Clothing Consumption Is Polarized, Mid End Consumer Brands Face Shrinking Threat

China's consumer market is gradually

In clothing, shoes and hats, bags, and many other consumer areas, such signs have emerged.

More and more consumers are making better or lower consumption, and the consumer brands at the middle end are facing the threat of shrinking.

At present, with China's economic growth slowing down, steady growth has been placed in a more important position.

In the three carriages that drive China's economic growth, exports are mainly restricted by the international environment, and can not be improved in the short term. If too dependent on investment, there may be some side effects. Only by starting consumption can economic growth enter a virtuous circle.

Under the premise of starting the consumption engine to become a consensus, we still seem to have several questions to answer: what is China's consumption situation?

What does the income class consume? What kind of consumption demand do they have? What part of consumption should the policy stimulate?

To this end, this newspaper organized a series of consumer surveys, by observing the consumption situation, interviews with high, middle and low income groups and experts and scholars, trying to find the driving force for consumption growth.

Although the survey interview does not have the comprehensiveness of the statistical data, it is more realistic and close to the point, but it can also play a certain role in stimulating consumption growth.

More and more consumers are making better or lower consumption, and the consumer brands at the middle end are facing the threat of shrinking.

"Last summer, I bought about 300000 Audi A4 as a birthday gift, and I went to Europe for more than half a month. I bought a Chanel bag for my girlfriend and my mechanical watch."

Li Feng, a 20s Tianjin boy, said.

For him, consumption should pay attention to brand.

"Newly bought suits, shirts and leather shoes are brand names. They usually wear jeans and T-shirts worn at school."

Yang Yang, who has just worked in Shanghai for 3 years, said.

For him, consumption depends on cost performance, part of the brand, and part of the budget.

"The biggest expense is cooking at home, and eating meat two times a week is fine."

Li Dong, a more than 30 year old citizen of Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, said, "the monthly household meals should be reduced to less than 400 yuan."

For Li Dong and his wife, consumption is mainly about saving. It is a battle of reckoning.

These three groups of consumer lenses focus not on individuals, but on the consumer groups they represent - high, middle and low income groups.

According to the National Bureau of statistics, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 11.2% in the first half of 2012, and the growth rate continued to fall.

The figures are not good, but behind the overall figures, the trend of gradual differentiation of consumption is even more worrying.

Boston consulting company has made such a judgement to the Chinese market: the consumer market is gradually polarized, more and more consumers are making better or lower consumption, luxury consumption is growing rapidly, and the middle end consumer brands are shrinking.

This judgment is not difficult to find in reality: in 2011, after the implementation of offshore duty-free policy in Hainan, thousands of tourists rushed to buy luxury goods like buying cabbage, and the duty-free shop shelves were once sold out.

According to data released by the national fashion and creative center, sales of luxury goods in China have increased by more than 20% per year in recent years.

Top brands and low-end goods are most popular, while mid-range brands are threatened by shrinkage.

"The bag is made of Lv."

Jimmy Wang holds the new bag bought just last month, the price is about 12 thousand yuan.

"Although I would choose a 25 yuan meal instead of a 30 yuan meal for lunch, I bought a bag of wheat.

5 people in the group, 3 of them use this. "

Yang Yang's wheat bag cost about 2000 yuan.

"There is only one bag in the house and I don't know what brand it is."

Li Li's handbag price is about 1200 yuan.

The polarization of consumption is not only in the mobile phone industry, but also exists in many industries.

In the field of clothing consumption, in 2011, high-end women's clothing, such as baozi, sales grew by more than 20%, while in mid-range clothing, YOUNGOR had layoffs, and Lining sales continued to decline. Baleno and Semir both faced high storage pressure.

Sales of low-grade clothing are also rising, such as Europe, the world and so on.

The same situation is also reflected in the choice of family consumption.

According to the latest statistics of China Association of automobile manufacturers, the production and sales of domestic automobiles increased by 4.08% and 2.93% respectively from 1 to June this year, which belongs to low speed growth.

Some car dealers reflect that the phenomenon of car manufacturers' pressure storage is serious, and domestic car market consumption is low.

In sharp contrast, sales of high-end cars were strong. In the first quarter of this year, BMW increased by 37%, Mercedes Benz grew by 20% and Audi increased by 41%.

The polarization of consumption is mainly caused by income differentiation.

Ha Chi Ming, vice president of Goldman Sachs investment management department, said: "the polarization of consumption is mainly caused by the income gap. With the development of China's economy, the consumption of high-income people has increased to the stage of increasing demand, especially the demand for high-end brand consumption is increasing.

Middle income groups are squeezed by housing prices and inflation, and their consumption ability gradually weakens.

There are still a large number of low-income people who are sensitive to price and mainly consume low-end consumer goods.

If inflation and food prices go up, their living burden will increase, and they will further reduce consumption. "

The experience of middle-income Yang Yang also confirms this view.

Yang Yang works in a foreign company in Shanghai. He can get 150 thousand yuan a year plus year-end bonus.

"Things in the workplace must have a little brand, and they can't be too hard to get along with their colleagues, but daily necessities can be saved, and savings should be saved for the down payment of the house."

On the one hand, the middle-income people have certain spending power. On the other hand, they have to choose between consumption and high housing prices.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of statistics, the regional disparity, industry gap and job gap of wage level still exist in China.

For example, the income gap in the industry, the financial industry is 2.15 times the national average; agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery is only 48% of the national average.

Moreover, the real income gap is likely to be larger than the statistics.

Each age group has concerns about spending, and China's consumer is experiencing deceleration.

For a long time, consumption has been a short board in the "three carriages" that pull our economy.

In recent years, due to the sluggish external demand, more and more attention has been paid to stimulating domestic demand. The central government has also introduced a number of policies to stimulate consumption.

However, the common people always cling to their pocketbooks because of their worries: the elderly are afraid of getting sick, others are being "gnawing" by their children, middle-aged people have parents' support and children's education, and young people have to save money to buy a house.

In addition, the rising rate of income can not keep up with rising prices and the real economy recession.

Ha Ji Ming believes that the main reason for the slowdown in consumption growth is that some of the previous policies to stimulate consumption have overdrawn their spending power.

Two, the current slowdown in economic growth, the decline in wealth effect, slowing consumption growth.

Speaking of the trend of consumption in the future, Ha Jiming said: "the biggest feature of future consumption will be consumption upgrading, which can promote China's economic growth and will be the driving force of the Chinese economy in the next 20 or 30 years.

On the other hand, it can also improve the economic development structure and make domestic demand the main driving force for economic development.