Re-Examine The Growth Secrets Of UNIQLO Through A New Technology Jacket

Some time ago, UNIQLO parent fast Marketing Group announced its performance for the year ended August 31, 2019. According to the announcement, UNIQLO achieved a profit of 2 trillion and 300 billion yen in 2019, an increase of 7.5% over the same period last year, with a net profit of 257 billion 600 million yen, an increase of 9.1% over the same period last year, setting the best performance level in the years.
No accident. The Chinese market has contributed a lot to this beautiful report. The profit of UNIQLO Greater China increased 21% to 89 billion yen compared with the same period last year, becoming the fastest growing group. It is estimated that in the 2022 fiscal year, the sales volume in the Greater China market is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen.
UNIQLO's first store in China started in 2002, and if the office set up in 1999 in Shanghai was counted as a starting point, unknowingly, UNIQLO entered China for 20 years, and now it has opened 711 stores.
Especially in the past one or two years, the rapid growth of UNIQLO has taken place in the background of "negative growth" in China's fast fashion market. As the industry knows, the "fast fashion" market is showing signs of chill in China just like the weather outside the window. (I believe you've seen a lot of related news), and UNIQLO is almost the only warmth in the whole industry.
Of course, we must ask why.
There are many reasons, but I want to start with a new dress that is equally warm.
One
Anyone who has visited the UNIQLO store in winter will not deny that in the past decade or so, UNIQLO has gained a lot in resisting the severe winter, and has been working hard every year -- the fruit they made this winter is called Hybrid.
What is Hybrid? In short, it is the high-performance composite jacket series launched by UNIQLO this winter. Compared with other cold resistant tools that you know well, the biggest feature of Hybrid is the use of a composite filling technology that combines two kinds of technology resources to integrate the warmth and design of a winter suit.
These two technical resources are high-quality feather and moisture absorption and heating materials. The two complement each other, providing a more intelligent design space for Hybrid. Intuitively, compared with the general full down style, the profile of Hybrid is even more sharp. It looks like a "thickening" overcoat and feels very light. Hybrid has a clever balance between the sense of "warmth and excellence" and the sense of "no bloated" fashion sense.
Technology is the key to balancing this balance.
In fact, the establishment of balance stems from Hybrid's "on-demand distribution" for different parts of the human body (the body itself is a complex ecosystem, with different natural sensitivity to temperature). To ensure the warmth of winter, Hybrid has the most sensitive perception of temperature on the front part, neck, back and so on. It needs special warm parts, filled with the quality down with up to 90%, and at the same time, by using the same surface treatment method with the ULD high-grade lightweight down coat, it saves the package which is usually used to prevent the down cloth from overflowing, and greatly reduces the overall weight.
At the same time, in order to ensure flexibility and lightness, Hybrid is filled with the latest development of moisture absorption and heating materials in the lower part of the body and hat, sleeve, side seam and other parts with higher flexibility and wear resistance. What is worth mentioning is that, like most of the explosions in UNIQLO, the technology partners of hygroscopic and heating materials are still famous in Dongli.
The principle of this technology is analyzed. The new material is made up of 30% viscose and 70% polyester fiber. It can transform the steam from human body into heat. Among them, viscose can absorb water vapor and be captured by fiber. The kinetic energy of water molecules will be transformed into heat energy. Polyester fiber can lock the heat energy and effectively keep warm.
In fact, in my opinion, if we sum up the Hybrid Series in one sentence, that is, the combination of technology and design gives us a greater degree of freedom in winter.
It's about the origin of Hybrid. Its original design inspiration comes from the development of the match suit with the UNIQLO global brand ambassador and Hirano, a snowboard skier. You know, snowboarding is the most important item in the winter sports. So Hirano's cooperation demands are clear: to keep the lightness and flexibility in ensuring the warm basic quality, after all, even the difference between a few grams can decide the key success or failure.
After doing a lot of experiments and error analysis of each component, UNIQLO finally creatively thought of the above compound filling process with the view of the "outsider" of the non skateboard garment manufacturer. In fact, I guess many people who met with Hybrid for the first time might have flashed the famous motto of management scholar Drucker: "the greatest compliment to innovation is that people say it's too obvious. Why didn't I think of it?"
Yes, "why didn't I think of that?"
Simple, this is because in this era, innovation will take place in the "fringe area" between different fields. In the past, UNIQLO has always been good at it. For example, once upon a time, the outside world had also made it clear that the fleece should be made by mountaineering clothes and outdoor clothing manufacturers. HEATTECH should be sold in sporting goods stores. Now, before the winter of 2019, just like Hirano Ayumu's skiing in the skiing arena, Hybrid also raised professional sportswear to a new height. On the basis of warmth retention, the lines were sharp, and no part was bloated. In my opinion, the answer is very
Of course, as a professional athlete, Hirano hopes to be flexible in the competition; and as an ordinary person, we also need to eliminate winter redundancy in our daily life. Today, UNIQLO draws on the idea of dress in Ping Yuan's step dream, turning the technical pursuit of professional athletes into a fashionable single item that can get rid of the winter burden and also make winter no longer a fashionable insulator.
The picture shows UNIQLO's flagship store.
It is worth mentioning that in order to optimize Hybird products, in October 27th, UNIQLO held a Hybrid sharing conference in the global flagship building of Shanghai, and all the media and fashion designers completed their trial experience on the spot. I believe that even for the "countless readers", Hybrid's unique aesthetics with function and fashion is also an exciting dress experience.
Two
When you know something about Hybrid, maybe we can try to answer the first question: why is the fast fashion market slowing down, and UNIQLO can develop at a high speed?
First of all, it is easy to see from Hybrid that UNIQLO has maintained its own "basic plate" for many years: technological innovation. From its initial fleece, UNIQLO continues to expand new technology dividends, from HEATTECH to AIRism, from ULD to Dry-EX. In the fast fashion market, it almost always presents itself to the public with its own strength.
Take feather down as an example, from 2009, the introduction of ultra light down garment to 2013, the seamless series of down to 2015, the ultra light seamless down system in 2017, and the compound feather down clothing this year, and the people who visited the UNIQLO can understand something. It is like a creature that evolves year by year. UNIQLO constantly enriches the technology and design dimension of the down garment through the "feed back" to consumers' needs.
Talking about the relationship between technology and design, I might as well mention that in fact, I always feel that in today's advocating and innovative public opinion environment, technology and fashion are all two sides in the field of clothing and other public consumption, just like investors Wang Yu said: "technological progress can always bring fashion trends, and Burberry has achieved the trend of fashion. Nylon fiber has triggered a surge of stockings. The invention of materials such as lycra and polyester has also made a number of clothing brands. Today, science and technology have become a very popular fashion element in the whole society.
From Hybrid, you can see that the precise grasp of the relationship between technology and design is a key to the success of UNIQLO. Therefore, fashion joking is also one of the successful proposition of UNIQLO.
In addition, the second element of UNIQLO's success is to achieve the ultimate goal of "comprehensive experience". Like a netizen named ID "Su can", "in the current clothing brand, marketing, price, quality, design and store display can be made so well that almost second can not be found."
Well, almost no clothing brand, such as UNIQLO, has successfully crossed the gender, age, geography, occupation, income and even class and other factors. It has become the "greatest common divisor" of the whole market. That is to say, following the steps of cold resistance, such as fleece, HEATTECH, light feather and so on, Hybrid will also be loved by most consumers. If there is no accident, UNIQLO's achievements in this winter will also gain a great deal of feedback from the market.
To some extent, the so-called "can not find second", also confirms the "rational human model hypothesis" of Economics: in most cases, consumers are rational.
But in my opinion, the other side of UNIQLO's success comes from its "perceptual" part.
About a few months ago, UNIQLO launched the semi annual magazine "LifeWear", which was run by Japanese trend media leader Kinoshita Hyoho, hoping to make the brand concept of "LifeWear" more popular among the people. I also got a copy of it. When you read it, you can feel that in addition to selling, UNIQLO has something to say to you.
What does it want to say? Different opinions, but I guess Christopher Lemerre's understanding will resonate with many people - you know, he is an anti consumerist, and he doesn't like the artificiality of fashion. For him, Hybrid is more seductive, reliable and fixed. He has a famous saying: "build your own wardrobe, instead of changing your wardrobe according to the trend every quarter."
But I actually liked his other words, and finally shared it with you: "fashion is not a superficial thing. It is your most superficial self mapping. It is a language, a relationship between yourself and yourself, sometimes quite profound. You have to understand yourself, get along with yourself, and you can be weird if you want. It is not necessarily serious, but you must be comfortable with yourself. That's why you have to resist the image of the system trying to impose on people. "
Well, in the fast fashion market, "good-looking body" is everywhere, but the "funny soul" is not good enough. In the winter, from Hybrid, people can see again that UNIQLO wants to do both.