2016 First Half Year Fast Fashion Brand Expansion Inventory And Trend Analysis

Since the beginning of 2016, pessimism has been flooding the whole world.

Industry,

Wait for a crowd

Deep in the dilemma of double decline in net performance and frequent closes.

But even under such circumstances, the fast fashion brands are still accelerating their pace to launch a new round of layout.

According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2016, the 15 fast fashion brands including UNIQLO, ZARA, H&M and so on had 145 stores, which had a gradual slowdown compared with the expansion rate in previous years.

Among them, UNIQLO opened 31 stores, H&M opened 24 stores, and ZARA opened 6 stores, while Gap only opened 2 new businesses.

Fast fashion brand development

From the number of stores, UNIQLO was the same as the first half of last year, and still maintained the pace of rapid expansion, leading the whole industry to 31 stores. H&M followed 24 stores, but compared to its original plan to open 60-80 new stores in China this year, there is still a certain distance from the target. KM is the largest black horse in 18 stores.

From the perspective of geographical distribution, under the condition that the layout of the first tier city stores is basically saturated, the sales channels of fast fashion brands are becoming more diversified, and the opening path has gradually spread from one tier city to the three or four tier cities. Xiangyang, Xining and Zhenjiang have become the "new Heights" of brand looting.

It is worth noting that with the rise of local brands such as KM and UR, the fast fashion industry is no longer a foreign brand.

According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2016, domestic fast fashion brands represented KM, UR and so on, which opened 37 stores, accounting for 25% of the 15 fast fashion brands in the first half of the year.

Three trends in fast fashion industry in the first half of 2016

In addition, under the influence of multiple factors such as China's economic slowdown, social values change and market competition intensification, the development of fast fashion brands also shows three major trends.

Trend 1: warm winter is no longer a record of 2016.

Although the pace of store expansion has not stopped, fast fashion industry is no longer known as warm winter.

According to the relevant earnings data released by various brands in 2016, the performance of Gap, H&M, UNIQLO and other fast fashion giants continued to decline.

Among them, Sweden's fast fashion retailer H&M was in a quagmire in the first half of the year, and profits plunged 21.5% to 7 billion 900 million Swedish kronor (about 945 million 500 thousand US dollars).

Gap Inc revenue forecast in the first quarter showed that sales in April dropped from US $1 billion 210 million in the same period last year to US $1 billion 120 million, and sales in the first quarter dropped from US $3 billion 660 million to US $3 billion 440 million.

In the wake of the "bad news" of competitors, UNIQLO's fast selling group also had a bad start. In the 6 months ended February 29, 2016, the net profit of fast selling group fell 55.1%, and UNIQLO's overseas market profit fell 31.4%.

It is understood that this is also the first half year net profit decline of XXX group in the past 5 years.

Trend two: the cold wave has hit the "nightmare".

With the decline of performance, a wave of wave of shops has begun to attack the whole fast fashion industry, and the biggest action is Gap.

Last year, Gap planned to close more than 1/4 retail chains of the same name. This year, it announced that it will close 75 Old Navy and Banana Republic stores outside North America, including all the 53 Old Navy outlets in Japan.

UNIQLO, too, has repeatedly shut down under the pressure of profit cut. Its US market closed 5 stores in January alone.

The old fast fashion Mango also plans to close the 450 department stores in 2016. The already struggling brand will be left behind in the Chinese market by the end of this year.

In addition, Forever 21, a fast fashion brand in the US, is also unable to escape its "fate". Since its announcement in early April, it has withdrawn from the Scotland market and has been losing ground in the British Isles, trying to reduce the area of its UK market.

Trend three: speed up the pformation and sacrifice "killer mace".

In the situation of declining performance and frequent shutting down, the industry can not escape the dilemma of being "collective". In order to highlight the tight encirclement, all the fast fashion brands have been offering "killer mace", such as streamlining business, price war, finding new ways and so on, in order to turn the tide.

According to US media, fast marketing group is planning to pform UNIQLO into the direction of high quality clothing brand, get rid of the fast fashion brand image that only focuses on fashion trends, focus on the design and production of high quality clothing, and draw a line with the fast fashion brands such as H&M, ZARA and TOPSHOP.

Its rival H&M is also not to be outdone, focusing on channel integration, and trying a set of online and offline integration programs, including online ordering, store picking, shop online return and scan code purchase.

Among them, online ordering and picking up goods are still being tested; store online returns have entered 10 countries and are ready for further promotion; scan code purchase has also covered all online markets.

ZARA, the leader of the leading brand, is calling Nike to combine fast fashion with sports and vigorously launch sports products so as to catch the eye of consumers again.

Some people think that the pformation path of fast fashion brands is just a dying struggle. Others believe that timely changes will bring new life to the fast fashion, but what the outcome will be, only time will prove it.