Fast Fashion Is Losing Its Attractiveness. Is It Going To Lag Behind?

UNIQLO took the lead in entering the Chinese market in 2002.

The upsurge of brand presence.

2006

The fast fashion brands such as H&, M, C& and A attacked the big stores in China with the wind and clouds.

Fast fashion began to "stir up trouble" in the fashion industry. It not only made this brand new word take root in the life of the public, but also made the mode of quick copying and opening a shop become the darling of commercial real estate projects.

As the physical retail market environment is sluggish, fast fashion.

Recently, many fast fashion companies who have been "sales hegemony" have been able to use the words "predicament", "bottleneck", "new way" and "surpass".

Q2 net profit increased by 10%, H& of the runaway; M will open 500 new stores this year.

In 1947, er Lin Pearson created a Hennes store that specializes in women's wear. In 1968, the company acquired Mauritz, which sells hunting equipment and men's clothing, and then began selling men's clothing.

So (H&; M) was born.

The group owns six brands: H&, M, COS, Monki, Weekday, and Other Stories and Cheap Monday, and a brand Arket will be added at the end of this year.

Recently, the H&, M group released its second quarter earnings for the year ended May 31st, benefiting from the expansion of stores and the growth of online sales. The net profit in the quarter increased by 10.1% to 5 billion 900 million 6.63 in Sweden, which exceeded the market expectations. Sales also recorded an increase of 10% to 59 billion 538 million Swedish Swedish dollar, but gross margin fell further to 57.1% from 57.6% in the same period last year.

As of May 31st, H&, M group had 4498 stores, an increase of 10% or 450 compared with the same period last year.

Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive, said that its e-commerce business now accounts for 25% to 30% of total sales, and is expected to grow at a rate of at least 25% per year in the future. Profitability is almost the same as that of physical stores.

In terms of physical retailing, H&, M will also maintain a positive attitude of expansion. This year, 100 new stores will be closed and 500 new stores will be opened.

H& and M seem to be full of confidence in the way of expansion.

In all the markets of the world, the expansion of H&, M in China is the fastest, and it is not too much to describe it as a horse racing enclosure.

Expansion itself is not a bad thing. When we first enter the market, we need to expand the means to open up brand awareness.

However, after the crazy expansion, H& and M seem to have seen the top.

In the past year, the sales volume of H&, M group has increased by 7%, but the gross profit margin has dropped from 59.5% in 2012 to 55.2%, while the operating profit rate has decreased from 18.01% to 12.4%, and two indicators are the lowest level in five years.

Today's fast fashion brand model is no longer unusual. The Zara and H& M models are emulated by many big brands, and the advantages of the two companies that rely on fast consumption mode are no longer obvious.

Fast fashion market began to "slow down", the growth rate has slowed down.

Although the rapid expansion of H& and M increased brand revenue and sales volume, expansion led to an increase in costs and a sharp increase in gross margin after 2014.

Moreover, sales in the same store did not increase as expected, but fell, in other words, its flat efficiency was also decreasing.

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H&, M's secret worries: fast fashion is losing its appeal.

In 2006, H&, M, announced the march to China, and opened the first store in Huaihailu Road, Shanghai in April of next year. After that, H& and M opened up.

In 2007, there were 1522 shops in the world, and the number jumped to 4351 in ten years, and the number of shops in China changed from 134 in 2012 to 444 in 2016.

According to Brand Finance's list of the 500 most valuable brands in the world in 2017, H& ranked sixty-third in M and ranked second in the fashion category.

H&, M, when he was founded, the idea was "small profits but quick turnover". Later, with the passage of time, fashionable elements were added to the cheap base hills.

The concept of fast fashion originated from Europe in the last century, referring to the rapid feedback and imitation of the show design.

Later, by the beginning of this century, the concept of fast fashion was introduced to the clothing enterprises. The brand represented the rapid response to the show, and immediately launched the new trend of the season, with a low price to wrap up fashionable young people.

"Fast" is a fast fashion brand represented by H& and M, an important feature that is difficult to go around.

Over the past 10 years, they have been sweeping the global apparel market at low price, fashion and weekly updates.

From Europe to North America to China, from cheap Metersbonwe, Baleno, ONLY to more expensive Esprit, Vigny bear...

Almost all of the clothing brands originally lying in department stores were devastating, bankrupt, sold or forced to pform.

These ten years can be described as H&; M's most spectacular ten years, with 64 footprints all over the world, with 4351 stores, and 20% annual sales growth.

However, in December 2016 and January 2017, sales of H&, M increased by only a single figure, while February 2017 recorded a 1% decline.

H& has experienced a rapid growth, and M has come to a gateway, whether H& or M is willing to admit that the best time in China may have passed.

With the rise of the electricity supplier, people's lifestyle has changed. Nowadays, most of the Chinese people rely on online payment and online shopping.

Net red explosive force unexpectedly, business operation mode is also more mature.

When prices are almost the same and the quality is almost the same, with those who are bright and tall, the net red people are advocacy, and people are inclined to buy those "net red".

Moreover, fast fashion brands have been replaced by light luxury products and luxury goods. More and more traditional brands are starting to pform. Relying on strong supply chain, they rely on excellent quality and quality to start recovering land lost.

At the same time, we have to face competitors such as ZARA, UNIQLO and Forever 21, and even one investment bank analyst said that H& and M are among the fashion brands that are most likely to disappear after decades.

There are traditional brands in front of young people constantly show off, after a network of red business catch up with interception, from time to time to face competitors sniping.

To this day, in the face of increasingly competitive market, the fast fashion brand H&, M, which relies heavily on the city, can only get out of the market if it can only get "quick".

Fast fashion is in an awkward position, H&; M is difficult to reproduce in the future

Since 2016, the number of fast fashion brands in the world has seen growth slack.

Many fast fashion brands, including UNIQLO, H&, M, GAP and Mango, reported that their profit growth has declined to varying degrees.

Although the physical retail market environment is sluggish and fast fashion brands have been repeatedly weakened, the growth rate of the fast fashion industry has begun to slow down, but the future is not necessarily a mess.

The biggest audience of fast fashion brands is young people. Once the main customers, the "80 generation" consumers are becoming more mature and rational. They have passed the age of pursuing fashion or freshness. They can not see the fast fashion clothes that are not very good and lack of classic style.

The younger "post-90s" and "00 after" are no longer like their predecessors.

They pursue young, personalities, individuals with their own unique ideas.

They not only consider the cost performance level, but they refuse to bump into others and bump shirts to a large extent.

At the beginning, fast fashion attracted a large number of young consumers who wanted to follow fashion because of its fashionable style and low price. But with the rising prices of fast fashion, the quality that did not match the price, and the "same money" that could be met in all streets, young people naturally did not want to spend the wrong money again.

More and more young people are more interested in trendy cards, hoping that they will become unique when they follow the trend.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, the audience in the late 90s wanted a lifestyle including "material consumption and growing cultural consumption".

More importantly, quality life must be built around individual choice and full of personal characteristics.

The situation of fast fashion is not good, and it is closely related to the quality being criticized by more and more Chinese consumers.

In order to maintain a high speed of renewal, retailers seem to be losing control over the quality of clothes.

ZARA, H&, M, GAP and other brands have repeatedly fallen into the quality gate in China, and are frequent customers on the blacklist of the industrial and commercial and quality inspection departments.

From 2012 to 2015, a total of 30 items of H&, M were notified.

UNIQLO was also fined nearly one million yuan in 2015 because it continued to sell unqualified products.

The pursuit of product renewal speed is important for fast fashion, but with the competition between more and more fast fashion brands, quality has become the magic weapon of winning.

With the increasing number of fast fashion brands, the phenomenon of homogenization is becoming more and more serious.

The clothes are not good-looking, and the quality is not good enough to keep up with the needs of consumers.

Young consumers want to highlight their personalities. Fast fashion is not entirely satisfying.

In contrast, the positioning of H&, M is indeed a bit awkward, but the quality is not the same as that of UNIQLO, but the fashion ratio is no more than Zara.

While H&, M group's COS is considered to be the hope of the group, the design and quality are excellent, but no matter from the brand style and operation mode, it is not entirely belong to the fast fashion category, but the audience is limited.

Nowadays, the market is a consumer market centered on consumers. Therefore, whether big brands or small businesses are struggling to please consumers, if the core content of fast fashion is "clothing" has not undergone any essential changes, it will be difficult to stimulate consumers' desire to buy.

In short, in the Chinese market, H& and M have a clearer goal to continue to open their stores, but no matter how satisfied they are with the scale of H& and M's business in the Chinese market, they have to face the fact that the experience of creating high growth in the past 10 years is hardly suitable for the next 10 years. If they can not be designed, distributed and sold more accurately, the scale will only be counterproductive in the future.

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