Is It Possible For China To Have A Brand Similar To Zara?

In China

The collective haze of the brand.

The founder once surpassed Bill Gates, the world's richest man.

The richest people in the clothing industry

2012 to date, for traditional Chinese clothing

It is a "bad" cycle: slow growth, even retrogressive revenue, and huge backlog of inventory around the entire industry.

During the period, almost all well-known brands were more or less exposed to bad news.

In 2013, Zhou Chengjian and his Metersbonwe, who had the title of "the richest man of clothing", were plunged into a stock crisis. In the following years, the profits of the company fell year by year and lost 400 million in 2015.

The clothing industry complained that the electricity supplier was too fierce, and it took a lot of profits from the entity store.

The owners of the company are committed to learning the Internet and O2O, while closing the line.

When the whole industry talks about the Internet, there are more and more foreign brands such as Zara, H&M and UNIQLO.

Zara plans to open more than 60 stores in mainland China in 2016, and large-scale renovation of its existing stores.

The Zara of Xidan, Beijing, has changed from 2 to 3, with an area of 1800 square meters.

Such a scale still can not match the enthusiasm of consumers. At the weekend, the shop is running hard.

Before the fitting room, the women shoppers played with long lines on their cell phones.

The flow of people like this has brought an admirable profit for the Spanish enterprise.

In 2015, Zara parent InidtexSA group achieved a profit of 20 billion 900 million euros, a net profit of 2 billion 875 million euros, and the growth rate of two data has reached a new high in the past few years.

In the first half of 2016, InidtexSA's revenue continued to grow rapidly, rising by 11.1%.

In the capital market, the stock price of the company has gone all the way.

Benefiting from this, the Group founder Oman Theo Ortega once won the world's richest man by surpassing Bill - Gates in September for $79 billion 500 million.

China is one of the fastest growing markets in the Zara layout.

By the end of 2015, Zara had nearly 600 stores in China, second only to its headquarters in Spain.

At the annual earnings conference, group CEO talked about the Chinese market in particular. Although no explicit figures were released, he said, "the appetite of Chinese people is getting bigger and bigger.

We are very optimistic about the Chinese market. "

Oman and Theo's competitors are also frequent visitors to the fortune list.

Ryui Masa, founder of UNIQLO, has been the richest man in Japan for 8 years and is pressing for Sun Zhengyi of Softbank.

The Per-son family that controls H&M is the pronoun of Sweden's richest man, and is in turn with another business tycoon, IKEA IKEA founder Kamprad.

On the other hand, the domestic brands were washed away by the Internet, and on the other hand, the "foreign monks" who received large sums of money through the shops.

Between the ice and fire, is the Internet changing the pattern of the industry, or is the competitiveness of Chinese brands unable to match the needs of consumers? The answer is self-evident.

Retrograde clothing industry

At present, the era of Chinese brands' comprehensive rise, the pace of development of local enterprises in the domestic market is alarming.

In the field of consumer electronics, HUAWEI and millet suddenly rose. In the Internet field, Tencent, Alibaba led giants pushed out eBay, MSN and Amazon; the home appliance industry, Hisense bought part of the TV business of SHARP, Changhong took over SANYO TV, and the United States acquired all the white business; the daily chemical industry, Baiyao, Yunnan, Heng An and so on were sharing the profits of P & G, and...

In such a big situation, why should the garment industry go downhill? First, let's look at the history of Chinese clothing brand collectives.

The development of brand and marketing in China has gone through several major stages. The famous brands in the clothing field almost come from the first stage.

Initially, most of these enterprises were international brand foundries and then converted to their own products.

In the early years, the domestic consumption level was relatively low, consumers did not have much demand for clothing, and there was no inventory problem.

At that time, most clothing owners did not have the concept of brand. With the help of demographic dividend, enterprises did not need branding and design, and they could also expand rapidly.

After the demand is no longer in short supply, enterprises are faced with pformation. Enterprises that do not have popularity and brand image are gradually eliminated by the market, and the garment industry has welcomed the first shuffle.

During the shuffling period, a group of enterprises will get bigger and bigger by advertising and creative marketing.

At that time, there were few clothing brands in China, and foreign brands had not yet entered, and almost all enterprises that made visibility through advertising were successful.

As consumers become more and more mature, the brand war simply centered on advertising is no longer valid.

In the apparel industry, which has a large consumption contingency, consumers are paying more and more attention to the design (product), individuation and freshness, and the appeal of "great unification" and "sports unification" brand has gradually weakened.

At the same time, in the market segmentation, the emphasis on differentiated brands will usher in success.

This situation is not limited to the clothing industry. For example, Wang Lao Ji specializes in herbal tea.

These enterprises have maintained a high speed of development.

After the brand and market gradually saturated, a large number of clothing brands are committed to developing new target customers.

In the field of Pan fashion, JEANSWEST, YISHION, Metersbonwe and other brands first started from student consumers. This part of the market has limited space. If enterprises want to further expand, they will go up to expand to adult consumers and middle and high income groups.

In this new battlefield, many enterprises have suffered a great defeat.

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Core differences

Many domestic brands not only can not expand the new consumer group, its existing customers are also in large scale loss, pfer to the embrace of international brands.

In front of these foreign rivals, the competitiveness of domestic brands seems rather weak.

The consumer's judgment on clothing includes several main factors, such as design, quality, price and so on.

The traditional concept is that China's clothing brands are not competitive in these respects, but this is not the case.

In terms of price, most of the domestic fashion brands are priced less than H&M and UNIQLO, while the price of Zara is even higher.

Quality problems are benevolent, but consumers who experience different brands have a clear understanding.

In a word, international brands have absolutely no advantage over the local brands in terms of quality. Even if they simply find the best quality shirts at the same price, the answer may be close to the quiet customers.

So, is design a winning weapon for international brands? This needs to be interpreted hierarchically.

In terms of single design, the above brands are not necessarily superb.

In foreign countries, Zara is synonymous with "Shanzhai". Most of its explosive designs come from first-line clothing brands.

They get "inspiration" from the conference of luxury brands, Milan and Paris fashion week, and match the current trend.

Because of alleged plagiarism, Zara needs to pay heavy penalties to major brands every year.

The same is true of domestic brand routines.

The director of a famous brand told the Chinese businessman Tao: "they (Zara, H&M) copy fashion week, we are also, sometimes may go to the zoo to find inspiration (the clothing market opposite the Beijing zoo is one of the major brands of imitation"), the actual design source is no different.

In the general sense, the Chinese have the ability of mountain fastness far beyond their peers, and the complicated objects and systems are also easy for the Chinese to go to Shanzhai. But why do they copy the Europeans in the field of clothing?

In fact, consumers feel that the core of Zara's brand design is not in the design itself, but because their products are too fast to innovate.

Zara and H&M do not lack products that are totally different from universal aesthetics, but these "soil" products will soon fall off after they get cold, and the same products may be displayed in domestic brand shops for a long time.

Zara, H&M and UNIQLO belong to the fast fashion area.

This word originates from Europe, it is called Fast Fashion or McFashion, and Mc's prefix is taken from McDonald 's, which means selling fashion like McDonald's selling fast food.

Fast fashion is characterized by many styles, low prices, and low quantity to meet the needs of consumers.

How fast are these brands to what extent? Zara claims that there are more than 12000 designs on average every year (Unofficial confirmation, the other is 25 thousand new models every year), with an average of 20 minutes to design a garment, which is more than a lot of domestic brands.

With the support of this speed, Zara can regularly update two products per week (Monday and Friday), and change the display area within the store.

Brand enthusiasts are familiar with this kind of update time. Every Monday or Friday, many people regularly check new products, whether they buy or not.

According to a European survey, the sales rate of the general fashion brand stores is 3.5 times a year, while that of Zara is 18 times.

The difference between numbers is obvious.

When customers arrive at Zara, they can see new products every time, while other brands are the same as before.

The rich product line has set up a special brand logo for Zara: many products and good design.

The complex system behind "fast"

Simplicity is faster than Chinese.

The Chinese are more diligent. To be honest, a lot of fast fashion brand foundries are located in China, and the speed of logistics is unique.

However, China's clothing brand is still not "fast".

When Zhou Jiancheng founded Metersbonwe's sub brand ME&CITY in early years, he wanted to follow the Zara supply chain, and even went deep into his factory to investigate, but the brand failed to grow as big as possible.

Other fast fashion brands also failed to excel.

The reason for this is that it is just a manifestation. Behind this word is a very complicated system.

It takes an average of 2 weeks from a design to a store for Zara, and this is known as the "leading time miracle" in the clothing industry.

In general, clothing brands generally require 6-9 months of guidance and stockpiling.

At the launch of the major brands, when the new models are on the stage, the staff of Zara will be able to make a map of the headquarters, and the designers will discuss the modification immediately. Then the store PDA (palm computer) will receive feedback after receiving the sample map.

After the establishment of the model, the strong supply chain system of the group began to run quickly.

Oman Theo's input in supply chain and information technology is at stake, not only in the "anti industry", but also in a large family owned production base.

These small factories provide considerable convenience and flexibility for order testing.

Zara put the new items in the store to test sales feedback, and quickly plan the next step according to the consumption situation.

If the pre measurement is not large, it will be co operated by the factory. If the demand is large, it will make up the order in its own production base.

In order to improve such a system, Zara designed a very flat organizational structure.

The store managers of most other brand shops need to report them in response to feedback, and it takes a long time to get to headquarters.

In Zara, the store manager can issue a replenishment instruction to the company at any time according to the sales situation.

Even they will frequently meet with the Spanish headquarters to discuss matters such as the design of goods and the advance of the shelves.

In the supply chain system of Zara, shops are placed at the core position, because only shops can really Contact consumers and understand their needs.

Through the information system, the headquarters can understand the sales situation of each store in real time, unwelcome styles, cut orders or even directly off the shelves, and quickly draw inferences about the explosions, and design more products with different materials and colors according to their styles.

Zara's own production base is located around the headquarters. After finished products are stored in its super logistics warehouse (9 times that of Amazon), there are numerous freight cars at the door of the warehouse to pport products to all parts of Europe.

In order to ensure the speed of logistics, Zara dug up 200 miles of ground to form an underground pport belt system, and built two major air pport bases.

Through this system, they can deliver the clothes on the drawings to the US and China within 7 days.

It can be said that in the supply chain system, Chinese clothing brands, or even the vast majority of international brands, are several times worse than Zara.

According to its CEO, Zara's fast reverse supply chain is the core of its value.

Extreme "province"

The extreme speed created the ultimate profit for Zara.

The industry chain of brand clothing industry is very long, and there are many links in the cost of consumption.

It is generally accepted in the industry that the cost of surface accessories and processing fees of clothing generally account for 1/7 of the tag price, while others such as the reduction of cost (discount sale), brand promotion and wastage share a large share.

The supply system plays a decisive role in brand profits.

Zhou Jiancheng used to compare Smith bond with H&M: "some products are H&M like the price of the United States, and the United States has no money to make money, but H&M still has profits. This is what he has done well in the supply chain."

In the Zara system, the expenditure of these links is reduced to a small proportion.

For example, the enterprise almost never advertises, and the advertising budget is surprisingly low.

Internal staff once asked Oman Theo: why don't we try to advertise? The boss replied, "because advertising profits are not customers, but enterprises themselves.

If we are to reduce the cost and improve the quality, if you are a guest, do you want the store to invest money in advertising or spend on your clothes?

For apparel industry, this kind of savings is even less important.

In the past few years, the crisis of almost all domestic brands has come from its high inventory.

Thanks to the flexible mechanism, the stock rate of Zara is always maintained at around 15%, and all the clothes in its headquarters warehouse will not stay longer than 3 days. On average, only 15% of the clothes will be discounted every quarter, and the other brands will be 50%.

The same period of domestic brands, because the lead cycle is too long, most need to beat the money.

To cope with the potential demand, they need to place large orders ahead of time. Once these products are overloaded, they will become a huge burden.

According to the understanding of one industry, the sales and sales rate of domestic brands is around 65%, and the brands of some "difficult times" are even as low as 35%.

These products that cannot be sold have become the key to the domestic brands' dilemma.

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It is difficult to have "Zara".

Zara is so strong, and the fast fashion owners have become the richest country in the country. Is it possible for China to have a brand similar to Zara?

In terms of the current development situation, it is very difficult.

The number of famous brands in China now is direct and franchised. The franchisees help these brands quickly occupy the market in the early stage.

But this mode is doomed to have no quick and flexible response mechanism, and it is even more impractical to chop off franchised stores.

Besides, a strong supply chain system needs time and capital accumulation.

But the current Internet wave has led to a more impetuous overall business environment. Public opinion and capital are keen on the story of "1 years' valuation of XX billion and 3 years of IPO".

Moreover, the supply of talent is not good news for the industry.

In China, the clothing industry is still a marginal industry in the general value perspective. "Tailoring" is not a profession that parents are to see.

And in the field of clothing, from design, management, positioning, display, all need professional talents.

Many well-known enterprises in the apparel industry are still making decisions in key positions.

In the upsurge of fast fashion, China has sprung up a number of new businesses that are interested in this field, such as Korea's clothing house, La Natsu Bell, UR and so on, but the scale of these enterprises is not large.