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Marketing Has Changed: Pictures Determine The Life And Death Of A Quarter'S Sales

2023/2/17 12:01:00 1

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People all over the country wore spring clothes from Hangzhou.

In February 2023, this topic hit the microblog hot search. The main topic is "China's first clothing street" Hangzhou Sijiqing, which ushers in the new season of annual spring clothing.

In the past three years, the Chinese clothing market has faced unprecedented challenges: the live broadcast is hot, and the business of stalls is cold; The travel is inconvenient, and the rent pressure rises sharply; Logistics is blocked, goods in the warehouse are unsalable... Faced with the new environment, clothing people are constantly embracing changes and creating changes, and shopping guides have become KOL (key opinion leaders), stalls have become popular online brands, and social media have become new product release venues

Change also makes this spring season come more quickly.

Recently, "World Online Businessmen" went to Sijiqing to feel many new faces of traditional stores behind the business recovery.

Zhong Yijia, a boy from Hangzhou, firmly believes that good news will come with spring. Not long ago, his Erbao had just been born. On the one hand, he was immersed in the babbling of two "little cotton padded jackets"; On the other side, the phone that can't stop is the signal of the spring rush.

Xiao Yang, a girl from Quzhou, opened the shutter of the gate on time in the early morning of the National New Year's Day. Before long, she welcomed a group of "netizens" who had communicated online in the past three years. These netizen customers came to Hangzhou by plane to meet her for goods.

Many stall owners also feel this "spring": they have experienced the situation of "soft hand when issuing orders, desperation when urging goods" at the beginning of the new year, but their joy is already on the tip of their eyebrows.

At the beginning of February 2023, "World Online Businessmen" entered Sijiqing to chat with shopkeepers and record the new changes of a traditional clothing market in the busy scene——

The decoration of the new Yifa stall is completely new. A large number of young people travel among it. Some once thought that they had come to "Biaoshandao" (a gathering place of a major characteristic fashion shop in Japan); The fashionable "shopping guide girls" are basically small red books KOL; Some stores have made online celebrity brands, and then a batch of stores specializing in online celebrity shops have appeared; A large number of designers with professional backgrounds are opening the market in the stalls. They are strange but cute

"China's first clothing street" is striving for its next decade. In 1989, Hangzhou Sijiqing Clothing Market was opened. At the beginning, there were only one building and 45 stalls, most of which were Wenzhou businessmen. Since there were few customers, the farmers' market nearby had to improve its popularity; Thirty years later, Sijiqing has become a landmark in China's clothing industry, with more than 20 professional clothing markets and more than 25000 stores.

And what drives this gear forward is the tens of thousands of business people with their own smell who are rooted in the blood of the market.

   The market has changed: smell the "signal of spring"

The busy start of the new year began on the eighth day of the lunar new year: Zhong Yijia almost never stopped calling. The background music of the market was the song of the Korean group BLACKINK, and three shop assistants were sorting and packaging.

Three years ago, Zhong Yijia took down shop 447 at the elevator entrance on the fourth floor of the New Italian Method. The toilet is next to it. The superior geographical conditions foreshadowed its becoming a "popular gateway".

During the conversation, the boss can output content and reply to customers on his mobile phone while keeping an eye on every "potential customer". It took Zhong Yijia six years to develop this businessman's keen sense of touch. Six years ago, Taobao Live emerged, and he followed the wind to do a year of clothing supply chain live broadcast; In 2018, Zhong Yijia, who has accumulated one year of experience, and the designer's wife started a business together to do original design of women's clothing. The couple hatched the Hangpai women's clothing brand "" in the office building of Jiuding Mansion in Binjiang, and then brought it to the new idea shop to find a bigger market.

Looking back over the past year, almost every stall boss replied "too difficult" with one voice. Not long ago, Taipingbird released the announcement of expected performance reduction in 2022, which mentioned that, compared with the same period last year, it is expected to decrease by 534 million yuan, or about 103% year-on-year. The bosses told Tianxia Online Businessmen that many stalls were closed in the new method last year.

Another information is that during the epidemic in Guangzhou last year, many businesses in the 13 branches were unable to do business. Looking at the moment when the inventory could not be delivered, some businesses decided to move to Hangzhou Sijiqing with their families, re opened their stores in the new method, and stopped their losses as quickly as possible. At the same time, we welcome new life.

"One is the epidemic situation, the other is the temperature: it is cold when selling summer clothes, but it is still hot when selling winter clothes." Fortunately, "his business has gradually got rid of" eating from the sky ", which benefits from the original design, does not take market goods, and has core competitiveness; On the other hand, they have accumulated a batch of stable wholesale customers through years of precipitation.

Zhong Yijia introduced that their customers are distributed in Shanghai, Henan, Changshu and other parts of the country, scattered in the second batch of large markets around the country. "On the first day of our opening, some customers didn't come, and WeChat has already placed an order for 700 to 800 pieces to go out." In the sales, Zhong Yijia also basically locked in several popular dresses this spring, such as black and white shirts and dresses. He remembered that a popular dress sold 30000 pieces last spring.

The explosive list of the beginning of spring made the stall owners feel a "signal of spring". According to Zhejiang Online, at 8:00 at the beginning of the year, the sales volume of a popular style of sanitary clothes sold by intentional retailers doubled or tripled compared with that of last year. Many of the goods at the entrance of stores were piled up into "hills". The destination marks on the package were Shenyang, Changchun, Xi'an, Chongqing, Zhuzhou and other places. After the full resumption of express delivery, these spring clothes will be sent to all parts of the country.

Although it is tiring to start a business for many years, Zhong Yijia still enjoys the feeling of being busy and "hit by real gold".

   Marketing has changed: pictures determine the life and death of a quarter's sales

In order to become the "Treasure Stall of Four Seasons Green Strategy" written in the little red book by netizens, it is not just a matter of silently doing a few clothes that can be selected. Each Stall also needs to do some "extracurricular work".

Xiao Yang Shen, who is busy in the Sijiqing Kunlong children's clothing market, has experience. As the second batch of stalls, what they have to do is "more curly" than the first batch of stalls. Previously, due to various reasons, customers could not come to the stall to see the goods. Therefore, each company expanded its business online, created its own small red book number, optimized its own content of Tipping Tone number, and made dozens of WeChat friends every day.

In 2019, at the age of 26, Xiao Yang quit her stable job as a kindergarten teacher and came to Sijiqing. At that time, she had a big stomach and worked with her husband in children's clothing stores. They are mainly Korean Xiaoqingxin, with some sweet styles. In addition, the display at the door is more exquisite, which makes them particularly eye-catching in the "simple" market. At the same time of entering the market, Xiao Yang synchronously operated the "small potato little people", which attracted a large number of fans of Botan stores.

You may not be able to have aesthetic resonance with a single suspender skirt, but the attraction will grow exponentially when it is paired with berets, scarves, diagonal backpacks and small leather boots. Xiao Yang sells clothes rather than clothes. In the most prominent position of the store, there are a large number of accessories, which are her "muses" who get the inspiration of collocation. "World Online Business" found that in Sijiqing, many bosses of popular stores are experts in matching.

The stable operation was broken in the early autumn of 2020, and they encountered a business crisis. "Suddenly no one came to ask for the goods. In just one week, I lost more than ten kilograms, fidgeting, and couldn't sleep at night." Later, she concluded that the photo shoot of that season didn't keep up, the price war of peers didn't pay attention, and the matching didn't keep up.

In the days when we can't see each other, the transactions are all online. The wholesalers look at the pictures to get the goods. The pictures decide the life and death of the sales in a quarter. She quickly reorganized the "battle plan": seize the time to match and take photos. After this crisis, taking photos has become the most important job in Xiao Yang's business. She has followed many children's wear bloggers on ins, learned others' "small square photography skills", and rented a home stay to take pictures.

In addition to posting these pictures on major social media, the most important thing is to post them in the circle of friends to attract private customers to purchase. "The children's clothes are too voluminous, and we should optimize the interface of the circle of friends, including the format of the circle of friends, otherwise it will not attract customers to click." Xiao Yang said that there are many typesetting notes about the content of the circle of friends in Xiao Hongshu, and the stall owner needs to keep learning and increase knowledge reserves. "I dare not think what to do if I can't keep up with the rhythm in the future."

   The shop assistant has changed: the shopping guide girls are KOL per capita

Wandering in markets such as New Italy and New Hangzhou, it is easy to be attracted by shops with fashionable decoration. Many young people said on the social platform that they felt as if they were walking in such fashionable streets as Daiguanshan and Biaoshandao in Tokyo.

In the spring, many "online stores" were crowded with goods takers. Mango, the popular store on the first floor of Xinhang Pai, is warmly welcoming every customer. Looking closely, these shop assistants are not only high in appearance, but also "walking hangers". When there are few customers, the shop assistant will take a self portrait of the mirror to match the new models in the shop and show their new spring products through the small red book.

The World Online Marketplace has learned that on Xiaohongshu, an account named "Half Three Three" is Mango's shop assistant and brand manager. This slightly fat girl has successfully attracted a large number of users' attention through her fashionable clothes. She has more than 10000 fans on Xiaohongshu, and has successfully been promoted to "KOL".

Zhong Yijia's stall is also operating Xiaohongshu, and the clerk is Xiaohongshu's KOL. "The shop assistants we recruited are between 20 and 30 years old, and they have good appearance. In addition to being shop assistants, they are models wearing patterns and will participate in new shooting every season. If the pictures match the 'real objects', it will be more convincing." Zhong Yijia said that after shooting the pictures, the shop assistants will also shoot short videos for the channel launch such as Tiao Yin and WeChat.

The shooting sites of "Half Three Three" and other shop assistants are mostly in their own shops. Since there is almost no time to revise the picture after taking a large number of pictures, they will spend much time on space design.

The pictures of the Elephant at the Red Gate of the New French Open have attracted many attention. Some netizens specifically summarized the "secret" of the Elephant family: first, the light uses astigmatism rather than focus; Second, when the light is hidden and turned upward, the light of the whole stall will become soft and uniform; Third, the combination of neutral light and warm light should be selected for the light, so that the color of the clothes will be more realistic. The picture will have the effect of "ins style" after a quick operation.


"Day by day expression" is a designer shop of New Italy France that focuses on Japanese outdoor style. Its manager graduated from the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts. A huge carp flag is hung in the most prominent position at the stall, which is very Japanese in terms of the clothes and overall decoration style of the shop staff. On their little red books, they will update the daily life of the store and the clothes of the manager every week. Through the daily operation of the shop staff, this account has nearly 4000 fans. The shop staff will seriously reply to everyone's private letters, including interviews. At the spring order meeting at the end of last year, they exceeded 10 million yuan in three days. The manager also sent a small red book to share his feelings.

At the two stalls, Zhong Yijia hired a total of 10 clerks. The salary of the staff is composed of base salary+commission. "There are 20000 to 30000 yuan in a high month, with an average of 10000 yuan. Last year, the annual income of the top seller was about 300000 yuan." And the identity of "KOL" helped the store obtain traffic. At the end of last year, his shop assistants had almost no rest.

   The format of the business has changed: purchasing agents are crowded with online stores

Wang Xixi has spent more time in Sijiqing, and has simply become a stall buyer. The birth of this new career is related to the inability of these first-rate wholesale online stores to retail. The managers of these stores update their new models in the Little Red Book every day, while retail users are suffering from the inability to get goods.

At present, many young girls have found this new business opportunity.

Almost every day, Wang Xixi and his friends will turn to several markets of Sijiqing, including New Zhongzhou, New Hangzhou School, Italian French, and New Italian French. Their delivery strategy is to cooperate with several stores that have become popular on the Little Red Book. First, they take the model pictures of the stalls to test in the group, and then go to the store to take live pictures and detailed pictures when someone wants to buy them.

According to the observation of Tianxia Online Marketplace at the stalls, the rules for most stores to take goods are as follows: clothes of single color can start from five pieces, shoes of three pairs of the same color can start from different sizes, and children's clothes of the same color can start from one hand (for example, sizes of 80cm - 120cm).

Wang Xixi will use Kuaitountuan to put goods on the shelves. Buyers place orders through Kuaitountuan link. The period of putting a piece of clothing on the shelves is about 7 days. After 7 days, when there are five orders, she will directly go to the store to buy and deliver goods. If there are less than five pieces, she will refund the buyers. Therefore, when three pieces of clothes were ordered, Wang Xixi would yell in the group, "Are there any sisters who want to gather some?"

The World Online Marketplace tried to pick up goods from Opel, an online red women's shoes stall with a purchase agency on Taobao. At present, the stall will use electronic face orders. After an order is placed, the buyer's information will be stored in the background of the store so that goods can be picked up in the future. There is almost no stock at the stall. The stock is in the warehouse about 15 minutes' walk from the stall.

Zhong Yijia did not contact with these shopkeepers, but he met many shopkeepers, who are the bridge between the shopkeeper and the "second batch of new people". It is reported that many buyers were transformed from the shop assistants of Sijiqing. During the epidemic period, these buyers helped customers who could not see the goods to see the version and choose the goods. According to China.com, many buyers made tens of thousands of dollars a month, or millions a year. It took only one or two years to buy a house and a car.

"This business definitely makes money, but it's also really hard. There are only a few days off in the Spring Festival and off-season, plus sick rest, and I can't stop." Zhong Yijia said that his father used to do shoes business in Hangzhou Huamao Shoes City. Once he came and went, he could be regarded as inheriting his father's business. Xiao Yang said that their turnover increased by 20% last year compared with the year before last

"After the epidemic, this spring is really a new beginning for us," said Xiao Yang.


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