Clothing Buyer Shops Continue To Emerge Or Become New Challenges For E-Commerce Providers.

Clothing buyer shop reality and ideal

The business model has been brought into the mainland by Hongkong's lac Crawford in the 90s of last century, and its consumption habits are becoming more and more mature, so that small and medium-sized buyer shops have sprung up in recent years.

Shopkeepers are optimistic about the future of the buyer's shop, but it's not easy to make achievements.

Guan Dian

After moving the last batch of clothing to the storage room of his own home, Li Huaqi ended his career as a shopkeeper for more than a year.

Li Huaqi was born in Hongkong. She was 12 years old and went to Shanghai with her parents. She began to study in London at the age of 18. She returned to Shanghai at the age of 24 and decided to start her own business.

Though learning fashion design at school, she has little interest in being a designer.

"I want to concentrate all kinds of good designs together and pass the same grade design to consumers."

She told the new financial reporter.

In her view, the clothing buyer shop is "the best way to realize my ideal".

Although the business model of the buyer shop entered the mainland market very early, it did not operate at first.

French buyer's department store, Lord Buddha, failed to explore the Chinese market in 1997, and Hongkong's well-known buyer's department store, which specializes in brand fashion, accessories and fashion products, also shut down the mainland stores in 2006, because consumers are unwilling to pay for unfamiliar designer brands and perform poorly.

"This situation has changed in 2013, and many buying department stores began to race in the mainland because the market began to mature."

Li Huaqi believes that, especially in an open city like Shanghai, "I think the time is up."

In December 25, 2013, Li Huaqi's shop opened.

She thinks that the most important thing for a buyer's shop is the appreciation of the shopkeeper's beauty, that is, she is most proud of it.

But after opening the shop, she found that only good positioning is far from enough.

The products in her shop are all designer brands and the latest European models.

In order to reduce costs, she mainly worked with some unnamed designers in China to help them sell the latest season products, so that the unsalable goods could be returned to designers at the end of the season.

But such a less famous designer brand can not attract consumers very well.

Coupled with the latest European arrival rate problem has not been well resolved, "some people who have come because of poor consumption experience and no next consumption."

After more than a year's persistence, Li Huaqi finally gave up.

She was ashamed to mention her own loss, but felt that she had tried it and stopped it in time. More importantly, she had some experience and lessons: "in addition to having a clear idea of what products the store needs and having good market sensitivity, it is not enough. As an operator, you must be able to predict when and how to sell products, and whether the arrival time of overseas goods affects consumption experience."

Li Huaqi said she just wanted to quit for a while.

Wait for myself to accumulate some experience, "and when the market is more mature, maybe I will try again."

A senior manager of a women's clothing company in Shanghai told the new financial reporter that in the past two or three years, there are many small and medium-sized buyer shops in different locations such as Xinle road in Shanghai. Some of them can barely maintain, and others may be more difficult.

When he breaks, he often goes to these stores to have a look, hoping to learn something different.

"Some shops have very distinctive decoration, but the tonal quality of clothing and accessories is not uniform, and some of them are not up to date. I have also seen consumers comparing the price of clothes in a buyer's shop with the prices in the mall. In fact, this is very irrational, because the products and services provided by the two are different."

He believes that as long as one thing is not done well, it will be maintained unless there is a long-term stable cash flow.

In Yang Dayun, President of UTA Fashion Management Group, China, the most important problem faced by small and medium-sized buyer shops is the rapid response of the supply chain.

"If you can't produce locally or you can't solve the supply chain problems in a simple and quick way, they will be more difficult to survive."

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Expansion

Compared to Li Huaqi, who has had some experience in clothing brand operation, Yao Qin is full of confidence in his buyer's shop.

He was once a regional manager of a famous men's clothing company in China. He realized that the development of single brand channel mode was becoming more and more difficult in the early years.

In his view, the whole consumption pattern has changed.

"I was originally dressed in clothing, but also combined with some fast fashion brand's operation experience, and finally decided to open a buyer's shop."

He told the new financial reporter.

Preparations began in August 2012, and two buyers, h+, opened in Hangzhou in February 14th this year.

According to him, the buyer shop is mainly to make female micro department stores (clothing, accessories, home, female education, etc.), pay attention to the price performance of products, the consumer group positioning in the 20-35 year old women, clothing category accounts for about 35% of the whole product.

About 20 stores are expected to open in 2015, mainly in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

In contrast to the northern market, Wang Rui is also trying to improve the quality of his buyer's shop.

Before opening a buyer's shop, Wang Rui worked in the cultural industry, made his own record, and took part in the singer's talent show.

"Because I personally like to wear it, and I have taken some advertising with some brands. When I have these experiences, I have some resources, and I know how big this part of the consumer group is, I choose to be a buyer shop, which opened in October last year."

He told the new financial reporter.

In his view, such a consumption mode of buyer shops is one of the future channels, "this is business opportunities."

Wang Rui's store DLC in Tianjin Joy City, for the trend of the market, to consumers to make some boutique recommendations, mainly men's clothing, combined with related products.

"The target audience is a college student who has a certain purchasing power and a white-collar worker who has just worked, and a person who has his own opinions on fashion."

Wang Rui is more willing to cooperate with domestic designer brands rather than pick mature international brands, because "the former has more vitality and value, and is more suitable for the domestic population to wear and consume.

And everyone is familiar with the big international cards. I would like to make use of my resources and abilities to make recommendations for everyone.

Whether Yao Qin or Wang Rui, their biggest advantage is to buy a shop before they have mastered a large number of related resources, and thus pformed into a strong supply chain advantage.

Yao Qin knows the difference from being a traditional brand executive to buying a buyer's shop.

"The traditional brand is basically the product of winter products in the autumn, and the sooner the order is one or two months ahead of schedule.

And for the buyer's shop, especially the most clothing store, must meet the needs of the season, do a good job in the supply chain integration.

Yao Qin's store has 20% international original products, and their buyers in Europe can meet the purchase of these products.

"There will be some old customers needing parts.

We will also make some purchases in Europe according to the requirements, so as to cope with the changes in their needs and be flexible.

What Wang Rui wants to build is a boutique selling shop on line and online, giving advice to those who have their own ideas.

He had been working in Beijing for a long time. Instead of being tall in Beijing or Shanghai, he had a bigger dream: "we want to use our buyer's shop to drive the trend of the city, so that more Tianjin friends will understand what the products and ideas are like in Tianjin."

In the future, the shops of Yao Qin and Wang Rui will expand, at least now they plan so, because they are all praised in the bottom of their hearts for the future of the buyer's shop.

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Space

The buyer's shop originated in Europe in the 60s of last century, and only entered the mainland market more than 30 years later.

But with the pursuit of individuation in recent years, these large department stores are not easy.

In December last year, Wu Zongen, President and chief executive officer of LCF group, had publicly stated that "the Greater China market is changing rapidly, the luxury market is becoming more mature, and the new middle class with superior taste is growing rapidly, bringing new opportunities for development beyond the existing retail business".

Positioning high-end high-end lac Crawford began to pform the middle class.

In addition, the Hongkong I.T group, which was founded in 1988, released its 2013/2014 fiscal year results at the end of 2, although its overall turnover rose slightly, but its net profit fell by 27.3% compared with the previous fiscal year.

In order to solve the supply chain problem, I.T group set up the only sales and distribution center in mainland China in Zhangpu Town, Kunshan, Jiangsu in February 19th.

A long-time concern of the large buyer department stores told the new financial reporter that the situation of Lian Crawford is special.

"Because it sells mainly known luxury goods, in recent one or two years, some consumers no longer pursue the symbol of luxury symbols, and the impact of national policies has led to a bad situation."

But in any case, more and more consumers begin to shift their attention from famous brands to small and medium buyer shops with distinctive personality and precise positioning. "This group of customers wants unique and exclusive experience."

The industry said that with the increase in the purchasing power of the middle class, the number of consumers will also increase.

Yang has been engaged in the fashion industry for a long time. He believes that now is the era of personalized pursuit. Many consumers want to buy clothes that not everyone can buy, but "design features and cost-effective."

Ms. Wang of Tianjin is the HR director of a foreign company. She expressed her recent purchase of clothing to new financial reporters.

She remembered that she was proud to wear a Burberry basic windbreaker five or six years ago. "Now I don't care much about brands. Some designer brands may not be famous at all, but they are very suitable for me, and the price is not so expensive, so I will buy them."

Indeed, when consumers become more and more mature, they start to cram LOGO from the craziness to pursue quality, personalization and niche products.

Yang Dayun believes that from this perspective, small and medium-sized buyer shops have room for survival.

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In the process of preparing buyer's shop, Yao Qin has already realized the change of consumption concept after 80 and 90.

He admits that when he was a senior manager of the menswear brand area, most of his energy was spent on the brand. "Because we win by brand, but the buyer shop is a commodity winner. The new consumer group may not care about your brand, but care about the design, style and price of the product."

He believes that in the future, the market of buyer shops will be bigger and bigger, and even the share of some traditional brands will be grabbed.

"Because one of the advantages of a buyer's shop is that it can change the style of the product to suit the latest needs according to the different fashion trends in the market, but it is very difficult for the traditional brand to make such a rapid change."

He firmly believes that the buyer's shop will be a major trend in the future garment industry, which is different from traditional brands in terms of channels, products, supply chains and so on.

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