2019 Fast Fashion Brands List, Digital Pformation Road Open

Recently, Internet Weekly and eNet Research Institute jointly released the list of the 2019 fast fashion brands.

The list counted 150 FMCG fashion brands. Among them, UNIQLO, ZARA and Korea were ranked the top three. In the top ten ranking, the top seven were H&M, Adidas, Nike, ONLY, VERO MODA, Semir and Pacific bird.

In contrast to the top five ranking in 2018, Adidas retired from second place, and Han Du Yi house squeezed into the top three, ZARA jumped from second to third, and H&M and H&M ranked unchanged.

2018 is a relatively tough year for fast fashion brands. Many fast fashion brands including Topshop, New Look, Forever21, Esprit and so on are facing performance crises or even nearly bankruptcy. The fast fashion industry's three giants, UNIQLO, ZARA and H&M, have also been hit by slow sales, poor performance and close shop.

Of course, the overall environment of the garment industry was very low last year.

However, despite the sluggish performance, the fast fashion brand's overall brand score this year is higher than that of 2018.

Combined with the consumption trend of consumption upgrading and experiential new retail in recent years, fast fashion brand in 2018 is estimated to have worked hard on experience upgrading.

In the Internet era, experience upgrading is essentially the creation of digital consumption trend, and fast fashion brand, which is fast and reverse, is more sensitive to digital pformation.

In the past year, the fast fashion brands have more or less layout for digital pformation.

H&M

Recently, H&M moves frequently.

Last Wednesday, H&M opened a new version of the Internet platform Itsapark beta to the public. The platform aims to provide consumers with a place to solve fashion problems and seek new inspirations, so that people can exchange ideas and suggestions around fashion modeling.

Some analysts say that users' spontaneous production of content can enhance the stickiness of brands and consumers, which makes people speculate that Itsapark intends to build a fashionable KOL community.

In addition, recently, Beijing Business Daily reported that H&M is developing a new AR technology to identify the profile of consumers through an intelligent machine. The identified consumers can choose different sizes of "virtual clothing" according to their own needs.

However, H&M had already tested the water intelligent interactive equipment. In July last year, H&M launched a voice activated intelligent interactive mirror authorized by Microsoft at the flagship store of times square in New York. It can put forward the proposal of clothing style according to the needs of consumers.

Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive of H&M, said that H&M will soon invest in digital technologies in different fields, such as a technology to test whether clothes fit well.

H&M attaches importance to digitalization not only in internal research and development, but also in external investment and cooperation.

Recently, the H&M Tmall flagship store and the second-hand trading platform leisure fish have reached a cooperation. For the first time, they try to integrate the old clothes recycling project with the online recycling mode. Consumers click on the "old clothes recycling" on the flagship store of H&M Tmall, and they can complete a series of operations on the online recycling clothing through idle fish.

Meanwhile, at the just concluded global change awards, the H&M foundation has offered 300 thousand euros to support a company that invented recyclable digital systems.

UNIQLO

Since the "Ming Ming plan" was put forward in 2017 to announce the pition to the "digital consumer retail companies", UNIQLO has been working with consulting firm Accenture, technology giant Google, and logistics company Daifuku Co to move towards the clothing technology company.

UNIQLO has a lot of digital layout in the past year.

Take the Chinese market as an example, in 2018, UNIQLO launched its flagship flagship store (official website, official APP, WeChat applet, and the four major entries of offline scanning code). Consumers can enter the online shopping mall directly through the channels of WeChat, micro-blog, shops and other online shopping centers through the function of "one click and buy with one's heart."

At the same time, UNIQLO has also constantly optimized content, launched the "heart to heart" function to provide consumers with different occasions of clothing recommendation, to solve the problem of consumers do not know how to match; also can use the "heart to send" function, choose to give clothes to friends around, so that the flagship store has social networking + e-commerce attributes.

In addition to upgrading consumer service terminals, UNIQLO has also optimized the supply chain system in order to provide consumers with more convenient services.

In 2018, UNIQLO co operated with Daifuku Co, a logistics company, to invest 100 billion yen to establish a new distribution system and gradually realize the automation of warehousing and distribution systems.

Taking the Ariake warehouse in Tokyo as an example, the number of warehouse personnel will be reduced by 90% and the 24 hour operation will be realized after full automation.

The new distribution system can better support the growth of online sales and provide convenience for online consumers to deliver on the same day or next day.

UNIQLO also launched an unmanned retail store worldwide. In August last year, the vending machine "Uniqlo to Go" was launched at airports and shopping malls in 10 cities such as Oakland, Hollywood, highland, Houston and New York.

Sum up

Over the past two years, the world's major apparel companies have increased investment in digital technology research and development.

In the fast fashion field, last April, ZARA tested the AR experience in 137 shops around the world, and consumers could realize the technology through ZARA AR application on mobile devices.

In addition, with Tmall's technology, Zara opened its first new retail store in China last October.

In the field of sports brand, Nike, Adidas and other giants have opened the way of digitalization one after another.

At the end of 2 this year, Adidas announced a comprehensive strategic cooperation with Tmall.

The two sides will conduct in-depth cooperation in new product launches, new retail businesses, consumer operations and new product innovations to enhance brand operation efficiency and consumer experience.

Nike's most recent consumer familiar digital layout is the first House of Innovation in the world in October last year, the world flagship store, Nike Shanghai 001, which is considered to be a new form of formation and consumer dialogue. Nike looks forward to "integrating digital and physical retail in retail".

Digitalization has become the key to the development of science and technology in the future. The digital layout of garment industry is not only to cater for the development trend of the times and better serve consumers, but also to attract young consumers through the black technology shown by the brand, so that they can enjoy the joy of technology while shopping, and achieve the two spread of the brand through word of mouth.

At the same time, catering to the trend of digitalization is conducive to the close connection between clothing brand and the times and profits from it.

For example, H&M can invest in recyclable digital systems. Some people in the industry say that this will exacerbate operating costs in the short run. But with the maturity and application of digital technology, the development of sustainable technology in the future will reduce garment costs and bring profits to enterprises.

More and more clothing companies are digitalized in layout. The fashion industry has not tried digital technology for freshness and pleasure.

Some fast fashion companies even see digital pformation more important than product design. For example, the founder of UNIQLO, Liu Jing Zheng, has said that UNIQLO's positioning is technology companies, and even apple as a competitor.

It can be seen that simple design and sales can no longer meet the needs of the development of clothing brands. The ultimate pursuit of clothing enterprises is to reduce costs through digital layout and provide better service experience for consumers.

Author: Shi Qiao Lu