The Trend Of Closing Stores In Shoe And Clothing Industry

As the most prosperous commercial center in Hangzhou in the past 20 years, Yan'an road is the first choice for numerous businesses to settle in Hangzhou. However, because the gross profit is not enough to cover the increasing cost of rent and other costs, me & City, located at the intersection of Yan'an Road and Fengqi Road, officially closed down at the end of April this year. Then, several brand flagship stores, including jasonwood, Aokang and metsbaway, have withdrawn from the store. Now it's the turn Red Dragonfly 。

In fact, Yan'an road is the epitome of the current situation of the shoe and clothing industry. In recent years, due to the economic transformation and the rise of rent and labor costs, the traditional manufacturing industry has encountered bottlenecks, and the shoe and clothing industry has ushered in the throes of "store closing tide". In this context, the Red Dragonfly shoe industry has put forward in its prospectus the expansion plan of 130 stores to spend 867 million yuan, accounting for 88.9% of the total investment raised. It has great determination to make a big move, but does the market buy it?

　　 "Closing trend" in shoe and clothing industry

The footwear industry is facing a deep downturn. The weakness of traditional sales channels, the rigid rise of rent and labor costs, and the difficulties in online business transformation are making the domestic shoe and clothing industry fall into the mire of sluggish growth, and closing stores can be regarded as survival by breaking arms.

According to the data, Aokang, the "largest" shoe industry in China, closed more than 400 stores and bought back more than 500 loss making stores in 2013, and the annual profit decreased by 46.5% year-on-year. This data did not improve in the first quarter of this year, with the operating revenue falling by 11.21% and the net profit falling by 30.3%. The annual profit decreased by 46.5% year-on-year; the sales revenue of Aokang women's shoes decreased sharply by 30.4% last year, and the decline rate of men's shoes was 11.5%.

　　 Fujian Jinjiang is one of the main producing areas of the shoe industry. According to the data, in 2013, the revenue and profit of several listed shoe and clothing companies in Jinjiang declined. Anta, Tebu, peak, 361do and other companies closed thousands of terminal retail stores, and only seven wolves closed 500 stores on a large scale in 2013. Beijing based Li Ning group has reduced its stores by nearly 1400 since 2012.

In the first half of this year, the number of stores in Anta decreased by 56, Li Ning by 244 and peak by 333. There is no exception to the trend of qianfani and Baidu shoes.

Daphne's annual report in 2013 shows that the company's turnover, gross profit and operating profit all showed negative growth of 0.8%, 6.3% and 61.9%. Daphne closed 53 stores in the first quarter of 2014, including 12 Direct stores and 41 franchise stores. Qianbaidu is also compressing its stores, with a net decrease of 54 business outlets in the first quarter, and the same store sales are down about 8.6% year-on-year.

Li Peng, Secretary General of the Asia Footwear Association, said that manufacturing cost pressure has been widespread in recent years, which is one of the reasons for the general decline of the footwear industry profits. However, the key point is that the industry is still in excess of capacity and supply, which is not simply oversupply, but the supply of the industry is still seriously homogenized. In Li Peng's opinion, this homogenization has brought serious inventory pressure to shoe enterprises. Some enterprises promote sales at low prices in order to clear the inventory, which makes the profit of shoe industry continuously decline and fall into a vicious circle.

The list of enterprises with high inventory can write down a long list of names such as Li Ning and Aokang. Red Dragonfly itself is a good example. From 2011 to 2013, the revenue of red dragonfly was 2.718 billion yuan, 3.068 billion yuan and 3.322 billion yuan, respectively, with growth rates of 52.58%, 13.64% and 4.85%, respectively, with a significant slowdown in growth. On the contrary, inventory increased significantly. The book value of the company's inventory at the end of 2011, 2012 and 2013 was 497 million yuan, 606 million yuan and 623 million yuan, respectively.

Therefore, in the short term, whether it is sports brand or fashion brand, the trend of de stocking and closing stores is still the main theme of the industry.

　　 Expansion against the trend prospect It's hard to predict

Why do red dragonflies choose to go against the tide of closing stores?

According to the company's prospectus, red dragonfly currently has more than 4400 exclusive stores, but in terms of its composition, 3833 are franchise stores, accounting for 86.56% of the total number of marketing terminals; In the only 595 direct marketing terminals, 545 are shopping malls, and the control power is in the hands of shopping malls. There are only 50 direct independent stores in the hands of red dragonfly, accounting for only 1.13% of the total number of marketing terminals, with weak control over marketing channels.

Compared with similar companies, red dragonfly is obviously at a disadvantage in the self-supporting channel. The total number of brand chain stores in the shoe industry on Saturday was 2363, including 1868 self operated stores; Daphne operated 6702 sales points, including 5472 self operated stores; there were 2286 stores in Qianbaidu, including 1556 Direct stores.

This time, red dragonfly focuses on the construction of Direct stores, and plans to use 867 million to raise funds to build 130 Direct stores. The purpose is to change this situation.

But the effectiveness of this expansion at the moment is questionable.

In fact, in recent years, the shoe and clothing enterprises listed in the stock market have no exception to choose the mode of expanding stores by raising funds. In the public roadshow before the listing on Saturday of 2009, Zhang Zemin, chairman and general manager of Saturday, publicly declared that "in the year of issue and in the next two years, there will be about 3000 stores of Saturday brand and Sophia brand respectively." However, by 2012, the actual opening progress was only 65.6%, and the opening cost was much higher than the expected cost at IPO, which became the main reason restricting its expansion. On Saturday, the shoe industry even opened three stores and closed one store.

However, increasing the proportion of direct sales also faces great risks. Direct marketing means that the company has to bear all the costs and operational risks of stores. In the current situation of the continuous rise of commercial leasing costs and labor costs, it is easy for the company to fall into the mire of sharp decline in net profit.

It can also be seen from Aokang that the homogeneous expansion without unique weapons is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. After Aokang international was successfully listed in 2012, it began to significantly increase the proportion of direct sales. Due to the low market demand, the company's revenue and net profit decreased by 19.1% and 46.6% year-on-year in 2013. As of the first quarter of 2014, the company has not yet got out of the quagmire, and its revenue and net profit have declined by 11.21% and 20.3% year on year.

Red dragonfly is not more competitive than the above enterprises. The gross profit rate of red dragonfly is significantly lower than the industry average. According to the data, from 2011 to 2013, the comprehensive gross profit rate of red dragonfly was 34.05%, 35.49% and 36.11%; the average comprehensive gross profit rate of Baili, Daphne, Saturday, Qianbaidu and Aokang were 53.73%, 52.59% and 53.01%, respectively.

It is worth mentioning that the gross interest rate of red dragonfly is lower than that of its peers, but its asset liability ratio is far higher than that of its peers. The data shows that in 2011, 2012 and the first half of 2013, the asset liability ratio of Red Dragonfly shoe industry was as high as 58.31%, 52.98% and 46.02% respectively, while the average asset liability ratio of the industry in the same period was only 30.14%, 28.81% and 27.08%.