Xun Group Plans To Develop GU Vigorously, Hoping To Win More Consumers.

Recent market performance is poor.

The plan is to develop sister brand GU and look forward to winning more consumers at a lower price.

Recently,

Announced the brand's latest overseas market expansion action, will open two stores in Hongkong in March 31st and April 1st, officially entered the Hongkong market.

The brand products are mainly priced at low prices, and the average price is 60%-70% of UNIQLO.

Earlier, UNIQLO parent Xun marketing group has announced that it plans to open 1000 GU stores in overseas markets including China, in the next ten years.

The background of vigorously promoting the GU brand is the performance of the fast selling group's main brand, UNIQLO recently due to the "abnormal warm winter".

Xun group reported that in the past 2016 fiscal year, group net profit fell 56.3% year on year.

However, the low-end brand will not necessarily save the declining performance of XXX group.

Industry analysts pointed out that the fast selling group's low price brand is largely to save consumers, but UNIQLO itself is not high price, so the two price difference may not be enough to support consumer segmentation, but may seize the market each other, and has a negative impact on the group.

Rapidly advancing overseas plans

GU, another big brand of fast selling group called "cheap version of UNIQLO", announced the latest overseas expansion action. It will open two stores in Tsim Sha Tsui and Tongluowan in March 31st and April 1st, and formally enter the Hongkong market.

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, GU was born in 2006, the main product is cheap, priced at 60%-70% of UNIQLO products.

At present, GU market is mainly concentrated in the Japanese mainland, so far, it has opened 340 stores in Japan.

Previously, XXX group said it will open 1000 new GU stores in the next ten years and will focus on the Chinese market.

It is worth noting that as of November 30, 2016, the total number of overseas stores in UNIQLO reached 1009, which is the sixteenth year that UNIQLO opened overseas stores.

It can be seen that GU's store opening plan can be described as "radical".

In fact, GU, which has been in existence for more than ten years, has not been fast enough to open stores overseas.

In 2013, GU's first overseas store was accompanied by the flagship store of UNIQLO, located in Huaihailu Road, Shanghai.

A year and a half later, the brand opened in second stores in China.

In August 2015, GU opened an online flagship store in Tmall.

Up to now, GU has only opened 4 stores in the mainland of China.

But XXX group has high expectations for GU.

In the 2016 financial year's annual report, Xun marketing group said that the medium term vision is to become the world's first information clothing manufacturer and retailer. The way to achieve this goal is to "expand overseas UNIQLO business and GU leisure fashion brand business". While continuing to open GU stores in Japan, it will also speed up the development of the brand in the international market, so as to expand the GU business.

According to the 2016 financial year report of XXX group, as of August 31, 2016, the number of GU stores increased by 31 to 350 stores, compared with the previous year, and 10 stores outside Japan.

In fact, as early as the 2015 financial year's annual report, Xun marketing group said it would actively promote the brand of GU fashion casual wear, speed up the brand to open new stores in Japan and enter the Chinese market.

Ryui Seiso, founder and CEO of fast marketing group, said that GU should be developed into a brand with annual sales of 1 trillion yen, making it the second peak of the fast selling group that is comparable to UNIQLO.

The parent company's performance is unstable.

Garment independent commentator Ma Gang pointed out that the main reason behind the rapid implementation of GU is likely to be the declining performance of the group.

Statistics show that xungang group's performance in recent years has seen roller coaster like ups and downs, and sales growth has also dropped sharply.

Reporters read the UNIQLO's past earnings report, found that in fiscal year 2014, overseas sales of UNIQLO sales increased 64.7%, and the growth rate in 2015 fiscal year was 45.9%.

Among them, Greater China has contributed to the growth of overseas UNIQLO development.

From the 2014-2015 fiscal year data, it is easy to see that overseas sales of UNIQLO sales show a slight downward trend.

In the 2016 fiscal year, the sales of overseas UNIQLO sales increased by only 8.6%, compared with the previous two years, which was like a roller coaster ride.

It is worth mentioning that, in the first quarter of fiscal 2017, although the group's net profit rose sharply, sales showed a weak trend. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2016, sales of fast selling group increased by 8.5%, up from 1.6% in the first quarter of 2017 fiscal year.

In fact, just over the past 2016 fiscal year, fast forward group performance is facing a severe test.

According to the report, net profit fell by 56.3%, only 48 billion yen.

Among them, as the group's main brand, UNIQLO appeared performance pressure phenomenon.

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In the 2016 fiscal year of UNIQLO's poor performance, GU's performance was quite eye-catching.

According to the 2016 annual financial report of XXX group, GU's performance was overwhelming in 2016, and its profits and profits increased significantly. The annual revenue increased by 32.7% to 187 billion 800 million yen compared with the previous year, and operating profit increased 34.8% to 22 billion 200 million yen.

Driven by strong sales of fashionable clothing such as ladies' knitwear, skirts and wide trousers, GU sales in the same store gained double-digit growth.

According to the previous 2015 fiscal year annual report, GU in this financial year still outstanding performance.

Data show that as of August 31, 2015, GU revenue reached 141 billion 500 million yen, an increase of 31.6% over the same period last year, operating profit was 2.8 times the previous year, and helped the global brand other than UNIQLO achieve profitability.

It is worth noting that in this year's earnings report, GU began to be described as "the second pillar brand of the group".

The prospect of new brand is unpredictable.

For XXX group, the further development of GU brand is complementary to the market of UNIQLO. It will also increase the chips of fast selling group in the fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M.

It is understood that the GU designer team of about 50 people, to ensure that the speed of updating products every week, fashion line products usually sell 2-3 months will be off the shelf.

GU China market department staff told reporters that at present, all the stores in the mainland of China are concentrated in Shanghai.

Product positioning is younger, 18-30 years old.

In the Japanese market, XXX group distributes the positioning of GU into two age groups, 18-28 and 29-35, and two stars, representing two age groups. In China, it focuses on younger consumers.

Compared with UNIQLO, the coverage of GU consumer groups is narrower.

The vision of "1+1 is greater than 2" is not easy to achieve.

However, there had been reports that senior executives at the Xun marketing group had revealed the idea of merging UNIQLO and GU.

It can be seen that the positioning of the two main brands within the Xun group is not very clear.

Insiders pointed out that UNIQLO itself pricing is not high, GU pricing is lower, to a large extent may form a consumer diversion to UNIQLO.

According to a reporter's investigation at the flagship store of Huaihailu Road UNIQLO and GU stores in Shanghai, it was found that many consumers would patronize two stores at the same time because of GU's B1 level. In the same fashion style, consumers would prefer the cheaper GU.

At the same time, reporters found that GU shop before fitting room long row of long fitting team.

In addition, through further investigation, reporters found that consumers in Beijing, Changsha and other places aged 25 or so do not have a high degree of awareness of GU brands.

Login to GU Tmall flagship store can find that the store is concerned about 26540 people, the best selling product is priced 49 yuan of women's color T-shirt, monthly turnover of 1570 pens.

In addition, only 335 people were aware of the question of "how to see the low-end brand GU of UNIQLO".

Insiders said that the GU brand is not well-known in the Chinese market at present. Of course, this is not related to the brand's publicity. However, in the condition that China's clothing market is nearly saturated, it will be more difficult to open up the market quickly and get consumers' recognition.

Ma Gang pointed out that different markets have their own characteristics, and there are many differences between foreign and mainland markets.

GU's stores are currently concentrated in the Japanese market.

GU can achieve "overwhelming performance". Ma Gang believes that "this does not mean that we can get the same results in the Chinese market".

Ma Gang said that in fact, GU entered the low-end price market is facing greater pressure.

First of all, there are pressure from online brands, such as Korea's clothes house, etc. at the same time, the fast fashion brands such as H&M and ZARA, which have entered the Chinese market, are very strong. They have formed a strong influence in fast fashion brands and have a good market share. Therefore, how to open up the market has become a more severe challenge for GU.

Kang Lanxin, President of the school of dress and collocation, also said that if the quality of goods can be guaranteed, GU may also make good progress in the Chinese market.

She pointed out that the vast majority of the Chinese market, and gradually become the main force of consumption, has a good habit of consumption, a strong willingness to consume and a wealth of disposable funds.

If GU can accurately grasp the preferences of young consumers, update speed, and store layout attractive, GU is also possible to succeed.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.