Fast fashion is a clothing production model that “quickly responds to customers’ fashion and trend consumption needs”. It aims to shorten the cycle from production to sales of clothing products by optimizing the supply chain and provide customers with certain quality products at a lower price. Fashionable clothing.
The main characteristics of fast fashion are as follows:
From the perspective of consumer groups, working men and women under the age of 30 who live in first- and second-tier cities and love beauty and social interaction are the main consumer groups of fast fashion. . Judging from the age structure, the post-90s generation accounts for more than half, and the post-00s generation has gradually emerged as a new consumer group that cannot be ignored in the fast fashion industry.
Fast fashion, known for its fast updates and cheap prices, once occupied the wardrobes of many young people. However, as time goes by, fast fashion has been retreating steadily. Not only has it become less and less “fashionable”, but the homogeneity between brands has become obvious, and shortcomings such as poor quality, low cost performance, and insufficient fit have also gradually become prominent.
In recent years, with the continuous changes in people’s consumption needs, the attractiveness of fast fashion brands has gradually declined, and their excessively fast experience methods are unsustainable. As the development of resource- and labor-intensive industries faces difficulties, fast fashion brands’ profit margins are gradually compressed due to the inflexible response of management teams, and their development speed has slowed down significantly.
From the perspective of the number of stores, the number of new fast fashion stores in my country has shown a downward trend in the past two years. According to incomplete statistics, in 2019, 8 fast fashion brands including H&M, ZARA, Uniqlo, MJstyle, MUJI, UR, C&A, and GAP opened a total of 218 new stores in the mainland (excluding upgraded and renovated stores) ), a record low.
How have Zara, Uniqlo, and some other domestic textile and apparel giants responded to the epidemic and changes in “fast fashion”?
Zara speeds up its exit and adjustment
On January 10, there was no sign of the Zara Nanping store closing. On January 11, netizen comments appeared on the Dianping website, saying that most of the store’s shelves were empty. According to the shopping mall, Zara is completely withdrawing this time, rather than closing the store and renovating. On January 20, the entrance of the store was surrounded by a fence, and clothing from other brands was also placed in the glass display window. Shortly after the Zara Nanping store closed, the Zara Aegean store also showed that it was temporarily closed. As of now, Zara only has Beicheng Tianjie store, Wanxiang City store and Times Tianjie store in Chongqing.
Not only in Chongqing, Zara’s three sister brands have also recently completed store closures in other cities such as Jinan, Zhengzhou, and Nanjing. Some Zara stores in these cities are also temporarily closed, and the overall number has been reduced.
Uniqlo focuses on cost-effectiveness and achieves growth against the trend
The outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 and the continued downturn in the global economic environment have intensified the withdrawal of international fast fashion brands. Against this background, Uniqlo still maintains an average annual opening rate of 100 new stores. The number of new stores opened in the mainland has always ranked first among foreign fast fashion brands in the number of new stores opened in the mainland, and its performance is particularly eye-catching. Compared with European and American fast fashion brands, Uniqlo, which originated in Japan, has more obvious geographical advantages. The similarity in culture and body shape helps Uniqlo better understand the Chinese body shape, and the clothes it designs are closer to the daily life of the Chinese people.
Uniqlo’s rapid success is closely related to the current development stage of China’s consumer market. With the gradual slowdown of the domestic economy and residents’ income growth, consumers are beginning to get rid of their blind worship of high-end brands and high unit prices. While the overall consumption power of the middle and high-income groups is increasing, they are also paying more attention to the improvement of their own quality of life with high-end products. The era of flashy consumption is over, and consumers are returning to rational consumption. Consumer companies that successfully adapt to consumers’ pursuit of cost-effective products are easy to escape. Whip out.
Fast fashion reshuffles, Handu Yishe squeezes into the top three
In the 2019 fast fashion brand rankings, the The list counts 150 fast-moving consumer goods fashion brands, among which Uniqlo, ZARA and Handu Clothing House rank among the top three. It can be seen from the list that despite rounds of shuffling, the only domestic brands that can be on the list are the original traditional clothing brands or Taobao brands such as Handu Yishe. Local fast fashion brands such as UR, MJstyle, and Hot Wind are still far behind H&M and Zara in rankings.
The ranking of Taobao brands such as Handu Yishe in the third place is related to the increasing penetration rate of e-commerce in my country’s clothing industry and the increasing development of online shopping live streaming. In particular, live streaming, as a new traffic track, has given rise to Through the C2M model, these leading anchors can automatically�Develop products and transform the upstream supply chain, thus seizing a certain market share in the fast fashion industry.
The changes in fast fashion in the apparel industry have a profound impact on our textile industry. In the past few years, fast fashion has been highly sought after. In order to adapt to this pursuit of “fast” in the textile market, various spot supermarkets have sprung up everywhere. But now the trend has changed, and a large number of fast fashion clothing companies have closed down. The fast fashion clothing customers that we were originally proud of are being shuffled by the market, which is a huge blow to textile companies. But at the same time, we should also see that some clothing brands are still rising against the trend, and the clothing market still has great potential. Textile people should adjust their direction in time and must not follow fast fashion, especially some overseas brands. </p
