Lost In The United States: Can The New Retail Wave Regenerate Its Past Glory?

A "do not take the unusual road", let Metersbonwe and Jay Chou together rooted in people's hearts, affecting several generations of young people.

At its peak, it was once the most popular "national brand". The love of the young man witnessed the counterattack story of Zhou Chengjian from tailoring to a costume king.

There is a very popular passage. Some college students walk around the fence every day. One day, the principal asked, why do you climb the wall every day and not go to the gate? The students replied, Metersbonwe, do not take the unusual road.

However, under the tide of the Internet age, Metersbonwe, which once had no two of its scenery, quickly fell behind.

With the growth of the younger generation, the desire to buy Metersbonwe is being replaced by remembering emotion.

Why does Metersbonwe lose its usual path? Can the past glory be reproduced under the new retail wave?

01 tide makers

In 2008, the United States bells were listed on the bell in Shenzhen.

This is the highlight time of Zhou Chengjian and Mei Bang dress.

Just listed, the two most prestigious entrepreneurs at that time - Wang Shi, the steering director of Vanke and founder Niu Gensheng of Mengniu, were both independent directors of American Apparel.

At the end of this year, the market value of American Apparel climbed to 18 billion 500 million yuan and became the largest clothing company in the market.

Zhou Chengjian, who is also the richest man in the Hurun clothing rich list with 17 billion yuan, has become a real clothing magnate.

The story of counter attack from a tailor to a costume king Begins in the 80s of last century.

The surge of entrepreneurship in Wenzhou has given the little tailor Zhou Chengjian the stage to give full play.

At that time, Zhou Chengjian, 20, had just returned about 200000 of the foreign debt for a clothing business. "It was astronomical at that time."

Zhou Chengjian, who was cornered, scraped together 9000 yuan to Wenzhou, hoping to repay foreign debts with diligent hands.

"The days in Wenzhou were very hard. I made clothes in the most popular clothing market in Wenzhou at that time, sold clothes in the daytime, worked for more than 16 hours a day, and did all kinds of dirty work, hard work and heavy work."

The heart is not lost.

Within a few years, the tailor paid off debts and the clothing business was on the right track.

In 1995, Zhou Chengjian, 30, founded his own clothing brand, Metersbonwe.

In 2001, the first star spokesperson, Aaron Kwok, was invited by the American state dress to infect a few generations of advertising language - "no ordinary road" was born at this time.

Zhou Chengjian said, "looking back on my way to start a business is not to take the ordinary road, but in fact, there is no law to follow in the process of success."

From 2002 to 2002, relying on population and market dividend, the local clothing brand is coming out.

Metersbonwe has quickly become one of the most famous clothing brands in China with its ubiquitous big stores and the star effect of the fast - running Jay Chou.

According to Euromonitor statistics, in 2006, Metersbonwe accounted for 0.95% of the domestic casual wear retailing industry, ranking the top 12 major casual wear brands in the domestic market.

Market reputation and brand appeal are second to none.

In the year of the year of listing, Mei Bang clothing has achieved the coverage rate of 33% of the 100% and second tier cities in 66% and three tier cities, making it impossible for many clothing brands to catch up.

Some industry analysts believe that the "virtual business model" is the key to the success of the United States clothing.

Through the production and logistics outsourcing, franchising chain as the main body, franchising and direct integration of the chain operation mode, Smith Barney clothing greatly reduced the growth period of business risk, and achieved rapid expansion.

At the same time, the United States can also focus resources and energy on product design, research and development and brand marketing.

A senior practitioner told the market that "Mei Bang dress" undoubtedly triggered an ideological emancipation in the clothing industry at that time.

Later, a lot of enterprises imitate this mode of American state, but they are not essential. "

She believes that "virtual business mode makes enterprises bear great risks in R & D and circulation sectors, which puts forward high requirements for a company's supply chain management and information and resource integration capabilities."

And that is the core competitiveness of American Apparel.

A supplier of American Apparel told the market, "Smith Barney apparel developed the standard of Chinese apparel software, the first local garment company on the line of Oracle MFP (commodity finance plan data system), and the industry leader of clothing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system."

In 2008, the financial crisis broke out, and China's textile industry had a huge concussion.

A large number of garment enterprises gradually dropped out due to reduced export orders and substantial cost increase.

With the huge marketing network, the American apparel industry has avoided the risk and is at the top of the industry.

On the occasion of the celebration, Zhou Chengjian shouted on the stage to "fix the whole Chinese market and fix the whole Chinese consumers".

The age can pick up a person, also can easily abandon a person.

In 2011, the performance of Smith Barney clothing reached 9 billion 945 million yuan, an increase of 32.59% over the same period last year, and net profit of 1 billion 206 million yuan, an increase of 59.13% over the same period last year.

Besides the brightest financial reports, the clothing industry is surging, and competition is intensifying.

During this period, the electricity supplier led by Taobao rose rapidly, which caused a huge impact on offline stores.

Under the offline market, the United States should not only defend local competitors such as JEANSWEST, Semir, YISHION and Giordano, but also face the challenges of the international casual wear retail giants, such as ZARA, H&M and UNIQLO, who are pouring into the Chinese market.

Extreme decline.

2012 is an important turning point in American Apparel.

This year, the first time in Waterloo after the listing of Smith Barney clothing, its revenue was 8 billion 600 million yuan, an increase of 1.3% over the same period last year, with net profit of 850 million yuan, down 42% compared with the same period last year.

The negative news of Smith Barney, the sale of goods to the related parties, the management of a large area, and the lack of money in the project were also a great impact on American Apparel.

At the same time, the United States and costumes began large-scale customs shop, a large number of flagship stores to withdraw from the downtown area due to losses.

According to the financial report, in 2012, the total number of apparel stores in the United States was 5220, with only more than 3900 remaining at the end of 2016.

After 7 years of listing, Smith Barney apparel lost its first time and was out of control.

In 2015, Smith Barney lost 432 million yuan in net profit.

In 2016, the United States made a profit of 550 million yuan by selling its subsidiary, and successfully made a "loss" to avoid wearing the hat "ST".

In 2017, Smith Barney again lost money and its net profit was -3.05 billion yuan.

A once famous national brand fell to the altar.

The era has changed, but the American state clothing still stays in the old concept of relying on the spokesperson to achieve sales volume and brand awareness, and its attractiveness to young people is getting worse.

With the growth of the younger generation, the desire to buy Metersbonwe is being replaced by remembering emotion.

Some netizens attributed the decline of American Apparel to "people who do not know fashion, do fashion, do not know the electricity supplier to do business".

02 electric business remains

Mei Bang dress is one of the earliest local clothing companies to test water business.

As early as 2008, the United States and costumes set up a Taobao shop, and achieved good results.

However, Zhou Chengjian is not satisfied with just being a businessman. He hopes to build his own electronic business platform and get a share from the newly rising electricity supplier market.

In the ten years since then, the three attempt to pform the electricity supplier in the United States has not only failed, but also accelerated the fading of the aura of the "King".

In 2010, "all objects" became popular.

"Love the Internet, love freedom, love late, love night stalls, love racing cars, and love 29 pieces of T-SHIRT.

I am not the flag bearer, not the endorsement of anyone. I am Han Han, and I represent myself only.

Like you, I am a guest. "

In the year, sales of all customers reached 2 billion yuan.

Self proclaimed "don't know clothes, do not know marketing, do not understand Internet" in the past, earn a full pot.

The success of VIC has set off a trend of clothing online shopping.

In December 18, 2010, the electronic commerce platform of "Bon buy" was quietly launched.

Through this platform, consumers can sweep the code of consumption in the physical store, and work online and offline.

The "state purchase network" already has the embryonic form of the current "new retail".

Zhou Chengjian hopes that the new e-commerce platform will complement each other with traditional channels: the traditional mode experience of existing lines, and the 24 hour fast and convenient experience mode on cable.

"Traditional stores are ground troops, equivalent to the army; electronic commerce is the air force, ground troops and air force units to win the battle."

He explained, "a new era of e-commerce is coming, e-commerce will change people's consumption patterns, but it still needs a close experience."

In January 3, 2011, the daily sales of the "state purchase network" exceeded 300 thousand, and the daily trading volume exceeded 1000 orders, with an average value of more than 300 yuan per sheet.

Zhou Chengjian was very optimistic about the prospect of "Bong buy net" at the beginning. His goal was to achieve sales of 100 billion yuan by 2020.

"If the Tencent shut down for a month, many people will encounter obstacles in their daily lives.

If Metersbonwe clothing can be done like Tencent, consumers need it, the scale of enterprises will naturally grow further.

However, the performance of Bong net is not satisfactory.

In October 2011, the "state purchase network" was stripped from the listing system due to continuous losses.

Mei bang made more than 60 million yuan of tuition fees for this purpose.

At present, the "state purchase network" is still in operation.

APP, a city shopping center, found that most of its merchandise sales were in single digits.

Zhou Chengjian did not give up the electricity supplier dream.

In 2013, Smith Barney launched the O2O strategy, and the "state purchase network" returned.

Smith Barney clothing intends to integrate physical stores and Internet business operations.

In Zhou Chengjian's view, "offline stores create a life experience shopping experience for the target consumers, and at the same time, it is the carrier of electronic commerce. The backstage provides the express service of the entity store through the Internet platform, mining the consumer data, and providing personalized service for consumers with the cloud computing platform."

Zhou Chengjian is not worried about the lack of traffic in the self built e-commerce platform. "The era of attracting traffic has gone by the promotion of high cost.

Our practice is to rely on offline carriers to attract tourists and interact with each other so as to achieve low-cost integration of resources.

According to Zhou Chengjian's plan, in 2014, the US bond O2O model stores will reach 100 in China and 1000 in the next three years.

In July 2015, the United States announced a fixed increase in fundraising plans, the proposed fund-raising amounted to 9 billion yuan, of which 6 billion yuan for the "O2O all channel platform construction."

In November, the announcement of the US state dress announced that the plan was adjusted to increase, and the total amount of fund-raising had never been more than 9 billion yuan, shrunk to no more than 4 billion 200 million yuan.

Among them, the heavy project "O2O all channel platform construction" has become "O2O multi brand sales platform", and the amount of investment raised from 6 billion yuan to 1 billion 200 million yuan.

The O2O strategy failed to save the decline of American state clothing.

In 2015, Smith Barney lost 432 million yuan in net profit.

In 2016, two vice presidents of Liu Yi and Lin Haizhou left one after another, and two of them were the talents who were introduced to implement the O2O strategy.

Insiders said that this meant that the O2O exploration of American Apparel has basically failed.

In May 2015, Zhou Chengjian solemnly launched the "fan" APP in the 20th anniversary celebration of American bond clothing.

This is seen as Zhou Chengjian's third attempt to pform the electricity supplier.

In order to popularize the "fan" APP, Mei Bang dress has twice invested in the famous variety show "wonderful flower".

It is reported that the sponsorship fee of one season exceeds 50 million yuan.

Official introduction shows that "fan" APP is actually an intelligent entrepreneurial tool based on mobile terminals and a platform for fashion matching experience.

In Zhou Chengjian's view, "fan" APP has completed the closed loop of traditional O2O, in addition to opening up online and offline, it can provide zero cost entrepreneurial space for the platform entrepreneurs. "Fan is the upgrade and perfection of the O2O mode."

A consumer who used "fan" APP told the market, "fan's operation and interaction are very poor, and the fashion matching problem on the message board is rarely answered.

It was originally directed at the "wonderful flower" to download, it is really not easy to use, not long after the unloading.

In September 2017, "fan" APP announced the shutdown.

According to the analysis, the investment in e-commerce business is not directly proportional to the profit of the apparel business. It will be a wise move to continue the operation and the interests of the shareholders.

An industry analyst told the market, "the advantage of the United States has been in the marketing of stores, and the Ping Bang effect of Mei Bang has topped the list of local brands.

But its pformation in the wave of electricity supplier has made it lose its original advantage.

If we only look at the business opportunities in the electricity supplier field, we would like to have a share in the field that we are not familiar with.

Zhou Chengjian also has no lack of reflection. "In the past, many people said that China's ethnic enterprises and brands were eliminated and abandoned because they did not embrace the Internet.

It is not whether the Internet has abandoned you, but whether we have done enough in many aspects. "

"I have taken some wrong roads, taking the Internet as a mission, spending a lot of money to buy traffic, but those traffic can not stay.

If we use the Internet as a tool, it is still of great value. "

Zhou Chengjian said.

03 pformation of war

Since the listing of Smith Barney clothing, Zhou Chengjian has carried the banner of pformation.

Before the pformation of the water business, there are two main pformation directions: the first is to use the new brand, to dig the market potential with multi brand strategy; the two is to dilute the "virtual management mode", gradually expand the scale of fixed assets, enhance the proportion of Direct stores, and improve the operational control power while improving the efficiency.

In 2008, Metersbonwe launched the high-end brand ME&CITY targeting the "urban" consumer group, aiming to build the Chinese version of "ZARA".

ME&CITY, a high-end line, is located in the core business circle of the first tier cities, and most of them are flagship stores of more than 2000 square meters.

Because of its huge investment, ME&CITY is mainly direct battalion.

That is to say, the two pformation goals of ME&CITY are unified.

In 2009, ME&CITY set a sales target of 2 billion yuan, but sold only 350 million yuan in the end.

The announcement shows that as of November 26, 2009, the United States and the United States to buy a total of 6 clothing stores, the total area of 29 thousand square meters, the total price of the purchase of shops 785 million yuan.

ME&CITY has become the "bottle" of American Apparel.

In 2009, the sales expense rate of Mei Bang clothing reached 27.8%, up 6.7% from the same period last year. This figure is almost two times that of the seven wolves.

Among them, the rent and decoration costs soared by 79% and 69% respectively.

In the first quarter of 2010, the net profit of Smith Barney fell 90% year-on-year.

After 2011, due to poor performance, ME&CITY had to shut down most of the big loss shops and shops in the busy business circle to smaller stores.

In addition, the overestimation of ME&CITY also increased the inventory pressure of Smith Barney clothing.

"Making ME&CITY is very valuable, and the timing is good. Unfortunately, our method is wrong," Zhou Long, director of marketing at the US brand, said in an interview with southern weekend. "We pay six hundred million tuition fees for this purpose."

At the same time, the contradiction between Direct stores and franchisees is also increasing.

As a "Pro son", Direct stores tend to enjoy more concessions and resources.

A former agent of Mei Bang dress told the market, "at that time, the United States and costumes made a strict ordering system, and the order authority was directly linked to the shop area and business status.

Many new products can't be ordered without reservation.

The pressure of ordering is increasing, but business is not as good as day after day.

I really can't support it, and then I don't represent the United States. "

The contradiction between Direct stores and franchisees has not yet been solved, and the rush to enter the electricity supplier of American state clothes soon aroused new contradictions.

In 2010, the "state purchase network" was launched.

The electricity supplier is a brand-new attempt for the American barn dress. At first, it did not realize the problems of supply chain and logistics.

Online and offline supply chain and logistics are difficult to copy directly. This problem has been beset with American Apparel.

In the past, the supply chain, resource integration and information management were the core competitiveness of the American state garments, which originated from the "virtual business mode".

However, in one and another pformation, the channel and supply chain of American Apparel are becoming more and more complex.

Zhao Qi, a researcher at dolphin think tank, said: "the increase in the number of brands and departments will inevitably enhance the barrier of information communication, thus affecting the prediction of the overall sales volume, and further affecting the choice of procurement.

If the procurement of the two brands is separate, they will also reduce the volume of procurement, weaken the scale efficiency and face the bargaining power of the upstream manufacturers.

This will inevitably affect the efficiency of the supply chain and lead to inventory accumulation.

In Zhao Qi's view, "every opportunity to see an opportunity, the United States and the state is always one of the earliest entrants, but it is the second time.

They may have good strategic insight, but they are involved in complex supply chains and lack of corresponding execution capability.

Smith Barney costumes tend to be too optimistic about the pformation prospects, which also exacerbates the inventory problem.

At the same time, "Bong buy network" was also launched by AMPM.

When the channel has not been completed, AMPM has already generated 300 million yuan inventory.

In the clothing industry, inventory status has always been a barometer of a company's operating conditions.

After 2010, the problem of American barrack clothing inventory broke out.

In 2010, the United States apparel inventory 2 billion 550 million yuan, assets accounted for 29.7%, an increase of 13.2% over the same period last year.

Since then, although it has dropped somewhat, the share of inventory assets has remained above 20%.

Inventory turnover also continued to rise, from 80 days in 2008 to 204 days in 2017.

In order to clean up the stock, Smith Barney tried to get through the O2O mode to get through online and offline, but with little success.

After 2013, the stock of American state clothing declined significantly, but more was the contribution of discount sales, and the loss of asset impairment rose accordingly.

American Apparel has a keen market sense and has always been at the forefront of the pformation of garment enterprises.

In addition to the traditional garment enterprises' thinking has not been reversed, the absence of products and R & D is also an important reason for its decline.

When the company went public, Zhou Chengjian promised to concentrate on making clothes. I was just a tailor and wanted to be a tailor.

Now, apparently, he has broken his promise.

At the 2017 China business leaders forum, Zhou Chengjian said, "I think I have misplaced myself in the past ten years and let myself go off the rails". Instead of concentrative attention on this industry and profession, I really used a craftsman spirit to make a tailor, so I was abandoned by the market.

Cheng Weixiong, former vice president of the United States, wrote in the book "not to go the unusual way: in my thirteen years in Metersbonwe," wrote that the sales of Smith Barney and other companies in recent years have plummeted, mainly from the concern of the market.

"They are committed to product reengineering, attracting new and old customers to their needs and aspirations, and trying to change the mode of operation and mode, or reduce costs to change the price, try every means to attract the attention of consumers, but with little success."

The United States, including the United States, often calls for differentiation, but homogenization.

In one and another pformation, the United States gradually lost its clothing.

New opportunities have not been seized and all kinds of advantages have been lost.

In Zhou Chengjian's view, today's American Apparel is the worst and the best time. "Although the performance of the United States is not brilliant, the whole company's understanding is the same. It is the inevitable result that the United States can make the costumes better."

In November 2016, Zhou Chengjian resigned as chairman of the board and retired behind the scenes.

His daughter, Hu Jia Jia, who is 30 years old, has succeeds in the new generation.

After the new head took office, the United States clothing claimed to "return to the main business".

Since 2017, the United States has tried to regain the traditional advantages of offline channels to accelerate its opening up, and the company's performance has gradually improved.

Under the new retail wave, can Mei Bang dress regain its past glory?