What Is Faster Than Fast Fashion?

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One of Zara's stores

Fast fashion is also beginning to feel a sense of crisis.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, the retail research firm Fung Global Retail &Technologh recently released a report entitled "Fast Fashion Speeding towards Ultra-Fashion". The European fashion business platform is famous for its immediate response to consumer demand and constantly bringing fresh ideas.

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Traditional fast fashion brands bring challenges.

They are shorter from design to shelf, and more products are being updated in fixed time. They are competing for consumers who are more and more difficult to meet with "Ultra-Fashion".

Although fast fashion is still unable to get rid of the "stigma" of the environment, it has achieved absolute efficiency in every link and becomes the "drug" that modern people can not quit.

With the help of social media, fast fashion can quickly copy and design inspiration from T. Based on the big data provided by retailers and trend analysis agencies, the trend of fashion can be accurately summarized so as to shorten the design process.

The optimization of supply chain has become a necessary condition for fast fashion. It keeps the endless stream of creativity coming to the shops and consumers from design drawings in time.

Ultra fast fashion cycle

The efficiency of various links has promoted the shopping frequency of consumers, but now the traditional fast fashion is also beginning to have a sense of crisis, because the new generation of fashion business providers are more focused on "fast".

The report of Fung Global Retail &Technologh provides three internal data of British retail business which is considered to be faster than traditional fast fashion, namely Boohoo, ASOS and Missguided.

Data show that Boohoo.com, ASOS and Missguided are now able to produce goods in 2-4 weeks, Zara and H&M for 5 weeks, while traditional retailers need 6-9 months.

Misguided can launch 1000 new products every month and update the inventory once a day.

ASOS can also complete the product process within 2-8 weeks, with an average listing time of about 6 weeks.

These ultra fast fashion retailers avoid the inherent problems of traditional retailing, namely product shortages and overstock, and the consequent reduction in prices and profit margins.

The supply chain of ultra fast clothing retailers is always agile, able to quickly match inventory supply and changing demand, and strictly control inventory, and achieve a balance between insufficient supply and price reduction.

The preliminary design of the product is to conduct small batch production, test consumer feedback, and replenish goods quickly if successful.

Take Boohoo as an example, when the first time is new, the inventory of each single product will be around 300, and it will be added in time.

ZARA produces 120 new products per day, while Boohoo currently has 200 new products, and its website has about 29000 products.

In addition, the design and production process of Boohoo is 4-6 weeks and the fastest is 2 weeks.

Boohoo is also the most potential black horse in the electricity supplier. Some analysts believe that Boohoo will have the potential to become the next Zara.

Boohoo, a fashion business from the UK, was founded in 2006 by Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane. It sells its own brand of clothing, shoes and accessories. Its core consumer group is 16-24 years old.

Earlier this year, Boohoo.com bought Prettylittlething, a fashion business. At the end of this month, it also bought the US Nasty Gal.

The Kamani family has been in the clothing business for over 30 years, and has been a supplier of brands such as Primark and Topshop.

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Although the group experienced a wave of business crisis two years ago, it is now entering a period of rapid growth. Sales in the past 7 years have increased ten times, and it has performed well in the UK, the continent and the United States.

In the past year, Boohoo's share price has risen by 271%.

Last month, the company's sales grew 51% to 295 million euros, and pre tax profits increased 97% to 31 million pounds.

The company said it expects revenue growth to be close to 50% this year.

In terms of market share, the company is currently the third largest online fashion retailer in the UK after ASOS and Next.

Its 2017 fiscal year report shows that the company's constant monetary revenue increased by 49% to 294 million 500 thousand euros, and revenue in fiscal 2018 is expected to grow by 50% over the same period last year.

Like other electric providers, Boohoo also actively adopts the common marketing methods, such as promoting cooperation with KOL, enhancing Instagram interaction, and promoting the capsule series with celebrities.

But the most important strategy of the electricity supplier is still the ultimate supply chain.

As we all know, the optimized logistics operation mode is created by Inditex, the parent company of Zara, so what is Boohoo doing besides copying Zara mode?

It is noteworthy that the suppliers of Boohoo 70% are in the UK, half of which are commissioned by British manufacturers, and the rest from British middlemen, and foreign factories account for only 1/4.

In contrast, Zara produces about 60% of products in Spain and Portugal in Europe, producing about 10% of goods in Morocco and Turkey, and about 30% of its products from Asia.

Although Europe's Zara has gained the advantage of the supply chain from its geographical location, it has achieved strong sales over other apparel brands, but its sales growth is lower than that of the fashion business.

According to the data, Zara's same store sales in fiscal year 2016 increased by 10% compared with the same period last year, lower than the increase of ASOS30% and the increase of Boohoo40%.

The supply chain is becoming a key factor affecting how fast fashion will become faster.

H&M recently announced that it will invest in accelerating the supply chain, and is considering more production to be closer to Europe, to countries such as Turkey, so as to bring products to European stores faster.

In order to improve the frequency of website updates, Boohoo even took photos of the website in the headquarters, shooting more than 300 single product photos per day.

All decisions that are conducive to efficiency will become the leading cause of competition in the fast fashion and even ultra fast fashion market.

Unlike ASOS, all products sold on the Boohoo website are private brands, while nearly 1/3 of the products on the ASOS website come from third parties.

Boohoo can fully grasp the progress and pricing of private brand supply chain, and lose the efficiency loss coordinated with the third party.

In the future more and more intense speed war, efficiency competition will be launched in every detail.

Fast fashion, a large number of physical stores become a burden.

But the decisive factor that really threatens the traditional fast fashion is the form of management.

Peel Hunt retail analyst Jonathan Stevenson said in the Financial Times report, "if you want to imagine Boohoo doing this, you can't have a physical store."

The electricity supplier is "invisible" against "tangible". To become faster and lighter, we need to get rid of the efficiency loss caused by the large volume of the physical shop, because the electricity supplier does not need to guarantee the stock reserves of each store.

At present, Zara has 7300 stores in the world, and recently opened the world's largest flagship store in Madrid.

But from another point of view, this is not only a result, but also a drag.

The growth of fast fashion is beginning to slow down.

Zara's parent group Inditex declined again last year due to adverse currency fluctuations and fierce competition.

In the 2016 fiscal year ending January 31st, Inditex net profit was 3 billion 160 million euros, although the same store sales growth, but the profitability of the key indicators gross profit margin declined for fourth consecutive years, in 2016 was 57%, compared to 57.8% in 2015.

In China, Zara did not have online stores until around 2010, but it was not until 2014 that Zara opened online shops in Tmall.

According to data monitoring, the price of clothes sold by Zara in the Chinese market has decreased by 10% to 15% since last year, reflecting the fierce competition in the fast fashion market.

Sales and profits of H&M are affected due to the decline in customer demand and the increase in procurement costs.

As of February 28, 2017, the 2016 fiscal year report shows that the group's first quarter constant monetary income rose by four percent, less than the 10% to 15% growth forecast for the whole year.

From fast fashion to super fast fashion, traditional fast fashion seems to be aware of the problem and is concentrating more on online penetration and supply chain improvement.

Over the past year, the Inditex group has launched or expanded online platforms for 20 markets, 12 of which are new, and the group is currently providing e-commerce in 43 countries.

In the first half of this year, after Zara launched its e-commerce in Singapore and Malaysia, its online store will also be launched in Thailand and Vietnam in the coming weeks, and India will be launched in the second half of this year.

In order to focus more on developing e-commerce, H&M group has abandoned the goal of opening 10% to 15% new stores every year, while focusing on supply chain optimization.

Some analysts believe that the current situation of H&M is becoming more and more awkward, and the speed and the fashion are not as good as that of the electricity supplier and Zara, or the group's high-end brand COS will make up for the uniqueness of the group.

The fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company also plans to shorten the time from design to shipment to about 13 days. Ryui Masa, group chairman and CEO, said, "this ability to provide high-quality daily clothing for any consumer at any time and place will make us more special.

We want to send consumers to them as soon as possible, which is why we call "Xun sale" group.

Efficiency has become an important yardstick in the fashion industry.

According to the interface news report, Hongkong Lifeng group was abandoned by WAL-MART for its slow supply, and plans to spend $150 million to catch up with the fast fashion.

By 2019, Li Feng Group will shorten the time from product planning, development, production to pportation from 40 weeks to 21 weeks.

Not only fast fashion has been pushed faster by fast fashion, but also the traditional luxury brands have begun to favor the efficient logistics of e-commerce, and try the quicker way of logistics.

For example, Gucci's 90 minute arrival service with fashion Farfetch recently brought consumers a more sophisticated shopping experience. Gucci is therefore regarded as a "spoiler" in traditional retailing.

Previously, fashion providers including Matchesfashion.com have begun offering the arrival service on the same day.

The market environment is undergoing drastic changes. The operational efficiency of fashion business is constantly being pushed forward by consumers.

The original fast fashion has also begun to feel a sense of crisis. It has been proved that when you feel the most comfortable, it may not be far from the crisis.

In the unpredictable fashion industry, there will always be only temporary winners.

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