Footwear Business Needs To Be Changed

The clothing industry seems to be struggling. The stock crisis that broke out in 2011 has been on the increase in 2012. At present, the textile and garment industry has announced 2012 annual reports of 50 listed companies, inventories totaled about 57 billion yuan, an increase of 6.76% over the same period last year.

High inventory, let the clothing industry complain incessantly, "Stock clothing costumes 3 years can not wear out" argument spread like wildfire. Where will these stocks go?

Discounts the store into the mainstream

The first thing to feel the pressure of inventory is the sportswear industry. After decades of horse racing, the sports apparel industry began to show its weakness after reaching its peak in 2008.

Since 2011, the total inventory of sporting goods has remained high. By the first half of 2012, Lining, the six major sporting goods brand, Kappa Anta, XTEP, 360 degree And PEAK, the total inventory reached 3 billion 721 million yuan, to catch up with the inventory of 3 billion 699 million yuan in 2011. Closing stores and discounts become the main theme of sports brand enterprises in China.

Anta's Public Relations Department explained to reporters the reasons for high inventory: "first, the global economy is weak, and China's textile and garment industry is more dependent on exports." Second, the consumer demand has changed. The existing business models of some enterprises can not meet the individual needs of consumers very well, resulting in high inventory levels. Anta has admitted that "high inventory has become an important problem restricting the development of sports goods industry".

Although garment export figures improved in the first quarter of this year, according to customs statistics, China's textile and clothing exports grew by 15.7% from 1 to March in 2013, but this is not enough to drive away the haze of the garment industry.

CIC consultant light industry researcher Zhu Qing Hua Told reporters: "from the data of the first quarter, textile and garment exports seem to be recovering. However, from the global economy is still in the doldrums, demand and trade weakness, the textile and garment industry really needs to recover. At the same time, the price advantage of clothing exports is weakening due to the increase in domestic labor costs, rent costs and the appreciation of the renminbi.

For the export slump, some clothing companies do not care, Taiping bird CEO Ou Li Min In an interview with reporters, he said: "we are more concerned about domestic trade, and the growth of foreign trade has little to do with the growth of the company's performance." In addition, most garment enterprises including Anta also expressed cautious optimism about the export situation.

This shows that insufficient domestic demand and sluggish foreign trade do not seem to be the cause of high inventory.

It is not cold for a day, but in the eyes of Mr. Lu Mou Du, a partner in strategic planning, the main reason for the high inventory of clothing industry today is that the "brand + wholesale" mode results in imbalance between supply and demand.

Chen Yihong, founder of Chinese trend, said in public: "Chinese brands do not control the retail channel. They rely on agents to complete their sales. This makes the industry often sell out of products and the backlog of mediocre products. Branding, however, is slow to respond to changes in the market, and the news is lagging behind, making inventory pressure bigger and bigger.

In this case, "integrating terminal and improving store efficiency" has become the direction of adjustment for most shoes and clothing brands.

In August 2012, the Li Ning Co announced that the order data of the 2013 order meeting should be stopped. The reason is that the order data will not represent the future sales of the company. Anta also emphasizes that flexible replenishment and flexible supply will be adopted to meet the demand beyond orders.

It can be seen that the leading industries such as Lining, Anta and other industries have already had the intention of readjustment and transformation.

Online profit offline

In fact, the channel transformation of "wholesale" to "retail" has received unprecedented attention from the footwear industry. From wholesale to retail, the key is to increase the proportion of Direct stores and build self owned retail terminals.

At present, Anta, seven wolves, Taiping bird, Qipai and fortune birds have all been carrying on this huge project. Statistics show that as of 2011, there were 530 stores in the seven wolves, accounting for only 13.3% of the total number of stores. The company plans to add 1200 outlets in two and a half years.

Just as domestic apparel companies are worried about their backlog, the fast fashion brands represented by Zara, H&M and UNIQLO are frequently attacking the cities in China. Lv Moudu believes that this shows that the foreign enterprise operation mode is more suitable for the current development.

　　 ZARA It is different from the order system adopted by most traditional clothing enterprises. Instead, the headquarters takes the initiative to distribute the goods according to the sales situation of each store. The design team at headquarters can clearly see what styles, colors and sizes are needed for each store, city and region, and how much quantity each replenishment needs.

Zhu Qinghua told reporters that in order to inventory, we must open up more marketing channels and face more markets, and online e-commerce is a good choice.

Anta company told reporters that the company is already preparing to build an electricity supplier channel, and Ding Zhizhong, chairman of the company, is in charge of this field.

However, for many garment enterprises, online business is more like a "sewer" strategy aimed at eliminating inventory. Lv Moudu said, at present, most garment enterprises are actually fling the goods online and making profits under the line.

There are obvious drawbacks in this mode: If enterprises do not have a clear positioning of their products and can not balance the relationship between online and offline businesses, they will have a negative impact on the brand.