Uniqlo and H&M Accelerate Shop

The competition in China's apparel consumer market has become increasingly fierce, but h&m and UNIQLO’s two fast fashion giants have accelerated their pace in the Chinese market and a new competition has been launched in all directions. Following h&m's opening of its seventh new store in Guangzhou, Uniqlo also opened its largest flagship store in South China in Guangzhou recently. Related leaders of the two fast-fashion giants told the public that at least 80 stores will be opened in China in 2014. In response to the rapid development of Uniqlo's e-commerce business in the Chinese market, h&m's top executives also revealed that e-commerce business will be launched in China later this year.

Accelerate the opening of stores, focusing on the layout of second and third-tier cities

After China's clothing industry experienced a great leap forward a few years ago, many domestic clothing brands began to enter the stage of treatment and injury and inventory clearance. Many brands have successively released annual report results show that this industry is not a good job, the domestic clothing market began to Into the doldrums. However, for foreign fast fashion brands, the Chinese market has become a scent. In 2014, foreign fast fashion giants began a series of layouts in the Chinese market, especially in the South China market.

As early as January of this year, when h&m was stationed in Guangzhou Xicheng Duhui, h&m Greater China, Singapore, and Malaysian general manager magnus olsson stated to the outside world that h&m has grown rapidly since entering China in 2007, and that Guangzhou Xicheng Huihui shop is h&m’s The 7th store opened in Guangzhou. At this point, all stores in Guangdong exceeded 23, becoming the largest provincial market for h&m in China. Related data shows that h&m has 228 stores in China. For the follow-up plan, magnus olsson did not disclose too much, but said it will continue to open new stores in China.

The latest news shows that h&m will open 80-90 new stores in China this year, the largest number in the global market. This information was revealed by h&m CEO karl-johan persson during an interview with Bloomberg. It is said that the layout of the new store is focused on the second and third tier cities.

Another Uniq, a foreign fast-fashion brand, recently opened its largest and newest flagship store in southern China in Guangzhou. Executive Vice President of Fast Retailing Group Global Senior Vice President and CEO of Uniqlo Uniqlo Greater China Co., Ltd. said that since its official entry into the Chinese market in September 2002, Uniqlo has more than 260 stores in more than 50 cities nationwide. He disclosed that Uniqlo will open 80-100 new stores in Greater China each year. South China, Central China and Southwest China will be the key areas for Uniqlo's future expansion. This year, there will be 3 to 40% of new stores coming from Guangdong Province. He also said that in the future, new stores will focus on the layout of the second and third tier markets.

For the strategy of fast fashion brands one after another in the layout of second- and third-tier cities, one person in the industry is not optimistic. According to the analysis, from the perspective of Zara, it has opened many stores in the second and third tier cities. However, it turns out that the truly successful stores are basically located in first-tier cities.

In the e-commerce business another new action

In addition to the competition in the physical store layout, Persson revealed to the outside world that h&m will also try more new businesses, such as &other stories accessory stores, and introduce new concepts such as the h&m sport apparel line. In addition, the company is currently working on another brand, but did not disclose details.

It also stated that h&m is working on a series of “wise” long-term investment plans. For example, h&m will launch an e-commerce business in China later this year to boost the performance of the Chinese market.

"In the future, we will not rule out the development of our own e-commerce platform." Penning said in an interview with a media reporter. According to reports, Uniqlo has already formed an alliance with Taobao and opened the official flagship store of Uniqlo in the Tmall Mall. In the “double 11′′ year last year, Uniqlo’s official online flagship store’s single-day sales exceeded 120 million yuan and sold more than a million items in total, an increase of over 500% year-on-year. This data fully proves the correctness of Uniqlo's layout of e-commerce business. Panin also revealed that online sales currently account for about 6% of Uniqlo's overall sales in China.

“We hope that online sales will account for 20%-30% of total sales in the future. We are also exploring the new model of o2o, hoping to bring more services to consumers.”

This reporter learned that last year UNIQLO has begun to try the online and offline linkage o2o model, consumers in the physical store to buy the QR code on the app to discount the specified product purchase. Recently, Uniqlo’s online flagship store has launched a 5th anniversary celebration event to offer consumers a “Full 300 minus 60, full 600 minus 150” discount.