Us Old Brand GAP Enters Wangfujing, Beijing, China

When the famous overseas brands such as ZARA and H&M sell well in the Chinese fashion market, the largest clothing retailer in the United States

U.S.A

ZARA, H&M and GAP, the three internationally renowned fashion retailers, will gather in the Chinese market.

Yang Deming, President of GAP Greater China, told reporters that the company will open two new stores in Beijing and Shanghai before this winter.

Among them, GAP's two stores in Beijing will be located in Wangfujing.

In fact, as early as a few years ago, GAP had already been in China.

Compared with the last "intimate contact" between GAP and the Chinese market, GAP is clearly ready to enter the Chinese market this time.

Yang Deming said that compared with the competitors, GAP's new store in China will be larger and will reach 1300-1600 square meters.

These stores will be the main ones.

GAP chooses the current opportunity to enter the domestic market and will face higher rental pressure. It has brought some difficulties to the site selection. However, its 4 stores in Beijing and Shanghai are just the pacesetter of GAP's entry into the Chinese market.

Yang Deming said next year there will be more stores appearing in the Chinese market.

At the same time, with the increasing popularity of the Chinese market, GAP will also go to Hangzhou and other two or three line cities.

According to public information, GAP, which has 5 brands, was founded in 1969. It is one of the largest clothing brands in the United States and the world. Its sales last year were about $14 billion.

At present, GAP has more than 3100 stores all over the world, and has entered Japan, Britain and other markets for more than 10 years.

Value China's market potential

"If it doesn't come, it must be wrong," Yang Deming said when he was asked to "come late" when GAP entered the Chinese market.

Yang Deming cited an example to reporters, saying that only Beijing friendship store sold Coca-Cola in 1982.

At that time, the salesmen would only take out the merchandise from the background when they saw enough foreign exchange certificates, and 30 years later, Coca-Cola was no longer a scarce commodity.

In Yang Deming's view, China is likely to become the second largest market outside GAP in 2015.

At the same time, GAP will enter Beijing's Beijing street Wangfujing APM Beijing, also shows that the company's determination to enter the Chinese market.

Moreover, Beijing APM is also a shopping mall located in the Wangfujing business district with young fashion and many well-known international brand tenants.

The Hongkong Sun Hung Kai property, which is invested and managed behind it, is one of the largest real estate enterprises in Hongkong and even Asia. It has rich experience in operation and management of large shopping malls. GAP's cooperation with Beijing APM is also based on the outstanding strength of its owner Sun Hung Kai estate.

In order to develop the Chinese market more efficiently, GAP has dug up its China CEO Yang Deming and Lorenzo Moretti from best buy and Tesco. The latter is the managing director of GAP in China, and Ceng Jingxuan, the Greater China Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank, has been appointed as a member of the board.

In fact, GAP carrying heavyweight teams into the Chinese market is a new profit point for enterprises.

Unlike Sweden, H&M and ZARA, the share of GAP in the US market occupies a larger share of total sales.

It is reported that the international market accounts for only 19% of GAP's total sales.

However, in Yang Deming's view, the larger domestic market in the United States will eventually be saturated.

"GAP will not open 1000 stores in the United States, and the new profit growth space will be outside the US."

In the eyes of the industry, GAP has been seeking to expand its market in emerging areas such as China from the earliest use of agency mode to test the Chinese market.

Profit growth through overseas expansion is full of temptation for GAP.

In the first half of this year, the profit margin of GAP increased by 40% over the same period last year, and it wanted to spend US $300 million as a budget to expand the global market. This prompted GAP to speed up its growth in emerging markets like China.

However, despite the fact that GAP is a world-renowned clothing brand, the competition pressure has increased sharply over the past few years when competitors entered the Chinese market for several years.

H&M, which has entered the Chinese market earlier than GAP, has reported its total number of 2062 stores worldwide in the first half of this year. In the first half of this year, there were 86 new outlets, of which 33 were new stores in China.

INDITEX, the parent company of ZARA, also announced that it opened 98 new stores in the first quarter, and that INDITEX has 4700 stores in 77 countries and 10% of the new stores in the Chinese market.

Not only is the European and American brands, but also the Japanese clothing giant UNIQLO is increasingly concerned about the development of the Chinese market. At present, its number of stores in China has reached 64, and the company plans to sell more than 10 of the Japanese market in the next 10 years.

At the same time, UNIQLO will fully enter the two or three line market and increase the number of stores to 1000.

"Special" treatment of the mainland market

However, despite the "fierce threat" of competitors, GAP has identified the "meet the enemy" strategy.

An emporium boss told reporters that Yang Deming, who had been a senior executive at home appliance brand best buy, would use the advantages of service to attract passengers, and the reporter's conversation with Yang Deming also verified the remarks.

Yang Deming said that the opening hours of GAP will give full consideration to the feelings of consumers and will be opened before winter in Beijing.

After opening, GAP is likely to attract a large number of passengers, which will minimize the time for customers to queue up for fitting and settling.

It is learnt that in order to better integrate with the needs of domestic consumers, GAP has arranged a dedicated team to study and design styles suitable for local consumers, and design some styles suitable for local people for the eastern and western parts of the market.

For example, under the same height, some women may have short legs and some are relatively short legs, so all kinds of T-shirts will be sold in different markets.

Yang Deming said that although GAP will increase its purchasing power from Chinese factories after entering the Chinese market, the price of goods will be lowered correspondingly due to lower cost, but GAP will not base itself on the market through price war.

Yang Deming also said that GAP will spend millions of dollars on decorating and organizing products for every store that opens, and GAP will be a competitive chip through quality service and good product quality.

"With the convenience of GAP stores and other factors, these are the core competitiveness of GAP."

After the opening of GAP stores in Beijing and Shanghai, its online shopping channels in the Chinese market will also be opened, which will enable consumers in other cities to synchronously purchase GAP products.

It is worth noting that GAP's sales in the US last year amounted to US $7 billion, with mature online shopping experience and GAP, which will further intensify competition in China's apparel online shopping market.