Data Released By The National Bureau Of Statistics Shows That Efforts Should Be Made To Cultivate New Growth Points Of Clothing Consumption

Recently, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to November 2024, the retail sales of clothing products of units above the designated size totaled 949.3 billion yuan, and the year-on-year growth rate broke away from negative growth for two consecutive months. This shows that with the continuous development of macro stock and incremental policies, residents' consumption confidence has improved, and China's clothing consumption has shown a steady recovery trend, supporting the development of the textile and clothing industry on the supply side.

Clothing consumption is the basic consumer goods to meet the people's demand for "eating and dressing", and it is the symbolic embodiment of the people's yearning for a better life. It has multiple characteristics such as basic necessities, ordinary consumer goods and high-end luxury goods, which is of great significance for improving the quality of life, boosting the consumer market and promoting economic development. The textile and clothing industry is the basic carrier of the clothing industry. It not only plays a role in catering to the trend of the times and meeting diversified clothing consumption needs, but also plays an important role in promoting intelligent manufacturing, material innovation and supply chain optimization.

The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to clothing consumption, especially strengthen the linkage between supply and demand, introduce a number of policies to promote the high-quality development of the textile and clothing industry, and drive the upgrading of clothing consumption. For example, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Commerce carried out the 2024 textile and clothing supply promotion and upgrading activities to promote the textile and clothing industry to increase varieties, improve quality and create brands. Four departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly issued the Implementation Plan for Quality Improvement and Upgrading of the Textile Industry (2023-2025), making key deployment for innovation driven, intelligent transformation, industrial structure optimization, brand building and green development of the textile and clothing industry. Policies and measures are playing an important role in many ways. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to November 2024, the actual investment in China's clothing industry increased by 18.2% year on year, 0.7 percentage points faster than that from January to October. According to customs data, from January to November 2024, the export volume of knitted clothing and woven clothing increased by 12.3% and 13.3% respectively year on year.

However, it should also be noted that the development of clothing consumption still faces multiple challenges. From the demand side, consumer psychology tends to be rational, and the demand for traditional high-end clothing brands has declined; Consumer confidence still needs to be boosted, and the demand for clothing as non necessities is still low. From the supply side, some brand innovations are still insufficient, product homogenization is prominent, and stock competition appears in the market; The digital transformation of textile and clothing enterprises faces constraints of talents, capital and other factors, and the integration of traditional production mode, management mode and new technology is still not deep enough; Inadequate innovation in consumption scenarios makes it difficult to stimulate consumers' willingness to consume healthily; The level of online services and supervision is still not high, and it is still difficult to maintain consumer rights, which has dampened consumer enthusiasm to a certain extent.

At present, clothing consumption shows some new trends and changes. Consumers are increasingly pursuing comfort, nature, and personalized, differentiated and customized consumption. Future clothing consumption depends on popularity, brand and technology. "Popularity" comes from people's needs, while brand relies on innovation, scene, quality and service. In the next stage, clothing enterprises should firmly grasp the key of innovation, adapt to the changing situation, cater to consumer demand, consolidate consumer confidence and build an innovation ecology, and promote the quality and upgrading of clothing consumption.

Strengthen functional innovation and product design to meet new consumer needs. Encourage enterprises to strengthen research and development, strengthen market tracking, research and judgment, and constantly launch innovative products that can lead the consumption trend. More functional technologies such as anti ultraviolet, anti-static, temperature control and regulation are explored in product design to meet the needs of different scenes. Develop digital technology, create customer information database, establish virtual trial scenes, improve customized and personalized service levels, and enhance consumers' sense of exclusivity and uniqueness.

Strengthen brand building and market promotion, and consolidate consumer confidence. Guide apparel enterprises to enrich marketing means, deepen interaction with consumers through new social platforms, improve product information transparency and share user experience. Invite consumers extensively for user feedback to improve user participation. Strengthen after-sales service, optimize the existing return and replacement policies, provide professional product care guidelines, and improve users' stickiness to the brand. Encourage apparel enterprises to fully tap brand value, implement differentiated development strategies, strengthen emotional resonance with consumers in brand communication, and build unique brand stories and cultures.

Strengthen technological innovation and cross-border integration, and build a digital ecology. Optimize the design of enterprise digital transformation system, and support enterprises to introduce talents through school enterprise joint training, targeted training and other ways. Strengthen enterprise digital transformation and business process integration, increase investment in intelligent manufacturing and digital factory, build automatic production lines, improve the intelligent level of production processes, save costs and improve capital self-sufficiency through the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and big data analysis. We will improve the cross-border integration support mechanism for apparel enterprises, accelerate data sharing in the traditional apparel industry, and deeply support the application and expansion of new digital intelligence technology in the apparel field and strengthen collaboration. Promote in-depth cooperation between clothing brands and smart hardware, smart movies, sports and other fields, and create new consumption scenarios based on emerging technologies.