Hanfu, Lo Skirt, JK Uniform, How To Empty 95 After 00 Wallet?

　　 New consumer elements series:

2019 is a year with sparse draught.

Compared to 17 years of consumption upgrading, 18 years of new retail sales, and 19 years to now, the primary market is still quiet, and there is no industrial investment theme.

But in fact, on the surface of capital, the new consumer behavior characteristics are driving new business segments rapidly, creating new wealth and opportunities in the corner of public attention.

To capture these new opportunities, the editorial team has launched a series of new consumption elements to observe the consumption logic and business essence of all kinds of new consumption culture.

Chapter 001 of the new consumption element series, first of all, please join us in understanding the business behind the small clothing of Hanfu -- who is paying for these minority clothes? What are the business opportunities behind these seemingly small markets?

　　 Hanfu, Lo skirt, JK uniform...

The clothing factions that you can't name up are developing gradually along with the development of subculture, gradually stepping out of the exhibition and Cultural Festival, becoming the daily dress that can be seen in the streets.

It may be hard for you to understand why there are people who spend a lot of money on these "gowns" with big sleeves and big sleeves, a series of "Princess skirts" and high school girls' school uniforms. However, the lack of understanding of mainstream culture does not affect the rapid growth of minority clothing. The vertical media Hanfu information has estimated that the scale of Hanfu commercial market in 2018 has exceeded 1 billion yuan, which is several times more than the scale of 150 million yuan in 2015. Tmall's "2018 Han clothing consumer group report" also showed that the number of Chinese clothing purchased in 2018 increased by 92% over the same period last year.

Hanfu, JK uniforms and Lo skirts today occupy a place in the subculture of young people, so they have the possibility of scale and marketization. Today, a group of young people, such as "Internet aborigines" and "Z era", are not only connected with the Internet more closely than the previous generation of young people, but also have stronger information access ability. They also have a stronger material basis, allowing them to have stronger personality characteristics and more diversified clothing choices in daily life. These market characteristics provide a basis for the scale of small clothing.

But this is just the beginning. Due to the characteristics of audience personalization and small crowd, minority clothing is also facing the problems of low market concentration, slow customer acquisition, high customization requirements, and poor production and quality.

What kind of business is niche clothing? What are the fast rising vertical market players in each category? What problems do we need to solve in order to further develop this subdivision field?

Users in circle culture:

Sensitive, sophisticated and strong word driven.

Before we talk about any business model or marketing strategy, first of all, we need to understand what kind of market it is.

For Han costume, JK uniforms and Lo skirts, the most prominent feature is that the user group is young, vertical and circle. As a consumer of a clothing faction, they are the first sub culture readers, and have strong identity and belonging towards the corresponding sub culture and corresponding circles.

Consumers of minority clothing also build circle culture through special titles and so on. For example, in the Hanfu circle, they are called "the same Robe" from each other. They are taken from the "Book of Songs" and "Lo". The lovers of the Lo skirt are called "Niang". These titles are the embodiment of identity.

It is precisely because of this that consumer behavior in the market not only stems from the preferences of goods, but also has a certain identity. This makes the core consumer brand awareness of minority clothing very strong, and is sensitive to format, system and other issues. The most prominent manifestation is the very emphasis on the dispute between Shan Zheng.

The so-called Shanzhai, in the niche clothing market, refers to the shop owner who does not make original design, copy and imitate original shop style. Because cottage stores often need only simple tools like sewing machines and cloth to start work, and can use several vest and genuine shop owners to carry out guerrilla warfare. After new stores, new stores often win through lower prices, mainly attracting consumers who are not in the clear lane or want to save money. Although the store will take measures such as reporting and safeguarding rights, the effect is negligible.

The cottage is rampant, unhappy is the store, and even more unhappy is buying genuine consumers. They spend a higher price, waiting for a long production schedule to get ready to wear, many of which still need to rush to buy limited edition, while those who buy cottage get similar clothes at lower prices and short waiting time, which is unavoidable in the hearts of genuine buyers. The aggressive Lo mother even formed a fixed name for paddies - "pangolin".

Consumers have taken a lot of actions to protect the legal copy voluntarily, such as putting up a list of Shanzhai stores, demining on micro-blog, and even more, there have been cases of public scolding among strangers who come across Shanzhai villages. Acts like insulting passers-by are obviously excessive, but it is enough to see that for the members in the circle, the original version has become a certain belief. The strong spontaneous belief also made the genuine shop owners get stable and fixed consumer groups, forming a strong brand effect in the minority clothing market.

And the strong circle culture has made differentiation among the "genuine" consumers besides the "Shan Zheng dispute".

For example, in the group buying Hanfu, there is a "despise" of the orthodox Hanfu to the improved Hanfu, and the "despise" of the song and Ming costumes to Wei, Jin and Tang Dynasties. In the Hanfu circle, there was an incident of "the separation of the Han and the Han": the two piece of the chest, the skirt and the Wei Jin wind. Due to the unacceptable form, some fans thought that they should not be called Hanfu, but the beautiful clothes made by the businessmen themselves. Therefore, they should be called fairy clothes. This kind of dispute over the shape also caused many people's dissatisfaction.

In JK uniforms and Lo skirts, there is differentiation between Japanese cards and national cards. In essence, it can be regarded as a "despising chain" based on price.

In the Lo skirt, the Japanese brand, which has a longer operation time, has more experience in design and production. Therefore, the quality is much better than the national brand. Of course, the price is usually higher. The price of the Lo skirt is usually more than 1000 yuan, and the price can be up to ten thousand yuan. The overall positioning of the national brand is more approachable, with the average price below 500 yuan.

There are also different levels of classification in JK uniforms. In Japan, uniforms are divided into school supply and non school provision: the clothing provided by the school is specially supplied to schools, which can only be purchased by students of the school, and will only be circulated secondhand through the secondary market. Whether it is school supply or non school supply, the overall price of the JK uniform of the Japanese card is higher, while the national brand is more close to the price, and cheaper shirts can be settled below 100 yuan.

However, this Japanese brand official store is still a minority in China, which provides an opportunity for the growth of national cards.

Such a small circle culture has also greatly affected the brand building mode of minority clothing.

For users, although the consumption of a single product between 200~500 yuan is acceptable, but the minority clothing is not always served. For a single user, the frequency of purchase and the number of possession are relatively limited. In the case of bad industry, it is not necessarily expensive to try and falsify the product by buying and buying it again and again. Under such circumstances, information sharing can be greatly reduced by information sharing and tree holes.

At the same time, because of the sensitive issues such as "Shan Zheng dispute" mentioned above, and in the absence of a common understanding of the standard specification, and at the same time, the majority of consumers have limited ability of textual research, the public as a whole is still relying more on brand reputation, as well as on the large scale information for their consumption behavior. This also means that "word of mouth" is very important to businesses. Recognition in the circle is the key to success. A small amount of information and KOL in the industry are more important.

For merchants, being hung up is often a blow to brands. Especially in the case of partial shipment, if the previous batch has negative word-of-mouth, the remaining batches will often have an avalanche return situation, which can even constitute a shop closing and closing shop attack for smaller stores.

In addition to micro-blog, the sub culture circle is also an interest community. Post bar, QQ and other social products, which have been relegated to the second line in our daily vision, often play an important role in the sale of small clothing. From pre sale to after sale customer service, to long-term brand maintenance, user management, post bar, QQ's "semi open" but not exposing the real life status, it can provide a sense of security for minority audiences.

In addition, it is also a way for businesses to promote the development of traditional Chinese culture and cultural activities. Take Lo skirt as an example, there will be some brand promotion tea shops in China, and there will also be some spontaneous tea parties organized by Lo Niang. In the promotion of tea parties, merchants will imitate the propaganda way of the Japanese Lo brand, and release the new products at the tea party.

Taking into account the audience density and other reasons, offline activities are still concentrated in the second tier cities, so for consumers, the offline approach is still not the main way of information acquisition, but only a supplementary means.

　 "Niche market characteristics"

Down payment system

Comparatively speaking, the design and production process of Hanfu and Lo skirt are quite complicated in the minority dress. The Hanfu has not only small textual cost, but also different styles of tailoring, while the Lo skirt, lining, lace and delicate details are all processes. These factors also restrict the production of small clothing.

At the same time, because the audience is narrow and the sales volume is small, in order to test the market feedback and avoid the loss caused by the unsalable goods, a lot of limited strength clothing businesses adopt the earnest cash payment system. The proportion of deposit is about 30%, and even a full amount of pre-sale will appear even in a few cases.

The down payment system is not very rare in Taobao, but it is equivalent to the small batch customization. When it starts to sell or deposit, it may only have a single piece of clothing, or even only a design plan. This means that consumers will have to wait long after they get the order.

At the same time, the longer production period also forced merchants to use the earnest cash payment system. Such as Ming Hua Tang's high-end clothing business, the price per passenger is higher, a single skirt is two thousand or three thousand of the price, the most expensive suit can reach more than 10000 yuan, and up to now, Ming Hua Tang official website shows that the construction period has been discharged in the early December of 2020.

The general down payment system has also caused some problems. Many businesses do not use Taobao's official earnest money tail function. Instead, they deposit a single shot. After making the deposit, they will issue a fine letter. However, businesses also require consumers to confirm receipt after receiving the deposit letter, which means that an independent single transaction has been completed, and after the actual production of the goods is completed, the other part will be taken again. This provides some buffer room for the merchants to make changes in the subsequent production costs, but at the same time, it also brings a lot of trouble to the dispute settlement after the flow.

Of course, there are also businesses in the industry who do not need to use the earnest cash payment system. For example, Chuan Dai, which is mainly made up of Hanfu style, can reach thousands of monthly sales of the hottest clothes. Compared with the orthodox Hanfu, it has more popular elements, and is more convenient to wear, and the price is relatively low. Therefore, it is very rare to adopt the way of earnest + tail, basically through the whole sale.

High deposit and long production cycle are unacceptable to ordinary people. But out of love, willing to take risks, willing to wait for a small number of clothing consumers are not in the minority, so the earnest money tail system in the minority clothing circle has basically become the norm.

However, due to the influx of new businesses into the field, the rollover period in the past two years and the frequent rollover of the wrong goods also caused consumers to reflect on it. After all, buying clothes that they like also bought the case of rights protection. Under this influence, the number of consumers who only buy spot for lightning protection is also on the rise.

Second hand Trading: chaos and decentralization

The niche clothing market also has a more prominent feature, that is, derived from the huge second-hand trading market.

There are several reasons here. First of all, as I mentioned just now, the output and sales volume are small. Many styles are about a hundred or so quantities. In fact, they can be counted as limited edition. With the gradual expansion of the audience of small clothing, some rare and limited classic styles are also highly sought after, and even have a certain collection value, which has promoted the transactions in the secondary market.

Secondly, in addition to the daily use and collection of fans, there are indeed a small proportion of consumers wearing small clothes just to take pictures. "When a dress is photographed, it loses its soul." It is also normal to handle the clothes that have been photographed through second-hand transactions.

At the same time, because of the limited supply of merchants themselves, it is often necessary to take time to "grab" new ones in a single transaction. While the fans of small clothing have high interest and enthusiasm, they are also reasonable in the secondhand market because of the reasons why they have been shot for the clothes that they did not need.

In addition, due to scarcity, for some classic or hot styles, the price of the secondary market may even be higher than the original price.

At present, Hanfu's trading is relatively concentrated. Chinese Hanfu network estimated that in 2018, the output value of Taobao Hanfu business was about 75%. But for second-hand transactions, the market is more scattered and chaotic: Post Bar, micro-blog and leisure fish may be the gathering place of second-hand trading information, the way of transaction is fragmented, there is no absolute fixed platform, trading off platform, direct transfer payment and other raw line transactions also happen frequently - there are many deception exist naturally, but highly C2C market is also difficult to regulate from the regulatory level, which has caused some challenges to the market order.

It is also worth mentioning that, because of the deposit payment system mentioned earlier, the object of second-hand transactions not only includes spot goods, but also the paid list can be traded in the secondary market, and it may also get the price higher than the original price. The emergence of this simple futures market has also caused many scalpers to rush to the market and further disrupt the market order of the minority clothing.

　 "Hidden worries behind rapid development"

　 Chaos under supply imbalance

All these factors, combined with the increasing heat of minority clothing, is facing the problem of imbalance between supply and demand. The daily economic news has reported that the Han clothing business "returned to the Han and Tang Dynasties" originally doubled the estimated sales volume in the past 2018-2019 years, but the actual situation has doubled five or six times. Under such circumstances, the production scale of the factory and the staffing of the company need a lot of time to prepare for improvement.

In this case, the problem that comes naturally is the thriving Shanzhai market.

The Shanzhai store has omitted the time, effort and devotion of design, development and publicity, and has also made a discount in raw materials and process costs. The profits are even higher, attracting many speculators to enter. Although boycott boycott has been heard for a long time, Shanzhai and plagiarism still can eat a lot of sales in niche clothing market. Search for Taobao, JK uniforms and Lo skirts and other keywords. There will be a lot of copycat products in search results. People who do not have the ability to identify Shanzhai and genuine identification will easily get into the so-called Shanzhai stores and buy products.

The search results on Taobao are almost all Shanzhai.

At the same time, due to the long duration and high price of genuine clothing, it is not easy to buy. The Shanzhai merchants have identified this business opportunity. The first time, when the new product is put on shelves, is to avoid the copyright risk of direct transportation through piracy, or re plate making Proofing, and making a picture of its own effect. Moreover, as cottage businesses tend to save trouble in the process, the Shanzhai style may even be delivered before the licensed businesses, or even confuse the public, causing negative public praise to the legitimate businesses that have not yet delivered, and making the genuine businesses miserable.

Besides, cattle have also got a share in the market of imbalance between supply and demand. For instance, seemingly mediocre secondhand transactions may hide mystery in the list. One way cattle operate is to snap up new products on popular stores and sell them at a high price. For those who are anxious to get clothes instead of grabbing them, they are willing to accept the difference.

For clothing that has been finished, it can also be used. As mentioned earlier, a lot of shops' substantive limited behavior has created a situation of "one garment is hard to get", so it has raised the price of clothes in the secondary market. In other words, if the business is no longer in print, the clothing is equivalent to a "out of print" state, and it may be like an antique, and the price will be higher and higher.

The high price of second-hand market has a direct impact on the sale of primary goods. When a store has a high price of clothing in the secondary market, it will give consumers (and cattle) the psychological expectation that clothes will be very popular in the store, which will lead to more irrational buying and selling in the subsequent businesses and boost the sales performance of businesses. Therefore, many people also speculate that merchants themselves are conniving, acquiescence in such reselling and rush buying behavior, and sell their own sales.

Quality is not up to quantity.

As mentioned earlier, the production and sales volume of minority clothing is limited, and most batches are small. Generally, they are contacted with the manufacturer after confirming the predetermined quantity. Such operations may have problems in the period of rapid expansion, especially in the rapidly developing Hanfu industry.

First, the huge workload reduces the quality of products. Chinese clothing consumers demand higher materials and tailoring, but when the demand is rapidly increasing, once the shop owners rush to work, the risk of rollover will be greatly improved. Even "Ming Hua Tang", famous for its high quality and high price, can not escape this robbery. A lot of rollover incidents took place last year, and many of them were attacked on social platforms because of problems such as thread drawing, thread drawing and chromatic aberration.

Secondly, due to the fact that the time limit for a single project is delayed, it is manifested in varying degrees in most stores. A short period of ten and a half months, long or even half a month, and even the "extreme time when I am still single, and now the children have all the clothes I haven't got". For such a problem, even small fans of "love generation" can hardly endure for a long time.

Meticulous production is slow, but in the period of rapid growth, scale production and quality control must be put on the agenda. Otherwise, it can only remain in the stage of manual workshop, and it is very difficult to really break the circle.

Minority interest and exclusiveness

It is not only the difficulties currently encountered in large-scale production that impede the breaking of small clothing, but also become Xiao He, Xiao He, and the fans of minority culture.

On the one hand, the core audience of minority clothing is willing to see their favorite things being popularized; on the other hand, they have a strong desire to protect their own circles. In the face of what little common sense rules do not understand, Xiao Bai and the invading Shanzhai store are full of resistance and boycott, and even a certain degree of aggressiveness. This atmosphere has left many consumers hovering over the rim: on the one hand, the threshold of consumption is not low; on the other hand, all kinds of explicit and invisible rules are somewhat discouraged.

Xenophobia has slowed down the development of small clothing, and made it difficult for them to scale up and accepted by more people. It also restricted the development of clothing stores and hindered the development of the whole industry.

The sluggish development of industrial scale has led to frequent rollover incidents in the final payment system, cattle flooding, and market order disorder. Because of the problems arising from the balance of supply and demand, it is difficult to fundamentally solve the problem from a further vicious circle.

However, today's niche culture circle is also gradually expanding. As young culture becomes more open, young people's acceptance of minority clothing has gradually increased. Especially in recent two years, the trend of national wind has played a great role in promoting Hanfu.

Targeted vertical products are also gradually emerging, supporting the upgrading of niche culture communities. For example, the Hanfu, which is originally positioned as an online exchange community, has been on the way of shopping guide, e-commerce and other channels along with the increasing number of platform users, including the return of Han and Tang Dynasty, Han Shang Hualian and other more well-known Hanfu brands, which have settled the Hanfu culture and information, but also promoted the more orderly development of the industry.

For any interest group, they hope that their peers will gradually expand, and what they like will be loved by more people. In the process of popularizing and popularizing small clothing as a special commodity, it is imperative to scale production in line with business rules and order. With the growing popularity of minority clothing as a business, minority culture can also benefit from it, and it will eventually break the cycle.