Chinese Consumers Don'T Have Much Time For Fast Fashion

"The style is not necessarily good-looking, the quality must be extremely poor," coco was disappointed with fast fashion. "In 2013, H & M and Forever 21 were synonyms of fashion. Many new clothes were good-looking and cheap, and now they are ugly to the point."

Like many peers, UNIQLO is the only fast fashion in Coco's wardrobe now. However, affected by the H & M "China bumping" Xinjiang cotton incident, UNIQLO will also leave Coco's purchase list temporarily. "It also depends on the follow-up policy of the brand. If the apology is not in place, it will boycott the purchase.".

　　 "Fast fashion" on hot pot

Due to the boycott of Xinjiang cotton incident, H & M, which sold 7.4 billion yuan in China last year, ushered in the darkest moment of the Chinese market.

With the event fermenting, more and more brands are involved, including UNIQLO, Zara, Nike, Adidas, Burberry, new Bailun and other brands. According to incomplete statistics of the media, more than 50 artists have announced the termination of contracts with relevant brands.

These brands have also caused netizens to post boycotts on social media. It is not hard to imagine that this will have a huge impact on brand sales. However, from the brand open financial report data, the Chinese market has a significant impact on brand development.

According to the annual report of Fast Retailing, China's market revenue reached 380.998 billion yen (about 22.81 billion yuan at today's exchange rate), accounting for 18.996% of the total revenue, which is its largest single overseas market. Last year, China's market accounted for 17.97%.

In addition, at the spring and summer 2021 exhibition held a few days ago, Wu pinhui, chief marketing officer of UNIQLO Greater China, announced that UNIQLO would continue to open 80-100 stores a year in China in the future, expanding to third and fourth tier cities. At this rate, UNIQLO will have more than 1000 stores in China by 2022.

On March 31, H & M released its quarterly data for the period from December 2020 to February 2021, with a pre tax loss of 1.39 billion SEK (about 1.04 billion yuan), compared with a profit of SEK 2.5 billion a year ago. Net sales of H & M amounted to SEK 187 billion in fy2020. Net sales fell 18% in local currency terms. According to conservative estimates, 250 stores will be closed in 2021, and about 20 stores are currently closed in China, according to H & M's chief executive.

China is the fourth largest market for H & M sales in the fourth quarter of 2020, second only to Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, and is also one of the markets with the smallest decline.

According to previous public data, by the end of fiscal year 2020, H & M had 445 stores in 146 cities in mainland China. In order to expand market share, H & M group announced at the beginning of the year that its Nordic lifestyle brand arket and women's fashion brand & other stories would open physical stores in Beijing and Shanghai respectively this year.

However, affected by the "cotton defense war", H & M's new brand landing and UNIQLO store expansion plan may be affected.

"I'm totally disappointed with UNIQLO this year. With the increase in price and the differential treatment of price reduction in the Japanese market and no price reduction in the Chinese market, there are also more and more ugly styles, so I have to leave him quickly," Wang Bing told media reporters.

In addition to word-of-mouth quality, UNIQLO's actions in the Chinese market this year have also made it popular.

On November 14 of last year, UNIQLO caused controversy over "quietly increasing prices".

At that time, some netizens complained that UNIQLO's clothes with less than 300 yuan only appeared at special discounts. Most of them were 599 yuan, 799 yuan and 999 yuan. It's not that they can't afford it, but they feel worthless. However, UNIQLO immediately issued a statement denying the price increase.

On March 4 this year, UNIQLO was on the hot search list twice, with the hot search terms as follows: UNIQLO's all-round price reduction in Japan; and UNIQLO China has no price reduction plan. The reason is that UNIQLO has announced that Japan will reduce its price by about 9%, while the Chinese market has no price reduction plan.

At that time, some netizens announced that UNIQLO would take off powder. Some netizens discussed in the comment area that UNIQLO was a fast consumer, and felt that its price was more and more out of line with its own positioning.

　　 Declining day by day

Even if it is not because of the cotton incident, word-of-mouth has been declining all the way, and the crisis of fast fashion in the Chinese market has already come.

"The big problem of fast fashion is that the sales and revenue have entered the bottleneck period. Especially for mature projects, especially for high-quality mature projects, fast fashion has lost its original significance, and its revenue is far lower than other retail or catering." Wang Wei, head of a business promotion in Hangzhou shopping mall, told the media.

As a matter of fact, the early shopping centers introduced fast fashion brands, which was known as the "hidden rule" of the industry. At that time, fast fashion was a hot topic for various shopping malls.

"Foreign fast fashion brands have begun to blossom in China. They are all holding excellent exhibition area, excellent advertising space, little rent, and large shops with fast fashion compared with the main stores, which guarantee the quality, passenger flow and sales."

Andy, who is also the person in charge of shopping mall investment promotion, said: "but with the change of the main consumer groups in the market, the consumption of generation Y and even generation Z is rising. They have a stronger demand for personalization, customization and quality sense. What they want more is a scene based shopping environment atmosphere, rare brand joint sales, and niche personalized design to show their consumption attitude. This is also one of the reasons why major fast fashion brands have withdrawn from the domestic market in recent two years. Traditional fast fashion brands are no longer attractive in terms of goods, environment or price. In addition, the impact of the global epidemic has accelerated the decline of some fast fashion brands. "

The decline of fast fashion is also the normal iteration of the clothing industry product line. The clothing industry also needs to constantly iterate new species to match the social needs. Like supermarkets and other formats, the emergence of new species meets the stage needs of the immediate society. From the start, outbreak, peak and decline are all nodes, just like fast fashion's fierce "sniping" La chapel and other brands, it is just now What is being innovated is fast fashion.

China has become a typical epitome of the clothing industry in recent years.

Since 2018, fast fashion has withdrawn from the Chinese market.

New look, Topshop, Forever 21, Old Navy, ESPRIT, C & A and superdry announced their complete withdrawal from the Chinese market.

In January this year, INDITEX, Zara's parent company, confirmed that it would close all its physical stores in China under its three brands, Bershka, pull & Bear and Stradivarius, and expected to complete all shop closures by the middle of 2021.

"In terms of the current market environment, there are few fast fashion brands with optimistic operation. Fast fashion brands, such as UNIQLO and ur, which have been baptized by the market, still bring stable passenger flow to merchants. They are a good choice for some shopping malls to consume large shops and drain, but they are not the only choice. Some of the main sports flagship stores, supporting experience stores (national style Museum, secondary culture, E-sports Experience Hall), new retail such as harmay, Niko and It can also be achieved. “

However, the withdrawal of foreign brands from the Chinese market is also worth our vigilance and consideration. For the Chinese market, the withdrawal of foreign brands is not a good thing.

　 The rise of domestic brands

Corresponding to the decline of fast fashion is the rapid rise of domestic brands.

"Domestic brands have their own living space. In China, they have their own channel advantages, and they have greater and deeper space for customer operation and maintenance.".

Especially affected by the cotton incident in Xinjiang, the national tide was warmly sought after.

On March 26, Li Ningguan declared that he had become the global spokesperson of Li Ning's sports trend products. For a time, Li Ning's stores lined up in the shopping malls, but the traditional fast fashion was in short supply.

In fact, domestic brands have been developing rapidly in recent years.

According to the latest financial report of Anta Group, in 2020, Anta Group's revenue increased by 4.7% year-on-year to RMB 35.51 billion, maintaining growth for seven consecutive years;

Taipingbird also ushered in the best performance. In 2020, the revenue of taipingbird was 9.39 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 18.4%; the net profit was 710 million yuan, up 29.2% year-on-year.

In addition, bosie, which focuses on sexism, and a large number of new and cutting-edge brands such as ubras and jiaonei are more popular among young people. The diversification of aesthetics has opened the way for the growth of new sharp brands.

According to the report "Baidu Guochao pride big data" released by Baidu, from 2009 to 2019, the proportion of Chinese brands' attention has increased from 38% to 70%. From 2018 to 2019, the national trend is more comprehensive in consumer goods, clothing brands, culture and entertainment.

According to the report, from January to July 2019, the number of keyword searches for "Guochao" on major e-commerce platforms increased by more than 392.66% year-on-year. Among them, the largest consumer group is the post-95s, and their contribution to sales is as high as 25.8%, far higher than that of other age groups.

These new and cutting-edge brands have gradually replaced the fast fashion position in the shopping malls.

Taking the Hubin business district, which is the most "attracting customers" in Hangzhou as an example, Hubin 88 brings together new and cutting-edge brands loved by young consumers, such as bosie, KKV, tomato youth, h.e.a.t Xiran, dresease, etc.

It is reported that bosie plans to open a "super store" on Huaihai Road in Shanghai next year. By then, bosie's store area will be expanded to 2000 square meters, and the SKU in the store will also expand from clothing to shoes and bags accessories, household clothing, children's clothing, pet clothing and other pan clothing categories. Liu Guangyao, the founder of "super stores", predicts that the sales of "super stores" are expected to double on the basis of the best performance of existing stores.

On November 20, 2020, bosie completed round a + and round B financing of RMB 200 million, led by Zhongding capital and Yuansheng capital, and followed by Jinshajiang venture capital. This is bosie's third financing since 2019.

With the expansion of new and sharp brands and strong ability to attract customers, the space left by shopping malls for fast fashion will be narrowed down.

"The fast fashion brand in the head can contribute stable rental income and bring stable passenger flow sales, but it can't add to the icing on the cake for me. We prefer that it can revitalize my cold area. Moreover, due to the large area, high investment cost and large volume of distribution of fast fashion brands, not all shopping malls are opened. Compared with single store, it is more flexible and easier to sink into the market. "Andy said.