Spring is coming, but some domestic clothing brands are still struggling in their own cold winter.
The parent company of the leisure brand "Trend Front" Souyute is facing both operating losses and restructuring business, and its expected loss in 2021 is more than 3.4 billion yuan, and due to its inability to repay debts, it was applied to the court for reorganization by suppliers on February 25, 2022, which can be described as being hit by the epidemic.
Another A-share listed company, La Chapelle, which is mainly engaged in fast fashion, has long faced a crisis and is becoming more and more severe. As of now, at least four creditors have filed bankruptcy applications with the court, and once the court accepts them, La Chapelle will enter the bankruptcy liquidation process. At the same time, La Chapelle is also saddled with huge debt lawsuits, so that a large number of its assets have been frozen and seized, including 146 bank accounts and 4 real estate properties.
The industry blamed La Chapelle's failure on the decline of fast fashion, the lack of offline retail, and the lack of e-commerce marketing, which led to a sharp turn in its business situation after the outbreak of the epidemic. In the context of the epidemic, enterprises must be more sensitive and flexible in decision-making, and quickly carry out reform and transformation to enhance adaptability, otherwise there will be no room for those brands that are already declining.
In contrast, some other domestic clothing brands and enterprises can survive without loss, which is a satisfactory answer.
From the perspective of profitability, domestic apparel listed companies such as Jiangnan Cloth, Disu Fashion, Peacebird, and Semir have withstood the pressure of the epidemic. Jiangnan Cloth's latest semi-annual report for the year ended December 31, 2022 shows that the net profit for the period is about 444 million yuan, while the net profit of Disu Fashion in the third quarter of 2021 reached 555 million yuan, an increase of 17.09% year-on-year, and is expected to achieve a good annual income.
In addition, Semir Apparel's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2021 increased by 84.39% to 1.486 billion yuan; PEACEBIRD expects to achieve a net profit attributable to about 660 million yuan in 2021.
For these brands, even if the epidemic continues to spread in 2021, the competitive environment is fierce, and the public's consumption desire is reduced, they still get a considerable revenue, how do they offset the risk and achieve progress?
Disu Fashion and Jiangnan Cloth are both multi-brand fashion listing groups, mainly self-created brands or designer brands, covering a number of clothing categories, Disu Fashion has high-end brands such as DAZZLE, d'zzit and RAZZLE, and Jiangnan Cloth has JNBY, designer men's brand sketch, less and other designer brands.
Both are based on high-end women's wear, and on this basis hatched a series of high-end brand lines, the main target consumers are at least at the level of the middle class or above, some of them will not reduce the standard of living because of the epidemic, but may over-consume to reduce the psychological pressure caused by the epidemic lockdown.
However, the consumption of the middle class and ordinary people in the other part is becoming conservative, and the expenditure on clothing may be the top priority to be cut. According to the report released by Joy City Holdings, the concept of middle-class consumption after the epidemic tends to be more open source and cost-saving, and precautions are taken, while consumers will reduce the consumption of some non-daily necessities for a long time.
In this case, the long-term and proper management of the membership system of Disu Fashion and Jiangnan Cloth has played a key role, maintaining consumer stickiness and consumer trust in the special period, and becoming their preferred choice for fashion consumption, which is the fan economic dividend exclusive to high-end retail brands.
According to the financial report, the proportion of retail sales contributed by Jiangnan cloth members remained stable, reaching about 70%. As of December 31, 2021, Jiangnan Buyi had 5.3 million member accounts, including 4.9 million WeChat member accounts. In addition, in 2021, there were about 410,000 active members, and more than 200,000 members spent more than 5,000 yuan, totaling about 2.64 billion yuan, contributing more than 40% of offline retail sales.
Disu Fashion is also deeply rooted in the membership system. In 2019, Disu Fashion opened up the membership rights and interests of all its brands, and in 2020, Disu Fashion will fully open up the micro-mall and offline direct members, and continue to deepen the construction of SCRM and private domain traffic in 2021, and gradually improve the consumer and member labels. Thanks to this, public reports show that more than 80% of Disu Fashion's sales come from members, and about 60% come from VIP members.
For a long time, the topic of fashion retail brand membership & fan economy has been inseparable from the WeChat ecology, for the above two brands, the WeChat platform is indeed the most critical link between online and offline.
Around 2019, concepts such as private domain traffic, circle layering, and membership system have entered the vision of fashion brands from the Internet field, and WeChat subscription accounts and mini programs have become the best carriers, and brands can face consumers to convey brand style and culture, deepen mutual contact, and have lower customer acquisition and operating costs.
The traditional membership point system of clothing sales is limited by offline stores, and after riding on the SCRM express, the final barrier between online and offline customers has been completely broken, so that fashion brands can manage member needs more efficiently and calmly, and integrate member services.
For example, during the epidemic period, Jiangnan Buyi took advantage of this and quickly launched temporary programs such as the collocation recommendation of direct shopping guides on the private domain member side to maintain the attention of members; similarly, Disu Fashion directly contacted private domain members through new channels such as live broadcasting, community, and mini programs, alleviating the dilemma of offline sales decline.
In fact, before the rise of private domain traffic, offline members have been the most important source of revenue for these brands, and the ten-year membership accumulation and the adherence to the design concept, coupled with the smooth construction of online and offline SCRM, have become the biggest bottom card under the epidemic.
As early as 2014, the retail proportion of Jiangnan cloth members has reached 40.2%, and has climbed year by year, while the number of consumer active members of Disu Fashion has reached about 500,000 in 2019, which shows that they have always been laying out around the fan economy and membership management.
In terms of design style, Jiangnan Cloth has always positioned itself as a designer brand, it is also the largest domestic designer brand group and the only listed company among them, style design and quality control have maintained a relatively high level, while combining the mature membership system for consumers' fashion needs insight, so that the brand can maintain the enthusiasm of members for many years, to achieve a balance between design and commercialization.
In addition to controlling the flow of private domains, it is also important not to deviate from the aesthetics of contemporary youth, and to maintain innovative design styles.
Among the traditional domestic leisure brands, the transformation of PEACEBIRD and Semir is relatively smooth, and it has also brought rich benefits to the two. Compared with brands such as Jiangnan Cloth, their design style changes are more radical, boldly embracing popular elements such as national tide and youth culture.
In 2018, China's Li Ning appeared at New York Fashion Week, officially launching the signal of the national tide out of the circle, and peacebirds on the same stage with Li Ning also became the leader in this wave, and since then they have appeared at international fashion weeks almost every year.
In less than 4 years, PEACEBIRD has jointly branded ip or brands with phoenix bicycles, hey tea, playboys, cherry pills, Coca-Cola, Disney and other ips or brands in different industries at home and abroad, deeply cultivating youth culture and successfully capturing the favor of young consumers. In April 2021, PEACEBIRD's share price soared to 53 yuan, more than three times the end of 2019 before the outbreak. However, unfortunately, starting in the second half of 2021, PEACEBIRD has performed poorly due to reasons such as the plagiarism scandal, otherwise it is possible to enter the "10 billion club" for the first time in 2021.
In contrast, the progress of Semir's trend is relatively low-key, and the joint targets are mainly the IPs close to the public such as tomorrow's post-tomorrow, e-sports championship team FPX, And China Rocket Test Team, and have also appeared in the 2020SS Milan Fashion Week.
Semir's revenue performance is among the top A-share apparel companies, and the company's total sales increased slightly to 15.419 billion yuan in 2021. In fact, the biggest contribution is not the main semir brand, the group's children's clothing brands such as Barabala and Minette have become cash cows, and children's clothing sales accounted for 61.5% of total sales in the first half of 2021.
The stylistic innovation of children's clothing is also worthy of attention, during the epidemic, Barabala became the first children's clothing brand to walk on the catwalk at Shanghai Fashion Week KISSWEAR, and its resources are even better than the main brand Semir. For example, Barabala's co-branded objects include international independent designers such as JASONWU and CHNEPENG, as well as artistic and cultural IP such as Van Gogh, Dunhuang and Suzhou Museum, who have a keen understanding and domination of the style and characteristics of children's clothing.
A worrying fact is that the national tide has already begun to show aesthetic fatigue in 2021 and is heading downhill. Whether Semir's adult clothing performance can maintain positive growth has become a mystery, and the children's clothing line has become an indispensable and important backing for Semir. In 2021, the Barabala brand became the first sales volume in the mother and baby segment of the Douyin platform, with a year-on-year retail sales growth of nearly 4 digits year-on-year, and the Douyin platform has become the second largest online channel of Balabala.
It can be observed that another brand, PEACEBIRD, is also working to deal with the challenges brought about by the cooling of the national tide in 2021, exploring independent design and trend elements in greater depth, and abandoning the old aesthetic.
For example, PEACEBIRD WOMEN cooperated with the Chinese original designer brand SHUSHU/TONG; in May 2021, PEACEBIRD and the China Garment Association jointly built the "China Contemporary Youth Fashion Research Center + Peacebird Enterprise University" dual platform; the previously acquired Italian tide brand COPPOLELLA stepped up its layout in 2021, cooperating with social e-commerce platforms such as Dewu to create explosive models.
Betting on the public's demand orientation and aesthetic trend is not a brand strategy once and for all, in fact, today's young people like the new and tired of the old psychology is more exaggerated, the style is more changeable, and the national tide is gradually separated from the national style elements, changing to a new domestic tide brand.
Popular things are easy to be scorned, do not have to "follow the trend" all the time, "creating wind" is the best solution for domestic brands to revitalize their business after the epidemic.
In 2022, a number of domestic brands represented by La Chapelle and Meibang gradually withdrew, but the competition is still white-hot, and within the scope of domestic brands, there are sports fashion giants such as Li Ning and Anta, and then there are emerging Internet brands such as bossie and Rihe Rongmei, and the living space of fashion and casual clothing brands is double squeezed.
In terms of advertising endorsement, e-commerce channels, marketing means, etc., the differences between brands are controllable, and the main room for improvement lies in brand stories, brand culture, brand design, etc., which is also the biggest shortcoming of Chinese brands compared with international brands.
In addition to the national style, almost all the domestic styles are from Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, the four major fashion weeks dominate the world's aesthetics, China's own design not only lacks innovation, but also frequently stepped on thunder, such as the children's clothing incident in Jiangnan clothing, the plagiarism controversy between Peacebird and Semir, etc. In this situation, the normalized epidemic can no longer be regarded as a threat, adhere to the unique or not, radical innovation or good, whether the core design can really lead the aesthetic is about to become a watershed in a new stage.