Old Three Year Old Agate Suffered From Crisis For 8 Years.

In just 8 years, the traditional fashion brand has gone through the ups and down market.

The relevant data from the reporter showed that China's 1~11 month 2006 Women's clothing ranked the top three retail sales centers in the country, and ONLY, IgG and ESPRIT ranked the top three.

Now,

And ESPRIT has been marginalized, and ONLY's fashion fashion group, though barely able to squeeze into the position of the first group, is in a precarious position. Instead of ZARA, UNIQLO, H&M and other brands after 2005.

What kind of business logic is there behind the fast changing fashion industry? What is the future of the fast fashion brand that has been predominant and faced with the competitors coming from behind?

Scenery no longer

ETAM is the fastest sliding brand.

Ege's financial data for the first half of 2014 showed that its revenue was 598 million euros, down 1.6% compared to the same period last year.

Among them, the European market grew 4.8% to 4 .117 billion compared with the same period last year, and the sales in the Chinese market dropped sharply from 6.1% to 186 million 800 thousand euros.

As a fashionable dress brand in France, agogue started the layout of the Chinese market very early, and opened the first store in 1995. In 2007, its sales and profit contribution to the Chinese market already accounted for nearly 20% of the global market.

Now, compared with the decline in sales, the decline in AGG's net profit is even more striking.

Its net profit in the Chinese market in the first half of 2007 was 56 million 660 thousand euros, which had fallen to 18 million 400 thousand by 2013, while the number of shops in the Chinese market in 2007 was 2000, and the number of shops in 2013 increased to 3200 - which also meant that its single store sales were more setback.

He shared ESPRIT with others.

Hong Kong listed companies's 00330.HK.

Its interim results for the first half of fiscal year 2013/2014 were released, showing that sales in the mainland market fell 24.5% to HK $984 million (7.7497, -0.0002, -0.00%), of which retail channel sales fell 13.1% and wholesale channel sales fell 43.2%.

Historical data show that its sales in China have suffered three consecutive falls: sales in 2011 ~2013 were HK $2 billion 670 million, HK $2 billion 587 million and HK $2 billion 410 million respectively.

Compared with IgG, ESPRIT entered the mainland market earlier and opened stores in the mainland in 1992.

After years of expansion, the ESPRIT retail network has already been used in dozens of countries around the world, but the Chinese market has been the third largest market in the world.

"It is no exaggeration to say that IgG and ESPRIT are the initiators and disseminators of western style fashion culture in mainland China."

Ma Gang, a marketing expert in clothing industry, said.

Another clothing business in the Chinese market is gradually declining, is from Denmark's clothing retail brand Bestseller.

In 1997, it gradually introduced its brand Only, Vero Moda, Jack&Jones and Selected into the Chinese market.

Only and Jack&Jones once became the vane of fashion trend in China.

Slow motion handicap

"There is no more than two channels to push sales ahead, that is, to open stores and raise prices."

Ma Gang said that ONLY, AGG and ESPRIT, which advertised fast fashion brands, entered China immediately, and became a trend vane because of lack of competition.

But today's business environment is no longer the same as then.

In the past more than 10 years, the mainstream consumers who bought ONLY and ESPRIT have been replaced by younger people.

The place where consumers are buying is also changing. As consumers switch to SHOPPING MALL or independent offline stores, the shops that are fast and fashionable in traditional shopping malls are becoming increasingly scarce.

It's a different store.

Zhang Bingliang, general manager of Shanghai lion Consulting Co. Ltd., said that the practice of previous clothing enterprises may be that the area of each store is 50 square meters, and that the brand business will succeed in 1000 stores.

But now the popular way is to store 1000 square meters for each store, and do not need to open enough 50 to catch the mainstream consumer.

"In view of ONLY, ESPRIT and other brands, store image for many years, marketing methods are single and unchanging."

It is no wonder that these pioneers were overtaken by the new generation.

Taking 2007 as the watershed, with the entry and impact of ZARA, UNIQLO, H&M and other brands, the ESPRIT and ESPRIT gradually became marginalized, and gradually withdrew from the mainstream consumer circle. The prominent positions of each shopping mall were gradually replaced by luxury brands, light luxury, fast fashion and other brands.

"After the entry of these brands, Chinese consumers find that they can buy more famous brands at lower prices and have more abundant product choices."

Zhang Bingliang said that before the fast fashion brand entered the Chinese market, the price of commodities was generally set at a higher level in order to obtain a higher gross profit margin.

After that, the brand entered the market with more cost-effective products. The result is predictable.

In addition, yes.

On the understanding, the brands that have entered have also shown great differences.

Zhang Bingliang said that before doing fast fashion, it is faster than anyone who follows or imitated fashion trends.

But today's fast fashion is the response ability of stores, that is to say, to achieve fast sales of stores, such as selling or selling a certain commodity, it is necessary for the store manager to collect information and make decisions quickly.

This puts forward higher requirements for the management and informationization of the stores, and is hard for ONLY, ESPRIT and other brands to do at present.

De franchising

It is precisely because of the sluggish reaction to the new changes that it is partly due to the accumulation of the old fast fashion in the Chinese market. The system of high rent and multi-storey dealers formed over the years has determined that even after realizing the market risks, it is difficult to make quick decisions.

A senior executive of a domestic garment enterprise told reporters that the headquarters had stepped into the shops and made meticulous management of the stores, which has become a trend.

But on the one hand, most companies have complex organizational structure, and headquarters orders cannot be communicated to stores in time. The information of stores is reported to headquarters at various levels.

On the other hand, to understand the sales status of single stores, salesmen need to update the sales information to the computer for the first time.

But now the situation is that most salespeople will gather and report data for several days or even weeks.

At present, it can do a quick reaction to stores, but UNIQLO, ZARA and so on.

One of the important reasons why the headquarters is "unable to catch up" is that most of the clothing companies in the past are mainly franchising.

Under the extensive franchising mode, the relationship between brand dealers and distributors is only a wholesale relationship. Apart from some requirements for sales, the headquarters does not have much restriction on franchisees.

ONLY, AGG and ESPRIT have expanded rapidly because of their early joining mode. Now they are faced with the dilemma of "big ships turn around".

As a matter of fact, the above three enterprises have gradually started the "de franchising" of the channel.

Since 2009, the fashion has begun to reduce the number of franchisees and increase the proportion of Direct stores.

Public figures show that in 2008~2010, the proportion of franchised stores dropped from 50% to 28%.

Silk fashion executives said the proportion of direct battalions is expected to rise to 90% in the future.

Ma Gang pointed out that agge and ESPRIT have been adjusting the proportion of franchised stores in recent years.

The case he contacted also indirectly proved this point. His friends opened two shoe cities in Yibin, Sichuan, while expanding the scope of operation and trying to win the opportunity to join several women's clothing brands. After asking, however, they were surprised to find that the Brand Company of women's clothing no longer attracted the Alliance, instead of picking up direct or provincial mode.

Ma Gang said that at the early stage of development, franchisees could fill the shortfall of brand and short distance management capabilities. In the later stage of development, these two short boards were soon filled up by brands.

At present, the rapid development of commercial real estate, department stores to the two or three line of ultra fast market subsidence, the rapid development of electricity providers, brand stores to find a shop has brought great convenience, brand customers directly facing consumers is no longer difficult.

However, how to adapt to the new "rules of the game" brought about by the expansion of new channels is a new problem faced by old fast fashion.

"Whether it is ONLY or Jack&Jones, the problems they encounter are all crazy discounts, while brand influence is falling too fast."

Zhang Bingliang said that in recent years, in recent years, bestseller has invested a lot of energy in the field of e-commerce to get rid of the predicament of brand aging. Discount and promotions are too frequent. Although the sales volume is still in the lead of domestic counterparts, the damage to the brand itself is hard to gauge.