Han Clothing Market From Minority Culture To Mainstream Culture

From "burning clothes" to "hot selling", Hanfu has turned over

Hanfu is really popular.

When you walk in the streets of Chunxi Road in Chengdu, you can see girls in Hanfu in groups, traveling together, sometimes stopping to take out the mobile phone frame beautiful picture. And passers-by often do not cast a different look, only as if they are part of the ordinary street scene, as if their retro dress and their own T-shirt shorts are no different.

You can see more and more Han Dynasty costumes on TV, whether it's a show or a variety show. Even in the trendy live broadcast with goods, there are CEOs wearing Hanfu on their bodies.

According to the insight report on consumption trend of Hanfu in 2020 released by the first finance and economics business data center, in 2019, the transaction amount of Hanfu on Taobao platform exceeded 2 billion for the first time; in the past three years, tmall's Hanfu industry has increased by 6 times; so far, nearly 20 million people have placed orders to buy Hanfu in Ali. In the huge demand, Hanfu market will usher in a big outbreak.

All these show that the Han culture is gradually accepted by the minority.

However, if you put the time back ten years, you will see a different world. In 2010, a Chengdu girl was dining in Dexter near Chunxi Road, but was misunderstood as wearing kimono by a group of college students and asked to take off her clothes on the spot. This is the famous "Chunxi Road burning Hanfu incident.".

At that time, the public did not have the concept of Hanfu. Wearing Hanfu out of the street would be said to be "singing opera", and only dare to wear it at home or in a studio. A short period of ten years later, Hanfu has become a well-known national costume from "strange dress". It is not surprising that even if you wear it out of the street everyday.

So, what contributed to the popularity of Hanfu culture? Some people say that it is the influence of ancient costume idol drama, while others say that it is the role of the revival of traditional culture. However, the author believes that the popularity of Hanfu and the rise of e-commerce platform are inextricably linked.

Moreover, it is not only Hanfu, but also the spread of subculture products such as "JK uniform" and "Lolita", which are "equally famous" with Hanfu, are almost all based on the popularity of e-commerce.

It can even be said that between the minority and the mainstream, only a Taobao difference!

Taobao is the number one meritorious official in the field of clothing

Some people may ask, is the increase in sales of Hanfu on the e-commerce platform not caused by the increase in demand for Hanfu? Is it not a cause and effect inversion to attribute the rise of Hanfu to the development of e-commerce?

However, this is not the case. If there is no e-commerce platform as a purchasing channel, the popularity of Hanfu will be greatly reduced and the demand will be impossible to talk about. This is determined by the consumption characteristics of minority clothing.

Whether it is Hanfu, JK uniform or Lolita, in the early stage, they are generally the channel to go online. This is because this kind of clothing audience is small, and the shape is different, and the unit price is high. In the case of no definite buyer, businesses dare not purchase in large quantities. And for the ultimate appearance effect, these clothes need to be customized by special tailors, which is difficult to mass produce.

As for the offline channel, it is more difficult to do. Due to the limitation of customer flow, the profit space of physical stores is small. In addition, most of the subculture lovers are "homesteaders" who don't like to go out. Selling only one type of clothes is almost doomed to lose money.

Therefore, in order to reduce the risk, the early minority clothing merchants generally adopt the "deposit balance" transaction mode: the buyer needs to pay the deposit first, provide the demand to the seller, and then the seller finds the tailor or factory to customize, and the buyer will make up the balance after the shipment. Even if the goods are sold in cash, they can only be sold back to the buyer.

The actual operation is like this: take Taobao as an example, the seller will provide a deposit link, the price ranges from 30 to 50 yuan, and the buyer needs to place an order and confirm the payment. According to Taobao's deposit mechanism, the buyer needs to make up the payment within a certain period of time, and then the seller will deliver the goods. Unless there is a quality problem, it will not be returned.

We can see that the mechanism of deposit balance helps sellers solve the problem of high risk of non-standard goods supply, and also gives a small number of clothing lovers the opportunity to buy their favorite clothes. After this mode, there are variants such as the same type of group business, wechat order, etc., but the final payment should be made up in Taobao, because only Taobao can maximize the interests of both buyers and sellers.

For a minority clothing culture, there is nothing more important than purchasing channels. Seeing is better than seeing, seeing is better than wearing. No matter how you publicize or Amway, if you haven't experienced it in person, it's just like talking on paper.

More importantly, Taobao let the social mainstream see the vast market space of minority clothing. You know, although the quantity of these clothes is low, the profit is astonishing. Some famous shops can sell for five or six times the cost. The merchants come here in a disguised form to publicize the circle, and the audience will naturally expand.

Therefore, it is not the "Hanfu men" who made Taobao, but Taobao who made "Hanfu people". Taobao should be the number one meritorious official in terms of subculture "out of the circle".

Although commercialization is good, too much is not enough

In essence, cultural communication is a process of continuous "annexation". The strong culture will devour the weak culture and "exterminate" it in the fusion. As the main body of cultural activities is human, if we want to retain a certain culture, we must expand its audience and let more people spread it.

Commercialization is the best way to expand the cultural audience. For example, some temples were originally uninhabited, and became popular after they became tourist attractions. Another example is that hip-hop culture is rarely known in China, but after the variety shows are made, hip-hop singers are invited to perform on stage almost every time. Of course, Hanfu and other minority clothing "out of the circle" is also a successful case of commercialization.

However, it is easy to be destroyed in the process of commercialization. For example, with the emergence of Hanfu, the overall quality of shops on the e-commerce platform has declined a lot, with frequent problems such as color difference, jumper, and stains. There are also unscrupulous businesses selling fake goods, shoddy goods, cheating new people who have just entered the pit, making Hanfu infamous as "IQ tax".

Therefore, just like the protection of scenic spots and historic sites, we should also guard against the excessive commercialization of small clothing, so as to prevent them from becoming mere tools of wealth collection. Therefore, the e-commerce platform needs to strengthen supervision, encourage conscientious businesses from the mechanism, and purify the industry environment.

As long as there is a suitable "growth" environment, no matter how unpopular the culture will also usher in that day. Sometimes, between the minority and the mainstream, there may be only one difference between Taobao.