FOREVER 21 Defeat China, What Is The Fate Of Fast Fashion Brand?

In May 9th, Beijing Xihongmen gathered in the shopping malls bustling, the FOREVER 21 stores lined up inside and outside, everyone was waiting for the opening of the 10 point opening business, hot feeling like Starbucks cat claw cup and AJ shoes sold only when the scene.

Activities will last until May 17th, and those days before the end of the weekend will be the last Carnival of stores.

This is a microcosm of FOREVER 21's announcement to withdraw from the Chinese market. The official announcement said that it will suspend operation of official website and Tmall and Jingdong flagship stores from April 29th. In recent 3 years, it has closed more than 200 stores.

The fast fashion brand, founded in the United States, just like its positioning, is stepping into the market and leaving in an instant.

In fact, the fast fashion brands like FOREVER 21 have similar fate: they rush to come, wave their hands and leave a mess.

ASOS, TOPSHOP, NEXT and Martha's department store entered China in the past. Before hunting for a huge consumer market, due to lack of attention, the local rivals were too strong, and the slow pace of the Internet era and other reasons, they finally lost the Mai City because of "acclimatized".

The freshness of fast fashion has passed.

Fast fashion is a simple way of "fast fashion". It means that clothing companies react quickly to fashion design and make products that are closely related to the latest fashion trend. They are quick to get goods, cheap, easy to accept and keep up with the trend.

In 2006, ZARA, Spain's fashion predator, opened its first entity store in Shanghai, opening up Chinese people's understanding of fast fashion.

The first Chinese store in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, created a staggering sales of 800 thousand yuan per day during the Spring Festival, equivalent to the sum of 80 similar Chinese clothing brands' daily sales.

For a time, C&A, Forever 21, GAP, H&M, MJstyle, MUJI, NEW LOOK, UNIQLO, UR and other fast fashion brands became hot.

The new fast, innovative style, the price is close to the people, fast fashion unique label, popular with domestic female consumers.

Many commercial complexes of second and second tier cities offer relatively low rents to attract brands.

Developers have taken a fancy to the strong young consumers behind them, drawing on the overall popularity of catering and department stores, while the fast fashion giants look at the huge consumer market in China.

China has become the second largest market for ZARA in addition to Spain, and is also an increasingly dependent economy for UNIQLO.

Every year, the sales performance of double 11 Tmall flagship store is enviable enough, and the real "quick hands and slow hands".

At that time, the expansion speed of the fast fashion brand was maintained at 60% to 70% per year, and H&M even opened a new store on average 4 days.

Compared with the 6-9 month production cycle of traditional retailers, Zara and H&M only need 5 weeks, and ASOS can complete the product process in 2-8 weeks, with an average time of 6 weeks.

The production mode, management mode and sales channel of these brands have become the object of worship and learning by many domestic brands.

Over the past decade, the international fast fashion brand has made a huge profit in China, but its low speed has explode in the era of mobile Internet.

In February 2017, ZARA shut down the largest flagship store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, which is seen as a fast fashion ending node in the industry.

In 2018, after New Look entered the Chinese market four years later, it closed its 130 stores in China; TOPSHOP terminated its cooperation with Chinese agents, and closed the Tmall flagship store on the eve of double 11 to withdraw from the market. Its original plan to open an independent store in Huaihai middle road was also aborted.

ASOS, who had been unaccustomed to China, also stopped operating in the year, ending with a loss of 8 million 600 thousand euros.

FOREVER21's life is not very good. From social media to FOREVER21 Tucao, we may get a glimpse of the common faults of foreign fast fashion brands: quality is too poor and style is not in line with the Chinese market.

Under the rapid production mode, fast fashion brands have become the hardest hit areas in quality inspection. After some fast fashion brands enter China, quality problems have been flashing red lights.

Beijing white collar worker often bought HM clothes before, "the main picture is cheap, but it can't be done one or two times after buying it, but the price is not high."

At the same time, fast fashion brands are mainly self operated stores, but as the real estate bonus period has passed, the bargaining power of fast fashion brands in the second tier city shopping centers has not been "popular" in the past. In other words, the game relationship between shopping centers and fast fashion has changed.

Store rentals and labor costs are getting bigger and bigger, which brings heavy burden.

More importantly, the "cheap fashion" has been unable to meet the needs of Chinese consumers' quality consumption.

Changes in consumption upgrading and changes in the Chinese market require fast fashion brands to lay down their arrogant figure and re examine Chinese consumers.

The quick fashion giant's acclimatization.

In fact, the international fast fashion giants in the Chinese market, in addition to facing the rising domestic clothing brand, competitors may come from another dimension - the Internet development brand, which makes the market competition unprecedented fragmentation.

Tmall's clothing business two to "e-commerce online" said: "fast fashion brands are mostly layouts in a second tier city, but it is difficult for the incremental users of three or four cities below to move."

Data show that the clothing trade volume of domestic electricity supplier channels account for more than 35% of the total consumption of clothing.

Amoy brands can learn fast fashion proud of the rapid production mode, but also rely on strong channel advantages of e-commerce card quickly, and at this time, the attention of fast fashion brand is still stuck in the inherent store mode.

"Zara many T-shirts will be sold to one hundred or two hundred, but Taobao's search for similar styles may be as long as fifty or sixty, quality is no difference, door-to-door can also support free return."

Li Yue, who lives in Shenyang, said.

On the other hand, with the popularity of social applications such as Instagram, micro-blog, Xiao Hong, and so on, young consumers begin to pursue individuality and diversified consumption, and no longer satisfy the short pleasure of fast fashion consumption. Fast fashion brands must think about the way out of brands in such difficult situations: traditional marketing methods are outdated, following the trend of the times, relying on social media marketing, and KOL taking goods is a new thinking of pformation strategy.

The fast fashion brand leader, UNIQLO, is a very successful example of the operation of the electricity supplier mode. As early as 2009, UNIQLO opened Tmall flagship store, far ahead of the brands such as H&M and ZARA, and produced a connection through the KOL of the fashion industry and ordinary consumers, spontaneously sharing the brand for the two time, so that the marketing effect fission.

In September last year, H&M held the first Tmall super brand day. The new autumn series took the lead in the flagship store. The sales volume also occupied the first three categories of Tmall men's wear, women's wear and children's clothing. The online market became the most frequently used keyword in the 2018 H&M related reports.

It can quickly pull out the lost sight and focus again, whether it is H&M or Zara, UNIQLO, they all choose to touch the net. The way of consumption that young people like is currently in the critical stage of digital pformation.

But the effect of taking the electricity supplier's road is not immediate and it's too late to get into the best time to bring dividends to the Internet.

Zhang Peiying, an honorary consultant of luxury China Alliance, talked about the layout of GAP's electricity supplier. He said, "GAP online small program mall wants to further expand online channels. But at this stage, consumers have not yet formed WeChat shopping habits, so GAP may not be able to stimulate growth through this channel."

The tide of new country is surging.

Buying faster is also faster.

According to McKinsey's latest report, more than half of the fast fashion apparel will be abandoned in less than a year.

More in line with young people's pursuit of individuality and independence of the tide card, but ushered in an outbreak.

In recent years, tide brand consumption has maintained a two digit growth trend. In 2011, the global tide brand market was 60 billion US dollars and reached about 200000000000 US dollars in 2017.

Many forecasts predict that the next trillion market will be behind the tide card.

In this market, the tide is thriving. In recent years, many young people have come up with the brand.

The Internet has become a place for many designers to show their talents, and the e-commerce platform provides a channel for external output.

A survey shows that although many consumers of Chao brand are gathered in North Canton, most of the new brands are located in 234 line cities, such as Chongqing, Xiamen and Wuhan. Regional culture often brings vitality to the development of the national tide.

These are all fast fashion brands trying to sink down and expand the new development space.

Starting in 2013, H&M began to sink the offline channels to the two or three tier cities. In 2016, there were 77 new outlets in China, 53 of which were in two or three line cities.

ZARA also started planning for sinking to the three or four tier city at the same time.

"However, the 345 tier city is also a consumer market which is quite different from that of the first tier cities. Here, local brands such as Metersbonwe, Semir, Hai Lan home and La Natsu Bell are familiar with the local consumption environment and consumption needs. With the help of franchising, name variety shows and celebrity endorsement, a group of their own consumer groups has been trained. It is not easy for fast fashion brands to integrate.

At the same time, the design style is not accepted, and the consumption habits of different places are all obstacles to the sink of their channels.

Harry, who works on fashion and luxury consulting.

The rise of the national tide, because of its sense of mission with Renaissance, satisfies the consumption idea of "seeking common ground while reserving differences" among young consumers, which not only satisfies the pursuit of fashion, publicize individuality, but also return and salute traditional culture.

In recent years, the market development of the national tide market is faster than that of the luxury market and fast fashion market.

In 2018, the Taiping bird group achieved a revenue of 7 billion 712 million yuan, an increase of 7.78% compared with the previous year, and realized a net profit of 572 million yuan attributable to shareholders of listed companies, an increase of 27.51%.

With the rise of the new tide, in 2018, Li Ning Co's revenue reached 10 billion 511 million yuan, an increase of 18.4% over the same period last year.

How fast fashion brands meet the diversified needs of consumer groups under the premise of "fast" is probably an important way to break the barriers to sales in the future.