Guochao Has Become Another Leap Of Chinese Clothing Brand

Recently, pinduoduo released a 2022 Duoduo new national trend consumption report. The report shows that the second and third tier cities represented by Jinan, Ningbo, Dongguan, Nanchang, Xiamen, Shenyang, Changsha and Wuxi accounted for 39% of domestic orders, exceeding the sum of first tier and new first tier cities, and becoming a new driving force for the rise of domestic goods.

The trend mentioned in this report coincides with the third leap of Chinese clothing brands.

In the past, in the two leaps from factory OEM to independent brands and then to big brands, a batch of new brands conforming to the historical trend were born each time, and a batch of old brands would be eliminated. This time is no exception.

Not long ago, Hailan home, known as the nation's No. 1 men's wear brand, announced a debt of 16.5 billion yuan. The goods stored in the warehouse reached 8.2 billion yuan, but the annual sales volume was only about 1 billion yuan.

Industry insiders predict that the 34 year old clothing brand may withdraw from the stage of history. Behind the plight of Hailan house, the epidemic is only one of the reasons.

In the past two years or more, the impact of the epidemic on each brand is the same, but there are often opportunities under the crisis.

Many brands were forced to look for new opportunities after the epidemic. For example, SEMAR seized the opportunity of pinduoduo to support domestic products, found new customer groups and successfully transformed into online sales.

Of course, there are also new brands like bosie and teenie weenie that have emerged through online we media.

The core of the third leap of Chinese clothing brands is from big brands to domestic products. What is reflected behind it is actually the consumer demand from the pursuit of foreign current to the worship of national tide. In particular, the youth group, with their own personality and aesthetic, jointly create a clothing consumption era of pursuing delicacy and believing in culture.

In this context, clothing brands are also thinking about which platforms should they find their new consumer groups and how to accurately capture them?

　　 Change of clothing industry

In the 1990s, China has just carried out reform and opening up, and people's living standards are not very rich, and the requirements for clothing brands are not high. At that time, clothing wholesale market was the most important place to sell clothing.

For example, in Hangzhou, Sijiqing has been accompanied by the entrepreneurial history of a generation of hangpai clothing people; Guangzhou, the city with the largest concentration of garment enterprises, also has a wholesale market represented by white horse and red cotton. At this time, there are also a lot of fabrics. Familiar buyers know that Guangzhou has good versions and fabrics, and Beijing Zoo has good fabrics, but the styles are not as fast as Guangzhou.

As the demand of domestic clothing market has just burst out, wholesale any clothing can be sold, becoming the golden age of clothing wholesalers "lying down can make money". Therefore, most of the local clothing companies have fixed their eyes on those cheap clothes.

　　 This is the first fashion consumption wave in China.

The portrayal of China's clothing industry in this period is that users lack clear perception of domestic brands, and enterprises are not short of money, but lack of brand recognition.

Slowly, began to have generation factory or processing workshop to make their own clothing brand. For example, Ailey, born in 1997, started with OEM processing and export trade. In 1999, its export volume reached more than 3.2 million U.S. dollars, and its business volume was quite prosperous. Later, it built its own fashion brand, changed its business model of domestic sales, and embarked on an asset light operation mode combining outsourcing production, licensed sales and factory direct sales.

At the same time, the business districts with first-line big brands or light luxury brands have begun to replace the old business districts with the former stalls and develop into mature high-end clothing consumption places. Among them, fast fashion brands that update styles quickly, keep up with the trend and cater to young people are the most profitable.

Even though many clothing brands have completed the original accumulation of capital, their cultural self-confidence is still short of others. At that time, when the ocean current was prevailing in China, many local enterprises had a habit of relying on "ocean", not only the clothing style, but also the names of markhuafei, Metersbonwe, Senma and so on, which were all covered with "foreign vest".

However, in the era of booming physical shopping malls, these "foreign vest" brands are indeed the hearts of countless young consumers born in the 1980s.

Take Meibang, which was founded in 1995, as an example. At the beginning, it targeted its target consumers as young people aged 16-25, and was keen to invite the hottest stars as spokesmen, including Jay Chou, Zhang Shaohan, pan Weibo, and now Li Yifeng.

Do you still remember the hit idol drama "watching the meteor shower" on Hunan TV station in 2009? Chu yuurt stood in front of the mirror and sighed: "Duanmu took me to metsbawi and picked a lot of clothes and shoes. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't know who the girl was." The brand reputation of Meibang's high-end fashion will be completely established.

In August 2008, Meibang was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Four years later, it has more than 5000 Direct stores and franchisees, becoming the leading brand in the domestic clothing industry.

At the same time, Anta, LiLang, Tebu, peak, noble bird and other brands have announced expansion, blooming everywhere, ready to enter the "WanDian era".

　　 Channel change, consumption upgrade, clothing brands try to "save themselves"

Until this watershed in 2012, the domestic FMCG brands led by Meibang began to move towards "Waterloo". In the fifth year of listing, Meibang's revenue, profit and inventory turnover rate "cliff type" decline. Among them, the net profit was 849 million yuan, down 30% year on year.

In terms of the general environment, the domestic clothing market is already a red sea. At the same time, foreign fast fashion brands such as Zara and H & M are constantly eating into the Chinese market and changing the aesthetic taste of young consumers. After 2010, when a large number of fast fashion brands such as VANCL appeared as e-commerce, the traditional clothing industry failed to wait for their "WanDian era".

For traditional domestic brands, the glory of the former hypermarket is fleeting. In the rapid change of channels, more and more laggards are eliminated by the market.

After experiencing the baptism of overseas big brands, consumers have formed a strong brand mind. The popularity of brand goods has surpassed that of the original products. Consumption upgrading is also accompanied by "personalized design" and "trend attribute" become the consumption keywords of many young people.

In addition to being infatuated with big brands, many light consumers have begun to pursue clothing brands with unique styles and represented by red men, such as Taobao.

At the same time, pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform based on social networking, started to launch 10 billion yuan subsidies from the source of good goods. From the original outside of the Fifth Ring Road, counter attack the market of the first and second tier cities.

Through the c2m (consumer to manufacturer) mode of factory direct sales, we can break the price cage and provide affordable and better quality goods for all.

Samma is one of the earliest clothing brands to settle in pinduoduo. In 2016, Samma, a traditional retailer, believed that pinduoduo was an online channel for clearing off off season inventory, similar to "online outlets".

As the 10 billion subsidy has gradually become a brand project of pinduoduo, people who previously shouted that they would not buy more subsidies have already shouted Zhenxiang. At the same time, it has also attracted more and more big brands to follow.

The cooperation between SEMAR and pinduoduo has also been upgraded, and some national fashion clothing has been updated, focusing on pinduoduo. "The overlap between pinduoduo and other e-commerce channels is very low. The consumer portraits of the platform are also better matched with the cost-effective domestic products of Senma. Therefore, new products of Senma have begun to be introduced to pinduoduo, and even independent product development will be carried out for pinduoduo."

　　 Guochao consumption circle

After independent brands and big brands, China's consumer goods ushered in the third stage, the rise of Guochao brand. Mainly reflected in two forms, one is the emergence of new domestic brands, the other is the renovation of old domestic products.

In the case of SEMAR, it will divide the products of national tide into several levels. The first is to integrate traditional Chinese cultural elements into it, such as writing and writing brush; The second is to co brand with Guochao designers; The third level is similar to made in China, for example, in the choice of embroidery and fabric, more domestic choice.

The rising power of "national self-confidence" and "cultural identity" is boosting the tide of the country. With more and more "potential players" emerging, the flow dividend of traditional sales platform is shrinking, and "new channel" has become a big choice for some new brands of domestic products that are still in their infancy.

After the outbreak, the original offline channel sales of SEMA were severely damaged. However, at the same time, SEMA's store on pinduoduo is growing against the trend. In Lina's opinion, pinduoduo has brought not only sales growth, but also digital opportunities for traditional brands.

In this stage of consumption, the role of Internet channel is not only sales, but also a communication channel in the era of online we media.

Lina said that logically, for each platform, the brand still depends on the crowd on the platform. From the perspective of communication with consumers, the brand must first understand who the consumers are on the platform, what they want to hear and see, and then provide the content.

Therefore, in this process, the communication between the brand and the platform is very important. SEMAR and pinduoduo basically have product plans every month and every quarter. Many key data of SEMAR are also from pinduoduo.

Lina concludes that from the data point of view, what kind of products we export is the choice of consumers, so we can have better performance. "There are two key points in the cooperation between pinduoduo and pinduoduo. One is communication mechanism, the other is data mining."

In addition, supply chain capacity building is also considered to be the key to the outbreak of Guochao new brands.

The new brand side should not only broaden the flow channels, but also have insight into the new consumption attributes, consumers and the requirements of various channels to promote activities. More importantly, enterprises should have the supply chain ability to match the rapid outbreak of product sales. "

For example, in the case of other clothing brands with extraordinary pre-sale period, SEMAR can find goods 24 hours in pinduoduo.

"At present, we can basically find the goods within 24 hours by using the conventional pallets to speed up the quick return, instead of pre-sale like other brands. Due to the relatively mature experience in inventory equipment, we can still quickly respond to the demand of interconnection in supply chain integration," Lina said

As consumers are becoming diversified, great changes have taken place in the way and scene of clothing purchase. Therefore, businesses like pinduoduo, which mainly focus on the new trend of the country, and the clothing brands on the platform are also in order to meet the diversified changes and meet the needs of more consumers.