After the "second generation" of Meibang clothing gave way: the "report card" of the father and daughter was released at the same time, and Zhou Chengjian issued an open letter again

On April 30, Zhou Chengjian and Hu Jiajia, father and daughter, met in Meibang Clothing (002269. SZ) was published at the same time.

It has been seven years since Hu Jiajia took over Meibang clothing from his father, and Meibang clothing has not been able to get out of the decline, with a cumulative net loss of more than 3 billion yuan. At the beginning of this year, Hu Jiajia successively resigned from the positions of chairman and president of Meibang Apparel, and Zhou Chengjian re-emerged from the mountain, anchoring the direction of digital strategic transformation for Meibang Apparel.

However, the Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that Zhou Chengjian also failed to stop the downward trend of Meibang clothing for the time being. In the first quarter of this year, the revenue of Meibang Apparel was about 279 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 31.38%, which was caused by the continuous closure of loss-making stores and the decline in sales scale.

Zhou Chengjian, who returned to the mountain, issued a third open letter

On April 30, Zhou Chengjian, the founder, chairman and president of Meibang Apparel, released a letter to the respected friends of shopping malls on the official account "Meibang people".

After his return, Zhou Chengjian has sent two open letters to all employees and suppliers of Meibang Apparel, reflecting on the problems of Meibang Apparel, such as "ugly workmanship and expensive price", and he anchored the direction of digital strategic transformation.

This is the third open letter published by Zhou Chengjian after he re-emerged from the mountain, and in this open letter, the digital transformation of Meibang clothing seems to have achieved initial results.

Zhou Chengjian said that since the beginning of this year, Meibang Apparel has cooperated with the Douyin platform to explore the digital new retail model of the local life clothing category, and formed a phased target implementation plan, which sells group coupons in the form of "short video + live broadcast + talent sub-broadcast" and other ways, opening up the digital new retail model of "online customer acquisition and store experience".

"During the live broadcast in each live broadcast room, a large number of consumers hope to have the same verification and selection experience of digital local life stores in their cities, and at present, the number of people entering the stores that have opened verification stores has skyrocketed to more than 10 times. Zhou Chengjian said that from April 22 to 20 o'clock on April 29, the cumulative GMV of relevant stores exceeded 32 million yuan.

Based on this, Zhou Chengjian openly sought support from shopping malls: (1) to build a phased digital new retail temporary store to quickly seize this wave of hot spots and traffic, and (2) to develop a new digital new retail trend outdoor brand (local life store) and locate in the country's main shopping centers and main stores.

The "report cards" of the father and daughter were announced at the same time

On April 30, Meibang announced its annual report for 2023 and the report for the first quarter of this year.

Since the "shift change" between the two occurred in January, this also means that the annual report for 2023 can be regarded as Hu Jiajia's "report card", and the first quarter report is Zhou Chengjian's "report card".

Among them, the 2023 annual report shows that Meibang Apparel's revenue for the whole year last year was about 1.356 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.81%, and the net profit was about 31.75 million yuan, turning losses into profits.

However, it should be noted that the success of Meibang Apparel in 2023 may not be the credit of its main business.

In 2023, Meibang Apparel sold real estate and other assets in many places, and the sales income and leasing income of investment real estate unrelated to the main business totaled about 506 million yuan, and after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, Meibang Apparel had a negative net profit with a net loss of about 445 million yuan.

As of the end of 2023, Meibang Apparel has a total of 25 directly operated stores and 788 franchised stores. In the past year, a total of 10 directly-managed stores and 321 franchised stores were closed, while 6 directly-operated stores and 112 franchised stores were newly opened.

Looking at the situation of Meibang Apparel in the first quarter of this year, its revenue in the first quarter was about 279 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 31.38%, a net profit of about 68.11 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.37%, and a non-net profit of about 7.97 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 61.80%.

Regarding the decline in revenue in the first quarter, Meibang explained that this was mainly due to the continuous closure of loss-making stores, which reduced the sales scale in the reporting period compared with the same period last year.

As of the end of the first quarter, the current assets of Meibang Apparel totaled about 1.263 billion yuan, the non-current assets were about 1.227 billion yuan, the current liabilities were about 1.674 billion yuan, and the non-current liabilities were about 294 million yuan.

The online channel that wants to develop contributed 30% of the revenue last year

In fact, Meibang Apparel tried to develop online channels in the early years, launching Youfan APP, Banggou.com, etc., as well as naming traffic variety shows, but it has never been able to effectively open the entrance of online traffic, and Youfan APP has also stopped operating.

This time, Zhou Chengjian returned, no longer trying to build his own online channels and platforms, but instead sought traffic import from mature platforms.

Red Star Capital Bureau noted that in 2023, Zhou Chengjian has returned to business and "penetrated into the field of content e-commerce as a learner and practitioner". After returning to the helm of Meibang Apparel, Zhou Chengjian also signed up for a new retail training course on Douyin.

Zhou Chengjian recalled in an interview with the media that in 2023, after listening to the Douyin training of an external lecturer, he went to Hangzhou to study and gained two cognitions.

One of them is, "the path to obtain products has changed dramatically, from the original single offline to Tmall search, Douyin live broadcast, WeChat mini program, the entire link has undergone great changes, and the biggest change brought about by this is the reshaping of the supply model." ”

Judging from the sales revenue structure of Meibang Apparel in 2023, offline sales still account for the majority. Among them, the revenue from franchise sales is about 394 million yuan, and the income from direct sales is about 203 million yuan, accounting for about 70% of the sales revenue of the main business.

As an online channel that Meibang wants to focus on developing, the revenue of this part is about 253 million yuan, a decrease of 27% year-on-year in 2022, accounting for only 30% of the sales revenue of the main business.

At present, Zhou Chengjian has chosen the path of "short video + live broadcast + talent distribution and other ways to sell group coupons + consumer in-store selection experience", opening up the digital new retail model of "online customer acquisition and store experience".

According to the data released by Zhou Chengjian, from April 22 to 20:00 on April 29, the cumulative GMV of relevant stores exceeded 32 million yuan. If it can stabilize the momentum, it may only take three months to exceed the online channel revenue of last year.

Red Star News reporter Yang Peiwen

Edited by Deng Lingyao

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