Fast Fashion Encounter Decline In Performance, Introduction Of High-Class Products Uncertain Results

This year, the performance of fast fashion brands has been shrinking.

It is reported that in the Chinese market,

In 2007, it had created a 82% sales growth rate, but last year, this figure has dropped to 16%.

and

In the 2016 fiscal year, overseas market profits also fell by 13.7%.

H&M, UNIQLO, GAP...

These old days

The giant is now facing the pressure of declining performance. "Cheap", "imitation big card" and "quality worry" have become the label of fast fashion.

Recently, some fast fashion brands have introduced their relatively high-class product lines into the Chinese market, and have opened up the line with the public product line, providing only part of the stores.

The fast fashion brand that has been questioned is trying to change in the Chinese market through this way to attract different levels of consumer groups. However, based on the basic idea of cost control, the secondary line still has a difficult position in conflict with these fast fashion brands.

Recently, UNIQLO, a fast fashion brand from Japan, quietly launched the "UNIQLO U series" in the brand shops of Beijing Sanlitun and Xidan Joy City.

Unlike general store products, the U series uses "advanced customization" as a publicity point and does not extend all the products to all stores.

In June this year, UNIQLO hired Christophe Lemaire, the former creative director of Hermes, to be the artistic director of the Paris research and development center of UNIQLO, and the design of U series was also completed by the 15 person design team led by Christophe Lemaire.

At present, the U series includes 87 sweaters, jackets, dresses and jackets.

But the complete series of products is only launched in 26 key shops and official websites in the country, while other stores only have some commodities.

In the industry view, this creative single product in some stores supply way is very hungry marketing means, at present, UNIQLO in the Greater China market has more than 500 stores.

In addition to UNIQLO, another fast fashion brand H&M's H&M Studio series with more design sense has also been listed.

This year, H&M has expanded its range of products and launched children's clothing.

The scope of sale of Studio is narrower than that of UNIQLO.

From the price point of view, because of better material selection and more sense of design, the niche brands of fast fashion brands are usually slightly more expensive than the popular online foundation.

For example, the men's jacket on the H&M official website sells for about 399 yuan, and in the Studio series of designer's "overweight", the men's jacket can be sold for 799 yuan.

In the eyes of the industry, separating the mass line products from the design series helps to arouse consumers who have "aesthetic fatigue" on the existing design styles of the brand, with the purpose of stimulating new desire to buy.

On the one hand, fast fashion brands are promoting a new theory to consumers: the fast fashion brand that pays attention to cost can also make clothes that are designed and durable.

On the other hand, the way of starvation marketing can capture more layers of consumer groups for fast fashion brands, especially those who seek quality, design and unique attributes.

In fact, UNIQLO had already tasted the sweetness of "design money".

Before Christophe Lemaire did not join UNIQLO, in October 2015, UNIQLO launched a joint venture with the designer, "UNIQLO AND LEMAIRE", to benefit from the latter's reputation, which was sold out after three minutes in China.

"The series of cooperation with the former design director of Hermes" and "the design of Hermes, and the price of UNIQLO" have become the search hotspots of UNIQLO on micro-blog for some time.

Although hunger marketing has created hot scenes in the short term, it is difficult to maintain long-term business.

Zhao Pei pointed out that the sub line series of fast fashion brands often has specific themes and concepts.

For example, this year's spring and summer series of H&M Studio has launched a series of products with the theme of "travel".

But how to ensure that these specific topics can attract consumers is a problem.

Although the secondary line series may create the peak of purchase in the short term, this kind of sales concentrated in a single store has a buying barrier for consumers.

"Most consumers do not rush to buy a piece of clothing to buy a shop far away.

And the secondary line on the electronic business platform will often lose its uniqueness because it is mixed with popular products.

In 2002, UNIQLO entered the Chinese market and opened the upsurge of fast fashion brands.

In 2006, Zara, H&M, C&A and other fast fashion brands attacked the big stores in China's big and medium-sized cities.

High performance price ratio and faster product update speed have become the common characteristics of these brands.

But since last year, fast fashion "speed sequelae" have begun to emerge, and consumers are beginning to tire of the so-called fast fashion consumer cycle: buying cheap clothes - discarding cleaning up again.

For the clothing brand of parity, this "fast" positioning has begun to malpractice.

This year, the growth rate of H&M and UNIQLO in China has slowed down significantly.

In such a state, going to the high end seems to be a necessary road.

By setting up a series of secondary lines with higher price, higher design and higher quality, fast fashion brands are trying to get out of the fast track of parity and develop a higher class market.

But this kind of expansion is far from successful. In the view of the industry, the development of sub line products is still at the stage of testing water for fast fashion brands.