What Makes The Four Fast Fashion Brands Go All The Way?

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GAP seems to be singing at a similar pace and making a shop, but it is very different.

What are the ways to each of them?

ZARA

First, ZARA, the four most powerful brands, is the most successful but most independent.

The core competitiveness of ZARA brand is that all the fashion products in the world cannot be imitated.

Without scale, after all, it is possible for everyone to achieve scale.

The mode used by ZARA is called Vertical Integration, vertical shipment.

Greatly shorten the shipment time: an average of 2 weeks, so the fast fashion brand represented by ZARA can have 15-20 Collection a year.

In comparison, the whole process of ordinary brand shipment takes 4 to 6 months, with only two Collection in a year.

However, due to the adoption of the Vertical Intergation mode, ZARA can control the whole process better and faster than other fast fashion brands (from market research, design, plate making, sample making, mass production, pportation, retail) to H& M, which is also known for its shipping speed for 5 days.

In pursuit of speed, ZARA can sacrifice a lot of costs.

1. in the production process, ZARA relies on the countless handicraft shops and family factories in La Coruna where headquarters are located. Many products are directly produced locally, and only gradually have been outsourced in recent years. However, before H&M, 75% of the products were made in Asia in the past few years, and now all the products have been outsourced.

However, for this reason, the price of H&M is about ZARA 50%-70% (without considering the cost of raw materials).

2. all the long distance pportation is an aircraft, instead of a cargo ship, willing to pay high freight charges instead of advertising and marketing expenses, ZARA's marketing expenses account for only 0.3%-0.4% of the total cost. However, other brands account for about 3%-4%.

Despite the high cost of pursuing fast, ZARA's gross margins and net interest rates are still comparable to those of H&M, and ZARA is unwilling to save the cost in order to increase profit margins.

Therefore, ZARA has reached an unprecedented height in all fashion brands and retailers. My teachers in Milan never call ZARA brand, because it focuses more on production and retail links, and has never used design to locate the style of brand products, nor does it have a Brand Identity that a fashion brand should have.:1. ZARA headquarters warehouse will not stay for more than three days in all the clothes. The store will order products two times per week to replenish products, and inventory turnover rate is 3-4 times higher than that of other brands. 2. has an average of only 15% of the clothes sold every quarter, and 50% of other brands.

3. the average customer ZARA17 times a year, other brands only 4 times.

At the same time, ZARA's credit is also attributed to their "inverted" design concept.

When I was in the ZARA interview, HR told us that the core of ZARA is shop, because only in shops can customers really understand the needs of customers.

Therefore, the store provides sales data and then delivers it to the storefront manager. The storefront manager collated the results and handed them to the design department. The design department, according to the needs of customers, designed the style and submitted it to the commercial sector to evaluate the cost and price. After that, the board began to plate, sample production was pferred to the factory, and finally stored in the ZARA super logistics warehouse (9 times the size of the Amazon). At the warehouse door, there were countless trucks pporting products to the rest of Europe or the airport two times a day.

In this process, for design alone, an average of 20 minutes is designed for a garment, which can be designed to produce more than 25 thousand new items per year, 4-6 times that of H&M.

Because customers' demand for fashion is changing, the data collected from shops are timeliness, so fast is the most fundamental and important magic weapon for this model.

It is precisely because of ZARA's unique mode that the rest of the existing brands can not be emulated, because if they imitate, designers will no longer play a decisive role in the design, or even rebuild the designer team, logistics system, production process and so on.

But there are drawbacks to this pattern:

1. because of the control of the whole process, the operational risk is increased. If there is an economic downturn or a downturn in the industry, the pressure can not be pferred to suppliers, such as requiring suppliers to reduce their prices.

2., it is impossible to integrate national advantages and maximize benefits.

3., the shops are directly managed by the brand, unable to expand rapidly through proxy and other forms (such as Italy's Benetton), and some of the property also needs to invest in new shops and renovation of existing shops, reducing the turnover rate of assets (ZARA's Assets Turnover is 1.4, GAP is 1.8, H&M is 2) 4. is well known, plagiarism problem, ZARA has been copied for many years, and you tell me that you will lose money if you lose the lawsuit, anyway, I can earn it back.

In short, ZARA is creating a completely new business model, a business model based entirely on customer needs.

Therefore, ZARA's current enemy is only itself.

Only by fully recognizing and controlling the pros and cons can we achieve long-term, stable and sustainable development.

H&M

H&M, another giant.

Similarly excellent fast fashion brand, on the top of the model, is more inclined to take into account the shipping time and product cost, so it is not as fast as ZARA, but relies on the cost leadership advantage to occupy a place in this industry.

The degree of fashion is not as good as ZARA, after all, ZARA is also a big card, and copied to the essence.

H&M is the first choice for cock silk youth in Europe. The latest design is on the street, what big prints, cowboys, big letters, and big camouflage.

Product defects are also obvious, the quality is not flattering, the fabric is the worst of the four brands (once I washed it).

But like ZARA, it is changing the clothing from the consumer durables to the innovators of fast moving consumer goods, so the quality is not so important.

Among them, the most popular place for H&M is sportswear, which is not sold in China (at least when I was abroad). I guess people do not think Chinese people like sports.

In fact, H&M's sportswear is very professional, with a very fine classification (running, tennis, and even yoga). The price is cheaper, not cheaper than ADI Nike, so it is popular and sales are very colorful.

The following picture shows that the H&M sportswear in 2013's Replenishment Rate (replenishment rate did not know how to plate) reached 36%, and the final sale was only 10.4% (ZARA's inventory turnover rate was so high and 15% needed to be discounted), compared with sportswear, it was definitely a highlight of H&M.

On the other hand, H&M has more choices in size selection, and even a lot of them are made for the sake of expectant mothers.

The following is a comparison of H&M's additional size statistics in the UK and the main competitive brands in the UK:

Therefore, it can be said that H&M and ZARA meet their customers' needs in different ways. The former is in daily wear and use, and the latter is in design.

In operation, H&M pays attention to low cost, and ZARA pays attention to product update speed.

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Uniqlo

The last one, UNIQLO.

This is my favorite brand in China, cheap, comfortable, high quality fabric, simple and easy to match. Later, I added UT series. I once bought 13 T-shirts of their family one summer, which is for different artists' designs, some of which are not even willing to wear.

The first thing I thought of doing Competitor Analysis for GAP was UNIQLO.

I once bought two books of Ryui Masa from UNIQLO and the books of Japanese management and economist Kenichi Ohmae recommended by him.

If you want to talk about the core competitiveness of UNIQLO, there are several things to mention:

1. fabric: this has something to do with the history of UNIQLO. When the fire spread all over Japan, and now every autumn and winter, new style fleece jackets will be introduced to make UNIQLO taste the sweetness of fabrics. Since then, UNIQLO has been constantly innovating in the use and research and development of fabrics, such as a sheep ranch specially bred in Inner Mongolia to provide fabrics for UNIQLO, and a lightweight Heattech series thermal underwear, which are the products of UNIQLO's constant pursuit of high-quality fabrics.

2. service: this does not need to be said more. A friend of mine once worked in UNIQLO. All the customers you passed by have to say hello, and the whole day is dry and dry.

The requirement for greeting customers is not comparable to that of other brands.

Other services can be appreciated.

3. details: as with Muji, shop details are required to the utmost. All clothes are stacked in a very particular way. For example, it is easy for customers to see the folding of the trouser legs.

Another detail I have to say is that many people have ignored the mirror.

In China, the mirror from UNIQLO's mirror and GAP, H&M and ZARA mirror have different effects.

Some of them are for mirrors and the other for lighting.

Because the profile of the yellow race, especially the contour of the face is not deep, it is even more "flat" than that of the Europeans and Americans. In fact, the yellow race is not suitable for the direct effect of the light directly from the above, which will completely show the defect of the facial contour through the shadow. However, the deeper European and American people can show the three-dimensional skeleton outline.

Therefore, it is more suitable for yellow people to look at the light from the front or rear when looking at the mirror.

At the same time, the choice of lighting is also right, not yellow, not dazzling, soft light, can foil or even beautify the skin.

4. craft: I once observed the craft of UNIQLO's shirt carefully, the sewing needle trace of the chest pocket is completely the technical requirement of the suit. This detail is all asked. What other reasons are there to query the craft of UNIQLO? 5. UT series.

T-shirt is the simplest and direct way to convey culture and art. UT is a collaboration with artists. The art patterns are directly shown on T-shirts, restoring the original role of T-shirts, and selling a cheap product with a touch of art.

GAP

GAP, I just want to use one sentence to describe its present situation: the thin camel is bigger than the horse.

As a former sales leader of the fashion industry, GAP was rated by Forbes as one of the ten fashion brands that might disappear in the next ten years. In 2014, GAP just found our professional help them to make a project and promoted the brand in Italy. After receiving the project, they also consulted a lot of information about GAP.

Now that we ask about competitive advantage, we don't need to mention business models, but we also save a lot of nonsense.

From the design point of view, when it comes to GAP, you often think of those simple styles, jeans and LOGO tops.

But this year's GAP advertisement fully demonstrates the tenet of GAP to remain unchanged. When GAP's Marketing Department Manager does presentation, GAP says it hopes to create a style that belongs to everyone with simple styles.

But if you look at the Facebook and instagram of GAP, you will find that it is a small refreshing route, many of which are in line with the simple fashion in the trend forecast of WGSN.

Although in recent years, GAP has been unable to satisfy young consumers who are constantly seeking novelty for lack of fixed style. However, because of its simple design and high quality fabrics and its version (especially pants, I love it), it has won many loyal customers' favor, coupled with the simple functional trend oriented style, making the design a reluctant end to find a soul destination.

Here is a small and fresh screenshot of GAP's Instagram.

In addition, it seems that ZARA and H&M have been accused of environmental pollution. GAP's co founders Doris and Don Fisher have launched the "DO MORE THAN SELL CLOTHES" initiative. It seems that organic cotton should be promoted to promote sustainable agricultural production, hoping to arouse people's brand awareness and re establish brand image with the brand's social mission.

Finally, use that Manager to do the original words in presentation time, GAP is confident not boastful; simple notboring; optimistic not not;;