When Clothing Brands Are "Far Away" From Agents: Long Live Direct Sales?

　　 raw material With the price rising, the competition among peers becomes more fierce, and more and more rebates are given to agents. Their profits are getting thinner and thinner day by day, and the manufacturers are overwhelmed. Therefore, many garment manufacturers begin to put aside agents and take the road of direct marketing.

The original accumulation of many brand businesses is basically closely linked to "agents", and good agents have also made many brands. However, with the continuous changes of the market, especially under the impact of the financial crisis, some garment manufacturers seem to realize that the "direct marketing model" that can maximize profits is the "king way" of development.

The industry authoritative organization pointed out in the industry data analysis report from January to July 2009 that all powerful brands want to improve their channel self-control ability and gain the controllability and competitiveness of future marketing channels through a small scale investment. Therefore, they have taken back their existing channels, or increased the proportion of their own channels by increasing self built stores and distribution centers.

1、 Multiple reasons urge manufacturers to "stay away" agent

Pressure on profit and cost

According to Mr. Hu, the marketing director of an enterprise, Clothing sales At present, there are generally four modes, namely, agency, agency combined with direct marketing, pure direct marketing and e-commerce. "But now some brand enterprises have 'destroyed' their original dealers and switched to pure direct marketing and e-commerce. The reason for this is that there are many reasons, the most important one is the difference between factory price and terminal sales price.".

The ex factory price of a brand clothing is about 200-300 yuan, but eventually it reaches consumers, and the price of this clothing may be more than 1000 yuan. The thicker the "sandwich" between the manufacturer and consumers, the higher the terminal sales price. As a middleman of the "sandwich", naturally, he will earn more, and the manufacturer will still take that "dead money", "Many manufacturers feel unfair about this, but if they do not give appropriate profits, dealers or agents are likely to turn to competitors in the same industry."

In addition to "unwilling", agents are unwilling to share the difficulties caused by the rising prices of raw materials and the rising labor costs, leading to the meager profits of garment manufacturers, But once they find their profits are not rich, they will immediately become agents of another brand.

Maintain brand image

At present, the channel mechanism of the clothing industry has exposed huge defects, that is, brand operators have lost the management and supervision of the sales channel system. Therefore, once the inventory pressure is slightly high, dealers will ignore the demand of the brand and discount the price. Or, in order to save money, the requirements for brand operators to cooperate in brand and market are flattered and contradicted. In the mind of most dealers, it is not their job to help brand enterprises promote and brand.

Some international top brands, such as Armani and Zegna, generally adopt direct marketing for the need of brand maintenance. In addition, many manufacturers will set up their own flagship stores in some important market areas in order to establish brand image norms and provide dealers with reference model stores for image promotion.