Recent news said that Uniqlo has secretly increased its prices. Could it be that even the richest man can no longer afford the same style? According to media reports, bottoming shirts that used to cost 79 yuan or 99 yuan are now almost impossible to find. Clothes below 200 yuan only appear in discount areas. Instead, there are more clothes priced at 699, 799, or even 1,299 yuan. When it comes to down jackets, there are not many choices left for low-priced wool buyers.
Some time ago on Weibo, a topic #UNIQLO secretly increased prices# became a hot search topic.
A netizen complained that Uniqlo’s clothes below 300 yuan seem to only appear during special discounts. Most of them are 599, 799, 999 yuan, which is not unaffordable. , but felt it was not worth it. Industry insiders pointed out that the price increase of Uniqlo is mainly due to the increase in labor and raw material costs.
So, has Uniqlo really increased its prices?
Customer feelings: The price increase is not obvious
In multiple UNIQLO stores in Futian District, Shenzhen, The reporter found that many citizens came to buy clothes. As for whether they felt the price increase, most customers said it was not obvious.
“Many of Uniqlo’s clothes are basic models and come out the same every year. I just compared the prices I bought on the official website last year and there is no change. For example, last year I The polar fleece jackets I bought cost 199 yuan, and the down linings cost 399 yuan, which are the same as last year.” Customer Ms. Liu showed the reporter a screenshot of the purchase on her mobile phone.
The reporter saw at the scene that clothes priced below 200 yuan accounted for the largest proportion, with a lot of clothes priced at 79 yuan and 99 yuan, which deviated from the above-mentioned media reports.
The store clerk said that the price of the product has not been increased. Some customers feel that the price has increased. It may be due to different event discounts. According to the store clerk, best-selling styles or new products of the season sometimes offer “limited time special offers”. For example, the original price is 299 yuan, and the limited time special offer is 249 yuan; the original price is 249 yuan, and the limited time special offer is 199 yuan; the original price is 99 yuan, and the limited time special offer is 79 yuan. Yuan… Such events are usually held on weekends, so there are many items cheaper on weekends than on normal days.
After the limited-time special offer is over, it will return to the original price, and generally there will be no more activities in the next few weeks. In addition to limited-time special offers, there are also discounted products, mainly products with incomplete sizes or large stocks. The price reduction is permanent. For example, 199 yuan will be reduced to 149 yuan for the first time and 119 yuan for the second time. , and then it becomes 99 yuan or even 79 yuan. Such products are very cost-effective, but you may not be able to buy the right size.
What about other stores? Does each store sell different categories? The reporter learned from industry insiders that Uniqlo distributes products nationwide in accordance with official requirements. The time and products are the same and there is no difference.
In the face of the price increase controversy, Uniqlo once responded, “There is no price increase, but some products are no longer available, and new mid-to-high-end products have been added.” If products priced above 500 yuan are positioned as high-priced products, what proportion will this account for? In Uniqlo’s official flagship store, reporters sorted by price and found that there were 84 products priced over 500 yuan, which was a relatively small number among thousands of products.
Greater China’s profit contribution exceeds 70%
Currently, UNIQLO has nearly 800 stores in mainland China The number of stores surpassed Japan for the first time, becoming UNIQLO’s largest overseas market. Uniqlo maintains a rate of opening 80 to 100 new stores in mainland China every year. From June to October this year, Uniqlo opened more than 40 stores.
According to the results announced by Fast Retailing Group, the parent company of Uniqlo, in the year 2020 as of August 31, 2020, the company’s revenue was 2.01 trillion yen (approximately 127.4 billion yuan) ), down 12.3% year-on-year. Net profit reached 90.3 billion yen (approximately 5.7 billion yuan), a year-on-year plunge of 44.4%. This is the first time that Fast Retailing has experienced a decline in annual performance in 17 years. The main reason for the decline in revenue performance is that the new crown epidemic affected the performance in the second half of the fiscal year. Most of Fast Retailing’s revenue comes from Uniqlo, and the Uniqlo brand accounts for 82.2% of the company’s total revenue.
Greater China’s performance is outstanding. Results show that in fiscal 2020, total revenue in Greater China was 455.9 billion yen (28.886 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of only 9.3%, and operating profit was 65.6 billion yen (4.156 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of 26.3%, but Online sales surged 20% year-on-year, showing strong performance.
Textile and apparel exports are picking up
Since the second half of this year, there have been obvious signs of recovery in textile and apparel exports, and external demand has Orders suddenly exploded, and some companies have placed orders until January next year.
Data released by the Consumer Goods Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that from January to November this year, my country’s textile and clothing exports reached US$265.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%. In November this year, as the demand for overseas restocking continued to increase, my country’s textile exports were US$12 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.2%, and the growth rate accelerated 6.3 percentage points month-on-month; during the same period, clothing exports were US$12.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.9 %.
As a clothing-related industry, from January to October this year, China’s chemical fiber output was 56.09 million tons, a slight increase of 0.3% year-on-year. Among them, polyester output was 44.54 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%; nylon output was 3.84 million tons.� tons, a year-on-year increase of 2.2%, maintaining positive growth since August; spandex output was 770,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%.
Some people in the industry said that the improvement of foreign trade orders is partly due to the gradual recovery of export orders in the second half of the year, and the return of foreign orders that disappeared in the first half of the year. On the other hand, the epidemic situation in Southeast Asia and other places was severe in the second half of the year. Many garment processing factories were unable to produce normally, and some garment processing orders were returned to China. This resulted in an increase in domestic garment factory orders and booming business in the second half of the year.
However, whether these orders can stay in the country for a long time and how much can be retained need further observation. </p
