UNIQLO Is Quicker Than Others. What Does It Mean?

Young people in China are not so keen on fast fashion.

The international fast fashion brands, once representing western style, have lost the Chinese market. After the announcement of the British high street brand TOPSHOP and New Look announced their withdrawal from China in 2018, Forever 21 from the United States also rushed to the curtain several months ago.

The big players also have no good news: the performance of Inditex group, the parent company of ZARA, has slowed down since 2015, and the revenue growth in 2018 has continued to decline to 3%, and net profit has risen by only 2% over the same period last year. This is the worst profit growth in the past 5 years. Another fast fashion giant H&M group has slowed down its opening speed after a sharp decline in revenue growth in 2016.

In contrast, UNIQLO's performance is far from "fast fashion". Thanks to the strong growth in the Chinese market, its 2018 fiscal year revenue rose by nearly 16% compared with the same period last year, showing a handsome uptrend in the picture below.

Compared with the expansion of the above brand stores, it is more intuitive to see that the momentum of TA development in China is different. From 2015 to 2018, UNIQLO net increased 246 Chinese stores, which is 15 times the number of ZARA, 1.4 times the number of brands of H&M group (including H&M, COS, etc.) - behind the more rapid expansion, it often means more beautiful growth and stronger confidence.

Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to pay for UNIQLO. What exactly are they buying? This represents the consumption logic of contemporary young people. DT tries to compare the differences between UNIQLO and ZARA from the perspective of consumer perception to get answers to the above questions.

　　 UNIQLO merchandise is only 1/5 of ZARA, but a commodity can provide up to 18 colors.

First of all, from the perspective of product development, UNIQLO and ZARA have different cores.

We compared the products of two brands on Tmall flagship store in May 2019, and the difference was obvious. The number of UNIQLO products was only ZARA 1/5.

In ZARA nearly 10000 items, apart from clothing, there are a wealth of accessories products, bags are divided into men's bags, women's bags and children's bags, and even perfume and lipstick. Obviously, ZARA earnestly practices the concept of fast fashion, to provide as many designs as possible, and provide a full range of solutions for fashionable people.

In contrast, UNIQLO's products are few in style, and over 30% of them offer more than 3 color choices.

UNIQLO a man's POLO shirt even gave 18 color options. For a man who doesn't want to think about what clothes he wears, he can only rely on this POLO shirt for a month.

If we strictly define the fast fashion according to the "business model that can be launched in fashion week in a very short time", it will not be a fashion brand.

In particular, the data of real fast fashion ZARA are pulled out and compared. More than 9 of the products only offer 1-2 color options, basically buying several clothes, that is, buying several styles.

Behind this is the brand philosophy of the two brands. DT Jun here directly quotes the contents of the public No.

UNIQLO: clothing is originally without individuality. Only by ingenious dressing of someone can it show its unique personality charm.

ZARA: for customers to make style proposals, customers find their favorite products in the process of enjoying style proposals and decide to buy them.

We can understand the difference between the two brands from the buyer's point of view: there are not many basic styles without personality, so before buying UNIQLO, you know what clothes you want to buy, comply with the shopping logic that you want to buy goods A to buy merchandise A, while ZARA's style is often new, you don't know what you want to buy before you see your clothes, you want to buy clothes to go shopping, look around, look for the whole process.

From the perspective of China's market performance, there is no personality fund to win more fans.

　　 The basic fund is kingly way. More people look at the comfortable and practical clothes.

Online sales also show this trend.

DT looked at the two brands of Tmall flagship store's hot products in May, whether it is ZARA or UNIQLO, and the best selling styles are basic.

The main products of UNIQLO are hot T-shirts, women's long sleeves, no steel rings, men's rib vests and so on.

In addition to the basic fund, DT Jun also noted that men had built up half of the hot sale of UNIQLO, and 5 of TOP 10 hot commodities were male.

What makes DT Jun somewhat surprised is that ZARA, which is famous for its rapid and innovative style, sells the best of its kind. It is basically a basic T-shirt, with some sense of design and only a sash dress. Fortunately, both women's bags and perfume are on the top of the list, keeping the layout of a fashion brand.

Why can basic funds get so many favours? This is the key to understanding people's willingness to pay for UNIQLO.

A all in T-shirt panchromatic basic fan, to DT Jun provides an answer: "wearing a design sense of clothing, if the crash shirt is very embarrassing, but the basic paragraph is worn by everyone, hit it doesn't matter." This mentality partly explains why basic funds are more likely to become explosive funds.

The comments on UNIQLO and ZARA products illustrate the reasons from a broader consumer perspective.

We have counted all the comment labels received by the two brands of Tmall flagship store, which represents the elements that people care more when shopping.

UNIQLO received the most comments on the label "comfortable", "comfortable" and "good quality". Fashionable ZARA did not receive more "good version" and "good smell", but "comfortable" also ranked the top three.

Obviously, the purchase of UNIQLO people sees "quality" and "comfort", and more and more such people, and even in the group buying ZARA, there has been such a tendency of concern -- this is the mass base that supports UNIQLO's popularity.

　 UNIQLO is quicker than others. What does it mean?

But how much can this represent the consumption logic of Chinese young people?

Consumption has always been more than just buying and buying, it also has a lot of influence on culture, economy and social development. Mr. DT associates with the development process of UNIQLO, and the rise of TA is corresponding to the change of Japanese consumption era.

Here we have to mention the concept of "fourth consumption era", which was first put forward by Japanese writer three Pu exhibition in her own book. According to the stage of economic development in Japan, he divided consumption into four stages: first, in the era of consumption, a small number of middle-class people began to enjoy westernized lifestyles; second in the era of consumption, the economy developed rapidly and people consumed a lot; third, in the era of consumption, consumption was individualized, and people wanted to reflect their distinctive selves by buying special products; but in the fourth consumption era, people returned to their true roots.

UNIQLO and more impersonal MUJI products are popular in Japan in the fourth consumption era. The era of lavish spending is gone forever, and people no longer define their personalities through consumption symbols.

We have sought the popularity of UNIQLO in the Chinese market. It has been interpreted that more young people have returned to practicality, comfort and quality. They no longer value the value of symbols so much that they do not have much to do with "what to wear" and "who I am". In the early years, we thought this consumption concept was too straight. Now we call it rational consumption.

But this does not seem to extend further, indicating that we have entered the so-called fourth consumption era. Carefully studying the above picture, DT can see the shadow of China in the characteristics of the three consumption era:

The popularity of APP and so on is full of consumers who are seeking "more good provinces". Once again, the craze of Internet products and limited products has spilled over to the overheating of consumption. The consumer groups such as Hanfu, Lolita and JK uniforms have been developing vigorously. They need to eliminate Fei Zhangxian's identity and cultural identity by personalization. China has contributed 1/3 of global luxury accessories sales, which proves that enough consumers agree with the premium premium of brand symbols. At the same time, the personalized brands such as UNIQLO, famous and excellent products are very moist, and the simple idea of pursuing high performance price ratio is prevailing.

Therefore, we think the more rigorous expression should be that the consumption trend represented by UNIQLO does exist, but it is only one of many forces, and it can not simply summarize the current consumption trend in China.

This is probably the consumption classification of experts.

In the face of such a complex consumer, ZARA in the Chinese market, who is moving from the wind to the downturn, will have to choose between "big province", "personalization" and "high price performance ratio" if we want to achieve a better growth momentum.