UNIQLO Wants To Make Personalized Fashion To Go Farther And Farther.

The Ming plan is a new logistics center opened by UNIQLO in October 2015 near the Tokyo Olympic Stadium in 2020, when the 3.6 logistics center was designed to close the experience gap between physical stores and online shopping: for example, clothes tested by customers are out of stock, and if they are ordered online, they may have arrived at home when they arrive home.

A UNIQLO manager confirmed that the plan includes what Ryui Masa calls "semi customization": in the case of some basic templates of UNIQLO, consumers can do some collocation and personalized processing, place orders, and then order the goods directly to consumers.

Ryui Masa, chairman and chief executive officer of Fast Retailing Limited (UNIQLO parent company), decided to first express his views on the clothing industry before more than 100 media outlets from 18 markets showed 2016 new years of autumn and winter.

"I am thinking about what the future of clothing will become.

UNIQLO may provide semi customized products.

In the past, our clothes were sent from factories to stores, which might be delivered to customers in the future, and they were carefully designed products.

There is still excess production in the clothing industry, but this is still a promising industry.

If we want to change the way we communicate with customers, we need to change the industry first. "

The speech is over.

Reporters asked questions about UNIQLO's challenges, international strategies and so on.

No one mentioned anything about "semi customization". Even after the subsequent talks about the "Ming Ming plan", no one asked what the so-called "future of the clothing industry" had to do with what Ryui Masa said.

The Ming plan is a new logistics center opened by UNIQLO in October 2015 near the Tokyo Olympic Stadium in 2020, when the 3.6 logistics center was designed to close the experience gap between physical stores and online shopping: for example, clothes tested by customers are out of stock, and if they are ordered online, they may have arrived at home when they arrive home.

A UNIQLO manager confirmed that the plan includes what Ryui Masa calls "semi customization": in the case of some basic templates of UNIQLO, consumers can do some collocation and personalized processing, place orders, and then order the goods directly to consumers.

There may be some changes in the clothing industry: Nike has just announced the launch of a new Nike+ App in the first 2 months of the semi customization of UNIQLO, which allows customers to order goods beforehand.

Nike CEO Mark Parker said at the time: "in the next 10 years, the most likely innovation in the industry is personalized products.

Not only do you make changes and innovations in terms of function and aesthetics, but also include new ways of production that we can't do today.

In theory, on the 25 th day of May 2016, UNIQLO became the second garment production giant that announced the reshaping of the industrial process (although it was an informal gesture), but no one was concerned about this. Or, UNIQLO had more important things to get people's attention.

"Many people think we are big and successful. They are a successful international brand.

But no, we have done business all over the world, but you have to ask Americans if they know what UNIQLO stands for. They do not know; ask the Chinese whether they know it or not.

We have a lot of talent to play.

If someone says to me again, "you are successful," I will say, "thank you, we still have a long way to go."

These words came from John Jay, who took over as global creative president in 2014.

As a former Wieden + Kennedy partner, a creative person serving Nike, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, John Jay said that these words seem familiar.

He is good at using a pragmatic tone to remind people that the giant of UNIQLO still has entrepreneurial enthusiasm. Liu Jing is probably saying, "the idea of a leader is not achieved overnight." John Jay dared to say to more than 100 media: "the growth of UNIQLO in the past is not a real growth."

The task of John Jay is to help Ryui Masasai's global target consumers know more about UNIQLO, and even generate brand dependence on the basis of understanding.

He wants to instil not only the value of UNIQLO, but also the aesthetics of UNIQLO.

John's wisdom is that before people ask that question, he first asks the question: who is UNIQLO?

With regard to the role of UNIQLO, Liu Jing has been talking about all kinds of media in his interviews over the years: 2010 years ago, "UNIQLO is not a fashion company, but a technology company", and its only competitor is apple, not Gap.

In 2015, UNIQLO frequently referred to the international market, and claimed that the experience gained from sub brand GU was to establish "price leadership" and "fashion leadership" simultaneously.

In fact, no matter how he describes it, people's cognition of UNIQLO is largely based on basic cost and cost performance.

Ryui Masa spent huge efforts to build up the trade barriers, which is becoming an obstacle for him to further enhance the added value of the brand.

In China, after "popular temperament" became popular, it was once the best annotation of the level of UNIQLO collocation.

Even Ryui Masa himself could not tell what kind of fashion interests UNIQLO could offer consumers.

"We do not absorb all fashion trends," he told CNN in 2015.

Regarded as fashion parts...

Clothes need not have individuality. Instead, customers who choose clothes must have their own personality.

Mashup is to enjoy the fashionable Xinle interest.

This is undoubtedly a very high demand for target consumers. For competitors including H&M, ZARA, and so on, designers will immediately launch highly similar products after the designer's brand show. Keeping up with fashion elements is the key to winning, but UNIQLO does not provide them. Before 2014 years, it doesn't even provide much fashion reference. If a few limited flagship stores are not seen, even the mannequin models of stores are limited.

Beginning in 2014, UNIQLO began to reorganize its management team and tried to bring about changes in the company from a diversified perspective. For example, J rgen Andersson Andersson was selected as the global joint CMO from H&M, such as hiring Street trend Godfather NIGO as the creative director of UT series. Recently, the KAWS led by the latter led to a sales boom, and China alone brought billions of dollars in sales.

Also in 2014, UNIQLO restarted the +J cooperation series, which is a selection of its previous collaboration with minimalist designer Jil Sander.

In the same year, the cooperation with the French model Ines, was officially opened.

By 2015, there were more Carine and Lemaire in the list of UNIQLO's cooperation.

All these bring the topic and the flow of people to the brand.

People can vaguely perceive UNIQLO's attempt in fashion, but this perception is so vague that it is not enough to cover the price.

Psychological set-up.

It has not mentioned the "2020 plan" for a long time.

According to the original plan, the sales volume of UNIQLO in 2020 should reach US $50 billion, at least 1000 stores in China (now nearly 2 times), and become the largest clothing retailer in the world.

But by the 2015 fiscal year, XXX's annual sales volume is less than $20 billion.

H&M's sales volume is about $23 billion, while Zara's parent company Inditex is $25 billion (converted at the same exchange rate).

Their sales increased by 15% and 19% respectively, while the stores were 2.3 times faster than the fast selling group and 1.3 times.

The most mature market of UNIQLO is Japan and China.

In these two countries, the total number of stores in UNIQLO is over 1200, accounting for 70% of the total number of stores in the world.

In the 2015 fiscal year, Chinese consumers contributed more than half of the sales to UNIQLO overseas market.

But in addition to the Asian market, UNIQLO's overseas expansion has hardly been successful.

We once wrote about "why Americans do not like UNIQLO", but in Europe, UNIQLO has only entered the 9 market at present.

In these countries, UNIQLO also faces the problem of "who am I".

Fashion and cross-border cultural cooperation have become the most rational way to establish relationships.

In October 2015, on the first day of "Uniqlo and Lemaire" on sale, some of the stores in New York sold off products.

Fashionista, a fashion media reporter, wrote after the media's advance sale that she just chatted a lot with the people of UNIQLO, and her size disappeared on the shelf.

In the UK, UNIQLO even pushed fashion to the cusp.

The UT series jointly launched by Liberty London, a local luxury department store, is officially called "integration of the past and the future, creating a brave new fashion crossover".

The key is to identify the trend of the local market.

The Liberty Series in China is nothing more than a pile of flowers, but in London it is a top trend department store.

In March 18, 2016,

London flagship store is reopened.

UNIQLO briefly opened the store in 2007 years, but was too unfamiliar with the British market and was forced to close.

Now, in order to arouse the market fever, UNIQLO has released campaign "This Way to Utopia" locally, which is composed of several modern dance performers dancing in the local railway platforms, parks and other places.

In this shop, the retro industrial wind and the dead flying bike are paired together with a huge cartoon mural on the outside wall of the designer, Jean Jullien, who has different appearance, complexion and different identities, presenting the cultural diversity of London.

All of these scenes appeared in the live video before the 25 day May autumn and Winter Conference.

In repeated images, UNIQLO shows its active presence in many countries - the role they want to play.

He has worked in UNIQLO for 11 years, and has led the cooperation with Heatech company of Dongli company. UNIQLO's technical fabric development is almost under his control.

Before joining UNIQLO, he was a buyer of many department stores such as Podolf Goodman, Tokyo and Barneys in New York. He had been working on the design of UNIQLO 2011 years ago when Takizawa Nao, who had already dug up Lssey Miyake as director of design.

The designer and artist cooperation series that brings the topic to UNIQLO is actually a complicated division of labor.

For example, Katsuda Yukihiro, who has strong design partners with Lemaire, will be responsible for the design. The latter is better at controlling the fabric than the designer himself, while the creative person like Ines has worked with him to realize the details of the design, and Ines is responsible for providing a sense of life.

As for KAWS, it is directly called Content in UNIQLO, and is responsible for NIGO.

But UNIQLO will not publish these details, and they will unify the concept of "Lifewear (life dress)".

According to Takizawa Naomi, UNIQLO does not want to classify clothing according to the functions and prices of sports, leisure, formal clothing, such as sports department, department store, etc.

At the same time, "as a company that produces orders of 1000 million, UNIQLO provides clothing for people who are not so concerned about fashion, so that they can also be in the right fashion."

After all kinds of statements by Ryui Masa, "Lifewear" is the latest definition of self given by UNIQLO.

You may also see such an attempt from their scene display, but there are still too many variables from the booth to the store.

Katsuda Yukihiro's idealization of Lifewear is more idealistic.

He thinks that the store mode based on mass production can only solve the problem of efficiency, but to adapt to today's personalized needs, stores must establish communication with consumers.

Ideally, each store can set up suitable local business characteristics while maintaining brand consistency.

What Sheng Tian may not know is that this is the retail reform initiated by Nike CEO Mark Parker after taking office. The preferences of the surrounding people determine the properties of Nike's sales stores, for example, the stores in Sanlitun, Beijing, and the stores next to a university in Shanghai can be completely different.