ASOS: Foreign Fast Fashion Brands Entering China

For Chinese consumers, the latest fashion items from the UK have never been as accessible as they are now. They do not have to rely on Taobao to purchase, nor do they have to wait for more than ten days of international logistics. They only need to log on to ASOS's official website or Tmall flagship store, so they can wait for the latest fashion clothes to be delivered to the door within 48 hours.

In the moment, fast fashion brands are catching up with the market share of the electricity market in an unprecedented fashion and entering the Chinese market for a year. ASOS has gradually touched some doorways.

Fashion retailers' electricity supplier genes

The fast fashion brand, headquartered in Camden Town, a famous punk gathering area in the north of London, was founded in 2000, which is somewhat similar to the current "Star shop". Its original business model was to sell the imitation of movie star clothing online, and it made profits in the first year and landed on the London Stock Exchange's alternative trading market, then developed into the largest fashion e-commerce website in the UK.

At first, ASOS also sold some complicated products, but soon concentrated on fashion business.

In 2004 and 2007, ASOS launched its own brand of women's wear and men's wear to achieve a shift from fashion retailers to global fashion brands.

"Before, if you want to buy ASOS clothes, you have to go through our official website, and now, consumers can buy it through third party channels, which is an unprecedented progress."

Talking about ASOS's choice of Tmall as a partner, Jigdani, general manager of China ASOS (Daniel Jenks) said.

The recent influx of international brands seems to support the idea of ASOS. The most recent example is the official flagship store of Zara officially launched in Tmall on 13 October. It is considered to be an obvious signal for fast fashion brands to get together with the electricity supplier market.

Compared with Zara, the design and concept of ASOS are more concentrated on young people aged 20~30. However, because of the high unit price, in China, there are quite a few people who love the brand more than 30 years old, accounting for about 20% of the brand customers.

Obviously, for the rapidly developing ASOS, the Chinese market is a tempting cake.

After the first quarter of 2011, ASOS CEO CEO (Nick Robertson) positioned the Chinese market as the fifth largest strategic market after Britain, the United States, France and Germany.

After that, ASOS opened RMB payment function.

In November 3, 2013, the ASOS China station was formally launched. After half a year in April 22nd, the flagship store of Tmall ASOS opened.

A year later, ASOS did not seem to have suffered from the media's unexpected acclimatization. At least, the current operation did not give them too much pressure.

"We know more about the rules of the operation of electricity providers, and can make better pricing strategies. We know how to improve customer satisfaction on online sales, how to deliver faster, and how to use multiple payment means to enhance customer experience."

Danny told reporters.

Tmall layout 11

According to Jin Danny's statement, the official website of ASOS now has 54 designer brands besides its own ASOS brand clothes, and is growing steadily. It is expected to reach 100 in the autumn of 2015.

Tmall flagship store only sells ASOS own brand products: some brands want to enter Tmall platform alone, while some brands want to sell on the official website of ASOS.

"We will also try to introduce other brands to enrich the products of our Tmall store."

Jin Danny said.

At present, ASOS's own brand has more than 4200 clothing for men and women, plus 1300 cooperative brands offering 6500 fashions every year.

For Chinese consumers, ASOS is trying various ways to choose products from existing data.

As an online retailer, ASOS does not distribute teams according to different electronic business platforms, but rather plans according to functions.

According to Danny, the promotion of ASOS in China is not a platform. For the whole team, how to provide the best service for customers is the most important part.

Only the customer service department will adjust to the Tmall store because the customers on Tmall may have some special problems with regard to the policy of return, promotion and logistics.

ASOS will try to balance the price of the official website and Tmall store, but sometimes it will adjust the price according to the requirements of Tmall, which also leads to some discrepancies in prices on the two platforms.

Perhaps in the 2011 year of ASOS's decision to enter China, Taobao was also flooded with fake famous brands and poor quality goods. Jin Danny thought it was a fact that there is no need to deny.

But in his view, the situation is improving: "consumers no longer blindly worship the huge brand logo on clothing, they become more concerned about product quality, shopping experience and after-sales service, which in turn determines the upstream supply chain practices, forming a virtuous circle."

Half a year after the opening of Tmall store, ASOS will be faced with double 11 exams.

Two months ago, the whole Chinese team began to prepare for double 11, including the adjustment of goods, operation methods and daily sales plan.

For Jin Danny and his team, experiencing such a Chinese style "shopping Carnival" is an exhilarating experience.

What we have to face is the competition of many international brands, but Danny does not seem to worry that he will lose in this competition: "the more brands on Tmall, the more consumers will choose to shop on this platform, resulting in higher traffic and sales volume, which is good for us."

He said that this year's double 11 ASOS sales forecast is 15 million yuan, this is their first participation in double 11, so the specific results may be a large discrepancy.

"We don't know what will happen that day, so we have made enough preparations in many aspects. We don't want to disappoint our customers.

On the same day, our warehouse will start processing orders from 11 a.m. to 5.

By the end of September,

This year, we announced the specific methods of playing double 11, including the "horse racing" promotion between the venues.

What surprised Danny's colleagues in China was that the British general manager immediately understood this set of mechanisms which they even felt somewhat complicated.

To some extent, as an online retailer, the goal of ASOS is consistent with Tmall: selling the latest and best products on the platform to meet the needs of more consumers and achieve global synchronization.

In terms of logistics, despite the fact that ASOS has accumulated quite a lot of experience, Danny still seems quite cautious: "we will not promise a specific arrival time to consumers. There may be many variables. If we make unrealistic commitments, we will fail to do so, which will be worse than no promises."

Since born with the electricity supplier gene, ASOS will not miss the tide of wireless business.

At present, China's ASOS wireless terminal traffic accounts for about 60%, which is two times more than that of Europe.

Such a traffic structure is not what ASOS intends to do. In fact, they do not invest large amounts of money in the wireless terminal.

At present, the wireless terminal conversion rate of ASOS China is hovering around 1%~2%, which may be related to the habits of Chinese consumers: they prefer to open their web pages to three stores, and then place the order.

However, ASOS hopes to mobilize consumers' enthusiasm for wireless shopping through some market activities.

In addition, ASOS is also trying to do some "grounding" attempts, including the September Costa Coffee and British Airways cooperation to launch the "next stop, London" promotion campaign on WeChat platform.

Danny is very optimistic about Tmall's "globalization" strategy. In his view, it is now a perfect time for China to export its brand and export its cultural value.

"This is our first year in China. There are still many things that we need to learn and a considerable amount of sales data to analyze. We hope to grow faster and speed up the development of ASOS products."

Jin Danny said.