After The Release Of UNIQLO?

Believe it or not, the clothing industry is the richest processing factory.

However, when global consumers are sealed by the epidemic, clothes that can go out are no longer necessities. In 2020, there will be no spring clothes or summer clothes, and the whole clothing industry will be in distress.

At this time, the east of the world once again burst out of mysterious power, and many garment industry giants were rescued here. It was UNIQLO who saw the miracle this time.

1. The boss is the richest man in the company

On July 9, UNIQLO's parent company, Japan's fast retailing group, reported a net loss of 9.82 billion yen and a revenue of 336.41 billion yen in the third quarter to the end of May.

UNIQLO, the core brand of Fast Retailing, lost 74% of its operating profit and 36% of its revenue in the third quarter.

Specifically, UNIQLO's revenue in Japan fell 35.5% year-on-year in the third quarter, and operating profit fell 74%. In the rest of the world, revenue fell 45% year-on-year, with an operating loss of y1.4 billion. In addition, the operating revenue of Gu brand business unit decreased by 19.1%, the operating profit decreased by 61.8% and the sales in the same store decreased by 27%. The global brands division reported a 63.2% drop in revenue and an operating loss of 6.7 billion yen in the quarter.

Fast retailing group said that most of its stores were temporarily closed in the first half of the year due to the impact of the new crown epidemic. As a result, the group's business divisions recorded a significant decline in revenue and profits, and the UNIQLO business revenue and profits in all major overseas markets also declined significantly.

But the net worth of the founder of UNIQLO, Liu Jingzheng, jumped by $9.2 billion (about 64.568 billion yuan) to 28.9 billion dollars (about 202.829 billion yuan) compared with the list in March.

The more familiar sun Zhengyi has been robbed of the throne of Japan's richest man by Yanai for the second year in a row.

Behind this is the profiteering philosophy of cheap clothing.

Amnacio Ortega, founder of INDITEX group, Zara's parent company, has been the richest person in the world for five times. Stefan Persson, founder of H & M, is the richest person in Sweden.

That is to say, the big men in the technology industry walk on the hot search list every day, or scold the whole department bloody for a certain user experience. Looking back, the silent clothing industry has been rich in the richest man.

After all, "clothing, food, housing and transportation" ranks first.

UNIQLO, once jokingly known as the only clothing for coal owners and nouveau riche, is one of the most alternative.

In July, two major U.S. retail clothing giants ascenda and Brooks brothers successively reported bankruptcy news. UNIQLO not only survived the first half year's store closing tide, but also opened several new stores in the trend of closing stores and layoffs of other brands. Although it also handed over a bad financial report, UNIQLO's business has begun to recover.

UNIQLO expects revenue to fall 9% to $19.3 billion (about 1354.53 yuan) in the fiscal year ending August 31, while operating profit is down 44% to $13.4 billion (94.045 billion yuan).

Comparing the results to the end of May, UNIQLO is confident of reversing the huge losses of the previous quarter in the three months from June to August.

The starting point of recovery is the Chinese market.

2. Two encounters with the wall, the final redemption

Fast Retailing said in its financial report that UNIQLO's performance in Greater China was recovering faster than expected.

Nearly half of the stores closed in August in China. But by the end of April, all of them were back in business. UNIQLO opened a new store in China at the end of July.

According to Red Star News, fast retailing group has been publishing the list of supplier factories on its official website since 2017, including core fabric factories and garment sewing factories. Most of the global cooperative factories updated in March 2020 are located in China.

UNIQLO has 63 core fabric factories worldwide, 40 of which are located in China. Among the 248 garment sewing factories in the world, 134 factories are located in China.

Thanks to the timely and effective control of the epidemic in China, the production capacity of these factories has basically returned to the state before the epidemic, which ensures the product supply of UNIQLO from the source.

In addition, after the outbreak of the epidemic led to the closure of many stores, different from the current situation in many countries, more than half of UNIQLO's stores in China remain open, only strictly controlling the business hours according to the requirements of the property.

In mid April, UNIQLO resumed its business under the basic control of the epidemic in China.

This time point, just in time for the arrival of the season change tide and the vitality of offline consumption recovery, the Chinese market has become UNIQLO's life-saving straw.

In 2002, UNIQLO first landed in the Chinese market and its first store was opened in Shanghai.

In order to continue the brand strategy of "simple, cheap and popular", Lin Cheng, the first regional manager of UNIQLO in China, copied the company's rise in Japan and opened its first store far away from the center of Shanghai.

This practice of saving rent but making consumers pay more for their travel expenses can't make Shanghai people who are particular about style buy cheap shirts in the suburbs? So UNIQLO ran into a brick wall in the Chinese market.

In 2005, UNIQLO regained its momentum and entered the Beijing market, but it suffered even worse. Even the founders could not directly look at it. At the end of the year, all 9 UNIQLO stores in China lost money, which was written by Liu Jingzheng in UNIQLO's famous biography, "one win and nine lose.".

In the Chinese market two times, let UNIQLO realize a problem, here people talk about forced grid.

Since then, UNIQLO has been cooperating with various designers and artists to continuously launch co branded products and designer products to inject design and fashion elements into UNIQLO's brands.

In addition to the brand impression level, UNIQLO has also launched measures aimed at the Chinese market. For example, the stores are specialized in the prosperous area with an inch of land and gold, and the store area is so large that it can be described as broad. The area of the store in Shanghai ganghui square is more than 1000 square meters, and the area of taiguli store in Sanlitun in Beijing has reached 1300 square meters.

The size of the fitting room in that store is known to many people who have never been there.

In addition to creating spacious stores, UNIQLO adjusted its pricing strategy in the Chinese market in time. UNIQLO believes: "China's emerging consumers do not need a price war. They value more that an international brand can bring them a shopping experience and fine service that they could not enjoy before."

This is not good to say. When it is sold cheaply, few people will buy it. When the price is high, it will sell well. Consumers in China will lose their mind?

But the words are rough, the reason is not rough, behind this is a very profound brand pricing philosophy, after all, in this magical land, poor wear mink, rich wear cotton, big clothes wear leisure.

In this way, the image of "high-end customers" and "customers who buy coal" will be adjusted.

At present, more than half of its stores and stores in China have already surpassed the number of its competitors in China.

It is also for this reason that UNIQLO, which once relied heavily on the Chinese market at both ends of the supply chain and sales, was the first to survive the crisis when the Chinese market first recovered after the outbreak.

3. Thirty years, creating miracles

If we say that the dividend brought by the Chinese market makes UNIQLO get close to the water and win the first month, it can only be regarded as UNIQLO's premeditation, not a miracle.

So Yanai is really a miracle.

Ma Yun once said that the two entrepreneurs he admired most were Schultz, founder of Starbucks, who sold coffee, and Mr. Yanai, who sold clothes. "There are many clothes sellers in the world, but only he sold UNIQLO and became the richest man in Japan."

Sun Zhengyi, who was once the richest man in Japan, but spent all his luck to meet Ma Yun is not among them.

Because Yanai is really a miracle maker.

First of all, although the clothing industry is one of the oldest industries and also one of the industries with the largest number of richest people, there was no world-famous clothing giant in Japan before UNIQLO. So many people couldn't understand when Liujing, 60, was becoming Japan's richest man in 2009.

It took Liujing only 30 years to create this miracle, which can be regarded as another miracle.

When he was young, Yanai believed in non work. He thinks that "muddling along and not working" is the ideal state of life, and he also travels around the world.

But in the end, people still have to work. After all, Liu Jingzheng's father is not rich, but he just opened a small clothing store.

After deciding to look for a job, Liu Jingzheng, who graduated from Waseda University, couldn't find a satisfactory job. He had to go to his father's clothing store to help him. When he helped, he took over the shop. It was the 1970s.

Now, Youxin stores have opened more than 2000 years in Guangdao, and they are the first stores in the world.

During the "lost 20 years" of Japan's economy, "separation" has become the main theme of the consumer industry. The clothing industry is the first to bear the brunt, and a large number of shopping malls and clothing stores are closed. However, UNIQLO bucked the trend and increased more than 200 times. UNIQLO's same store data reached an all-time high at a time when clothing retail sales growth in Japan's big stores bottomed out.

With Liujing becoming the richest man in Japan, there is a world-class clothing giant for the first time in Japanese business history.

Compared with several other fast fashion clothing brands, UNIQLO's success in the clothing industry surrounded by giants depends on the "basic style", which is the success gene of UNIQLO.

In the daily operation of clothing stores, the basic money usually accounts for 30% of the total sales. Although popular models are renewed every year, they involve more energy in design and cannot predict sales volume, so it is easy to make input and output out of proportion.

Moreover, although consumers pursue novelty, popular models always need basic styles to match.

Therefore, Liujing saw the business opportunity, firmly controlled the sales volume of the basic model, built the basic model into the strongest single product, and then drove everything with the strongest single product.

In other words, every clothing item is a part. The purpose of shopping is to select the parts they like to form their favorite style, while UNIQLO sells versatile parts.

In this way, UNIQLO went to the extreme, each basic model has a variety of styles and colors, covering almost all ages.

In addition, UNIQLO's network display mode and the staff's non-interference service mode violate the industry rules to a certain extent.

With these "changes" and "unchangeable", Liujing is building this clothing empire against the trend of the industry in just 30 years.

4. Conclusion

"This epidemic is the biggest crisis that mankind has been facing since World War II," Yanai said

After all, it's hard for the president to know when the epidemic is over.

For UNIQLO, the most difficult thing is not the decline in sales caused by the epidemic, but whether it can upgrade its brand image again.

After all, fashion is a reincarnation, no matter how comfortable the basic model, there will always be a day when people are tired of aesthetics.