WHO.A.U Shop In China Desperately, Fast Fashion Learning Is Still Very Fast.

With ZARA, H&M, UNIQLO and other brands entering China, the market of traditional clothing brands, including clothing and love, has been rapidly occupied by these fast fashion brands, especially those facing young people.

In mid 2013, the clothing and Chinese cooperation company reorganized its fashion brand and divided it into the traditional fashion department and the fast fashion department.

In December 4th, WHO.A.U, the brand of clothing and love group, was going to open seventy-sixth stores in China in Qingdao.

From 2008 entry to China to 8 years in July this year, WHO.A.U has 65 stores in China.

However, since July, WHO.A.U has added 10 stores and will continue to shop crazily for some time to come.

"We plan to open 70 new stores by the end of 2017," he said.

Li Long, the WHO.A.U brand of clothing and love, told the interface news.

In South Korea, clothing and love is a clothing dominated, Integrated Company across the time, such as retail department stores, catering restaurants and real estate development.

In 1994, clothing and love were set up in China.

When the fast fashion brand has not yet arrived in China, ELAND and Teenie Weenie, which are attracted by a lot of young people, have become the fastest growing main brands in China.

But with ZARA, H&M, UNIQLO and other brands entering China, the market of traditional clothing brands, including clothing and love, is rapidly occupied by these fast fashion brands, especially those facing young people.

Style, price and even shop decoration...

The tastes of Chinese consumers are becoming more and more critical.

The clothes and love groups do not want to be synonymous with aging. It is better to try than to wait for death.

In mid 2013, the clothing and Chinese cooperation company reorganized its fashion brand and divided it into the traditional fashion department and the fast fashion department.

The newly opened fast fashion business includes three brands: WHO.A.U, Spao and Mixxo.

Traditional fashion brands still focus on traditional department store channels, while the brand that is assigned to the fast fashion department aims at changing the Chinese market and focusing on training shopping center channels.

"Clothing and love" strategy has always been centered around department stores, but recently it is found that department stores are worth less.

Instead, shopping mall's format is improving and there is still a chance.

So this year our new stores are located in shopping mall, and the results and benefits are quite obvious.

Li Long said.

This is also the reason why clothing and love set up fast fashion brands at that time.

Different channels, the overall mode of operation is very different.

The operation of commodities, personnel management and brand promotion are different, and new business units are needed to operate.

However, although the fast fashion department was established in 2013, it did not really change until this year.

The group thinks that the price performance of WHO.A.U, SKU, and so on, are more in line with the young people's preferences. It is decided to first pform the brand which is the main leisure style in California.

The difference between traditional clothing brands and fast fashion brands is not just the number of stores.

A comprehensive pformation, from the visible part, first of all is the store design and product updates.

WHO.A.U now targets young people aged 20-30, mainly college students and young white-collar workers, so new stores are also selected in the stores that target groups like to patronize. They are brighter in decoration than in the past, adding some functional ornaments that meet customers' needs, and specially invite Chen Li Shi to be responsible for commodity display.

The area of shops is bigger. The original WHO.A.U area is usually below 400 square meters, but now the new stores are 500-1000 square meters, and they are close to ZARA and UNIQLO.

SKU (commodity category) also doubled, about 4000-5000.

Traditionally, according to tradition

Business, usually a quarterly order, clothing renewal cycle will be the fastest one month, but now WHO.A.U will increase the overall frequency to every two weeks, a comprehensive update.

This speed is far from the real fast fashion brand ZARA and so on, but Li Long said the brand is working hard to improve the supply chain.

Like many fast fashion brands, WHO.A.U also divides its products into basic and popular fashions, of which 60% are basic and 40% fashionable.

"Clothing and love are mainly overseas production, and some regular orders are carried out overseas.

But now we have set up a southern commodity development center in China to produce fashionable money on the mainland. These products are only 5 days from ordering, producing to selling in stores.

So we have 40% of the goods can be updated 5 days.

Li Long said.

The South commodity development center was set up in Guangzhou last year, because WHO.A.U also entered the Taiwan and Hongkong markets last year, and has just entered the Malaysia market in November this year. The new center will be used to serve the entire Greater China market, and will also specially design some products for the Greater China region.

In order to support the renewal of goods, the clothing and love group has a team of 25 designers for WHO.A.U, of which 15 are responsible for designing women's clothing and 10 for men's wear.

Women's clothing and men's clothing accounted for 60% and 40% of WHO.A.U respectively. Among them, women's clothing also included accessories and other special products.

These designers are all Koreans.

In order to keep up with the trend, design clothes that conform to the "American California style" and avoid the style of "Korean wave". They are required to work in different parts of the country, such as working in the United States for 3 months in a year, 3 months in Korea, and 3 months in China.

Just like UNIQLO's main Japanese Foundation, GAP's American style.

WHO.A.U must also identify its brand style and leave a deeper brand impression on consumers.

Li Long told the interface reporter that the brand characteristic is the American California style. The main products are all kinds of sweaters, which is also the best selling brand.

"I hope people will mention that WHO.A.U is the first thing that comes to mind."

Li Long said.

At present, the target market of WHO.A.U is still concentrated in the second tier cities. It has just opened stores in Tianjin, Shenyang, Chengdu and Chongqing.

Although the fast fashion brands that have taken root in China have become saturated in these big cities, they have begun to sink to the three or four tier cities. However, Li Long believes that WHO.A.U has no chance in a second tier city.

"First of all, the differentiation of products. Our California leisure style is different from other brands, and it is also constantly improving the product cost performance. We also set up the South commodity center to design products for the Chinese market.

And the satisfaction of our first party shopping center to our brand is also in the upper and middle level.

Li Long said.

For a second tier shopping mall, Ping efficiency is a very important indicator.

Li Long told reporters that in terms of Ping efficiency, WHO.A.U has been better than UNIQLO in the northern market, while in the East and Southern China markets, the single store efficiency can also be equal to that of UNIQLO.

In addition to the quantity and speed of updates,

Pricing has begun to match H&M and other brands.

At present, the average price of WHO.A.U products in spring and summer is less than 200 yuan, while in autumn and winter it is 250-300 yuan, and T-shirts and other single products can be as low as 59 yuan, which has dropped by 30%-40% compared with the price that just entered China.

"Our price has dropped, but the production of garments has not been simplified, so the quality has not changed. It only compresses the profits of our entire brand."

Li Long emphasized in particular.

To this end, the Korea Companies has to save money in other areas in addition to pursuing "small profits but quick turnover".

The first thing to do is to optimize production from the source. Due to the pition to fast fashion, the order quantity of WHO.A.U has increased a lot in a short time. Therefore, we must make adjustments in fabric purchase, invoice processing, production line and warehousing and logistics.

WHO.A.U60%'s regular basic commodities are produced overseas, and these products will also choose Chinese factories before, but now they are mainly in Malaysia, Vietnam and India, because their overall cost is much lower than that in China.

At present, about 30% of WHO.A.U's production is handed over to the foundry factory. The future goal is to achieve 100% self production, so that it can also shorten the production line and reduce the cost.

But today's WHO.A.U can not be said to be a real fast fashion brand. It has a long way to reach the standards of ZARA and other brands.