China'S School Uniform Market Is Developing

In addition to a sense of design, start experimenting.

Operation, functionality and digitalization are the two major trends in the development of China's school uniform industry.

Recently, Tai Ming primary school in Ginza, Tokyo, launched a luxury brand from Italy.

The uniform of the design, the whole uniforms including tops, shirts, bottoms, hats and so on, is worth more than 80 thousand yen (nearly 5000 yuan).

Too expensive school uniform in Japan also raised public opinion, the school immediately received many parents' criticism and complaints.

Chinese netizens were amazed and began to Tucao their most familiar clothes when they went to school.

When it comes to school uniforms, there is always a loose and monotonous sports jacket in our mind, because its magnanimity and procrastination are dubbed "face pockets".

In fact, with the development of consumption, the school uniform industry has seen new vitality, and the "face pocket" is also losing weight.

In fact, uniforms appeared in China as early as the 1911 Revolution.

From the earliest form of the Republic of China and even the cheongsam, to Lenin's costume and cadres' clothing, and to the familiar "face pockets" in 1990s, the history of school uniforms is also a mirror of social and cultural changes.

School uniform in the Republic of China

"Face pocket" uniform

However, the sporty school uniform with "face pocket" looks too big and unsightly. It also brings inconvenience to daily activities. Many students and parents complain about this.

With the improvement of the quality of life and consumption, people put forward higher requirements for the quality and style of school uniforms. So many school uniforms like Eaton Kidd began to refer to the uniforms of England and Japan, and promoted the uniforms including spring and autumn clothing, winter wear, summer wear, necktie, cap and so on.

The pformation and upgrading of the market.

In the domestic school uniform business, Eaton Kidd first chose the "branding" business model. The company has now designed and supplied school uniforms for over 3400 schools.

This seems to be out of line with our traditional school uniform manufacturers.

After all, the sales of school uniforms are not directly oriented to individual students. In the face of such a decentralized market, how does "branding" operate and what does it mean for enterprise sales?

"The traditional school uniform industry is dominated by workshop type production, and its dispersion is a kind of low efficiency and quality."

Eaton Ji De's marketing manager Yang Yue told reporters.

Such a school uniform enterprise is essentially a processing factory from fabric to garment, lacking design and technical content. Homogenization competition forces enterprises to adopt cost saving and relationship marketing methods, and the quality is not guaranteed.

The "brand" put forward is to break the traditional school uniform production mode, which means that enterprises will pay more attention to product quality and consumer's opinion, because this is related to the establishment of brand image.

Drawing on the "brand" business model of the general garment industry, we can promote the establishment of a more mature and better industry standard, and also the general direction of upgrading the school uniform market.

According to the world clothing shoes and hat net, for the "brand" business, Yang Yue put forward two key words: focus and plan.

Brand is the business card to the outside world, and brand positioning is the focus of the enterprise concept, is the product to the customer's intuitive feelings, such as Eaton, Germany's international uniform as a breakthrough point, positioning the product as "elegant, introverted and retraining"; Yooknet of Beijing's YOKA technology focuses on Chinese etiquette culture; Shanghai Hailin has a British style Durant series, and sports leisure semi adult series.

Eaton Kidd uniforms

Yooknet uniforms of Beijing's Oka Technology

The clarity of brand positioning helps to deepen its impression on consumers. In contrast, it emphasizes quality, environmental protection and beauty, and makes products appear mediocre.

The unique brand concept enables enterprises to jump out of the saturated homogeneous market, establish their own uniqueness, and form competitive advantages. This is also a great difference between the new school uniform enterprises and the traditional school uniforms.

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At the same time, the new school uniforms will no longer stay in the school uniform production, but will provide a complete programme service system to the school, and upgrade from the original school uniform tailor to the school uniform designer.

In addition to the design and production of school uniforms, Eaton also provides a complete set of campus dress scheme system including school badge design, etiquette lecture and so on.

Such a service system will help enterprises and schools form a longer and closer cooperation relationship.

But it is worth noting that despite the emphasis on design, the school uniform standard is also different from the general costume.

In addition to whether the design is novel and fashionable or not, school uniform is often considered as a practical consideration for group costumes and students' daily costumes.

Yang Yue told us that the first thing to make a school uniform plan is to analyze the geography of the school.

Average temperature, rainfall, in the mountains or Plains, these factors will affect the choice of functional fabrics, including whether students are boarding or having laundry rooms.

Later, we will integrate the school's historical development, architectural features and campus culture into the design.

The color collision of fashion brand is beautiful, but it is easy to produce visual fatigue on school uniform and affect students' attention. This is why the color design of school uniform is usually relatively restrained.

Besides brand management, functionality and digitalization are two major trends in the development of school uniform industry.

Whether clothes are practical and comfortable is an important criterion for parents to evaluate school uniforms. The functionality and practicality of school uniforms have always been the focus of publicity for all major school uniforms.

Eaton Ji De selects organic cotton materials, and uses 3M reflector, DuPont three proofing finishing technology to make the inner layer sweat and breathe freely, and the outer layer prevents splashing, anti fouling and oil resistance.

The Georges white school uniform in Zhejiang also added 3M reflectors on school uniforms to ensure students' travel safety and choose anti pparent fabrics and designs.

With the development of digital technology, the school uniform industry has begun to take the means of big data analysis.

Yooknet has set up a database that summarizes the growth data of millions of students. These data can provide forward-looking services for school uniform production and reduce the pressure of inventory and supply chain.

Georges white school uniform also launched the "intelligent growth system", through the analysis of Chinese students' body growth database, sleep biochemical mechanism database, youth sports health database and other databases, to provide advice for students' sleep, sports and growth.

George White school uniform "intelligent growth system"

According to data, the size of the school uniform market in China will exceed 100 billion in the future.

Huge market potential is bound to attract some mature garment enterprises to enter the blue ocean.

The Zhejiang Busen group, the main men's wear group, and the Georges white group, the main professional wear, have already smelt business opportunities and launched their own school uniform brand.

These large garment enterprises have more experience and resources, and will become an important competitive force in the market.

However, hundreds of billions of data are not all of the school uniform market. This immature market has bright prospects, and there are multiple obstacles that impede its development.

One of the forces that block enterprises from entering the school uniform market is that this special market has formed its own rules of the game.

This is not a simple business to business or business to consumer market, but rather a "3+1" mode. "Policymakers are principals, buyers are parents, users are students, and a supervisor is an educational administration department."

Yang Yue said that the people and relations involved are very complicated.

It is a long and complicated process to make schools, parents and students satisfied with the standards of quality inspection departments.

Multilateral restraint is an important reason for the slow development of school uniform industry.

The Ministry of education, jointly with the four departments of SAIC, AQSIQ and the National Standards Commission, promulgated the "opinions on Further Strengthening the management of primary and secondary school uniforms" in 2015, which is called the new national standard of the school uniform industry.

This standard is very high in the quality of school uniforms, and some indicators even exceed the European standard.

The setting of high standards is out of line with the actual production capacity, leading to the establishment of a "landmark" by some local and local enterprises.

Fragmented standards cut the market, disrupt market competition, and create difficulties for regulatory work.

The outdated stipulation of school uniforms in some areas also restricts the business expansion of new school uniforms.

For example, some areas in Gansu still follow the 1990s price limit documents: a school uniform can not exceed 85 yuan, which brings great pressure to the cost control of school uniform manufacturers, and also sets the upper limit for the quality of school uniforms.

"There is a trend of winning the bid at a low price in the bidding process," Yang Yue said. "I don't think we can win the price at a low price, because the school uniform is after all a comprehensive consideration of quality and price, otherwise it will drive bad money out of good money". Perhaps the important obstacle to the development of school uniform is still the idea of people lagging behind.

Yang Yue said frankly that the difficulties encountered in the less developed areas are much more difficult than those in the economically developed areas such as the southeast.

In addition, the immature system of the home Committee and the frequent merger of primary and secondary schools in the region also bring great uncertainty to the contract signing of school uniforms.

Eaton Ji De said that they have been calling for the introduction of the power of the Council into school uniform decision-making, "let the business process develop towards a pparent and sunny trend, changing the original impression of nepotism and opacity".

In fact, a more perfect market standard is helping these new schools with design and quality as the selling points, setting up their own competitive advantages.

Of course, there are positive forces in the market. Yang Yue said that the young parents of the post-80s generation are "highly educated and have a strong aesthetic ability". They are more inclined to have quality guaranteed school uniforms, and are willing to pay higher prices for safe and beautiful school uniforms.

The upgrading of consumer demand is also an important force to promote the healthy development of the market.

Internationally, the school uniform culture in Japan has always been praised.

School uniform, which originated in Japan before and after Meiji Restoration, has become an important part of Japanese regulation culture with uniforms as a uniform.

After ten years of rapid development of gold and the impact of American culture, the Japanese school uniforms have undergone changes and upgrading from the practical and comfortable appearance to the appearance. The popular mini skirts and black stockings in 1990s are still the styles of many women's high school uniforms.

Influenced by the consumption culture, the uniforms of Japanese schools are also beginning to pursue students' personalization and pluralism.

In addition to our familiar sailors' clothes, women's school uniforms also have British jackets and jackets, and sweaters and coats for winter wear. Men's school uniforms are students' suits and jackets for standing collar. The colors are mainly in a steady dark blue.

In terms of the design and quality of school uniforms, Japan has developed a more perfect system of standardization, which requires attention to cultural connotations, and creates a cool and elegant image. It has functional designs such as sweat absorption, lightness and durability, and has clear requirements for fabrics and fiber products.

The voice of students and parents has also been given enough attention in the process of school uniform decision-making.

School uniform is the facade and symbol of the school. Some schools will invite senior designers to design school uniforms and vote by students to choose the final plan. The Armani school uniform of Ginza's Tai Ming primary school is a more extreme example.

By contrast, the domestic uniforms market is still in the early stages of development.

Yang Yue said that when she was in communication with the director of the China clothing association's industry department, China's school uniform industry was still blank in data, and there was only one fuzzy value of market valuation of one hundred billion.

"Unlike men's wear, women's wear or children's clothing, at least half of the market share is controlled by the top ten enterprises," Yang Yue said. "There is such an industrial ecosystem in which data can be collected."

But these new schools are constantly innovating and upgrading their sales models.

For example, in the face of the new retail boom, many school uniform enterprises have provided a digital network sales channel.

In addition to the school group purchase and the offline store, Eaton also owns the Tmall flagship store and the WeChat mall and other online platforms.

Yang Yue said that the current goal of enterprises is still the demand for good service schools. Tmall and the mall can make parents' scattered additions and more convenient, and they are also an important channel for them to provide after-sales service and communicate with consumers.

Yooknet set up 1+N mode to set up online exclusive ordering platform. Students and parents can choose their own schools and buy them freely.

Yooknet online ordering platform

In the face of the potential and possible school uniform market, Yang Yue said they really want more new school uniform enterprises to develop rather than fear competition.

After all, it is the future of the healthy development of the industry to turn the public into the traditional impression of "concealment, ugliness and poison" in the school uniform market.

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