Selling clothes is better than making clothes

"Fast fashion" has become popular, completely changing people's consumption habits and retail business model.

In Britain, people now own four times as many clothes as they did 30 years ago. Each person spends an average of 625 pounds a year on clothes, and buys new clothes every year clothes 28 kg, and 1.72 million tons of fashion products are consumed annually. It is worth noting that clothes of the same weight are thrown into the trash every year, although they are far from old clothes.

Data shows that the relationship between people and clothes is changing. In the past, people bought clothes according to their income, demand and season, and it was common to wear one or two years of clothes. In the era of "fast fashion", people paid less attention to clothes than before, and the focus of fashion industry also shifted from manufacturing to sales.

Because we know this well, Britain clothing Philip Green, founder of Topshop, has achieved great commercial success. In 2002, he bought Arcadia Group for 850 million pounds, making the clothing chain a "cheap fashion paradise" in Britain.

On this basis, Green set up a Topshop chain store to sell fashion designed and cut close to international first tier brands at a price acceptable to ordinary people. Three years after its establishment, Topshop's sales exceeded 1 billion pounds in half a year, while the annual sales of the whole British clothing market was only 7 billion pounds at that time.

For beauty lovers with limited income, the Topshop stores all over the street are a shortcut to the fashion runway. They see "styles" in fashion magazines, and then go to the Topshop to buy similar styles of clothes at low prices.

For retailers eager for sales performance, the successful model of Topshop is worth flaunting. Low price is only one of the reasons why Topshop is successful. Following the market trend and rapidly adjusting the supply variety is another main reason why Topshop attracts consumers. "Fast fashion" has become the industry standard.

Fashion "quick response"

"Fast fashion" has not only changed the business model of the retail industry, but also completely changed the production, supply and marketing of the fashion industry.

When stores adjust their supply with the changing trend, "quick response" becomes the key to winning the competition.

The garment factory emphasizes not quantity but speed. Every retailer is eager to get the most responsive supply chain, and the production cycle is constantly compressed, from weeks to days or even hours.

While increasing the production speed, the working hours of garment factories become more flexible. Because fashion trends change so fast, retailers often never place orders until the last minute. No matter day or night, as long as the British design team produces the final drawings, the buyer who specially contacts the supplier will send a fax to contact the garment processing factory in the developing countries.

A few years ago, a single order from a large retailer usually agreed to produce 40000 pieces of clothes in four styles within 20 weeks. Nowadays, it is difficult for garment factories to receive large orders with such a long production cycle. If a retailer is willing to order 10000 pieces of clothing within five weeks, any clothing factory will feel lucky.

As the first "quick reaction force" in the fashion industry, Topshop successfully reduced the production cycle from 9 weeks to 6 weeks. This record was soon set. Another British clothing chain, H&M, completed the whole process from design to product listing in three weeks.

Limited edition "tease"

At the same time, Zara, a clothing retailer from Spain, introduced the concept of "limited edition" to completely rewrite the game rules of "fast fashion".

On the basis of the reduction of production in the industry, Zara further desalinated the quantity requirements and replaced them with a great variety of varieties. Zara design team designs 40000 models every year Clothes & Accessories Among them, 12000 styles have been produced and put on the shelves, providing 5000 more varieties than Topshop.

When the first Zara store in the UK opened in Regent Street, London, its marketing strategy was confusing. Compared with shops like Topshop, Zara's price is not cheap, but it is acceptable. Undeterred consumers found that if they did not immediately buy the clothes they wanted, they might return empty handed the next week.

This is the success of Zara. By reducing the number, consumers become hungry, that is, the so-called "limited edition teasing". This kind of marketing strategy causes consumers' psychological panic, fearing that if they hesitate a little, they will miss the purchase opportunity forever.

Even Green, who created the Topshop, praised Zara's strategy endlessly.

"Genius is the essence of fashion industry," he commented in an interview with industry magazines. Many clothing brands, including Esprit and Mongo, quickly copied Zara's success: the lead time was shortened to the minimum, product categories were no longer limited to four seasons, and the number of each style was significantly reduced.

For fashion retailers, inventory on hand is the most outdated performance. For consumers, the traditional factors that measure the quality of clothing, such as materials and brands, are no longer important. We are busy buying the latest and trendy designs and are willing to try different designs for more than 20 dressing seasons every year.

In the era of "fast fashion", if someone is satisfied with dressing in accordance with the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, he is a "fashion dinosaur".

"Luxury democratization"

Cheap clothing chains are not the only commercial beneficiaries of fast fashion. When cheap goods are rampant, the top fashion brands with high prices are aggressively exploring new markets, claiming to be "luxury democratized".

July 2001, British clothing shoes Hat sales increased by 12% year on year, the highest annual growth rate since the mid-1970s. At the same time, clothing retail prices continued to decline. In 2001, the overall retail price of clothing in the UK fell by 6%. In the four years from 2003 to 2007, the average retail price of clothing fell by another 10%.

Small profits but quick turnover is the way to success of "fast fashion". In addition to many clothing brands offering annual discounts of 30% to 50%, there are more clothing chains in the UK that focus on cheap products. Primark is a model, and the guide price of each piece of clothing of the brand is only 4 pounds. Low prices encourage consumers to buy too much, and ordinary people can change four clothes a day.

When consumers are secretly happy to cut their spending on clothes, the mix and match trend is quietly rising. The so-called "mix and match" refers to the "art of mixing luxury goods with cheap goods" as stated by the Sunday Times Magazine in 2005. This fashion is the default, as long as you wear a luxury, even if the whole body is cheap. Since then, cheap is no longer a fashion taboo.

Luxury products that aim at the high-end market all the year round therefore find a "new continent" and turn to explore the potential of middle-income consumers.

Since buying clothes has saved a lot of money, why not buy a luxury to reward yourself and practice the most fashionable "mixed dream"? The CEOs of luxury groups claim that this is "luxury democratization", making luxury goods "within reach".