"Popular Dress" Is The Most Important Style, Followed By The Price And The People.

In terms of turnover, the top five SPA models in the world in 2011 clothing Group followed by Spain Inditex, Sweden H&M, USA GAP, Japan fast marketing, The Limited group. Among them, Inditex, Xun, The Limited group are ZARA, UNIQLO and Vitoria's Secret parent company. Inditex's revenue in 2011 was as high as $18 billion, and the net revenue of the fifth The Limited group also exceeded $10 billion.

A common feature of these five garment groups is that they are all located in the public. Clothes & Accessories 。 Here, we define the "public dress" from two dimensions: the first is the style of the public, followed by the price and the people. The location of GAP and UNIQLO is closer to the basic leisure section, and the style of ZARA and H&M is more fashionable. The secret of Vitoria is focused on women's underwear. The prices of these brands are within the reach of the public.

They are faithful followers of SPA mode. The full name of SPA is Speciality Retailer of Private Label Apparel. The model was first proposed by GAP in 1986 to define the operation system of the company. It is a mode of operation from the integration of commodity planning to production and terminal retail. The model was highly regarded as GAP's success.

GAP and SPA

GAP has the beginnings of a very conventional American entrepreneurial story. In 1969, Donald Fisher, a real estate developer, failed to find himself a pair of jeans in a clothing store. He hoped that his own clothing store could provide customers with richer models and styles. The first GAP shop was born.

The initial development of GAP was not smooth sailing. The first batch of Levi 's Jeans sold by Donald were finally processed at the cost. But Donald quickly adjusted its business strategy, and the company's business was on the right track. In 1976, GAP successfully landed in the capital market.

During this period, two events that had great impact on GAP occurred. In the year when GAP went public, the Federal Trade Commission of the United States announced that it banned Levi 's from restricting the terminal retail price of products. At that time, Levi 's was a very important distribution brand for GAP. After the cancellation of the brand price control, the terminal retailers fought the price war for grabbing the market, and the performance of GAP was affected.

After entering 80s, Levi 's began to supply such large stores like WAL-MART. The centralized purchasing of large stores makes them have a great advantage in purchasing, and the operating cost of supermarket channels is lower, so GAP's price advantage is lost. For channel traders, losing the cost advantage will lose the future. Transformation is the only way out.

In fact, from early on, GAP began to develop its own brand. But at that time, the company's own brand didn't receive enough attention.

In 1983, Millard Drexler, a legendary professional manager, joined GAP and made a radical reform of the company. Drexler cut off other miscellaneous cards and pushed GAP. Subsequently, GAP's brand positioning, terminal operation and market promotion were also systematically adjusted. In 1986, GAP defined its new business system as "SPA".

SPA is essentially a vertically integrated form of sales. The SPA mode in the GAP era pays more attention to brand building and terminal operation, and outsourcing the production process. After entering the 90s, under the tide of global apparel industry chain transfer, GAP gradually transferred production to Asia with lower manufacturing costs. Today, more than 98% of GAP's products are produced outside the United States.

After straightening out the two difficult problems of brand positioning and business mode, the GAP of 90s began to expand rapidly. The company's Direct stores grew rapidly from 1092 in 1990 to 2848 in 2000. The scale of stores is also expanding, and GAP's store area has increased from 400 in early 90s to 1000 in 2000. GAP's sales area increased by 5.6 times during that period.

In 1999, GAP's revenue exceeded $10 billion for the first time and net profit exceeded $1 billion. From the lowest point in 1983 to the highest point in February 2000, GAP's share price has risen more than 300 times, creating a myth in the capital market.

At that time, UNIQLO's income was just over 100 billion yen, and GAP was not yet in an order of magnitude. H&M is still on the continent and will not enter the US market until 2000. Inditex group, the parent company of ZARA, is not yet listed. GAP has pushed the American casual wear and SPA mode to the world with its achievements.

But after entering this century, GAP's performance growth has been bottlenecks. First of all, in 2001, GAP was directly reduced to a year-round net loss from large profits, which made the market a big surprise. In 2004, GAP's revenue reached $16 billion 300 million, a record high, but this has also become a high point that GAP has never been able to overcome. In 2011, GAP's revenue was only $14 billion 500 million, and there was no growth in ten years.

GAP has been in the ten year of disappearance.

　　 UNIQLO: Made For All

On the other side of the ocean, there is a brand similar to GAP, which is UNIQLO.

Joking and tide represent the two extremes of clothing style, and UNIQLO has chosen the extreme of basic funds. UNIQLO's aim is to produce clothes that everyone can wear. This concept runs counter to fashion brands.

As early as ten years ago, the director of UNIQLO, Liu Jing, put forward the vision of building the world's first clothing brand. At that time, ZARA and H&M were also on the market except for GAP, which was far ahead of us. Ryui Masa believes that if we want to win in this industry, we can not simply rely on imitating others. "Made For All" has become the pursuit of UNIQLO.

In 1984, UNIQLO 1 store opened in Hiroshima, Japan, selling casual wear. A year later, UNIQLO opened its first suburban store, which was a great success. Since then, suburban shops have become the standard of UNIQLO. Today, 60% of UNIQLO stores are located in the suburbs.

UNIQLO insists on buying buyout from the date of its establishment, which helps the company get lower purchase price. At the same time, the opening of stores in the suburbs and the self-service shopping mode also greatly reduce the cost of sales, making UNIQLO have a greater advantage in selling prices.

At that time, a big social background was the beginning of the 1990s, and Japan's economic bubble burst. The collapse of the vast middle class led to Japan's entry into the "M" society. UNIQLO offers inexpensive and basic clothing that caters to the interests of the middle and low income groups.

With the support of the business model of the suburban shops and the promotion of market demand, UNIQLO has entered the fast lane of development. In 1999, UNIQLO's revenue exceeded 100 billion yen.

This time, UNIQLO's first "Made For All" clothes Appearance: the fleece jacket. This new type of fabric is light, warm and fast drying. UNIQLO has designed very rich colors for consumers to choose from. This dress is not only suitable for casual wear, but also suitable for workplaces. Its price is only 1900 yen.

In October 1998, UNIQLO fleece coats were listed. Once launched, it swept Japan. In 2000 alone, it sold 26 million pieces. It is said that every three Japanese have a fleece jacket of UNIQLO.

The success of the fleece jackets led to a doubling of the performance of UNIQLO in the next two years, and its operating profit surged from 14 billion 300 million yen in 1999 to 102 billion yen in 2001.

　　 The above facts are enough to illustrate the logic of UNIQLO.

The success of UNIQLO is first built on the efficiency of supply chain. UNIQLO early chose to open stores in the suburbs and introduce self-service shopping mode, which reduced the cost on downstream terminal operation. UNIQLO's efforts to profit from upstream supply chain have never stopped.

Clothing companies that are similar to UNIQLO norms often have thousands of suppliers, GAP and ZARA. But UNIQLO has only 70 cooperative factories, about 80% of which are produced in China. UNIQLO listings every year are far less competitive than competitors, and fabrics are not as rich as other brands. This makes UNIQLO's supply chain relatively simple. UNIQLO signed a long-term contract with upstream plants to support excellent suppliers to grow bigger and stronger, with a view to reducing supply chain costs through scale.

This centralized supply chain mode also helps UNIQLO deeply intervene in the supply chain and control product quality. In April 1999, UNIQLO established a production office in Shanghai to manage the production of Chinese suppliers. Japan was originally a Spin Great powers have accumulated a large number of talents in garment making. UNIQLO organized more than thirty years of skilled workers in Japan to guide factories in China. This is the "craftsman project" of UNIQLO.

UNIQLO has sold millions of single products. The large-scale supply chain organization enables UNIQLO's commodity cost to be reduced to the limit. From 1900 yen jacket to 990 yen jeans, UNIQLO constantly refreshes consumers' perception of the bottom line of the price. This allows UNIQLO to gain a foothold in the competitive leisure apparel industry.

Before 2000, the hot weather of the fleece jacket gave UNIQLO second core business logic: the production of "next generation" clothes (Next-Generation Clothing).

UNIQLO's products are "few varieties and large quantities". The intention of producing "the next generation of clothes" is to create new clothes suitable for everyone. This principle is similar to that of high-end brands. The difference is that high-end brands are leading the fashion trend, and UNIQLO intends to lead the trend of "basic funds".

The basic research and development is mainly reflected in the fabric. UNIQLO has been in deep cooperation with fabric manufacturers. After the fleece, UNIQLO developed new functional fabrics such as HEATTECH and Silky Dry. In the autumn and winter of 2011, UNIQLO HEATTECH fabric sold more than 100 million pieces of clothing worldwide, and it was a great success.

The fleece coat could be regarded as "the next generation of clothing" at that time. The fleece jacket promoted the development of UNIQLO at that time. Today, UNIQLO is already the world's fourth most popular international clothing brand. If we can find the perfect next generation clothing again, it will be just around the corner for UNIQLO to attack the world's first brand of popular clothes.

　 ZARA:Customer-Driven

UNIQLO chooses the extremes of basic funds. On the contrary, ZARA goes to another extreme -- fast fashion.

About fast fashion, about ZARA, we all know one data: 15 days. This data represents the reaction cycle of ZARA from the discovery of fashion elements to design, proofing, production, and finally to the terminal stores to complete the commodity supply chain.

GAP is usually compared with GAP, and the same supply chain reaction cycle is about 75 days. The supply chain cycle of domestic clothing brands may even be as long as six months or a year. Only fast and unbroken seems to be the core competitiveness of ZARA.

However, few people know the days of ZARA inventory turnover. In 2011, the figure was 81 days. The inventory turnover days of ZARA are longer than that of UNIQLO (because of the difference in accounting standards, GAP's inventory turnover days are underestimated and not comparable). So why not UNIQLO, but ZARA became the "fast" representative?

This comparison is rather dislike, because the attributes of ZARA and UNIQLO are quite different. Compared with the fast fashion H&M, ZARA has always had certain advantages in inventory turnover, and in recent years, this advantage has been gradually expanding. It shows ZARA's inventory management, or more accurately, ZARA's supply chain management has its own advantages.

The core of ZARA mode is Customer-Driven. Popular understanding is what consumers like and ZARA sells. The store manager flexibly orders to headquarters by analyzing the situation of terminal sales. The fast reverse supply chain for ZARA is to respond to the demand from the market at the fastest speed. This requires a systematic transformation of the supply chain from beginning to end.

The first step is design. The difference between fast fashion industry and luxury industry is that the latter is often the star. Designer Where they are gathered, the former is copying fashion in a pipeline fashion. GAP even cut out the star designers who had too much labor cost in the process of transformation buying system design. The essence of this industry is to follow fashion as fast as possible, not to lead fashions. ZARA is no exception. ZARA sells more than 10000 styles and designs more than once a year, but these designs are basically copied from many ZARA buyers.

After design and proofing, enter the production process. ZARA, like H&M, adopts dual supply chain management. The basic products are produced in Asia, where production costs are lower, while the more fashionable products are produced nearby. About 50% of ZARA's products are produced by suppliers located near the company's logistics center.

Logistics is another highlight of ZARA. ZARA has no warehouses in other parts of the world, but has only established logistics centers in Spain's headquarters. To support the growing scale, ZARA's logistics center has increased from the original one to the current four, and is still expanding. The products of ZARA are directly issued by headquarters. For stores in Europe, ZARA can deliver door-to-door within 24 hours. Other stores around the world, ZARA can also be delivered within 48 hours. To ensure this speed, ZARA even hesitate to use expensive airlift.

ZARA has always regarded stores as the most important position to create brand image, and even abandoned the traditional form of advertising. ZARA has always asked stores to be in the busiest location, usually adjacent to luxury brands. This not only shares the flow of people in the gold trading area, but also helps to enhance the brand image. This strategy is being adopted by more and more SPA brands.

So what does ZARA's "15 day myth" mean?

Here, the author made a prediction. We assume that some of ZARA's products are running at a normal fashion supply chain, and H&M is chosen as the reference object. Another part of the products will be listed on a 15 day cycle, and will be sold within a week. From this, we can deduce the sales proportion of ZARA through fast reverse supply chain. In 2011, the proportion was 7.9%, and the proportion was not high. Of course, there is a premise that ZARA has been working in the fashion field for more than thirty years, and has a good grasp of fashion.

Fast is a kind of ability, but it is only a supplement after all.

What is ZARA? It is just a channel to quickly and efficiently realize the fashion.

　 H&M:Design-Driven

Compared with UNIQLO and ZARA, the route chosen by H&M is more mediocre. From basic money, fashion money to tide money, from men's clothing, women's clothing to baby's children's clothing, from clothing, accessories, shoes Packaged into cosmetics, H&M stores are all inclusive.

The business philosophy of H&M is to provide fashionable and high quality products at the best price. This sentence is interpreted as "first-class design, second class quality, three price".

But in fact, the business model of H&M should be described as "Design-Driven". Unlike H&M, which is the basic die of UNIQLO, it offers more fashion choices. H&M's attitude towards fashion is driven by design.

In general, fashion brands do not choose to "lead" fashion. We can even find out a lot of cases that once fashion leaders took the initiative to retire to fashion followers, but H&M somewhat went against it. In 2004, H&M invited Karl Lagerfeld from Channel to work together to create "Karl Lagerfeld for H&M" series, selling at parity stores at H&M stores, creating a precedent for cross-border cooperation with top designers. H&M tries to convey a message to consumers that design is not related to price.

This cross-border cooperation has been a great success. It is said that the series of products will be sold out in all major cities within one hour. Since then, a cheap and distinctive joint design series has become the annual signboard of H&M. The designers who have worked with H&M include Stella McCartney, Roberto Cavalli and famous singer Madonna. In 2011, H&M and the famous international luxury brand Versace jointly built the "Versace for H&M" series, which was praised by the market.

The biggest significance of cross-border cooperation with top designers is to create brand awareness and enhance brand image for H&M. As early as the 90s of last century, in order to achieve the same goal, H&M has transferred the channels of marketing from newspapers, magazines and other mass media to outdoor billboards, and all advertisements have been selected by the famous model.

H&M summed up its product mix as "fashion triangle": the most fashionable product that crossover with top-level designers, limited supply in the terminal market, and used to create brand image; the main commodity in the middle was developed by many buyers, and the mode of operation is similar to other fast fashion brands; at the bottom there are still some basic funds to support it. The H&M brand represents the balance of this fashion triangle.

Compared with UNIQLO, H&M has gone further on the fashionable road. Compared with ZARA, H&M pays more attention to the driving force of the design side. Compared with luxury brands, star designers are just an embellishment of H&M. H&M is the synthesis of these elements.

　 Lesson from GAP

After entering this century, GAP has fallen into a state of stagnation. In contrast, GAP's competitors, UNIQLO, ZARA and H&M, have been advancing all the way. In 2008, GAP's revenue was first surpassed by ZARA, which lost the position of the world's largest casual wear group. In second years, GAP was again surpassed by H&M, ranking down to third. UNIQLO put forward the goal of surpassing GAP ten years ago. It has been in the rear, and GAP third is also in danger.

How did GAP fall into the ten years of disappearance? Apart from all the "brand" factors, from the perspective of management, the three competitors of GAP can reflect many faults and worries of GAP.

GAP sells by casual wear, including two main brands, GAP and Old Navy. Old Navy is a brand newly created by GAP in 1994. Its location is relatively low in GAP, and it also sells casual wear.

Casual wear is characterized by its simple product style and easy imitation. It is easy to be threatened by parity brand. WAL-MART, Taghit and other hypermarkets have launched similar GAP parity products, but the price is far below GAP. This has made GAP's casual wear business another hit.

Compared with UNIQLO, similarly, in the leisure clothing industry, UNIQLO, through efficient supply chain organization, has killed a blood route in the fierce competition.

GAP has also tried to break through to fashion. In October 1999, GAP launched a strategic transformation of three years to explore the mode of commodity development based on the buying system.

The introduction of the buyer's system has greatly improved the development capability of GAP, and the annual amount has increased from ten thousand to fifty thousand. In 2001, GAP launched a product mix of "jacket + low waist pants", trying to start the market.

But the attempt ended in a tragic defeat. Market acceptance of the GAP series of clothing is very low, resulting in the company had to discount the clearance, dragging down 4.9 percentage points of gross profit. The downturn also led to a rapid rise in the rates of rents and other expenses. GAP recorded a net loss in the year. Drexler, who has contributed a lot to GAP, has resigned.

Fashion trends are changing. Whether ZARA's fast reverse supply chain or H&M's high-profile transboundary is to reduce the trial and error cost of products. By contrast, the transformation of GAP is more like a shock therapy. With regard to this transformation strategy, we can hardly tell the right and wrong gains and losses. But after that, GAP has no big moves in fashion, and let H&M, ZARA, Forever21 and other fast fashion brands nibble the market.

The most regrettable thing about GAP is its "hindsight" on the road of internationalization. The overall size of the US apparel market is about $about 300000000000. The development of the local market is very limited after the scale of the single enterprise exceeds US $10 billion. GAP's revenue reached $11 billion 600 million in 1999.

In the early days of GAP, the international key markets were placed in neighboring Canada and Europe. In Asia, GAP entered Japan only in advance. These are relatively mature markets. GAP's performance in these markets is not good enough, but in recent years, it has achieved effective growth. GAP will not start to internationalize to strategic heights until 2007. During this period, GAP began to expand its market in the form of overseas affiliate and pay attention to emerging markets. In 2010, GAP entered China and came late.

As early as 1964, H&M began to expand internationally and enter neighboring Norway. By the end of 2012, H&M had entered 36 markets directly, among which the countries with more than the local market revenue were Britain, Germany, France and the United States. H&M has entered a new market in recent years. China, Japan and Russia are growing rapidly, and the market space is huge, which is the engine of the company's growth.

ZARA is more radical on the road of international expansion. In 2001, ZARA listed only about half of its revenue from outside Spain, and only 282 overseas stores owned by ZARA brand, Inditex. But by the end of 2011, ZARA's overseas stores had expanded to 1296, with more than 1000 new stores. And Spain's domestic market grew by only 110 stores. Over the same period, the number of Inditex entered the market has increased from 39 to 82, and the speed is amazing.

UNIQLO started its overseas development as early as 2001, but then it ran aground for a short time because of its short-term difficulties in the domestic market. After 2005, UNIQLO's overseas expansion accelerated again. UNIQLO internationalization focuses on the Asian market, and plans to set up a global flagship store in the major cities of the world to establish a brand image. UNIQLO's current plan is that by 2015, overseas sales will exceed the local market.

In contrast, GAP, after many years of internationalization, GAP accounted for only 20% of its revenue from overseas markets.

In addition, in the past 1999~2001 years, GAP has made radical expansion in the domestic market in the case of a significant decline in terminal operating efficiency, which laid the foreshadowing for GAP's painful adjustment. GAP's goal is to reduce GAP brand to 950 stores in North America by the end of 2013. At its peak, GAP opened more than 1300 stores in North America.

GAP's adjustment still has a long way to go.

　 Business logic of SPA mode

Simply from the three dimensions of design, quality and price to divide the product, the logic of casual clothing is quality oriented, the lightest design and the pursuit of the ultimate price. Fashion clothing is characterized by design priority and quality, and price is only a moderator variable.

This difference in product attributes leads to different supply chain orientation. The supply chain of casual apparel pursues the highest efficiency and lowest cost, while fashion supply chain emphasizes the fast response capability of all links in the industrial chain.

Whether casual clothes or fashion clothes, there are two extremes of business models that are leading the trend and following the trend. Between the two extremes, the different combinations of lead and follow can also create viable business models. Enterprises need to balance the proportions of different elements.

After the feasibility of the business model has been verified, the top priority of the public clothing enterprises is to roam the horses. We see whether GAP, UNIQLO, or ZARA or H&M are the most crazy times of their expansion and expansion.

Brand extension or brand building is another dimension expansion. ZARA's secondary licensing volume has accounted for 1/3 of the group. GAP's Old Navy scale has already exceeded the main brand GAP, and UNIQLO is also building a business leisure brand theory and fast fashion brand g.u..

This is an industry of strong scale effect.

There is no small beauty here.