The "Forecast Analysis Report on Production and Sales Demand and Development Prospects of China's Garment Industry" released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute shows that the trend of my country's clothing retail industry in the past three years is not optimistic. In 2010, both volume and price of my country's clothing industry rose; in 2011, prices rose while volume fell; in 2012, both volume and price were under pressure; in 2013, my country's clothing terminal consumption still showed no improvement, continuing the weak development trend, and the growth momentum of clothing consumption Encountered a development bottleneck. The industry experienced an inflection point in 2012, but the industry's decline remains the same in 2013

The apparel industry's extensive growth model, which focuses on brand expansion and price increases, is encountering bottlenecks, and the traditional futures-based ordering model is gradually losing its appeal. charm. Let’s talk about the futures ordering system first. Enterprises formulate styles based on past sales and predictions of future fashion trends. This is a traditional chain-type one-way "push", and consumers are passive choices. Nowadays, many Taobao brands often launch certain items in small quantities first, and then decide which styles to mass-produce based on consumers' reservations, which is equivalent to "quasi-customization." A typical company that determines production and sales based on market demand and end consumer feedback is Xiaomi, which has carved a way out of the Red Sea. Xiaomi has mastered this model, and clothing companies can learn from it and flexibly change the original one-way production method to take more into account market changes. These requirements require timely and accurate grasp and feedback of information, and also place extremely high demands on the rapid response of the supply chain.

A typical feature of extensive external expansion is that there are many levels of franchises and agents, and the entanglements of interests are complicated. In the "old times", this was a magic weapon for enterprises to gain territory, quickly occupy the market, and continuously improve regional coverage and penetration. However, the multi-layered agency hierarchy requires apparel companies to ensure reasonable returns for each channel link through higher markups. The high product costs make it difficult to compete with prices in online flat sales channels. It can be seen from the comparison in the figure below that although the profits of online brands are lower than those of traditional offline clothing brands, the cost is much lower than that of traditional clothing companies. The competitiveness of traditional clothing companies has greatly improved here.

Looking at another data, Taobao’s Double 11 brought about a nationwide consumption spree, but it caused the clothing retail sales of hundreds of key retail companies to experience negative growth for the first time in history. Data from the China National Commercial Information Center shows that due to the impact of Double 11, clothing sales of 100 key retail companies increased by -0.3% in 2013. However, the compound annual growth rate of online clothing sales is more than 50%

According to public data from clothing industry research reports, the revenue contributed by the e-commerce business of A-share listed clothing companies has been growing rapidly year after year, with Septwolves 09- The online revenue growth rates in 2012 were 749%, 767%, 308%, and 70% respectively, which can be said to be an explosion. However, the offline performance is very satisfactory, which drags down the overall performance. Let's take the data of Septwolves as an example. The revenue growth rates from 2009 to 2012 were 20%, 11%, 33% and 19% respectively.

There is a paradox here. The rapid growth of online e-commerce is diverted from offline channels. Most online e-commerce strategies are based on the premise of not touching the original offline channel interests and price system. Adopt online and offline inventory clearance strategies, online exclusive payment strategies, and some adopt the same model and same price strategy online and offline (the same price strategy loses the advantage of high cost performance online, and ordinary consumers do not favor the same model and same price products) . Therefore, while online products divert offline consumers, it is difficult to generate higher revenue scale.

But sticking to old habits will lead to faster death. Some companies with advanced consciousness have already begun to take action. When Zhou Chengjian, chairman of Shanghai Metersbonwe, delivered a keynote speech at the 3rd China Listed Company Leaders Summit, he repeatedly mentioned "globalization" and "Internetization", "The models and behaviors of traditional retail companies are very closed, and on the Internet Especially in the era of mobile Internet, human body capabilities have been extended, and all resources can be interconnected. We must subvert the inherent behaviors and models. "

In 2012, Metersbonwe experienced. A series of personnel changes. In 2013, we continued to intensify adjustments, and it is estimated that more than 100 unprofitable direct-operated stores will be closed. What's more important is that store adjustments are being made simultaneously with the O2O strategy. Metersbonwe aims at experiential shopping of "one city, one culture, one store, one story", comprehensively upgrades the terminal image, and has established a strong presence in several major cities. Stores with cultural characteristics, such as Xiamen Minnan Style, Chengdu Kuanzhai Alley theme store, etc. Zhou Chengjian said: "In two or three years, we will upgrade the experience of thousands of stores and create more experiences and shopping models for consumers."

Over there, Semir Apparel Industry proposed the "1-3-5-7" strategy: adjust terminal channels within 1 year, further strengthen the supply chain and e-commerce sales capabilities within 3 years, and gradually enter Shopping Mall within 5 years , testing the waters of internationalization within 7 years.

Even traditional industry aircraft carrier Wanda Group has issued a call to use big data to go online. After more than a year of development and research, it was decided to establish a Wanda membership system, using the advanced technology of modern mobile terminals to establish and master everything such as member consumption times, quotas, preferences, etc., and conduct analysis based on big data. Then carry out the next stage of investment promotion and adjust the business layout in a targeted manner.

It is huge and heavy. For example, commercial real estate giant Wanda is racking its brains to embrace big data. Do apparel companies still have reasons to feel that their supply chains are too heavy and their channels are too long, making it difficult for them to travel lightly? Online and offline interests are not a zero-sum game. The organic integration of the two will be a major trend. How to use big data to improve operational efficiency and better meet consumer needs and innovative models are the key to apparel companies reaching a performance turning point.

2014 will be the first year of change for clothing companies