Recently, Pinduoduo released a “2022 Duoduo New National Trend Consumption Report”. The report shows that the domestic product orders in second- and third-tier cities represented by Jinan, Ningbo, Dongguan, Nanchang, Xiamen, Shenyang, Changsha, Wuxi, etc. account for The ratio reached 39%, exceeding the total of first-tier and new first-tier cities, becoming a new driving force for the rise of domestic products.
The trends mentioned in this report coincide with the third leap of Chinese clothing brands.
In the past, during the two leaps from factory manufacturing to independent brands and then to big brands, a number of new brands that followed the historical trend were born each time, and a number of old brands were also eliminated. This time is no exception.
Not long ago, Heilan House, known as the nation’s number one men’s clothing brand, announced that it had a debt of 16.5 billion, and the goods stocked in the warehouse reached 8.2 billion, but its annual sales were only about 1 billion.
Some insiders predict that this 34-year-old clothing brand may withdraw from the stage of history. Behind the difficulties of Hailan House, the epidemic is only one of the reasons.
Over the past two years or so, the epidemic has had the same impact on every brand, but there are often opportunities hidden under the crisis.
Many brands were forced to look for new opportunities after the epidemic. For example, Semir seized the opportunity of Pinduoduo to support domestic products, found a new customer base, and successfully transformed into online sales.
Of course, there are also new brands such as Bosie and TeenieWeenie that have emerged through online self-media.
The core of the third leap of Chinese clothing brands is from big brands to domestic products. What is reflected behind this is that consumer demand has changed from pursuing ocean currents to advocating national trends. In particular, young people use their own personality and aesthetics to jointly create an era of clothing consumption that pursues refinement and believes in culture.
Against this background, clothing brands are also thinking about which platforms they should find their new consumer groups on, and how to accurately capture them?
“Changes” in the clothing industry
In the 1990s, China had just reformed and opened up, and the people’s living standards were not very wealthy, and their requirements for clothing brands were not high. At that time, the clothing wholesale market was the most important place for selling clothing.
For example, in Hangzhou, Sijiqing has accompanied the entrepreneurial history of a generation of Hangzhou-style garment workers; and Guangzhou, the city with the largest concentration of garment companies, also has wholesale markets represented by Baima and Hongmian. At this time, there are also a lot of fabrics. Familiar purchasers all know that Guangzhou’s goods have good styles and fabrics, and Beijing Zoo’s fabrics are good, but the styles are not updated as fast as Guangzhou’s.
Since the domestic clothing market demand has just exploded, any clothing wholesale can be sold, which has become a golden era for clothing wholesalers to “make money while lying down”. Therefore, most local clothing companies have set their sights on low-priced clothes.
This is the first wave of clothing consumption in China.
The portrayal of China’s clothing industry during this period is that users lack a clear perception of domestic brands. Companies are not short of money, but they lack brand recognition.
Slowly, OEMs or processing workshops began to produce their own clothing brands. For example, Alaiyi, which was born in 1997, initially focused on OEM processing and export trade. In 1999, the export volume reached more than 3.2 million US dollars, and the business volume was quite prosperous. Later, it built its own fashion brand, changed its business model of domestic sales, and became An asset-light operating model that combines outsourced production, licensed sales and factory direct sales.
At the same time, business districts with first-tier big names or affordable luxury brands have begun to replace the old business districts with previous stalls and developed into mature high-end clothing consumption places. Among them, fast fashion brands that update their styles quickly, keep up with trends, and cater to young people are the most profitable. Even though many clothing brands have completed the primitive accumulation of capital, their cultural confidence is still lower than others. At that time, the ocean was prevailing in the country, and many local companies had an inertial dependence on “foreign”. Not only the clothing styles, but also the names of Mark Huafei, Metersbonwe, Semir, etc., all used “foreign vests”.
However, in the era of booming physical shopping malls, these “foreign vest” brands are indeed the favorites of countless young consumers born in the 1980s. Take Smith Barney, which was founded in 1995 as an example. It initially positioned its target consumer group as young people aged 16-25, and was keen to invite the hottest celebrities as spokespersons, from Jay Chou, Angela Chang, Wilber Pan to today’s Li Yifeng.
Do you still remember the popular idol drama “Let’s Watch the Meteor Shower” on Hunan TV in 2009? Chu Yuxun stood in front of the mirror and sighed: “Duanmu took me to Metersbonwe and picked out a lot of clothes and shoes. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even know who the girl in it was.” Completely putting Metersbonwe’s high-end fashion The brand reputation started.
Meibang, a high-spirited company, was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in August 2008. Four years later, it has more than 5,000 directly-operated stores and franchisees, becoming the leading brand in the domestic apparel industry.
At the same time, brands such as Anta, Lilang, Xtep, Peak, and Guirenniao have also announced expansions and are blooming everywhere, preparing to enter the “10,000-store era.”
Channel changes, consumption upgrades, clothing brands try to “help themselves”
It was not until the watershed of 2012 that domestic fast-moving consumer clothing brands, led by Smith Barney, began to “Waterloo”. In the fifth year after listing, Mebarn’s revenue, profits and inventory turnover rate dropped “cliff-like”. Among them, net profit was 849 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 30%.
From the perspective of the overall environment, the domestic clothing market is already a red ocean. At the same time, foreign fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M continue to encroach on the Chinese market and change the aesthetics of young consumers. After 2010, when a large number of fast fashion brands such as Vancl Eslite appeared as e-commerce, the traditional clothing industry failed to wait for their “thousands of stores era”.
For traditional domestic brands, the former glory of hypermarkets is fleeting. Amid rapid changes in channels, more and more laggards are being eliminated by the market.
After experiencing the baptism of big overseas brands, consumers have formed a strong brand mentality. The popularity of branded goods has surpassed the original source products, and consumption upgrades have also accompanied it. “Personalized design” and “trendy attributes” have become the focus of many young people. consumption keywords.
In addition to being obsessed with big brands, many young consumers have also begun to pursue clothing brands with unique styles and created by clothing merchants represented by celebrities, such as Tao Brand. At the same time, Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform that started with social networking, also began to launch tens of billions of subsidies for good products from the source. From outside the original fifth ring road, we will counterattack the first- and second-tier city markets.
Through the C2M (consumer to manufacturer) model of direct factory sales, Pinduoduo breaks the price cage and provides affordable and better quality products to everyone.
Semir is one of the first clothing brands to enter Pinduoduo. In 2016, Semir, who came from a traditional retail background, believed that Pinduoduo was an online channel that could clear off-season inventory, similar to an “online outlet.”
As tens of billions of subsidies have gradually become a brand project of Pinduoduo, people who previously shouted that they would not buy it no matter how much they subsidize are now shouting that it is really delicious. At the same time, more and more big brands are attracted to follow suit.
The cooperation between Semir and Pinduoduo has also been upgraded, and they have begun to launch some new national fashion clothing, focusing on Pinduoduo. “Because the customer base overlap between Pinduoduo and other e-commerce channels is very low. The platform’s consumer portraits are more in line with Semir, which focuses on cost-effective domestic products. Therefore, Semir’s new products have begun to be launched on Pinduoduo, and they will even target Pinduoduo. For this group of people, do separate product development.”
After the stratification of national fashion consumption circles, after independent brands and big brands, Chinese consumer goods are ushering in the third stage – the rise of national fashion brands. Mainly reflected in two forms, one is the emergence of new domestic brands, and the other is the renovation of old domestic products. Taking Semir as an example, it will divide national fashion products into several levels. The first is to incorporate traditional Chinese cultural elements, such as words and brushes; the second is to co-brand with national fashion designers; the third level is similar to Made in China, such as embroidery and fabric selection, and more Choose domestic. The rising forces of “national self-confidence” and “cultural identity” are adding fuel to the national trend. As more and more “potential players” continue to emerge and the traffic dividends of traditional sales platforms are shrinking, “new channels” have become a major choice for some new domestic brands that are still in their infancy.
After the epidemic, Semir’s original offline channel sales were hit hard. However, at the same time, Semir’s stores on Pinduoduo bucked the trend and grew. In Lina’s view, during the epidemic, Pinduoduo brought not only sales growth to Semir, but more importantly, allowed Semir to see digital opportunities for traditional brands. In this consumption stage, the role of Internet channels is not just sales, but also a communication channel in the online self-media era.
Lina said that logically speaking, for each platform, brands still look at the people on this platform. From the perspective of communicating with consumers, brands must first understand who the consumers on the platform are and what they want to do. What is heard, what is seen, and then what is delivered.
Therefore, in this process, communication between the brand and the platform is very important. Semir and Pinduoduo basically have product planning every month and every quarter, and many of Semir’s key data also come from Pinduoduo.
Lina concluded that from the data point of view, what kind of products we export is the choice of consumers, so we can achieve better performance. “There are two key points in the cooperation with Pinduoduo, one is the communication mechanism, and the other is data mining.”
In addition, supply chain capacity building is also considered to be the key to the explosion of new Guochao brands. New brands must not only expand traffic channels, but also gain insight into new consumption attributes, consumer groups, and promotion requirements of various channels. More importantly, companies must have supply chain capabilities that can match the rapid explosion of product sales. “For example, while other clothing brands have extraordinary pre-sale deadlines, Semir is able to find goods 24 hours a day on Pinduoduo.
Lina said: “Currently using conventional pallets to speed up the return of pallets, we can basically find the goods within 24 hours, instead of doing pre-sales like other brands. Because we have relatively mature experience in inventory equipment, at least in terms of supply In terms of chain integration, it can still quickly respond to the needs of the Internet.” As consumers are becoming more diversified, great changes have taken place in clothing purchase channels and scenarios. Therefore, merchants like Pinduoduo that focus on the new national trend and clothing brands on the platform are also trying to cater to this diverse change and meet more consumer needs.
�Same as pre-sale. Due to relatively mature experience in inventory equipment. At least in terms of supply chain integration, it can still quickly respond to the needs of the Internet. “As consumers are becoming more diversified, great changes have taken place in the ways and scenarios of clothing purchase. Therefore, merchants like Pinduoduo that focus on the new national trend and clothing brands on the platform are also trying to cater to this kind of trend. Diversified changes to meet more consumer needs.
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