Why Is Levi'S, A Hot Seller In The World, Unable To Sell In China?

Since 2020, various sectors of the world have come to different degrees of impact. According to authoritative statistics, in the 1-2 month of this year, the added value of textile industry increased by 27.2% compared with the same period last year, and the added value of garment industry dropped by 28.9% compared with the same period last year. The total retail sales of clothing, shoes and hats and needle textiles fell by 30.9% compared with the same period nationwide.

Earlier, the famous American jeans brand Levi's announced that it would temporarily close half of its stores in China. This is expected to have an impact on its recent performance.

Statistics show that: Levi's (Levi's) was born in 1850s, so far has 167 years of history, is the originator of the jeans industry. After hundreds of years of development, from the original textile wholesale company, it has grown into a world-famous clothing enterprise, which integrates cowboy clothing research and development, production and sales.

In those days, Levy Strauss, a German Jew, came to San Francisco during the American gold rush. A group of unsalable canvas made nearly 100 pairs of trousers and sold in the gold rush area. Later, in order to make the product more durable, he gave up the canvas and made it into an indigo blue coarse denim cloth to make his overalls. He also used copper nails to strengthen his trouser bags and seams. This durable and personalized trousers soon started to burn, and the first pair of jeans came.

As the business became more prosperous and made a lot of money, Livy opened the first store in San Francisco and made his name as the brand of the product. Over the next few decades, although the company's business was good, it still belonged to minority brands.

This situation lasted until the end of the 40s. As jeans became popular around the world, the cowboy products produced by Levi's began to become a fashion trend for young people. The scale of the company expanded rapidly and it soon came into the market.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. By the middle and late 80s, with the change of American public aesthetics, men began wearing suits and trousers, and women wore a gentle and comfortable direction. With the overall downturn in the market, Levi's can hardly compete with its rich clothing brands based on jeans. On the other hand, ZARA, H&M and other fast fashion brands also had to run jeans, and the prices were more favorable. Under multiple strikes, Levi's's performance has declined steadily.

In order to reverse the decline, Levi's has adopted a series of measures, such as expanding wholesale channels, reducing production costs and transforming low-end brands. These measures did stimulate the company's performance growth in a short time, but because the low end of the company lost the brand premium, it is doubtless from the perspective of the long-term development of enterprises. As a matter of fact, its performance soon declined again, or even on the verge of bankruptcy.

The situation of lax management continued until a few years ago. Levi's once again started to save itself, and invited Berg, who had worked in Procter & Gamble for nearly thirty years, to take up the post of CEO. After taking office, he began a series of drastic changes, such as reducing supply chain costs, increasing investment in design, research and development and marketing channels, and vigorously developing women's clothing and accessories. In terms of marketing, the company promotes its brand influence through sports and entertainment stars, and releases a joint name with Nike and other famous brands.

In just a few years, Levi's has succeeded in getting rid of the stereotyped impression and shaping the fashion, high-tech and popular brand image, and the scale of revenue has been rising. The annual sales volume of the company can reach US $5 billion 500 million (about RMB 39 billion), and its sales in China account for only 3%.

Compared with the European and American markets, why did Levi's sell fairly well in the Chinese market? Some analysts pointed out that today, jeans have not become a trend in China, and some people can wear jeans for several years. Coupled with the slowdown in the sales volume of the denim clothing market, Levi's's pricing is not cheap. Stores are mainly offline stores, which naturally attract less domestic consumer groups.