Casual Wear: Farewell To The Golden Age?

Casual wear enterprises are in the throes of change.

In the first half of this year, the latest earnings report of Baleno's parent company showed that as of the end of March 2014, the number of outlets in the mainland market was as high as 388, accounting for 10% of the total number of stores.

Known in mid June.

The brand has lost its debt to 230 million yuan, and nearly 200 suppliers have been implicated.

At the same time, from the semi annual report released by the famous casual wear listed companies represented by the United States, such as the United States, Semir, Giordano, etc., its casual wear business also showed a weak growth.

For this reason, many casual wear enterprises began to deal with their own "profit crisis" with a large number of shops.

According to the annual report released by the United States, it closed at least more than 220 stores in 2013.

Similarly, Giordano listed in Hongkong also deals with sales.

The slide.

According to the first quarter announcement released by Giordano in 2014, the company closed 75 stores in the first quarter, of which the number of stores in the mainland market was reduced by 54.

"Guan Dian Chao is just a microcosm of these" mass casual wear brands "being abandoned by a new generation of consumers.

Yang Dayun, President of UTA Fashion Management Group in China, said: "if these brands still make some irrelevant changes from the perspective of maintaining the original interests and scale, it will be difficult to resist the fate of disappearing from the market in 5 to 10 years."

In this regard, leisure wear market is now weak development trend, does it mean the end of its "golden age"?

Whose capital game?

"A large number of local casual wear enterprises have been closed shop, a large part of which is due to the listing of enterprises."

Mao Lihui, a well-known clothing critic in China, seems to be "obsessed" with the listing, which makes more and more clothing companies trapped in the "vicious circle" of capital games and can not get away.

Mao Lihui told reporters that many investors who invest in clothing enterprises will have certain time requirements for the listing process of enterprises.

In this regard, many garment enterprises in order to achieve IPO as soon as possible, is bound to choose a large number of shops to achieve rapid sales promotion in the short term.

"If enterprises can successfully achieve the listing, they will be able to maintain the operation of new stores through continuous injection of continuous funds. However, judging from the IPO situation of garment enterprises in recent years, many garment enterprises have not been listed successfully, which will cause a fatal blow to enterprises."

Mao Lihui told reporters that if the company fails to go public, investment will facilitate the divestment, which will cause greater financial pressure on the garment enterprises and its new shops will be difficult to maintain.

At the same time, in Yang Dayun's view, the casual wear enterprises that rely on the agency system "fortune" are themselves.

There are many "injuries".

"Many powerful affiliate agents usually have multiple clothing brands. They will adjust their operation strategies according to the marketing situation of different brands, and rarely stand on the side of the brand side for terminal operation.

At the same time, many agents will continue to make additional orders to businesses when they sell goods, instead of considering too much about the overall sales of brand goods.

Some agents may even conceal the overall sales of goods in order to keep them continuously supplied. "

Yang Dayun said.

In this regard, Yang Dayun said that although the agent system has promoted the rapid development of China's garment industry at a certain stage, but in the face of the current weak clothing consumption market, the agency system has greatly weakened the control over the terminal sales channels, resulting in the backlog of a large number of goods, and this phenomenon has been particularly prominent in the casual wear enterprises with the main volume of running.

In response, Liu Weiwen, director and deputy general manager of JEANSWEST International (Hongkong) Limited, admitted to reporters that a large number of shops are the usual operation strategies of local leisure wear brands which are popular. This strategy has also promoted the rapid development of casual wear enterprises since the last 90 years of the last century.

"But with the influence of the market environment and the continuous improvement of consumer tastes, this terminal strategy is also gradually facing bottlenecks."

Farewell, golden age.

"The rapid development of casual wear enterprises has its own historical opportunities."

Yang Da Yun told reporters that many famous casual wear enterprises in China started from the mid 90s of last century. At that time, the overall domestic clothing resources were relatively scarce, and it was a good time to make money whatever they sell, and many leisure wear enterprises began to develop.

With the trend of design, parity and the brand awareness of consumers at that time, casual wear enterprises quickly opened the sales market in the country on the basis of the affiliate agency mode.

But in Mao Lihui's view, this development mode also laid the foreshadowing for the development of the domestic casual wear brand in the future.

"No matter how bad the clothes are, they are not worried about sales. This mode of development has made domestic casual wear enterprises have no intention to study the fashion connotation and spirit of casual clothes, to understand what the consumption desire of the market is, and ultimately lead to the narrower and narrower the market of domestic casual wear brands, and many brands are more widely positioned as students' clothing."

Mao Lihui said.

While many leisure wear brands are reluctant to change in the golden age, the consumption environment of the market is gradually changing.

In recent years, with the rising of raw materials and the rising cost of labor, the profit margins of casual wear enterprises, which are positioned in the mass market, have been continuously compressed.

At the same time, the rapid development of international fashion brands entering the Chinese market and e-commerce has caused a great impact on local casual wear brands.

Liu Weiwen told reporters.

The rapid development of the garment industry has brought a large number of clothing brands to the market. This provides consumers with more choice opportunities, but also constantly "ripened" the aesthetic standards of consumers.

"Young consumers' aesthetic taste of clothing is also rising. Their demand for clothing personalization and interest is increasing. Their aesthetic preferences at every stage are constantly changing, which puts forward higher requirements for garment enterprises."

Liu Weiwen said.

Obviously, in Mao Lihui's view, this is a big challenge to the garment enterprises lacking in the study of leisure lifestyle. It is also an obstacle which is difficult to overcome in a short time.

At the same time, the casual clothing brand with young consumers as the main target audience is also facing the challenge of declining customer loyalty.

For the industry's common use of "brand culture to impress customers, enhance consumer loyalty" strategy, casual wear enterprises seem to have forgotten the brand culture when they run, and have not done enough.

"Most domestic casual wear brands are mostly franchising agents in the channel strategy, and the pmission of brand culture and brand fashion concept can only penetrate into the regional general agent at most, and then cannot be conveyed downward."

Mao Lihui believes that this also makes the domestic casual wear enterprises are generally faced with the lack of brand culture.

How can local leisure wear enterprises get rid of the dilemma?

Three or four line opportunities

"Casual wear will not have no market, nor is it a student suit or sportswear. With the upgrading of domestic consumption and the increasing investment in sports and leisure, there is still room for development for local casual wear."

Mao Lihui told reporters.

However, domestic casual wear brand should seize the opportunity to develop the market, and it is clear that many aspects should be promoted.

In Mao Lihui's view, the quality of Chinese casual clothes can not reach consumers' demands at first.

"The same is a running suit, the products made by international brands such as Japan and Korea are not only harmonious in color, but also very good in quality, but domestic casual wear is hard to reach this level. Homogenization is very serious in the choice of styles and fabrics."

Mao Lihui said.

In this regard, Mao Lihui believes that leisure wear brands to reverse the development dilemma, is bound to do a good job of target audience research, casual wear market segmentation and re positioning.

"If the brand wants to do well in the market, we must do a good job in studying the target audience.

At present, the consumer market has changed from the mass market to the sub market and the elite market, and we must grasp the research of this kind of crowd if we want to seize the crowd who has great potential to purchase.

Mao Lihui told reporters that according to his data, 65.8% of the crowd often go to the gym, and 65.1% of the crowd often patronize the brand store, and 53.1% of the crowd often go to high-end restaurants.

"It is precisely to understand the consumption habits of the crowd, and now many automobile brands have begun to advertise in fitness clubs."

But for the local casual wear enterprises, which have always been targeted at mass leisure, it is very difficult to directly pform to the elite crowd, regardless of the risk or operability of brand operation.

In this regard, in Liu Weiwen's view, focusing on the existing market of the brand, adjusting the product and channel strategy is more realistic for the pformation of the local casual wear enterprises.

"Casual wear enterprises must keep up with the current trend of fashion. As far as we can see, the audience of casual wear is more inclined to the style of Japan and South Korea on the choice of clothing styles."

At the same time, Liu Weiwen said that adjusting the channel strategy is also an important problem to be solved for casual wear enterprises.

"In addition to doing a good job in the electricity market, casual wear enterprises must increase their efforts to expand the three or four line cities."

Liu Weiwen told reporters that the future growth of casual wear brands will come from three or four tier cities even if they can successfully maintain the market share of the first tier cities.