At Zara, any lasting premium comes from freshness. After all, it is not easy for customers to keep buying less cheap clothes of the same brand.
Zara has a more complex formula, which is not as simple as the “fast” in “fast fashion” often seen in newspapers. In fact, Zara captures customers in a way that tends to restrict rather than promote “fast”.
Fast fashion does not accurately explain what Zara and its owner Inditex Group are currently doing.
When When a customer walks into the store, his consumption information will first be passed to the design department. Among this information, the first is quantitative information, how many pieces of clothing have been sold, and people’s preferences for clothing colors; the second is qualitative information, which is not about how many pieces of clothing have been sold, but about “why”, such as why customers are more Love the red jacket.
Inditex’s job is to figure out the “why”
This “why” information is transmitted to the production department, which is designed and manufactured according to the needs of data analysis, and finally new products are Products are shipped around the world through a developed logistics system, which is not a fast process.
The so-called “fast” should be done as fast as we can, but processing massive amounts of information and understanding the needs of customers and the market is a long and unpleasant process. Compared with being fast, the key is The word should be “accurate”.
Of course, it also needs to be fast, but it is only reflected in the process from logistics to stores. It only takes two days for Zara’s new seasonal products to arrive in Beijing from Spain.
Therefore, “fast fashion” companies such as Zara and H&M are, to be precise, “precision fashion” companies.
They rely on strong product planning, and on the premise of preparation and planning, they accurately match people and goods to the store, so that goods can “circulate quickly.” This “fast” is not only the replenishment of best-selling models, but also the rapid introduction of new products to meet customers’ future needs.
In fact, Zara has three product operation cycles, nine months, three months and two weeks. Different operation cycles have different responsibilities and roles.
Like the “combination boxing” strategy, ZARA also adopts a combination of strong pre-season planning and mid-season quick response, especially for its theme products and some best-selling products.
The purpose is to achieve the combination of “accuracy” and “fastness”.
ZARA develops a demand forecast plan before the season based on fashion trends, historical sales data, category structure, weather data, etc. This plan will provide overall guidance for its overall purchasing plan, production plan and first store plan. .
On the basis of the forecast plan, ZARA designs and produces a variety of products and puts them on the shelves in small quantities. Generally, its first order quantity, that is, the number of goods produced according to its forecast plan, is only the sales forecast for the entire quarter. 25%, about 3 weeks of sales, this proportion will be higher for basic models and long-term sales models.
During the sales season, the headquarters will immediately increase production of popular products and quickly deliver them to each store based on the actual sales data of the store POS and qualitative feedback information from store staff, thereby achieving an average replacement cycle of 4 weeks for store products. , generally produce additional best-selling products at a ratio of 50% every Monday and Friday.
Why do domestic fast fashion brands stop at “why”
On the other hand, some domestic fast fashion clothing brands are only “fast fashion” in name and have not learned from Zara. The essence of the product is to go fast for the sake of speed without pursuing “accuracy”. There is no budget, no planning, no review, no timely review in the entire product portfolio and product supply process, and no ability to adjust the status quo in a timely manner. This is what is called The level of commodity supply chain management is low.
As a result, the entire product planning, research and development, and production and procurement systems are disorganized, and you cannot pay attention to both ends. On the surface, it looks crowded and lively, and everyone is extremely busy and in a hurry. However, in fact, everyone is busy and busy. Everyone is like a headless fly, bumping around everywhere, and the overall efficiency is very low. This leads to the problem that although the supply is fast, it still cannot be sold.
When Chinese brands learn to be fashionable, they will always find out very painfully that they are often unable to fill orders even though they finally come up with popular items!
The reason is that, first, they are not like Zara. It has a very clear main and auxiliary structure, especially the basic series that account for 70% of sales;
Second, product development relies heavily on ODM companies for model selection but there is no early planning and coordination of fabric planning, resulting in There are thousands of styles, but when it comes time to replenish the order, I find that there are no ready-made fabrics.
In 2020, many fast fashion brands were affected by the economic downturn and the epidemic and faced a serious shortage of orders. Because they did not plan for consumer demand well, their new products lacked innovation and were unattractive. In the market Too many “junk” products are made.
However, the overall costs of these enterprises remain high, so they can only “sell” crazily in order to cash out, resulting in high inventory in the entire market and increasingly severe sales conditions.
The pains experienced by the industry during its development remind us that true experiential learning requires looking at the essence through phenomena.
When learning from the experience of foreign fast fashion companies, we should not only see how to be fast, but also learn how to be precise and fundamentally solve the problem.The problem of matching products and consumers can be prevented before they happen. </p
