Four pain points, the siege clothing industry seeks new power for change

New change

Metamorphosis has two meanings in words: transformation and replacement, which represents a radical change. It is appropriate to describe the crisis and change in the apparel industry today.

In recent years, China's garment industry and enterprises have suffered from new technologies, new channels, new market competition and new consumer groups. They have gradually fallen into a trough and embarked on a long journey of finding a breakthrough in the downturn. To break the bottleneck of development, it is the key to be able to see the current problem. Recently, a report released by KPMG, an international investment research institute, pointed out: Today, the Chinese apparel industry has long faced four major development pain points: sales bottleneck, inventory imbalance, low profit, and customer loss. If you want to overcome difficulties and turn to safety, you need to lay out in the long run – build brand value depth, conduct global marketing, and build smart stores that focus on consumers' deep experience, ultimately promoting healthy and sustainable brand growth.

New pains give birth to new changes in production and marketing

In fact, in addition to the four major industry pain points that KPMG has said, stepping into 2017, along with the continuous deepening of the “Internet +” business ecosystem, other traditional industries have been successfully transformed, but “Internet Plus” is for most apparel industries. It is still a door to the world, seemingly close, but always can not find the right "key."

In an interview with the Beijing News reporter, Xia Hua, the chairman of Yiwen Group, once pointed out that “Internet +” and the sharing economy want to change the clothing industry. They should not simply sell the products online, but should completely change the production and sales. logic. In the past few years, many clothing companies have tried to enlarge the " e-commerce ", and some even completely abandoned the traditional channels and stores, which has invested a lot of money, but the profits that can be seen in a few years are not good enough. .

Insiders pointed out that clothing companies need to realize that "Internet +" is just a tool to help or assist the traditional business of their own business, and can never be turned upside down. The issue of quality , management and supply chain control is the foundation for clothing companies to settle down. On this basis, clothing companies can rethink the use of the Internet to improve the matching accuracy between production and sales, and fine services to enhance customer satisfaction, etc. This is the right way to use the Internet tools to transform the apparel industry.

New demand promotes brand new definition

Previously, the e-commerce platform and CBNData released the "2016 global trend consumer trends report", pointing out that the consumer population is young, online brand diversification, clothing category diversification, omnichannel model advantages, high-end brand e-commerce, personality needs There are six major trends in private customization.

Obviously, with the advent of the era of consumer upgrades, brands are facing many challenges such as diversified user needs, online and offline channel integration, and brand communication media dispersion. The new middle class, represented by the post-90s and post-95s, is becoming the main consumer of the times. The consumer demand of this group largely determines the future development trend of the brand, and this group is for the consumption of clothing. Personalized needs are becoming more and more obvious, and even more are still keen on the trend culture. All of the above have provided good opportunities for the rebranding and new life of clothing companies.

When talking about the topic of rebranding of domestic apparel companies, Mao Jihong, the founder of the exception and party, pointed out that brand remodeling should adhere to independence and maintain considerable values ​​and brand confidence. "It's a belief to stand out from the crowd. You can't use your survival logic to replace your survival logic. You can't replace your value with the value of others."

New retail brings new ecological incision

In March 2017, the New Retail Research Report, published by the Ali Research Institute, defined new retail as “a data-driven, pan-retail approach centered on consumer experience.” Industry professionals have dismantled this theory into the production and marketing model of apparel enterprises, which is from the traditional SPA model (ie, the independent brand professional retailer business model), to the clothing industry to participate in the entire industry of product planning, production, logistics, sales, etc. Link.

Institutional researcher GF Securities believes that if the apparel industry can truly implement the new retail theory to the whole ecology, it can better solve the contradiction of seasonal, strong cycle, rapid change, long supply chain and slow response in the apparel industry. Minimize the risk of demand forecasting in the apparel industry and achieve rapid response delivery.

At the enterprise level, Yin Jian, founder of Inman, believes that new retail is not a simple “commodity + channel”. Enterprises use the Internet to improve business efficiency and brand efficiency. This is the essence of new retail. In his view, the future high-end clothing consumption is actually more experience, customers need to buy and go, need to touch and feel the texture and size of the clothes. At present, the online proportion of the apparel industry is about 22%, and the proportion of online in the future may increase, but it will not exceed 50%.

Keyword analysis

Warm up

China Garment Association revealed on the 6th that in the first three quarters of this year, the output of more than 15,000 enterprises above designated size in the Chinese apparel industry maintained steady growth. From the domestic market, in the first three quarters of this year, China's domestic market apparel sales increased by 7.1% year-on-year, which was higher than last year. Online sales grew by nearly 20%.

Comments:

According to industry analysts, the main benefit indicators of China's garment industry have been significantly better this year, and the trend of recovery has been confirmed. In the context of the rising cost of the overall factor of the industry, it is not easy to achieve such growth. This is also the Chinese clothing in recent years. The embodiment of industry restructuring, innovation and development.

High-end mergers and acquisitions

In 2017, the momentum of M&A in the industry is still fierce, but the target of M&A has changed: cross-border acquisitions have decreased, and cases of clothing companies acquiring new brands have increased. At the same time, "high brand maturity", "expected profitability", "high-end or light luxury" are becoming new M&A labels. For example, the seven wolves invested 32.04 billion yuan in the international operating brand Karl Lagerfeld China operating entity; Anta was reported to have acquired the Hong Kong high-end children's wear brand KINGKOW for 60 million Hong Kong dollars and other events have received the attention of the global peers.

Comments:

Behind the “buy, buy and buy” of clothing companies, the recovery of the industry and the maturity of enterprises in mergers and acquisitions. The mergers and acquisitions of clothing enterprises are mostly concentrated in mature brands, indicating that the enterprises have begun to mature, and they are no longer blind. After all, the risk of cultivating new brands is relatively high, the incubation period is too long, and the failure rate is too high. M&A in China's apparel industry is still not very mature, but it has indeed entered a new stage. But in the end, companies still have to do the brand. For clothing companies, brands and products are still the most important.

Return to the main business

In 2017, some people chose to continue to expand, and some people chose to return to the main business camp: Youngor Group Chairman Li Rucheng said that Youngor will return to the main business of clothing in the next five years, and will invest 10 billion yuan to strengthen fabrics, crafts, brands and sales channels. Zhou Chengjian, founder of Meibang, said frankly, "We must return to our original heart, return to the main business, return to the real needs of consumers, and do a good job in products, do a good job of experience, gradually correct ourselves from the impulses and confusion mentioned above, and awaken ourselves; Red Bean shares also ended the development of the dual main business of “real estate + clothing” that has lasted for more than ten years, returning to a single main business – clothing, and strengthening the competitiveness and profitability of the main clothing industry.

Comments:

The diversification transformation has brought more choices to the service companies, providing new growth points and cultivating brand value, but due to the wide layout, the risks will naturally increase. On the other hand, there are also many service companies who choose to return to their main business after trying to diversify their expansion. It also means returning to the "initial heart" and focusing more on one thing and doing brand management to enhance brand value.