Raising Children Is Too Expensive For Children'S Clothing Business.

Xing Xing Liu

Riddle

Founder and

It is also the mother of two girls aged 4 and 12.

10 years ago, when her eldest daughter was born, she couldn't find the children's clothes that met the needs of beauty and quality in China. She often went to Europe, Japan and Hongkong to buy children's clothing.

"At that time, the idea of creating a brand of children's clothing was born, but at that time the whole team felt that the time was not ripe enough."

She said.

But the market for children's wear is quite different now.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, the growth of Chinese children's wear market in 2013 began to exceed that of the whole garment industry.

Industry competitors are increasing rapidly.

When the growth space of men's and women's wear market shrinks due to market maturity, clothing brands are eager to find more business possibilities on their children.

Sports brands such as Nike, Adidas and local brand Anta already have their own children's wear product lines, including several fast fashion brands including UNIQLO and GAP. Parents are also expected to bring back some basic hoodies when they go shopping again.

Local clothing brands such as Taiping bird, Jiangnan Buyi and GXG also sell children's clothing, and even the south of the Yangtze River has even retained the tone of adults' clothing.

Taobao is also lively, according to the data provided by Taobao, as of March 2018, there were 1700 designers on the platform to open children's clothing stores in Taobao.

"Now the children's clothing industry is in an excessive stage from the blue ocean to the Red Sea, and it may be too late to seize the opportunity."

Liu Xing said.

In 2017, Liu Xing and his team launched the children's clothing brand "miidiitapir snack dream beast" and appeared in the past 2018AW KIDS WEAR Shanghai fashion week children's wear.

The children's clothing brand, which is aimed at 3-10 year old children and has a natural childlike appeal, wants to attract young parents who are "pursuing the quality of life and paying attention to the psychological needs of children".

Children's clothing is indeed promising.

Thanks to the young parents.

In the past, children's clothing consumption dominated by 70 parents was gradually dominated by 80, 90, or even younger parents.

According to the data provided by Taobao, young consumers are the main audience of the platform, and the trend of younger users is younger.

Over the past year, an average of 29 million of the monthly consumers chose to buy children's clothing in Taobao, and 25-34 year old people bought the platform mainstream. The repeat purchase rate was as high as 60.46%, and the proportion of 19-24 year old mother to child users was also rising.

These young people demand higher aesthetic, functional details and safety requirements for clothing.

Especially in the Chinese society, there are more and more family members in the "6+1" family structure. The economic pressure of young parents in raising children is relatively small, so investment in all aspects of children is gradually increasing, and they are willing to spend more on all consumption of children.

According to the data from Chi Chi research, the growth rate of the Chinese children's wear market was 7.60% in 2013-2016 years, and the market size in 2016 reached 145 billion 11 million yuan. In 2017, the industry considered that the scale of the market would exceed 150 billion.

Roland Begg, the global information consultancy, predicts that by 2020, the size of the domestic children's clothing market will exceed 280 billion yuan, and the domestic children's wear market will usher in a more explosive period.

But the business of children's wear is not to make designers simply make the adults' clothes a mini version.

Despite its rich experience in the field of adult clothing, Taiping bird has fallen into a lot of "misunderstandings" when launching its children's clothing brand Mini Peace.

"The introduction of children's wear lines on the basis of adult clothing brands is not a simple thing to do all the year round. It's not directly applied to the supply chain and operation mode of adult clothing."

Taiping bird clothing business department responsible person told reporters.

Mini Peace has used the same fabric as adult clothing when it first came into the market. The store is equipped with a wooden fitting room with a door lock, and even the new strategy is synchronized with the adult clothing.

Later, they found that these measures did not take into account the reality of children's clothing consumption. For example, parents used to prepare their children's clothes for a long time ahead of time, and children would not stay alone in the fitting room of the store.

And more important link is reflected in the control of children's clothing fabric technology and safety.

After market research, Mini Peace began replacing American cotton with domestic cotton, and the quality inspection links were more stringent. Every product was tested by saliva, formaldehyde and heavy metals.

Although almost all children's clothing brands emphasize fabric safety during publicity, it is hard for ordinary consumers to distinguish which fabrics are really safe.

For example, the same fabric will also affect the safety due to different dyeing methods.

The safer way is to dye the cotton first, then spin it into colored yarns, and then weave the cloth. But the cost is very high. If the fabric is dyed directly into the VAT, the color saturation will be very high, but the dye will be relatively free.

In the design style, the aesthetic taste of young parents also affects the decision-making of children's wear brand designers.

Wang Chong, a joint partner of OC&C, believes that the pursuit of personalized young consumers is very "picky". "When the safety and quality of children's clothing has gradually become a hygiene factor (maintenance factor, that is, to prevent consumers' dissatisfaction), young consumers are concerned about the comfort of children's clothing while they also value the design sense and uniqueness of their products."

Mini Peace has noticed this.

Before 2014, their consumers will also receive ornamental elements such as lace or fashion colors, but the new generation of young parents will feel "some dirt".

Now the brand will actively cooperate with the current popular IP image, so that children can have more resonance.

Similarly, men's clothing brand GXG's children's clothing brand gxg.kids is also experienced in the cross-border joint name with the fashion elements.

In 2016, gxg.kids launched a joint venture with South Korea's YG bear KRUNK. In 2017, it co operated with the pop artists RON ENGLISH to launch a stylized Cooperation Fund.

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For those parents who are more concerned about the psychological needs of children, the elements of fashion and fashion are far from enough.

Especially in the domestic children's clothing market which started late, most of the branding still stays in the style and color design. Few brands can provide the functional design that "follows the psychological characteristics of children and meets the physiological needs of children".

Liu Xing's "miidiitapir snacks dream beast" wants to make some efforts in this area, so that the details of the design of rich children's clothing become the media for children to interact with and interact with the outside world.

In the "cloud series" costume, Liu Xing made the kangaroo bag from the front of the dress into a cloud. Inside it, a "bird" doll was fixed with elastic ribbon, and the child put his hand into his pocket to take out the bird.

"When playing with other children, you can say like magic:" I have birds in the clouds! "Liu Xing imitated the voice of the children's surprise.

"When looking for design inspiration, we should think from the child's thinking and angle. I will think about what they are interested in, what they like or what they are afraid of in their communication and interaction with children."

Liu Xing said.

Although children's clothing brands are coveted by their parents' purses, the market still belongs to the growth stage. In other words, each brand has a low market share, and no brand has been used to become a market oligopoly at first.

"Despite the constant consolidation in the past few years, the children's wear market is still very fragmented."

According to Wang Chong's data, the total market share of the top 30 brands of children's clothing sold in 2008 was 8%, compared with 17% in 2017.

The data of Chi Yan consulting also proved the low concentration of children's clothing market. In 2017, except for Semir's Barbara and Adidas children's clothing, the market share of other brands in the top 10 of the market was not more than 1%, while the figures added by TOP10 accounted for only 11.3% of the total market, while the number of foreign mature markets would reach 30%-50%.

The homogeneity and quality of children's clothing brand also impede the development of the industry to some extent.

Cheng Weixiong, an independent analyst in the footwear and clothing industry and general manager of Shanghai Liang Qi Brand Management Co., Ltd., said that the growth and development period of China's entire garment industry was only 30 years ago, and the development of children's clothing was obviously later than that of adult clothing.

These brands still use the way they do adult clothing. "Under the line" is a fast way to enhance consumer awareness and market access.

Some brands have even optimized the structure of offline channels.

Since its establishment in 2012, gxg.kids has opened more than 500 stores in the country, mainly in the north and Guangzhou.

The brand responsible person told reporters, "by the end of 2017, we will slow down the expansion of stores, more accurately identify the target market, enter some of the better shopping malls and location."

They are looking at the shopping centers that will appear in small families.

Mini Peace combines the consumption insight of young parents with the feedback from offline retail channels, and adjusts, pforms and closes the stores with low comprehensive benefits, and promotes and completes the pformation of joint stores to direct and franchised stores.

"At present, through the inspection of the core business circle of the key cities, the brand has already made strategic cooperation with Yinli, Yintai, Wanda and Parkson to carry out strategic cooperation."

Taiping bird clothing business department responsible person said.

And the importance of online channels is self-evident.

"The consumption and life of young consumers are inseparable from online channels, and their entire purchase decision path is greatly influenced by online."

Wang Chong believes that children's clothing brands should invest more in digital channels and try new retail development mode.

The children's clothing brand, "Ying Shi baby", invested by Hai Lan's family, is actively exploring new retail.

In March 28, 2018, Ying announced the cooperation with Tmall to explore the new retail development mode of the mother infant industry, and plans to carry out multi-level cooperation in data mining, user operation and offline.

In the view of Ying Shi CEO and President Luan Xizhong, online and offline integrated development is one of the effective ways to build the brand. In the future, the brand will also cooperate with the Tmall tree and the data of the consumers to understand the changes of consumers and enhance their competitiveness through internal operation.

A group of Internet children's clothing brands that emerged in 2015 are born with internet genes.

They are more flexible and digitalized in the supply chain mode, market promotion mode, brand operation and so on.

In 2016, Zhong Kaixin, the originate of the original Internet brand, was first tested by the social media such as WeChat and got the first batch of seed users. At present, the one fruit and the cooperation factory also adopt the flexible supply chain mode, and the online pre-sale formula is used to predict the sales volume in advance to reduce the inventory pressure.

Everyone wants to win the first throne.

More and more brands are getting a breakthrough by repositioning.

"There is no new opportunity to locate the popular children's clothing market, and the local brand should take the road of original and individualized different brand building."

Cheng Weixiong feels that subdivision will also be an opportunity for children's clothing development in the future.

In 2018, Shanghai fashion week KIDSWEAR, more and more children's clothing brands with positioning and subdivision styles are appearing at the show, hoping to get more exposure.

In addition to the miidiitapir snacks of the natural literature and art, the Joy&Joa of the high dress brand, the positioning of the modern country style children's clothes, the NBA children's clothes of the trend sports style, all try to attract the attention of the consumers in different circles.

"But the production cost of children's clothing is not lower than that of adult clothing, even more complicated than that of adults, and the demand for materials is higher, but the price of children's clothing can not be set too high."

Liu Xing said.

Because the profit margin is very small, so far, there is no return period for this market.

However, with the rise of post-90s and younger consumers, she feels confident that there will be more room for brand development in the future.

Compared with other countries in the world, Chinese families still have room for growth in the annual expenditure of children under 14 years of age.

A report on Credit Suisse describes the annual amount spent by parents on children under 14 years of age. In 2015, for example, the average American parents spent 487 dollars (3060 yuan) on their children, and in Japan, the figure was $435.

But the annual cost of Chinese families for children under 14 is 92 dollars per child in 2015.

Before the next outbreak, every brand has the opportunity to compete for the top brand.

No one doubts that children's clothing market is a tempting cheese.

But they must seize the opportunity.

Look at the GAP children's clothing and know how cruel it is.

In 2014, the brand's children's wear product line ranked seventh in the market share of 0.6%, but with the emergence of more local brands, GAP, which was the main player with basic funds, was squeezed out of the top ten in 2017, but it's only three years.

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