Enterprises and people are happy because they are on the way to charge.
Fast fashion is characterized by "quickness, accuracy and firmness", which is a business model that can bring the clothes exhibited in fashion week to the market in a short time, thus rapidly driving the global fashion trend. Multi-SKU, shallow inventory and keeping up with the trend are its characteristics.
Fast fashion can be favored by consumers, on the one hand, because fast fashion operation mode can provide rich and diversified products and increase consumers’ fashion choices; On the other hand, fast fashion brands are cheaper, cost-effective and have low brand premium.
The rapid development of fast fashion in China is also due to the good opportunity. In September 2002, Uniqlo opened two stores in Shanghai and officially entered the China market. In 2006, ZARA opened its first fast fashion shop in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai. Represented by Uniqlo and ZARA, with the rapid expansion of commercial real estate in China and the rapid growth of retail space, fast-copied fast-fashion brand stores have quickly become the darling of commercial real estate projects in China. Fast fashion brands get together to open offline stores and lay out online flagship stores.
Thinking and making progress will give birth to knowledge, while slowness and slackness will give birth to worry.
However, since the second half of 2018, there have been negative news from fast fashion brands, such as closing stores, withdrawing from China market and slowing performance. It is reported that on the eve of 2018 Tmall Double Eleven, the homepage of the British fast fashion brand Topshop Tmall flagship store announced that due to the adjustment of international business operation strategy, the Tmall flagship store will be closed in the near future. In December 2018, another British fast fashion brand, new look, also announced its withdrawal from the China market.
The 2018 financial report released by Inditex Group, a well-known fashion retail giant in Spain, pointed out that the group’s sales from February 1 to October 31, 2018 were 8.437 billion euros, an increase of 2.64% over the same period in 2017, which was the worst year since 2008.
Also in 2018, international fast fashion brands such as ZARA, H&M, and GAP also suffered from the waterloo–GAP experienced a large-scale store closure, and the opening speed of ZARA and H&M also slowed down significantly. Only Uniqlo, relying on the core competitive advantage of its all-direct offline stores, is still sinking at the rate of 80-100 stores per year, which can be described as outstanding.
In life and all walks of life, all kinds of signs continue to show that thinking produces knowledge, slowness produces worry, arrogance produces resentment, and depression produces disease.
Positive is always an absolute signal of success, and truly positive enterprises and people will not "wash the mud when the radish is fast"
Behind the frequent closing and slowing down of fast fashion brands, it reflects the cruelty of financial report data and the continuous decline of performance growth rate.
On the one hand, the reason for the decline is "fast". The fast fashion brand represented by ZARA has strong supply chain management ability, and the time from design to production is extremely short, which effectively meets the consumption needs of modern fast-paced life. However, it is good to master the balance between fast and good. As the saying goes, "radish is fast and does not wash mud", and the quality problems of fast fashion brands are numerous, which has hit consumers’ enthusiasm for buying.
On the other hand, it is on the "foreign". The brands mentioned in the article that cut stores and quit China are all "foreign" brands. During the more than ten years since fast fashion brands entered the China market, China local fast fashion brands such as MJstyle, Hot Air and La Chapelle have also risen rapidly. They have a better understanding of Chinese’s figure and have developed many products with more Chinese characteristics, which have gradually impacted foreign brands. With the deep influence of the Internet, a number of Internet brands have been gradually promoted and loved by consumers, such as Handu Yishe, Clothes Tiancheng, Qiushui Yiren, Shesi, etc. Internet brands have also intensified the competition of fast fashion.
In the past two years, in addition to the often mentioned slowdown in economic growth in the global environment, fast fashion itself still has problems such as inventory backlog, intensified competition, brand homogenization, decreased sense of design, serious plagiarism, aesthetic fatigue, severe quality problems, and repeated discounts.
There are those who go with the flow and those who go against the current. A proactive brand will not let itself go downstream, and Uniqlo is one of the proactive brands. If we count the changes made by Uniqlo over the years, we will find that the so-called basic models have actually devoted a lot of efforts to Uniqlo. Under the concept of "LifeWear suits life", a thermal underwear and Uniqlo can be made for ten years, and new attempts are made on the original basis every year; A polar fleece, from research and development to listing, Uniqlo is meticulous and stylish. While turning the basic model into a classic model, Uniqlo is becoming more confident and willing to make new attempts, not only co-signing with Marvel Comics, Nintendo, Alexander Wang, etc., but also accelerating the omni-channel linkage, so that consumers can get the products and services they want anytime and anywhere. This also explains why people think that Uniqlo, which has spanned more than half a century, is younger and more energetic in recent years-the simpler it is, the more it can stand the test of time, and because it is classic, it will never be out of date. This is the quality and high cost performance of Uniqlo.
Environmental protection is a belief and the active choice of all successful people in all walks of life.
Among the reasons why fast fashion is slowing down, there is also a temporary slowdown caused by fast fashion brands starting to work hard for sustainable development. In order to slow down with more environmentally-friendly materials and more environmentally-friendly technology, this is the active choice of all the sustainable winners in the field of fast fashion.
Fast fashion is based on rich money and fast operation, but the production process from raw materials to printing and dyeing is all from nature. There are a lot of air pollution, wastewater pollution, soil pollution and plastic waste pollution caused by e-commerce logistics during the processing. With the increasingly serious ecological and environmental problems and the rising public awareness of environmental protection, fast fashion brands and the whole industry have begun to explore sustainable development actively or passively.
For example, the packaging of fast fashion products produces a lot of plastic waste, and plastic waste pollution is a huge global environmental challenge, and no brand can deal with it alone. In order to cope with the environmental enemy of plastics, at the end of October 2018, 290 organizations including major global packaging manufacturers, brands, retailers, recyclers, governments and NGOs signed the "Global Commitment of New Plastics Economy", which aims to curb plastic pollution from the source. The signatory enterprises indicated that they would take active measures to stop using unnecessary plastic packaging. Fast fashion companies such as H&M and ZARA’s parent company Inditex Group are all involved.
Since H&M launched the Conscious Exclusive series made of renewable materials in 2013, brands such as ZARA, GAP and Uniqlo and their parent companies have all started concrete measures for sustainability. On the one hand, it is to clear the name of fast fashion and regain consumers’ goodwill towards the brand, on the other hand, it is also considered for its long-term development and adaptation to the times.
According to reports, GAP Group, the parent company of American brand GAP, previously promised that in 2021, the group will only buy cotton from organic farms or its recognized sustainable producers; Haines Morris Group, the parent company of H&M, said that all raw materials for product manufacturing will come from recycling by 2030, and the current proportion has reached 30%; Japan Fast Retailing Group is committed to using less water and chemicals in the manufacturing process.
The rise of domestic brand mission is the need of China and the hope of China.
Not only the international fast fashion giants, but also many domestic brands are quietly promoting sustainable fashion.
For example, Ordos, a well-known brand in cashmere industry, is also practicing the concept of sustainable fashion. In order to solve the contradiction between the high demand for cashmere and the scarcity of raw materials, Ordos protects pastures and sheep breeds on the one hand, and minimizes the idle and waste of resources on the other, including cashmere conservation and recycling. Ordos established the National Cashmere Maintenance Center, aiming at prolonging the service life of the products. In addition, the "coat for coat" project has been implemented, which can transform parents’ cashmere coats into children’s clothes, and several new clothes can be regenerated by simple working procedures.
Of course, some people say that the fast fashion industry is hostile to environmental protection and nature. The biggest challenge for the fast fashion industry to explore the sustainable direction is to coordinate the prices of sustainable products and still meet the low prices of fast fashion. With the development of technology and the scale of sustainable and fast fashion products, the cost will drop, and the cost of environmentally-friendly and sustainable materials will gradually drop to the same as that of ordinary series.
Nowadays, people’s aesthetic trend is also comfortable and sustainable. From the phenomenon that Uniqlo, which advocates the concept of "adapting to life", can go against the trend and still maintain rapid growth in the downturn of global fast fashion, it is not difficult to find that the sustainable market will not only drag down fast fashion, but also point out the development direction for the depressed fast fashion. Whoever gets on the express train of "sustainable fashion" first will have a greater chance of taking the lead in the next round of competition.
Fashion should be sustainable. Enterprises and industries are getting bigger and bigger, and they should assume social responsibilities.
At the business level, fast fashion must think and take multiple countermeasures.
In addition to developing in the direction of environmental protection and sustainability, fast brands should take more diversified measures.
Common countermeasures are: increasing online business and opening flagship stores in mainstream e-commerce; Adopt a multi-brand strategy to cover people of different styles and ages as much as possible. For example, Inditex Group has Pull &Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius and other brands besides ZARA, and La Chapelle owns sub-brands such as Puella and LaBabite. Offline stores provide clothing one-stop shopping service, which is expanded in the form of a collection store; Strengthen the connection between fashion and science and technology, and apply science and technology to the logistics, product selection and trend prediction of fast fashion; There are still many brands that continue to sink their channels, expand into third-and fourth-tier cities, and carve up the "demographic dividend" that has not been completely carved up.
In recent years, fast fashion brands are also making efforts to choose spokespersons, hoping to exchange traffic for sales. For example, ZARA, which has never invited a spokesperson before, launched Leo and Zhou Dongyu as brand ambassadors in Greater China in September last year, hoping to convert traffic into sales through the star-bringing and fan effect. Other celebrity spokesperson cases include Handu Yishe asking Gulnazar to endorse, VERO MODA asking Jiang Shuying to endorse, and Uniqlo asking Jing Bo Ran and NiNi to endorse.
Of course, the detonation of the star effect also needs to be based on the excellent quality of products and good service experience. Take Uniqlo, a fast fashion giant, for example. Every year, it launches basic models that have stood the test of time and designer models that cooperate with international designers, so that consumers can freely choose between the basic models that are necessary for "adapting to life" and the designer models that pursue fashion. Fast fashion is always catching up with the trend of fashion, and Uniqlo does the opposite. After inhaling the popular elements, it is reflected in the timeless basic models, but it has achieved good leading effect.
Consumers use purchasing power to give feedback on the fast fashion response measures. In 2018, just after the zero point of Tmall Double Eleven, Uniqlo Tmall flagship store broke through 100 million in 35 seconds, becoming the champion of double eleven clothing sales. A total of 237 brands in Tmall Double Eleven had a turnover of over 100 million, of which clothing accounted for 27%. Fast fashion has found new opportunities in e-commerce and tasted the real "sweetness". However, entering e-commerce is not the only way to respect the times. Some insiders pointed out that although e-commerce platform can help it solve the inventory problem to a certain extent, the new logistics cost brought by the new e-commerce business will also test the integration ability of the supply chain.
Li Ning’s resurgence provides an example for domestic sports brands.
On this side, many fast fashion brands have a positive attitude towards reform, trying many things that have not been done or paid attention to before, in an attempt to find new growth points in diversified measures; On the other hand, because the traditional sporting goods market is weak in growth and old in style, it can’t attract the attention of a new generation of young people, and some domestic sports brands have begun to take the step of transforming the fashion field.
When it comes to the transformation of domestic sports brands into the fashion field, we have to mention the brand Li Ning.
In February 2018, Li Ning appeared at New York Fashion Week, and the word "China Li Ning" became a hot topic. Representing China’s red and yellow color scheme, sweaters and retro jackets with "China Li Ning" printed on the chest, windproof jackets with silver color scheme in the future, and clothes with Li Ning’s gymnastics photos, there are both traditional culture and modern trends. Li Ning brand integrates Chinese style and retro elements into new products. This exhibition is also the first appearance of domestic sports brands at New York Fashion Week. With this exposure, Li Ning brand has a truly explosive product "Enlightenment" series.
Then, Li Ning also boarded New York Fashion Week in autumn and winter of 2018 and Paris Men’s Wear Week in spring and summer of 2019, which was recognized by the fashion industry and many hipster stars. Li Ning, who made three appearances in International Fashion Week, not only ignited Chinese’s national self-confidence, but also regained the love of young people with the design of fashion trends, and gradually gained her own international fans. The sales volume and price soared, which was directly reflected in the rising stock price and the turnaround in turnover.
Li Ning’s recovery and rise did not happen overnight. After experiencing the explosive growth of the 2008 Olympic Games, Li Ning was indifferent to the post-90 s because of inaccurate positioning, and even fell into a large-scale store closing tide. After Li Ning, the founder, returned to China, he emphasized the design and development of the brand, paid attention to differentiation, and repositioned Li Ning, positioning the brand as a high-end international market brand when marching into the international market.
This proves that we can find a balance between China traditional culture and contemporary trends, and integrate China style into modern design.
Besides Li Ning, who is "anything is possible", Anta, who is "never stop", should also be more familiar to the public.
In 2018, Anta’s annual operating income reached RMB 24.1 billion, which is the best-selling brand among domestic sports brands. Anta has also entered the fashion field in recent years. The latest trend is to launch explosive old shoes in 2018, and jointly launched cooperation funds with NASA and Marvel Comics; In 2019, Anta announced the launch of the first overbearing life shoes, which caused quite a stir in the fashion circle. At present, there are only two color numbers in the official online shop of Anta.
International sports brands Adidas and Nike have been in fashion for many years. The fashion transformation of Li Ning and Anta not only adapts to the transformation of the times, but also affects the trend of the times. The boundary between fashion and sports is increasingly blurred, and the fashion trend of sports brands has become an established trend of the whole industry. Local sports brands such as Xtep, 361 Degrees, Hongxing Erke and Peak are also working hard in the direction of youthfulness and fashion.
But in the end, whether playing Chinese style, cross-border or emphasizing individuality and youthfulness, its essence is to maintain consumers’ recognition of the brand in the rapidly changing competitive market.
This may also show that sports brands have become a general trend, and domestic sports brands should make efforts in the field of fast fashion.
There is no blue ocean, but an infinite secret is found in the red sea.
The four things of food, clothing, housing and transportation are always unavoidable topics for everyone, and "clothing" is one of them. "Clothes" also derived the function of showing beauty and personality from the original function of keeping warm and avoiding the body. The consumption of clothes is not only out of the necessity of life, but also from the pursuit of a better life.
Although the voice of singing bad fast fashion is one after another, in the long run, it is not rash to judge the future development of fast fashion industry, because industries closely related to life have a characteristic that it will not go to the peak or fall to the bottom instantly. A short adjustment period may also be the beginning of the next round of outbreaks. Moreover, many brands are still star shops in the business district.
Today’s fast fashion industry seems to be a little tired on the surface, but it has entered a mature stage rather than declining. The consumption impulse of users has not changed, but the pursuit of beauty has become higher and more personalized. How to spend the mature period and open up new markets is exactly the challenge that different brands need to meet in the next time according to their own positioning. The commonness of all challenges in all walks of life is the same, that is, all leaders have to do two things, one is to set ambitious goals, and the other is to ignite passion.
Uniqlo has given the answer to this in recent years.
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To succeed, to be safe, to be happy, to be happy and to be cool, we must return to the road of charge!