Split Silk: Designer Brand Walking Outwards

For Taobao's original designer brand, the short-term goal is to make an interesting company, which is listed on the market. But the bigger idea is to be a centenary Chinese designer brand and even to take the design abroad. Unlike the brand culture of "walking inward", how much pain and transformation have gone through as a garment company?

One day in 2010, Zhai learned the spirit of the first time. For the old Zhai who has been in Beijing for many years, the name of "splitting the silk" is no stranger to it. The invitation of friend Fei Qing finally helped to break the silk road.

In a slightly shabby office building in Tongzhou, Beijing, Lao Zhai saw the founder of torn silk, the sisters of the gale and the wind. The wind and wind only politely shook hands and went back to their studio. The brand manager who left the company introduced the brand and workflow of the company.

Although Lining and Adidas have visited some of the top garment manufacturers in China and abroad, Lao Zhai is still shocked by the high-speed operation of the company. "At that time, the production capacity was about 2 hundred million. Under the line, the clothing companies on this scale are always thousands of people, a whole office building, but there are only more than 100 people, one storey office space. Lao Zhai recalls.

What's more surprising to Lao Zhai is that a garment is from design manuscript to plate making to photo taking. Finally, the operation team decides whether to go online or not, and the whole production and R & D process takes only two weeks.

However, when the outside world, like Lao Zhai, was surprised by the high-speed operation process of breaking up silk, little known was that the rip and silk at that time was experiencing the "growing pains" of the supply chain and commercial operation after the expansion of scale, and the founder of gale Xiaofeng was flying all over China to find the right factory.

　　 "Crying out" factory

In 2012, the gale finally closed the self built factory near Beijing.

The factory, which once had more than 300 workers and more than 7000 square meters of production space, occupied 70% of the production capacity of the company and broke up most of the orders. At that time, only when the factory could not digest it, would it consider outsourcing factories for processing. But now, before closing down, the self built factories that split up silk occupy only 10% or even less of the total capacity.

The reason why the wind turned off the factory is that the state of "company profits and factory losses" has not changed. In addition to management reasons, another reason for factory losses is the dependence of factories on their own, often throwing the orders that are least and least likely to be outsourced by factories which fail to meet the deadline.

Of course, if you understand the origin of the broken silk, you will understand that for wind and wind, building factories is not the first choice, nor is it their interest.

In 2006, without any clothing experience, gale and Xiaofeng sisters opened a shop selling ethnic costumes of Nepal, India and other countries on Taobao.

Like many Taobao sellers at that time, the first venture capital of gale and Xiaofeng was only 1000 yuan, which could only be bought through distributors and sold online. Due to limited funds and small scale of shops, every purchase of high winds and light winds follows the principle of "multi amount and small amount".

However, the popularity of netizens has gradually led to a big idea of "gale" and "breeze", which is designed and produced by itself, making an original national wind brand. But when the two sisters went to Kunming to find the manufacturer with a pile of design manuscripts, they were rejected by all the manufacturers.

To this day, the gale that has experienced many supply chain problems can better understand the reason why it was rejected at that time: for tens of thousands of factories that are accustomed to hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of orders, their orders for dozens of items are far from the magnitude of cooperation. Moreover, the exaggerated embroidery patterns, bright colors and special requirements of fabrics are very difficult for the production of clothes.

After being rejected by more than a dozen factories, the setbacks suffered in recent days, coupled with the rain in Dali, broke the last psychological line of strong winds and breezes. This is often seen in the articles describing the initial cracks and silks, which once left a strong wind and a crying image. However, "crying" is just a real revelation of inner feelings, but the strength of the strong wind has never changed. After returning to Beijing, strong winds and small winds made an important decision to build up their own production team.

At that time, the so-called production team was only two old sewing machines, two sisters tailoring in the street, and the mother-in-law with the wind of clothing experience to make plate making. When the garment process encountered difficulties, several people came together to study how to keep the elements in the design manuscript to the maximum extent.

In the log book of the early days of gale, there was such a saying: "aunt is worried about our design draft. How to make plate is really a difficult problem. However, there are ten days to complete the production, photography, uploading and other links, which is almost impossible to complete.

In addition to thinking about how to fully reflect the elements on the garments, it also faces the test of Taobao's quick response to small sellers.

On the one hand, the strong wind was crumble by Taobao's quick reaction chain. On the other hand, she enjoyed the "fast" process and understood the customers in the fastest way and seized the market. Because at that time, he was part of the copywriting, customer service, model and other duties, sometimes chatting with a customer, the wind could talk all afternoon, and customers' feedback on clothing could also be reflected in design and production.

As the wind said in the interview, "if we are cracking down online, we may not be able to do it any longer because it's too slow. You need a long cycle to get feedback from consumers. I can't stand it."

With the promotion of Taobao's popularity, the family's small workshops are slowly expanding, moving from their houses to a more than 1300 square meter new factory in Tongzhou, and the number of workers in the factory has increased to more than 80. In 2010, the factory moved to the sea, the area expanded to more than 4000 square meters, and the number of employees exceeded 100.

At that time, the sales volume of cracking and silking is still in the tens of millions. Self built factories play a very important role in the control, quick reaction and control of supply chain of the early quality of cracking and silk making. If there is no self built factory to control the quality, time and cost, it is difficult to complete such a high-speed operation.

But for the sale of hundreds of millions of cracks, self built factory has been far from meeting its needs, and its short board has also gradually emerged.

In July 2010, there was a pre-sale of silk and silks. In online retail, pre sale is a common pattern. With the pre-sale platform, sellers can release new products, test the market reaction heat, and turn them into pre-sale after hot sales, and accumulate popularity. The two kind of pre-sale mode has some help for reclaiming resources and relieving the pressure of cash flow, which is widely respected by Taobao sellers.

However, the rules of Taobao stipulate that the pre-sale products must ensure that the buyers receive the goods within 45 days, which gives the seller the supply link to be tested. The pre-sale of rip and silk can not be delivered on time because the factory's capacity is not up to date. Although the customer service at the end of the day ended up calling the buyers to apologize and refund them one by one, most of the buyers expressed their understanding and were willing to wait longer. But this crisis also made the wind strong and small wind determined that they must develop more cooperative factories and reduce dependence on the company's factories.

　　 The supply chain is not as fast as possible.

{page_break}

Feng Guojing, chairman of Hongkong Lifeng group, once said: "the supply chain is initiated by the needs of customers (or consumers), through the process of product design, to the initial supply of raw materials, production, wholesale, retail, and so on, and to deliver products to the end-users in the middle or through transportation and warehousing."

The rise of e-commerce has also made supply chain management more and more becoming the core competitiveness of enterprises. The competition among e-commerce enterprises has evolved into the competition between supply chain and supply chain.

When ZARA's 15 day global speed supply chain has swept the globe, the experience of splitting up is that the supply chain is not as fast as possible. The fast response supply chain system needs complete process design and organizational structure, and the supply chain suitable for itself is a good supply chain.

The 30 day rapid reaction cycle was set as its goal, but the effect was not satisfactory. Because at that time, the supervision system for suppliers was not perfect. Many factories in order to catch up with time, Jerry built on fabric and craft resulted in serious quality problems in some products. In fact, the response period of 30 days is not applicable to a designer brand.

"ZARA follows the buying system. It only needs to buy editions, make simple changes, and look for foundries all over the world. At the same time, they also own their own weaving factories, dyeing factories and cutting factories, which can omit the development and fabric waiting process of the front end. However, as a designer brand, it may take a month to develop the product only by the front-end. Therefore, the rapid response mode of ZARA is not entirely applicable to us. Rose market manager, said rose.

With the expansion of the scale of silk and silks, goods are not sold enough, and the problem of goods being out of stock is getting more and more annoying.

The wind was still fresh in the days when we flew around to find factories. There are tens of thousands of overseas listed companies in these factories, and there are also Chinese traditional manufacturing enterprises with strong processing capacity, and even dozens of small factories in remote rural areas. Factory types include knitting knitted factories with wool and woven fabrics, shoe factories, cowboy factories, fabric manufacturers, etc.

Unlike a few years ago, when designing drawings were crying on the streets, there was more negotiating capital in this time. At the beginning, strong winds and small winds chose the best silk manufacturers and ten hemp manufacturers in China, and the metal zipper used YKK in Japan.

However, as a systematic project, the supply chain can not be solved simply by looking for a factory, but also needs to achieve the balance of account, quality and cost. This requires professionals with professional background and experience.

In June 2011, the founder of the company began to be responsible for production, and the south wind with many years of supply chain management experience came to the end. Since the beginning of expansion, the production personnel have gradually expanded from the original one to about 70 now. The director who worked together to build factories a few years ago was also sent back to the head office for sample processing.

Many years of experience and lessons have led us to decide on the size of the 100~250 or so factories. In fact, the two sides of the supply chain and the cooperation process between the factory and the company are also a game between the two sides. How to control cost well, ensure quality and get a suitable account is the game point of mutual benefit.

Factories with around 100 people have certain norms, cost and quality control, and sales of hundreds of millions of sales in the year are advantageous when negotiating with medium scale foundries. It is easier to win a suitable account.

In fact, as early as a year ago, Xiao 2 Jin Guang proposed in a communication that the supply chain is the biggest short board for the clothing brand on the line of origin. Among them, the most successful case is the long-term strategic cooperation between the brand and the supplier. In the course of its growth, Mai Bao has trained several suppliers with annual output of 50 million, 20 million and 5 million in a few years. The deep cooperation between suppliers and wheat bags has played an important role in reducing the product line and improving the quality control standards in the past few years.

In Japan, the relationship between suppliers and companies is also a symbiotic relationship. Sometimes, when suppliers encounter capital and production difficulties, the company will help to solve them. There is an emotional relationship between factories and factories, especially for factories that grow along with the rip and silk. They even send people to factories to do special training for workers.

This kind of emotional cooperation allows the relationship between enterprises and factories not to be business and business. It is about 30 days' accounts for breaking the silk. At the same time, when the factory has problems such as capital flow and management, it will help the factory to tide over difficulties.

And this way of cooperation with suppliers has played a great role in the decision to expand new products.

In the second half of 2011, men began to split up. How to solve the supply chain problem became the most difficult problem for new brands. The strategic cooperation between crack and silk mills and processing plants largely guarantees the stability of men's "non pond" production terminals.

"A piece of clothing produces 100 or 10000 pieces, which determines the bargaining chip between you and the factory. Men's clothing is just starting, sales certainly no women's clothing, but with the supply chain basis of women's clothing, it can still better solve the problem of men's clothing production end. South wind said.

　　 Finding the right person

For many Amoy brand For example, 200 million of sales per year is a threshold. In the early days of entrepreneurship, companies often relied on the personal charisma and ability of the founders. Then, what they needed was the organizational structure and commercialized operation of the team.

IT director barley is a junior high school student who has worked for many years in a foreign company in Nanjing before cracking down on silk. For the barley, which has passed, it needs a little idealism and courage. And the strong wind is the one who ignites the ideal.

"The vision of the founders determines how far the enterprise can go, and the IT Department has invested a lot in the early stage, but when an enterprise is mature, it needs IT's technology to support it." Barley said.

{page_break}

When I first came, there was not even a network administrator. Barley became the first employee in the IT department. In the past few years, the breath of literature and art has also changed the barley slowly, wearing the "T-shirt in the pool" and listening to the flying song of the company.

There are several proudly things about barley, including supply chain system.

A complete supply chain, in addition to taking into account the constraints of delivery time, quality and cost, and from a large perspective, should achieve information sharing and process control through the integration of process design and IT, and ultimately shorten the delivery cycle and achieve controllable inventory.

Although the IT Department has already had the technical guarantee, the arrival of the south wind has really enabled this inter departmental cooperation to be realized.

The idea of building a supply chain system by barley and southerly was somewhat bold at that time. Self built supply chain system needs two conditions. On the one hand, it is familiar with all aspects of clothing production; on the other hand, it understands IT and can design and develop fast process. At that time, there was no self built supply chain in Taobao TOP20's women's clothing brand. Most of the women's clothing brands still choose to outsource the supply chain system. Even if there are frequent problems, the sellers basically choose to tolerate it.

After 2~3 months of research and development, the supply chain system has basically been completed. The system is completely tailored to the whole process of product development and warehousing.

From the end of the product design, the Ross system before the abandonment of the silk and silk products has penetrated the SCM system into the R & D stage of product design, and considered the availability of materials ahead of time, that is, ensuring the availability of product design. When a garment is still in the stage of design or plate making, through the SCM system, the production center can predict the material situation and the feasibility of the garment production in advance.

On the marketing side, through the operation data docking between BI and ERP, we can prepare materials and capacity ahead of schedule and shorten the delivery period. Now, a new product is sold for sale. By analyzing the sales volume of the first hour and the first day, the sales volume of the clothing can be simulated and predicted, providing a reference for the operation Department to make up the bill quickly.

Another big advantage of SCM is streamlining products. The Internet has always emphasized the long tail effect. However, SKU is not as good as possible. The greater the number of SKU, the more stable the supply chain is, and the waste of resources to some extent. "On the product, the 28 theory applies in the same way. Almost 20% of the sales account for 80% of the sales, 10000 products to the user's surprise may not be as high as 1000 products. Barley said.

In fact, through data analysis, it is also appropriate to streamline the number of new SKU on its own, and focus on 20% of the total amount and strictly reduce the remaining 80%.

Compared with the traditional big name supply chain operation cycle, the first 20 hours of the weekly split, the first time in 2~3 months, and the quick return of 30~40 days also prove that when a network brand has filled the short board of the supply chain, the distance from the consumer will be even closer to the consumers.

The success of the self built supply chain system also let the strong winds and small winds begin to realize the importance of technology as a support to enhance the systematic operation of the company. The financial center requires the settlement of funds into the SCM system; the logistics center requires docking with ERP; the operation center requires that the product plan and supplement be put in. With the efforts of all people, SCM has begun to have skeletons.

And broke into the men's clothing, to do their own brand "non pool", the wind also admitted that because of the right people. "Why don't we do fashion, design and cheap men's clothing?" Xiaofeng thought so long ago, but this idea met with the possibility of young designer Ye Qian.

Ye Qian, the cutting-edge designer, has become the designer of the men's clothing. When it comes to cooperation between them, gale is more willing to describe it with "winning".

As the master of "non pond", Ye Qian's opinion on men's clothing is the same as that of high winds and small winds. The main style is "classic and modern driving, creative and practical driving" style Menswear, and the price is more popular than that of similar brands under the line.

In addition to the introduction of high levels in production, logistics, finance and IT departments, strong winds and light winds have persisted in the policy of training themselves in the middle level of cracking down on silk.

There was an unwritten rule in the split between the founders and the department heads: "fair PK". "The founder of breaking the silk will not press you in the capacity of the founder. You are fair PK, who has a reason to listen to." South wind said.

With the strength of the team, the four founders, such as gale, Xiaofeng and Feng Feng, have more free time than other business entrepreneurs. It is possible to travel 2~3 months in a year.

　　 Capital tells you the concept of business.

The first meeting between gale and Zhang Ying was in the former Office of the Tongzhou District office in Beijing. As a partner of Jingwei, Zhang Ying returned to Beijing from abroad for more than ten hours to talk about an investment.

Zhang Ying bought a packet of chips, a hamburger and a coke at the McDonald's downstairs, and then came to pieces. After talking with Zhang Ying for more than three hours, the strong wind knew that the cooperation between the two sides was basically confirmed.

As an Amoy brand, it is no longer a new thing to get venture capital. Although there has been a touch between wind and wind, there has been no "eye to eye". The choice of Jingwei capital by strong winds is largely due to Zhang Ying's personality and strong winds and small winds.

For simple and candid gale, the most important help is the trust. "We often encounter the same counterparts who accept VCs, their investors will have some requirements, but Jingwei has never given us any requests, trust and mutual discussion is the greatest help to us." The wind said.

Why do we need to finance the cash flow and profitability? Why do we need to finance? The gale says: when the electricity supplier is growing up, we need to switch from "beat the head" to a more commercialized operation.

{page_break}

In the founding team, there are no professional financial, management and supply chain people. When the scale of the split reaches 100 million, the lack of professional background has gradually become a short board restricting the development of enterprises.

Like many of the big sellers who grew up on Taobao, they also experienced bursting of warehouses, without qualified financial personnel, inventory management and supply chain problems. What often happens is that goods sold in spring and summer are sold out, and there is a problem in the capital chain when purchasing winter funds. You know, in the first half of the year, the annual sales volume of 1/3 will be completed in the first half of the year, and 1/3 will be completed in the third quarter, and the remaining 1/3 will be completed in 11 and December.

In a Taobao training, gale heard the concept of "budget" for the first time. "At first, there was no concept of budget at all. Once a strong wind likes boots very much, it costs us about 6000000 at a time. We should know that we sold 80 million of the whole year. " Rose market manager, said rose.

And really let the wind and breeze start business concept, starting from the docking of capital.

Longitude and latitude played a great role in the commercialization and operation of the broken silk. That is to say, the business concept of gale was given by various indicators. It was from that time that the gale began to pay attention to gross margin, inventory turnover and human cost accounting.

"Most of the entrepreneurs on Taobao are grassroots entrepreneurs. They are very practical and work hard. When the enterprise is bigger, it will encounter more problems. When appropriate, it will be very useful to introduce some senior managers to sublimate the idea. Strong wind learning ability is strong, some problems, a little guidance, she will understand, and find the right person to do this thing, it is easy. Qian Kun, vice president of Jingwei said.

At the 2011 Annual Meeting, Qian Kun said to all the employees, "gale is a good leader. She promised me everything, and you should trust her."

For Taobao sellers, personal charisma is the starting point for enterprises to start, while maintaining advanced learning ability is the driving force for sustainable development of enterprises.

　　 Future without borders

In 2009, China's famous designer brand Jiangnan Buyi was selected by Forbes magazine as the only clothing brand in the six most likely Chinese brands to enter the international market. In recent years, constantly emerging designer brands, such as Guangzhou's "exception" and Hangzhou's "Jiangnan Buyi", have changed the image of "made in China" in poor quality and Shanzhai to some extent with Chinese elements.

However, in China, there are not many brands of real mature designers, and the scale is far less than that of the mass brands. Even the sales of Jiangnan cloth, which has been wired for more than 10 years, has a sales volume of only 23 billion. Li Lin, a founder of Jiangnan cloth and clothing, "it is hard to balance between design and market", which tells us the predicament faced by designers.

And for the broken silk that was born on the line, with the advantage of the Internet, the contradiction between design and market was resolved well. The gale divides the design and the selection two steps, the designer is only responsible for the design, and the selection is based on the experienced operation team. If a designer sells a product well, the designer can get the reward accordingly.

The communication efficiency brought by the Internet has improved the reaction speed between the market and the company. Traditional line clothing companies generally need a long cycle to get market feedback, and for online brands, they can react more directly to consumers.

In terms of design style, there is a completely different road between the separation of silk and silk cloth and the exception of Jiangnan cloth. "I have always believed that all nations are derived from the same race, and that they are the national customs of the world, or tribal simplicity. We return to the essence of children who are not evolving. How many years have passed, no matter where and where you are, the flowers in the sun are still colorful, and the leaves are green. To feel happy, the world becomes bright, and sadness is all gloomy. Following your inner feelings, this is breaking up the silk. The wind said.

In brand operation, cut silk into pieces for writing letters The most successful place lies in its unique tonality, but there are ceilings in a single brand. It is an inevitable choice to expand the category after strengthening the main brand.

In 2011, the men's clothing was sold on the "non pond" line, and realized profits in 2012. Although there is still a gap between the women's wear and clothing, it is the first step in the success of the expansion from single brand to multi category. Back to the beginning of the article, why can it be done for men's clothing? It's more natural for men to dress up for the completion of supply chain, commercial operation and organizational structure.

But just on line. Men's wear brand Instead of taking the style of national style, "non Chi Chi" chose a style that emphasizes fashion and design. In private, small wind and strong wind husband also likes shorthand, I.T and other brand men's clothing, but the price of designer brand is unbearable for the general public.

The "non pond" menswear fills the gap of Taobao and the offline market to some extent, and the foundation of supply chain and commercial operation, which is built on the basis of rip and silk, is also the reason why "non pool" can make quick profits.

But Xiaofeng did not give too much pressure to men's "non pool" sales. "Designer brand is generally 3~4 years earlier than the market. Chinese men haven't reached the time of wearing clothes in non pools." Said Xiao Feng.

Compared to the production mode of small workshops at the beginning of the business, now, the big wind and the small wind need to worry about how to maintain the original quality of the broken silk in the mass production supply chain system.

At present, there are more than 120 design teams, including 50 plate making workers. Although the factory was closed early this year, the gale still retained over 50 skilled workers in the factory. For clothing companies, owning their own model rooms is a luxury. The research and development of each sample will cost thousands of yuan, and having its own design team and model room will maximize the control of the product.

Unlike the general factory's FOB mode, the gale and the wind do not only specify their own fabrics, but also specify the brand and color of the embroidered yarn, and put forward dozens of requirements on the price list, including process requirements, fabric material rate and so on.

For the newly born men's brand "non pond", gale Xiaofeng believes that the current "non pond" is three or four years ago. "Designers are very self-centered. They think about this matter more than ten hours a day, and then dig deeper and deeper. You will find that designer brand is four or five years earlier than the market." The wind said.

If it is placed in the big category of Chinese designer brand, it will be the opportunity and ability to take the "Chinese design" to go abroad and go further.

During the interview, the gale has been emphasizing not to deification the electricity supplier. The rapid development of e-commerce in China has indeed created a number of myths of scale and speed. But when the barbaric growth era has passed, it has left a more narrow survival path for the electricity supplier. For the difficulties that may be encountered in the outward movement of the silk and silk, the gale does not agree: "the future is unmeasurable, so this is fun."