The past 10 years are undoubtedly the most difficult 10 years in the apparel industry. The original traditional retail stores were first revolutionized by e-commerce. Until these years, only a few sporadic companies in the entire apparel industry are growing in sales, and 90% of the companies are It is declining, and the proportion of e-commerce in the clothing industry has exceeded 40%. Compared with other industries, the traditional clothing retail industry has been hit hard by the Internet.
As a result, many brick-and-mortar stores have begun to take the e-commerce route, but due to the lack of relevant technology, a store often needs to have two sets of personnel, one to manage the entity and one to manage the online store, and double the human and material resources, and the result is overwhelmed.
If the online store makes money, it’s worth it, but is online business really easy to do? We all know that Jack Ma is very upset recently. News such as selling fakes, ordering, lawsuits, etc. make him very sad. More importantly, now on Alibaba. 90% of e-commerce companies are not profitable. When 90% of the people in an ecosystem are not making money, it is time for everyone to flee. Such an ecosystem will not be the future of the clothing retail industry.
First, let the ideological revolution become more mature
What does the future look like? In the future, 50% of traditional clothing retail stores will be removed, who will be the disappearing 50%, and who will be the remaining 50%, depending on who can save themselves.
Women's clothing, men's clothing, sports, fashion men's clothing, outdoor, fashion brands, all categories are beginning to mature and competition intensifies. Leading brands in each category account for 40% or more of the quota in each category. Fashion brands have risen in the past two years, but there is no absolute leading brand yet.
The apparel retail industry has low barriers and easy entry. However, the overall level of operators and practitioners in this industry is uneven. Most of them are so-called managers who have been in the industry for a few years and who know some concepts and look at the superior. Clothing retail, if you can be proficient in this industry, you can engage in any retail industry.
At present, clothing retail is mainly divided into traditional and fast-moving types, and the editor believes that it is basically a stage of slowing down. In 2010, international fast-moving brands aggressively entered the Chinese market. In the golden period of the next few years, shop shops were very fast, which had a great impact on domestic traditional clothing retail. In addition, the impact of the development of e-commerce on domestic traditional brands is also indescribable. However, starting in 2015, these international fast-selling brands have also begun to slow down, and many have even begun to close stores and expand their secondary lines.
Of course the western market is still quite empty, and you can dig it now. In fact, these FMCG brands rely on their successful experience abroad to come to China without humility. The management is very rough, and they have not settled in the store. The intensive cultivation is far from enough, so the development of individual brands depends on themselves~ but these fast in recent years Brands are all trying to open up online and offline channels, but if they want to rely on this growth point, there is little chance.
However, many domestic brands have tried to learn the fast-selling model in recent years and continue to imitate. Although there have been failures, there are also many successful examples.
2. To change the status quo of several concept practitioners
In the future, companies that can survive and become bigger and better must have the four iron man: hardware, software, internet and content. And these four items must be integrated and mutually reinforcing.
In the clothing retail industry in the future, not all physical stores will disappear, physical stores will definitely exist, but its existence is no longer separate and independent from online stores, but an OTO as a whole that is interconnected and shared, and physical stores are a diversion The entrance of the Internet is an access point for in-depth services, a window to give consumers more experience and awareness, and an important part of guiding consumers to increase consumption frequency online.
In the future of retail stores, the KPI indicator for evaluating a clerk is no longer sales, but whether you have established a strong relationship with consumers, whether consumers trust you, and whether there are more online under your guidance and services This is the key to placing orders. The future of business must be a new business model that focuses on consumers and strives to gather consumers.
The future retail model must be a point-to-point, person-to-person, decentralized, and disintermediate model, which is a flat model that is reduced from multi-dimensional to three-dimensional or even two-dimensional. In other words, there is no longer as in the past, there are layers of dealers, there are first-level agents, manufacturers are directly sellers, and directly establish strong relationships with consumers.
A. The brand company can directly operate or give very professional guidance, and the market control is better.
B. Some agents that already have regional scales have been or are transforming like specialized companies.
C. Most of the operators are still in a sheep-herding business, without data analysis ability, terminal store management ability, no training and display ability, and more based on their own experience and feelings, it is always difficult to achieve breakthrough improvements and development of.
3. They have killed a lot of lives
In 2015, a large wave of new Internet companies attacked us, Fangduoduo, Aiwu, Wu, Didi Taxi, etc. They all have disintermediation. They are all subverting the original information asymmetry in each industry. The problem is that by adopting the direct P2P model, what they are revolutionizing is the life of other peers, and the clothing industry is the same. De-leveling and flattening channels will help many clothing companies participate in the revolution and become masters.
In fact, this time is a cold winter for the apparel retail industry, but it is also an opportunity, because the more than ten years since Jack Ma founded Alibaba, it has been more than ten years of the reconstruction of China's Internet business foundation. Everything is starting from scratch, and payment is good. , Online shop or system.
Today, these have been completed, so we see many young students who have a little knowledge of Internet technology. Three or five people can form a team to start a business directly, and it will not take a few years before others can do it for more than ten years. What happened, this is the opportunity that this era has given everyone to revolution, and it depends on who can grasp it.
4. What kind of capital investment and turnover for stores after the revolution
What are the specific stores in the future? How to implement transformations to seize the opportunity to share cakes in this billion-dollar market.
To put it simply, in this future store, all products have their own QR codes. Scan the code to get various detailed information about the products. There are various experiences and displays in the store. You can buy directly or go home. For online purchases, all online and offline product information and consumer information are synchronized and shared through a set of IT technology, and everything has been mobile Internet.
Everyone present was very interested in this new physical store model. However, some companies soon raised questions. The clothing they produce now is mainly for mass consumers, not very high-end boutique clothing. Such future stores will not Will not suit me.
In fact, there should be three models for future stores, one is to open in office buildings, one is to open in the community, and the other is to open in the suburbs.
The overall amount of capital investment is on the rise. For operators who are new to the apparel retail industry, the investment in store decoration and the first batch of goods is now getting larger and larger. Depending on the brand of operation, the amount of investment in a store generally ranges from 20-30 Ten thousand start, the top is not capped. For department stores operating in a joint operation, the monthly settlement cycle is generally 60 days. If you encounter a shopping mall with unsatisfactory borrowing, the borrowing cycle may be 3 to 5 months. The blow to operators with insufficient liquidity is almost fatal.
At present, the orders for domestic brand clothing are mainly based on futures, generally two quarters a year, four times for some relatively mature brands, and six orders for more. Ordering futures requires a certain percentage of deposit, which increases the pressure on liquidity.