On July 7, a reporter from Henan Business Daily visited several urban beauty underwear stores in Zhengzhou. Some franchisees said that the sales of underwear stores fell by 50% compared with the same period, and almost all stores are discounting, with the discounts being 10% off.

Henan Business Daily reporter Zhang Yifei/Text Zuo Dongchen/Picture

Following the massive closure of stores overseas by Victoria's Secret , a few days ago, the urban beauty underwear store, known as the "Chinese version of Victoria's Secret", was also rumored to be "temporarily closed 90% of the stores". In this midsummer, underwear giants at home and abroad face their own "college entrance examination".

Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, an Urban Beauty store

However, after the rumors, the official Weibo of Urban Beauty quickly denied the rumors, saying that as of May, the company's sales had reached 80% of the same period last year. What is the real situation? On July 7, a reporter from Henan Business Daily visited several urban beauty underwear stores in Zhengzhou. Some franchisees said that the sales of underwear stores fell by 50% compared with the same period, and almost all stores are discounting, with the discounts being 10% off.

. The online rumor is that urban beauty "temporarily closed 90% of the stores", responding: Fake

On July 1, an article rumored on the Internet: "A huge loss of 1.3 billion a year, 90% of stores are closed! This leading underwear company is in trouble," On the morning of July 3, a hot search on Sina Weibo that "Urban Beauty is temporarily closing 90% of stores" quickly attracted the attention of netizens, and for a while there was a lot of discussion on the Internet.

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Henan Business Daily reporter learned that the Urban Liren brand is affiliated to Guangdong Urban Liren Industrial Co., Ltd., was established in 1998 and was listed in Hong Kong in 2014. Many netizens said that in the early days of the establishment of Urban Beauty, it was known for its diverse styles and reasonable prices. Urban Beauty has indeed had a "expansion period" in the past few years, and even a street with a few hundred meters apart, there are two urban beauty stores.

As the leader in affordable underwear in the industry, is urban beauty really as hot searches said that 90% of the stores are temporarily closed nationwide?

is difficult to tell whether it is true or false. The news of "90% of the store is temporarily closed" has "flyed" for a while. At nearly 7 o'clock on July 3, a Weibo account called "Urban Beauty Fashion Underwear" posted a Weibo, refuting the rumors about the news that day. The article stated that in order to cooperate with the epidemic prevention work of the epidemic prevention command, Urban Beauty suspended some stores in February and March this year, but after mid-March, as the epidemic eased, many stores resumed business. As of May, the company's sales had reached 80% of the same period last year.

Many urban beauty in Zhengzhou are being discounted significantly, and some stores are as low as 10% off

What is the fact? What is the operating status of urban beauty in Zhengzhou? On the morning of July 7, a reporter from Henan Business Daily visited several urban beauty physical underwear stores in Zhongyuan District, Zhengzhou City, Zhongyuan Wanda, , Erqi District, and Qinlao Street.

Open the mobile map software to search for urban beauty. There are only a few hundred meters of university road, and there are two stores. A reporter from Henan Business Daily learned that the two stores are the same boss. Nine years ago, she contacted the head office of Urban Beauty in Guangdong and operated two underwear stores in the form of franchise.

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One of the stores on University Road has even given an attractive discount of "up to 10% off the whole audience". Clerk Liu Li told Henan Business Daily reporters that July and August are the off-season for underwear sales. There are still some people who come to the store to try on, but there are still very few who actually buy it.

Henan Business Daily reporter noticed that several underwear stores have posted "recruitment" announcements. Liu Li said that she is working in the underwear store. She heard from the boss Li Qian that when the business is good, the store needs two or three people, and it is very busy all day. Now, the boss will come to take care of the business, but, "Overall, we are enough. The boss wants to spend more time to concentrate on taking care of the children, so he wants to hire another person."

Boss Li Qian He told Henan Business Daily that the underwear store had resumed business in mid-March. Now, more than three months have passed and the peak sales season should have not arrived. "Sales in the first half of this year fell by nearly half compared with the same period last year." Guo Yun, a clerk at

Erqi Wanda Jinjie store, said that there were no customers in the store at noon and there would be more people at night, and the promotions in the store should be ordered by the head office.

Henan Business Daily reporters want to learn more about the underwear sales in the first half of this year, but the manager of Erqi Wanda Jin Street and the clerk of the Qinlao Street store are very secretive about this and are unwilling to talk about it.

The registration volume of the entire industry dropped by nearly 30% in the first half of the year

This year's underwear industry is really struggling?

According to Qichacha big data, there are currently 410,000 underwear-related companies in China. In the past decade, the number of registrations of underwear-related companies in my country has been steadily increasing, but in the first half of this year, the number of enterprise registrations fell by 29% year-on-year.

The development of the underwear industry has encountered a bottleneck. Is the blame taken by the epidemic?

has been operating in the underwear sales market for many years. Shi Junchao, the head of Junde Trading, World Trade Center, said that the situation this year is special. The underwear industry missed the peak sales season in the first half of the year due to the epidemic. "I even think that the proportion of corporate registration declines will be higher."

This year, the underwear industry has a difficult road ahead, but Shi Junchao is one of the few unaffected merchants. Even after the epidemic eased, his sales in the first half of the year increased. "As early as June last year, we had already explored live streaming and selling goods." It is worth mentioning that Shi Junchao is the first person in the underwear industry in Zhengzhou to do live streaming.

"At the end of last year, I started live broadcasting through the community I had worked in before." Shi Junchao said that on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month this year, he was sure that the door could not open. On the one hand, he adjusted his direction and contacted the community and logistics companies to do a delivery service; on the other hand, he taught terminal agent customers to do live broadcasts and pre-sales.

Shi Junchao told Henan Business Daily reporters that in fact, the domestic underwear inventory is relatively large, "not even producing new products, and the inventory is enough for the domestic consumption for two or three years."

Underwear is a consumable product and a necessity for daily life, but in the off-season, it is obviously a little passive to wait for customers to come to the door. "Through online live broadcasts, the drainage of hot products can achieve the effect of destocking." Shi Junchao analyzed that downstream retailers have cash flow in their hands after clearing the goods, so that they can form circulation, purchase goods from agents, and revitalize the entire sales chain.

(Editor Liu Mengge Ji Qianqian)