UNIQLO Optimistic About China Will Continue To Plough Two Or Three Line Cities

Since 2002, UNIQLO's China tour has been going on for 17 years.

"I can't guarantee that UNIQLO is the best, but we are making progress every day, from 60 to 70 to 80." Recently, UNIQLO Greater China CMO Wu Pinhui and win business network and other media interesting.

The simple thing is the best, and then more extensions. This is UNIQLO's consistent "business rule", but "rule" is not a master key. Sometimes it will fail if it comes to a cruel competition.

Although H&M and Zara first entered the Chinese circuit, UNIQLO did not hand in a Zhang Xiren's transcript at the beginning of the Chinese market. In 2005, less than a year after its entry into the Beijing market, UNIQLO chose to withdraw because of serious losses. According to public information, at that time, 10 stores were opened by UNIQLO in mainland China.

Throughout the year, UNIQLO struggled in distress, looking for a turning point. Subsequently, UNIQLO adjusted China's development strategy, and the footprints of localization were deeper.

"All" in the location of "Made for all" refers to China's "middle class".

Price adjustment was carried out under the premise of "quality guarantee".

After abandoning the popular line, UNIQLO became the "spokesperson" of China's emerging middle class overnight, calling out a more attractive slogan than "low price": quality life.

Double endorsement of performance and stores

According to the 2018 fiscal year report of the fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company (up to August 31, 2018), the overseas market (including greater China) earned the first revenue over the Japanese market. Specifically, overseas sales rose 26.6% to 896 billion 300 million yen (53 billion 700 million yuan), and operating profit rose 62.6% to 118 billion 800 million yen (about 7 billion 100 million yuan). During the period, sales in the Greater China region continued to grow.

It is worth mentioning that in 2018, UNIQLO's performance in the Chinese market accounted for 25%, and China became the world's second largest market for UNIQLO brand. In order to directly see the change of UNIQLO's performance in Greater China, the win business network has separately counted its overseas and Japanese market revenues in the past 5 years. After all, the China LED market has become the main driving force for overseas markets.

It is easy to see that Japan's market growth in UNIQLO is weak, while overseas market growth is strong. In the 2015 fiscal year and 2018 fiscal year, UNIQLO overseas markets achieved double-digit growth, up 46% and 27% respectively.

The first quarter financial results released by XXX group in the first fiscal year of 2019 also showed that its operating profit in mainland China maintained double-digit growth. "Benefiting from the synergy of online stores and stores, revenue continues to grow at double-digit rates." At the same time, as Japan's "national brand" UNIQLO, in Japan, it has experienced "5 years and 10 down" dilemma, and often can see "MUJI products forced into the corner by UNIQLO" news reports.

Zara, H&M, Gap and other international fast fashion brands, which belong to tier one with UNIQLO, are also encountering frequent achievements in Waterloo. Gap is a big shop, H&M is not satisfactory, and fashion myth Zara also bid farewell to the golden age. In the first half of 2018, it reported the worst report card in 3 years.

In the howl of the industry, UNIQLO alone laughs at the market, behind the core support force is the entire direct line under the store. At present, UNIQLO has over 670 stores in mainland China, covering more than 150 cities, and 81 new ones in fiscal 2018. So far, UNIQLO is still calm at the rate of 80-100 per year.

By contrast, Zara and H&M started to shop in China significantly slower. According to official earnings data, the number of Zara and H&M stores in Huaxin began to cut in 2017. The number of new stores in the two fiscal year 2017 was 64 and 6 respectively, while the corresponding figures in the 2016 fiscal year were 102 and 15.

The City favors the magic capital, and stores speak culture.

"Direct camp" is a strategy, but how UNIQLO is applying this strategy to the location of stores, it is hidden behind thinking and thought-provoking. The winner business network from UNIQLO China official website statistics (up to March 12, 2019), and analyzed its 141 stores address in the four big tier cities, and got the following 2 point preference:

The first tier cities prefer Shanghai, the number of stores is more than that of Beijing (Dongcheng District), Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

China and Italy prefer new business circles. In the 98 stores (in the win win big data match area), the regional business circle accounted for 72.4%, while the emerging business circle corresponded to 54.1%.

Outside the precise location, "store innovation" is another magic weapon of UNIQLO. In 2018, UNIQLO launched a series of innovative initiatives:

The first City LifeWear Store in China

Through the combination of Shaanxi folk traditional art shadow play and UNIQLO technology, the shop displays a new creative art of shadow puppet in the store. At the scene, consumers can also wear their own exclusive shadow play with UNIQLO high light down jacket. Wu Pinhui said, "this year will also have such a CityLifeWear Store, regional culture and global cultural collision is a good integration."

　　 Shenzhen's largest shop, the first digital experience Museum

As long as customers open the mobile phone QQ in Shenzhen Vientiane store to sweep the poster, "the new vitality digital museum", you can feel the real product store and online service experience. Today, the technology has been applied to 670 stores in UNIQLO.

Online flagship store

It can go from line to line or from line to line. Consumers can find "flagship store" in UNIQLO APP, or enter WeChat flagship store through flagship store, but also use the "flagship flagship store" from the offline stores.

In addition, UNIQLO has recently launched a "store emergency delivery" service, users in the mobile phone orders, UNIQLO will use Shun Feng City to deliver products to the door.

Products are no longer basic, technical standard apples.

If the store is an elegant coat, the product displayed on the shelf is the skeleton of UNIQLO. Just like people need constant exercise to keep alive. In recent years, UNIQLO has been running ahead and can not do without product innovation.

In this regard, we need to start in 2005. That year, Misaki Sato and the creative director of UNIQLO, he injected the interesting soul for the original "uniqe" UNIQLO. In 2008, UNIQLO returned to the failed Beijing market with the cultural T UT series, which was launched with global creative people. This time, it succeeded.

Nowadays, UT represents a kind of personality and attitude. UNIQLO enriches the product line through the big IP, linking culture, art, animation, film, cartoon and so on. It also draws the distance between the brand and the consumers in different cultural backgrounds. According to incomplete statistics, in the Chinese market alone, UNIQLO UT completed at least 38 cross-border cooperation in one year. Walking on the streets of the city, you can often see T-shirts printed with IP images such as man Wei, Blizzard, Disney, One Piece, Naruto, Avenger and so on. That's UT of UNIQLO.

In collaboration with IP, designer cooperation is another weapon that UNIQLO tore away the "single" label. Every sale can cause panic buying. "Our founders will talk to designers in person." Wu Pinhui said, "they need to understand our philosophy, use their design style to integrate, feel like UNIQLO, but they are not quite like UNIQLO."

It is understood that UNIQLO chose cooperative designers with three criteria:

Agree with LifeWear brand concept, "LifeWear is very simple, showing off clothing and expressing itself."

Comply with the design concept of UNIQLO's "simplicity, quality and beauty". "We attach great importance to fabric selection, design and tailoring."

Can bring some new elements to UNIQLO, such as design details, colors, etc.

In Wu Pinhui's view, nowadays young consumers are becoming more rational and more and more daring to express themselves. They do not need to label themselves with many mark. "As a brand, as a commodity, we really need to give consumers an opportunity to find and discover themselves."

Of course, good-looking is the most basic requirement of the product. It is not easy for many companies to do well in "good looks". Since the beginning of the 1999 "polar fleece", UNIQLO has found a connection point between technology and products. As Ryui Masa, founder of UNIQLO, said, "the positioning of UNIQLO is technology companies. Our competitors are not Gap, Zara fast fashion brands, but Apple."

At present, UNIQLO, in cooperation with Dongli and Japan, has set up a team that specializes in research and development of new garment fabrics. It has launched a series of products with high technology content and friendly price, including HEATTECH, BLOCKTECH, Ultra LightDown, AIRism, Dry-EX, advanced lightweight down coat ULD, sunscreen and so on. Relying on technology to improve or create clothing, and create a burst of money, and then sold to the market at relatively low prices, has become the business model of UNIQLO.

China's two or three tier cities are potential stocks.

In the future, UNIQLO will continue to plough the Chinese market.

"There are many two or three line cities in China, and we don't have so many stores in those cities, so the flagship store can play a big role at this time, so we have a very good electricity supplier here." In Wu Pinhui's view, the commodity opportunities of these cities are quite large. Because UNIQLO acts as a "key player" - it buys good quality and design at a reasonable price.

In addition, UNIQLO may have more co creation content in the future. "How to make more consumers participate, interact with us and share good content is also the LifeWear we want to achieve." Wu Pinhui revealed. At present, the socialcommerce of the UNIQLO library has been initially realized through the "digital experience Museum" of offline stores and the online flagship store of UNIQLO.

Of course, UNIQLO has also been encouraging creation. They want to create fashion, function, or a new life aesthetics. "Breaking the boundaries between work and life, and then through design, whether it is color, version, or the integration of scenes to bring a new feeling, this is what we want to talk about the new life aesthetics."