation, including the possible recycling of furniture and decorations, and the reduction of waste generation and recycling. An example of waste management is ZARA recycling clothes hangers or alarms in shops to process them into other plastic products. In terms of products, ZARA increased the number of environmentally friendly fabrics, promoted organic cotton, and no longer used oil and non biodegradable materials to produce shoes. From the perspective of market reaction, these new production methods and marketing strategies are welcomed by consumers. Therefore, linking marketing themes such as fashion and parity with the most popular environmental protection and recyclable development themes at the moment may provide new ideas for domestic retailers.