Fast Fashion In China Market Will Not Cool Down

As of December 31, 2014, the number of China's five fast fashion brands (UNIQLO, H&M, ZARA, GAP, C&A) had reached 892.

Among them, UNIQLO has the largest number of stores in China, with a total volume of nearly 350, covering 78 cities in the mainland.

From the total number of stores, the five fast fashion brands are

The largest distribution.

It is worth noting that the proportion of the three tier cities is gradually approaching the first tier cities.

Although the total number of five fast fashion brand stores increased by 23.7% compared with 2013, the growth rate slowed down by more than 20 percentage points.

Apart from the brand, except for UNIQLO, the growth rate of the other four brands has slowed down to varying degrees.

The reason is that the expansion of the confidence of UNIQLO is derived from the strong growth of Greater China's performance, while other brands have been expanding rapidly in the first two years, and the expansion strategy gradually tends to be cautious.

The five largest in 2014

The total number of new stores is 180.

The largest number of new stores is UNIQLO, followed by H&M.

But GAP's growth rate slowed by 70% compared with last year, and only 10 new stores opened in 2014.

In 2014, the number of new outlets in the two or three tier cities was more than 3 times that of the first tier cities.

Among them, the three line cities account for the highest proportion, so that the three tier cities have already surpassed the second tier cities and become the new battleground for the development of the five fast fashion brands.

From the brand development strategy, the brand development policy is different.

The most active development of the three tier cities in 2014 was UNIQLO and H&M; the expansion strategy of ZARA obviously shifted to the second tier cities; nearly 60% new stores chose to enter second tier cities; while C&A and GAP were at all levels.

There are sporadic expansion and steady performance.

In the face of the strong growth of China's online shopping market, the five fast fashion brands accelerated the "electric shock" step in 2014.

In addition to self built online sales platform, ZARA and C&A chose to enter Tmall in 2014; H&M self built online shopping platform was also formally launched; GAP joined Jingdong.

In addition, other international fast fashion brands also do not fall behind, such as TOPSHOP settled in Shang pin net and Tmall, NEW LOOK entered Tmall, and actively expand online sales channels.

On the other hand, the fast fashion sub line brand expands continuously, and the international fast fashion brand that has entered China has also chosen to make efforts in 2014.

Taking OLD NAVY and NEW LOOK as an example, the first year of entering China opened 7 new stores and 17 stores respectively.

It is estimated that in 2015, the five fast fashion brands will maintain a steady pace of opening stores, and gradually adjust their expansion strategies to choose stores in non core business circles and two or three tier cities in the first tier cities.