Channel Transformation Of Footwear Industry "Wholesale To Retail"

High inventory clothing The industry complained incessantly, and the saying that "Chinese people can't wear all the clothes in stock in three years" spread widely. Where will these stocks go?

　　 Close the store and discount into the mainstream

The sports apparel industry is the first to feel the inventory pressure. After decades of horse racing enclosure, the sports clothing industry reached its peak in 2008 and began to show signs of fatigue.

Since 2011, the total inventory of sporting goods has remained high. By the first half of 2012, the total inventory of six major sporting goods brands - Li Ning, China Trends, Anta, Tebu, 361 degrees and PEAK had reached 3.721 billion yuan, surpassing the total inventory of 3.699 billion yuan in 2011. Closing stores and discounts have become the main theme of domestic sports brand enterprises.

The PR Department of Anta explained the reason for the high inventory to the reporter: "First, the global economy is weak, while China's spin The garment industry is highly dependent on exports. The second is that consumer demand has changed. The existing business models of some enterprises can not meet the personalized needs of consumers very well, resulting in high inventory of enterprises. " Anta said frankly: "High inventory has become an important problem restricting the development of sports goods industry".

Although the clothing export data in the first quarter of this year has improved - according to customs statistics, China's textile and clothing exports from January to March 2013 increased by 15.7% year-on-year, but this is not enough to drive away the haze of the clothing industry.

Zhu Qinghua, a light industry researcher of CIC Consulting, told reporters: "From the data of the first quarter, it seems that the textile and clothing exports have recovered. But from the perspective of the global economy is still in a downturn, and the demand and trade are weak, the textile and clothing industry has a long way to go. At the same time, due to the rise of domestic labor and rent costs and the continuous appreciation of the RMB, the price advantage of clothing exports is constantly weakening 。”

As for the sluggish export, some garment enterprises also said they didn't care. When interviewed by reporters, Ou Limin, CEO of Taipingbird, said: "We are more concerned about domestic trade, and the growth of foreign trade has little to do with the company's performance growth." In addition, most garment enterprises, including Anta, also expressed "cautious optimism" about the export situation.

It can be seen that insufficient domestic demand and sluggish foreign trade are not all the reasons for high inventory.

Rome wasn't built in a day. In the opinion of Lv Moudu, the partner of Zhenglue Junce, today's high inventory in the clothing industry is mainly due to the imbalance between supply and demand caused by the "brand+wholesale" model.

Chen Yihong, the founder of China Trends, said in public that "Chinese brands do not control the retail channel, and they rely on agents to complete their sales, which often leads to the phenomenon that best-selling products are out of stock and mediocre products are overstocked in the industry. Brands, on the other hand, respond very slowly to changes in the market, and news lags behind, making the inventory pressure more and more serious."

In this case, "integrating terminals and improving store efficiency" has become the majority shoes Adjustment direction of clothing brand.

In August 2012, Li Ning announced that it would stop publishing the order data of the 2013 order meeting, because the order meeting data could not represent the future sales of the enterprise. Anta also stressed that it will adopt flexible replenishment system and flexible supply mode to meet the demand beyond the order.

It can be seen that the industry leaders such as Li Ning and Anta have intended to adjust and transform the "wholesale" business model currently widely used.

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　　 Online sales and offline profits

In fact, the channel transformation from "wholesale" to "retail" has attracted unprecedented attention in the footwear and clothing industry. The transformation from wholesale to retail focuses on increasing the proportion of direct stores and building self owned retail terminals.

At present, Anta, Seven Wolf, Peacebird, Qipai, Fuguiniao and other companies have been or are carrying out this huge project. According to the data, as of 2011, Seven Wolves has 530 direct stores, accounting for only 13.3% of the total number of stores. The company plans to add 1200 direct stores in two and a half years.

At a time when domestic garment enterprises are worried about their overstock, fast fashion brands, such as zara, H&M and Uniqlo, are frequently seizing territory in China. Lv Moudu believes that this shows that the operation mode of foreign enterprises is more suitable for the current development.

ZARA is different from the ordering system adopted by most traditional garment enterprises, but the headquarters actively distributes goods according to the sales of each store. The design team located in the headquarters can clearly see what style, color, size and approximate quantity need to be replenished each time for each store, city and region.

Zhu Qinghua told reporters that to remove inventory, more marketing channels must be developed to face more markets, and online e-commerce is a good choice.

Anta disclosed to the reporter that the company has been preparing to build e-commerce channels, and Ding Zhizhong, the chairman of Anta, is personally in charge of this field.

However, for many garment enterprises at present, online business is more like a "sewer" strategy, aimed at clearing inventory. According to Lv Moudu, most garment enterprises are actually selling off goods online and making profits offline.

This model has obvious drawbacks: if the enterprise does not clearly position its own products and cannot balance the relationship between online and offline businesses, it will have a negative impact on the brand.