Why Does UNIQLO Fail To Recruit Americans?

In the tenth year of the American land, UNIQLO still failed to earn American money.

CEO Liu, who has always been confident, is unable to sit still.

In the 8 month of this year, he spent a lot of money on the full page advertisement in the New York Times paper version, and bought the most advertised place on the top and the most prominent position of the newspaper home page, and wrote a letter to the United States.

Such a practice does not conform to the low-key style of UNIQLO's past in the United States.

What's in the letter? We'll come back later.

One question must be understood first: is Ryui Masa's own anxiety about UNIQLO's indetermination? Or is UNIQLO really unable to decide the United States?

The calendar goes back three years.

In 2012, Ryui Masa announced the "2020 plan" of UNIQLO.

According to this plan, the annual sales of UNIQLO in the US in 2020 will reach 100 billion US dollars, and the annual global sales will reach US $50 billion.

According to the report of the 2015 fiscal year of the fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company (September 2014 - 2015, 8 months), the total sales volume of the group in the latest year was 16817 billion yen (13 billion 800 million US dollars), less than half of the planned sales in 2020.

In the same year, UNIQLO's sales in Greater China exceeded 304 billion 400 million yen (US $2 billion 500 million), an increase of 46.3% over the same period last year.

It also opened 165 stores in the world, and the total number of stores in the international market reached 798.

In Europe, although the performance of UNIQLO has yet to be improved, Liu well and senior executives are satisfied, describing it as "beyond expectations".

Its performance in South Korea and Australia is also higher than expected, and its performance in Southeast Asia has increased steadily.

But when it comes to America, pride is gone.

"In fiscal year 2015, UNIQLO's US performance did not meet expectations, and losses increased."

The clothing retail market in the United States is very fierce. The traditional fashion brands include American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel, etc. there are Zara, H&M and Forever21 in fast fashion.

Whether they are the former or the latter, as long as they sell a certain amount of basic funds, they can be considered as competitors of UNIQLO.

At first glance, UNIQLO's brand from far away is not competitive.

If you really think so, that just proves the other problem of UNIQLO (in China, also in the US): brand marketing does not match the added value of products.

The UT series of UNIQLO did accumulate fans in New York and San Francisco, but making money by selling t-shirts is not Ryui Masa's ambition.

In fact, from the very beginning of the fleece, to the present Heattech and AIRism, these are the most proud and technological content of UNIQLO.

UNIQLO claims that the Heattech fiber can react to the moisture emitted by the body, and turn the water vapor into heat to achieve the thermal insulation effect. AIRism series is made of very fine fibers, which can absorb sweat quickly and is suitable for summer.

These are the values that distinguish UNIQLO from other brands in the United States.

But it did not show this to American consumers.

"In the United States, Heattech and AIRism are not yet household names.

Even if its technology is high, the American consumers do not know.

Because it has never introduced itself. "

Connie Wang, fashion director of lifestyle media Refinery29, told us in the mail.

According to Wang, UNIQLO's advertisements in America are too many words and explanatory descriptions, which are not humorous enough to cause illusions.

It's not sexy enough.

"For American consumers who do not know this brand, this kind of advertising is very confusing."

She said.

XXX did not disclose the amount of loss in UNIQLO's US market.

But according to Goldman Sachs analyst Sho Kawano, in the last fiscal year, the loss of UNIQLO in the US could reach 8400 US $10 million, which will last until the 2016 fiscal year.

UNIQLO did run into trouble in the US market.

Unfortunately, in terms of the current performance of the US market, UNIQLO is unlikely to complete its plan in 2020.

Is it possible that the fast fashion industry in the United States is out of order?

This is not the case.

In fiscal year 2014 (February 2014 - January 2015), the sales of Zara parent Inditex's brand in the US market amounted to 27 billion US dollars (exceeding UNIQLO's sales in Greater China in fiscal 2015), accounting for 14% of total sales.

H&M is a safe winner. In the three quarter of 2015, its total sales in the US market increased by 22% compared to the same period last year, and the total number of stores reached 381.

Nearly 10 times.

It can be said that the confidence of UNIQLO when it first entered the US market is derived from the great momentum of these flagship stores, and it does not have a long-term nature.

And until now, they are still looking for "how to introduce themselves accurately".

"The most important thing is how we can show our brand to our customers, our company and our products.

I don't think we have done that yet. "

"Business of Fashion," creative director of UNIQLO, said in an interview with business blog.

"Modern Japan" is an indispensable inspiration theme in all the flagship stores of UNIQLO.

Misaki Sato, the creative director of UNIQLO, was planning the design of UNIQLO's flagship store in the world. He looked at contemporary Tokyo as a necessary element in these retail stores.

But do American consumers like these elements from the east? Such qualitative questions are not easy to answer.

However, there is a logical interpretation of "from Japan": Japanese brands mean "high technology" and "high price", which is a relatively unified understanding of American consumers.

SONY and Lexus, which are both brilliant for a while, have instilled this connection.

Those things that are not so closely related to technology are also famous in the US, such as Japanese restaurants.

Therefore, in the American imagination, UNIQLO should be expensive, so ordinary consumers avoid it.

Consumers who don't care much about price expect UNIQLO to be high-tech, but they don't understand how they can play high technology.

"People think UNIQLO's clothes are expensive."

New York Star Asian chef, David Chang, told New York Times.

"That's because there is no UNIQLO in them, such as Texas.

They thought this (men's V collar sweater) cost 250 dollars, but actually it's less than 100 yuan.

Over the past 10 years, the parent company of UNIQLO has been thinking of buying American department stores and American brands.

In 2007, it offered $900 million to buy Barneys, a department store, and failed.

In 2014, the news of the acquisition of J. Crew was raging, and finally ended.

In 2009, XXX successfully acquired minority brand Theory, but this did not bring about changes in UNIQLO's US market.

In the process of expansion in Asia and Europe, Theory has many unsolved problems.

In addition to positioning, marketing, brand cooperation, and the stereotype of American consumers on Japanese brands, there are many other problems that also make UNIQLO play a leading role in the United States.

For example, its

It's not fashionable, though fashion is not the pursuit of UNIQLO.

"Senior executives have realized that more efforts should be made to educate consumers in the United States and tell them who UNIQLO is."

Wang, who had interviewed Liu Jing Zheng, told the curiosity daily.

"They realized that they made mistakes when they first entered the western market, but they are more confident about the future."

Errors in the Wang port should also be considered in terms of the size and detail design of the product.

In the United States, 3-4 people are obese and have different body sizes than Asians.

UNIQLO, who has always had no waist, thinks that its basic clothing is large enough, but underestimates that Americans are fatter, fatter, fatter and fatter.

It needs to design different editions for this purpose, and the cost will also increase.

Product size labeling is also a problem.

In Asia, clothing sizes are mostly marked by letters (XS, S, M, L, etc.) while Americans are used to digital annotation (0, 2, 4, 6, etc.).

In the official website and store of UNIQLO, many commodity size labels still use the letters used by Asian consumers, which adds to the United States.

The psychological cost of choosing goods.

There is also a problem that has already been created by misery but big mistake: in 2005, before the Fifth Avenue and 34 Street flagship store in New York, UNIQLO opened three stores in New Jersey town with a population of less than 10 hectares. They were the earliest stores built by UNIQLO in the United States, all hidden in department stores.

Finding this kind of ghosts is like taking Jiading first in Shanghai and finding water in Tongzhou in Beijing.

In fact, it wants to learn Gap and take the pro citizen route, but it has forgotten the American temperament and local advantages of Gap as its brand.

American department stores are the most serious homogenization of shops, which is not good for UNIQLO to highlight their Japanese temperament, while consumers in small cities have lower acceptance of foreign things than in metropolitan areas.

Up to now, nearly 30 stores in UNIQLO are hiding in department stores in these small cities, all of which are "historical problems" left behind in their early years. They continue to consume the energy and financial resources of UNIQLO in the United States.

2015 is almost over. This leaves less than 5 years for the ambitious UNIQLO to realize its 2020 plan.

Maybe it shouldn't have seen this deadline so much. For this brand like a monster in Asia, how to recover the giant's feet and step by step to consolidate every step in the US market is the most important thing at this moment.

Liu well is also aware of this.

He decided to slow down the pace of opening up in the US market because his previous expansion was not smooth.

In the past year, UNIQLO has opened 17 new stores in the United States, and next year it plans to open only 5 homes.

However, Ryui Masa is still in a hurry. "We need to focus on fast selling resources and get the US market as early as possible," he wrote in his annual report.