Brand Analysis: The Private Traffic Established By I.T Group And Tencent Is Expected To Turn Over

Known as the "founder of fashion brand", Hong Kong Fashion Clothing Group I.T. brings less and less news.

The last news occurred in december2020. It was delisted from Hong Kong stocks. Correspondingly, the company's performance fell seriously. According to the previous financial report, in the first half of 2020, the total turnover of I.T group decreased by 31.9% to HK $2735 million, and the gross profit margin decreased by 40.2% to HK $1493 billion. The net loss of HK $71 million in the same period of the previous year increased by 373.61% and the net loss was HK $337 million.

The latest news happened last month. Different from delisting and serious decline in performance, this time, it's good news.

According to Tencent's smart retail report, the sales volume of "iteshop mall" created by I.T group and Tencent smart retail increased by more than 200% last year. In the "thank you discount" activity, there are nearly 2 million independent visitors, and 25 lottery activities launched annually have also received nearly one million hits, attracting 550000 new fans, setting a new record.

Along this line of thought, can we further predict that I.T group is expected to win this "turnaround battle" by using Tencent's private domain traffic?

　　 "Spear" reduced to "short sword"

The name I.T group is not the abbreviation of "information technology", nor is it "it" in English, but "income team", which means "team making money".

From 1988 to now, I.T. group has been making money mainly relying on two "grasping hands".

The first major starting point is its rising tide brand business.

According to public information, I.T group has represented more than 400 fashion brands, including more than 10 private brands such as B + AB, izzue, a bath ape, etc.

According to the division of business, I.T group consists of "big I.T" and "small I.T." the former includes luxury brands such as Alexander Wang and Balenciaga, and designer brands. The "small I.T" business line mainly covers young Japanese and Korean fashion brands such as stylenanda and izzue.

It is in the process of introducing these fashion brand clothing that I.T group quickly establishes an image among young consumers, undertakes consumption demand strongly, and gains the reputation of "ancestor of fashion".

It is worth mentioning that, Facing the tide brand market, I.T. group is good at making profits by taking advantage of the time difference between domestic and foreign trends.

In 2018, the media took off white as an example and said that the designer of chaopai was the Royal stylist of famous American rappers. At the beginning of its establishment in 2014, it quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. In December of the same year, I.T. cooperated with off white to open the world's first flagship store in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, and launched the I.T. exclusive exclusive restricted items. The designer also personally appeared on the "platform".

When analyzing this "playing method", the media stressed that it was a "time difference" and a "differentiation strategy". However, from the perspective of the development of chaopai's business, the so-called "time gap" is being rapidly reshaped.

According to the analysis of the latest fashion channel, such as T.I.

In the view of "chusa", with the hot development of online market and the continuous acceleration of the updating speed of fashion trends, consumers' shopping habits and preferences are constantly changing, "the wave of (consumption) driven by the wave of new technology is no longer what individual forces can resist".

Besides chaopai business, 1. T Group's another big "grasp", is the star advantage.

This can be said to be the "inevitable action" of the media when discussing the business of I.T group. It's not hard to understand that Shen Jiawei, the founder of I.T., married actress Qiu Shuzhen. She not only attracted high attention through fashion, but also made friends with most of the entertainment circles in Hong Kong. Many stars, such as Jacky Cheung, Guo Fucheng, Liang Chaowei, Carina Lau and Maggie Cheung, are more or less related to I.T.

Making full use of the influence of "star circle of friends", the popularity and appeal of I.T group have been improved. However, it has become extremely slow to rely on other popular stars to influence the "touch" of consumption decision-making for a long time.

You know, as early as 2002, I.T group rushed out of Hong Kong and went to the mainland market to dig for gold, vigorously promoting the buyer store model. However, it did not have its first spokesperson until it hired the star WuYifan in 2017.

In recent years, many tide brand businesses and unique star advantages have been reduced from "spear" to "short sword". It is not difficult to understand that I.T group's performance is declining and declining.

　　 Digitalization gives birth to a glimmer of hope

I.T group lags behind in action, and e-commerce business is the most typical.

In 2011, I.T group began to launch e-commerce business, such as entering tmall. However, for a long time, e-commerce business was on the edge of I.T group. Chen Huijun, CEO of I.T group in China, admitted that "more energy is still put offline".

However, with the rapid development of the online market, the offline cost is getting higher and higher. As "chusa" analyzes, "compared with online e-commerce, traditional buyer's physical stores, especially boutique shops, are usually located in prosperous areas, with a large floor area and rising costs such as rent, which make them cope with high operating costs while struggling with market competition."

Under the pressure of the naked eye, I.T group re coded the e-commerce business in 2017, launched the official e-commerce platform iteshop in the same year, and launched the e-commerce applet in 2018.

To this end, I.T group has hired a professional digital team to expand the online market share and product design and development, and make corresponding adjustments to the supply chain network, trying to reduce the production cycle from six months to three months.

For these actions, some media comments focusing on fashion clothes said: "in the face of new topics in the digital age, I.T has taken a smart step."

In fact, it's hard to call it a "smart step". It can only be said that it is the beginning of "make-up lessons" at last. From this point of view, I.T. group is also a taste of "sweet".

As mentioned above, the "iteshop mall" applet created by I.T group and Tencent smart retail has played a certain role.

Specifically, I.T group has configured a comprehensive commodity matrix for the applet, which not only synchronizes the offline and e-commerce inventory, but also uses the advantages of the buyer group to select the global trend goods of various categories and brands, so as to meet the needs of consumers for fashion brands to the maximum extent.

In addition, I.T. group also put the purchase right of rare fashion products in the small program, using limited products to enhance the attractiveness of consumers.

At the same time, I.T group has also accelerated the integration of online and offline businesses. For example, since 2021, when an enterprise's digital transformation tool was fully launched, after several rounds of training on the sales guidance, nearly 80% of the stores in China have been covered.

Relying on a series of operations, the sales volume of iteshop mall increased by more than 200% last year, and in the "thank you discount" activity, the Gmv of the app store exceeded 100 million yuan in 7 days.

It seems that I.T. group has gradually found a way to deal with the difficulties, but from the perspective of industry development, these advances only bring "a glimmer of hope" for I.T.

Not to mention the cost and profit margin behind it, not to mention that the e-commerce business is still only a small part of the "big market" of I.T group. In terms of competitors, trendy brands know how to use digital technology and can promote their products to the market faster. It is obvious that traditional brands such as I.T. need to be upgraded in all aspects in order to gain more market share in the fierce competition.

T. I. can take advantage of this "small competition" to win in the next stage.

　　 Urgent need to promote social media marketing

　　 It is not a vain word to say that I.T. group needs to upgrade in all aspects. There are "short boards" that can not be ignored in the current strong social media marketing.

In fact, the I.T. group has already seen social media "transform" the consumer market.

In 2019, Zheng YAYING, President of I.T group's women's wear products, found that social media platforms such as instagram, wechat and xiaohongshu are transforming the consumer market from brand driven to product driven.

Zheng YAYING explained: "consumers should first see whether a product is very popular, and then decide whether to buy it. For example, they will buy balischia slippers and off white sweaters. This change in consumer behavior makes our buyers have to adjust the logic of shopping."

Perhaps due to the strong inertia of physical stores before, I.T. did not invest more in this field even though it realized the role of social media.

In January last year, a media called out: "when many luxury brands have begun to spend a lot of money on social media marketing, the group has done very little in social media marketing."

The new retail business reviews have been searched on major platforms and found that the media's "pitiful shortage" is indeed well founded.

The performance of I.T group is surprising just because of the operation of social platform fans: in terms of chattering, the official account of I.T group in China has less than 1500 fans; In xiaohongshu, the two accounts of "I.T China" and "I.T" have only about 30000 fans each, and the number of likes in the notes is mostly below 100.

Although I.T group has made some achievements in wechat applet platform, overall speaking, in the field of social media, I.T group's ability to reach consumers does not match the industry's demand, and its ability to influence consumers and thus promote sales transformation is greatly reduced.

When I.T group attacks the slow rhythm and serious "partial branch", the chaopai consumer market is growing rapidly.

According to the big data report of tide brand released by Nielsen, in recent years, the growth rate of consumption of tide brand has reached 62%, which is 3.7 times of that of non tide brand; McKinsey's "report on global fashion formats in 2019" also shows that Chinese young people spend $35 billion to $38 billion on fashion brands in 2019, "which has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest fashion market.".

To dig gold from this incremental market, it is not enough to "compete" with many emerging brands, relying on qiushuzhen, small programs and hundreds of brands.

In 2014, in an interview with the media, Shen Jiawei said: "I'm just a captain. I give directions and maps and let the whole company move forward." In the past ten years, I.T. group delisted from Hong Kong stock market, with a sharp decline in performance and severe degradation of market influence.

Perhaps, as a "Captain", Shen Jiawei needs to do more, respond more keenly, and plan further to cross the fog and move forward smoothly. This is also the biggest enlightenment that I.T group brings to China's tide brand market.