Zara’s little sister is saying goodbye to China. If you like to visit Zara, you will find that there are often similar fast fashion stores such as Bershka, Pull & Bear and Stradivarius standing next to Zara stores. Their display windows are bright and bright, the lights are dazzl

Zara’s little sisters are saying goodbye to China

If you like to visit Zara, you will find that there are often similar fast fashion stores such as Bershka, Pull & Bear and Stradivarius standing next to Zara stores.

Their windows are bright and bright, the lights are dazzling, and there are clothes hanging in the same style as Zara. Girls entered the store in an endless stream and queued up in front of the fitting rooms.

In fact, the three of them are sister brands of Zara and belong to the Inditex group.

But unfortunately, they will soon disappear from the sight of the Chinese.

According to media reports, Inditex Group is planning to permanently close 1,000 to 1,200 of its stores. Its Bershka, Pull & Bear and Stradivarius may close all Chinese stores as soon as the end of this month, retaining only the official website and e-commerce channels.

In fact, this plan has been implemented since the second half of last year. In the past, they were extremely cold-blooded and launched a clearance sale with prices as low as 29 yuan. Finally, they closed the store and quietly closed it.

The author opened Dianping and searched for the name of one of the brands, Bershka, and found that the one closest to my home had indeed closed down.

Generally speaking, there is only one reason for closing a store - poor performance.

This is indeed the case.

Inditex Group’s first half financial report shows that in the first half of this year, its net loss reached 195 million euros, approximately 1.524 billion yuan. In the first nine months of fiscal 2020, its sales were 14.1 billion euros, a decrease of 5.7 billion euros in the same period.

Is this situation closely related to the epidemic?

The epidemic may have had a certain impact on the offline passenger flow of Inditex Group. But looking at Uniqlo next door, the growth rate in the second half of last year was even higher, reaching 54.7%, and operating profit increased by 2.2% to 104.6 billion yen, which is approximately 6.7 billion yuan.

It’s also an epidemic. How come Uniqlo’s performance is not bad? It can be seen that the loss of Inditex Group may not have much to do with the epidemic.

In fact, the plight of Inditex Group also reminds people of the widespread loss of fast fashion brands in recent years: GAP Group has closed a large number of stores, Forever 21 and New Look have withdrawn from China...

Who is the real culprit who killed fast fashion? ?

Zara’s secret of success

Before analyzing the reasons for the loss of fast fashion, let’s first take a look at how it succeeded.

Inditex Group was founded in 1963 and is the world's largest fashion retailer.

Zara is one of the most distinctive brands in the Inditex Group. In 2018, it opened more than 2,000 stores in 87 countries across the country, surpassing competitors such as Uniqlo, H&M and Topshop, and is called the king of fast fashion.

This is probably because of its unique business model. This model is also implemented and promoted by Inditex Group.

is the first to be released quickly.

It only takes 4 weeks for a new product that is favored by Zara to go from design to production to point of sale - Zara designs a piece of clothing every 20 minutes, and the clothes in each store are replaced every two or three weeks.

This can mainly reduce consumers’ aesthetic fatigue and attract consumers to visit the store repeatedly. Rapid updates also allow the products in the store to keep up with consumers' fashion needs, making them easier to sell.

Secondly, there are many styles and few quantities.

Zara attaches great importance to the diversity of styles, releasing 500 new products every week and 20,000 new products every year. In this way, Zara can provide consumers with more choices and make consumers more willing to place orders.

Compared with other competitors, ZARA’s production quantity of each garment is very small. This makes consumers feel that if they don’t buy in time, the goods will be out of stock. Because often the more unavailable something is, the more it stimulates the desire to buy, thus speeding up consumers’ decision-making speed.

Moreover, as we all know, inventory is the Achilles heel of clothing brands.Through such small batch production, Zara has reduced inventory to a certain extent and eliminated worries.

Furthermore, they are civilian enough.

Zara sends a large number of designers to lurk in fashion week every year. Whenever a big fashion brand launches a new style, they will immediately rush to copy it and then put it into production.

Although it has been questioned, it is still very popular for consumers to find that they can buy a big-name design of 29,000 for only 299 - after all, who doesn't want to spend the least money and be the most fashionable person?

This unique model has greatly increased the appeal of Zara, allowing Zara to make a lot of money in the years when fast fashion was popular. Other fast fashion brands such as HM have also followed Zara's example and are able to survive in the market with ease.

So why is the fast fashion strategy less and less effective today?

The "routine" of fast fashion is not working

There are two main reasons for this.

First, more and more Chinese consumers are beginning to see through the "routines" of fast fashion.

Fast fashion products may look fashionable, but they are always fashionable that most people cannot understand.

For example, this sweater with only two sleeves can be said to cover up loneliness in the cold winter:

Another example is this sweater jumpsuit, which turns the person wearing it into a monkey:

Many girls are like I can only sigh and leave the fast fashion fitting room, sighing that big brands are always big brands, and they are not styles that we mere mortals can control.

In addition, Chinese consumers are relatively short in stature, and fast fashion is mostly from European and American brands. In order to adapt to European and American body shapes, the clothes designed are relatively wide, and many products are not suitable for Chinese consumers.

For example, these pants are almost taller than a person:

More and more people are becoming disappointed with fast fashion brands, and naturally they will no longer patronize them.

Second, business models that are faster than fast fashion have emerged in e-commerce channels.

For example, we all know Taobao. Taobao has a section called iFashion, which gathers a large number of designer brands. They launch 600,000 new products every month.

There are more choices than fast fashion, and the prices are more beautiful than fast fashion. Of course, consumers choose to buy on Taobao.

The speed of new products that fast fashion is proud of has also been challenged.

The time it takes for a piece of clothing to be put on the shelves has been shortened to 12 days by the popular Taobao store "Mrs. Qian's Home", which is far better than Zara's 20 days.

The Rhino Intelligent Manufacturing launched by Alibaba can even shorten this cycle to 7 days.

The supply chain speed is faster than fast fashion, so it can naturally adapt to the market more quickly and launch styles that consumers prefer.

Moreover, fast fashion also has a strong competitor - SHEIN, a cross-border e-commerce platform produced in China.

SHEIN compresses the process from proofing to production to 7 days, and the number of new products released in one month reaches more than 10,000, which is equivalent to the number of new products released by ZARA throughout the year.

A dress in fast fashion can cost as little as $30. SHEIN's dresses are cheaper, ranging in price from $5 to $20.

According to LatePost’s report, SHEIN’s revenue in 2020 has been close to US$10 billion, equivalent to approximately 65.3 billion yuan. Although it is not as good as ZARA, it has maintained 100% growth for 8 consecutive years. With its astonishing growth rate, it may one day defeat fast fashion.

We can find that the successful model that fast fashion originally adhered to has been far surpassed by others.

This fully illustrates one point: these seemingly genius moves of actually have no barriers and are easily imitated by others. If you still stick to the old path at this time, there will be only one outcome, and that is death.

It seems that the successful experience in the past may become the source of your failure in the next step.Perhaps only through continuous innovation can we avoid being swallowed up by the tide of the times.

Author: Xiao Xiaogao