Source: Read Finance
Author | Dong Wuying
Editor | Wu Yaling
In the field of consumption, there has always been a saying that seems to be a joke but is actually convincing. In other words, according to the ranking of consumption power, women>children>elderly people>dogs>men.
Female consumers support a huge consumer market. The purchasing power of the women behind Jack Ma cannot be underestimated.
According to Accenture data, China has nearly 400 million female consumers aged 20-60, who control up to 10 trillion in consumer spending every year, enough to form the world's third largest consumer market, close to Europe The combined retail markets of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
Moreover, more than 60% of Chinese household consumption is dominated by women, especially clothing, shoes and hats, maternal and infant products, makeup and beauty products, etc. Women have higher decision-making power. The so-called "her economy" supports more than half of the sky.
For this reason, many entrepreneurs and investors also tend to look for investment opportunities in women's businesses, hoping for greater returns.
But in fact, looking at the consumer market, women’s money is not that easy to make.
Looking at the A-share clothing industry, there are almost no companies with the main brand Hanfu that rank among the top net profits. In the Hong Kong textile and clothing industry, the top net profits are mostly sports shoes and clothing brands.
China's clothing industry has been turbulent for more than 40 years, and the Hanfu market has exceeded one trillion yuan, but so far no big company has emerged. On the contrary, brand men's clothing, with its styles that will not go out of style for many years, has not been wiped out by fashion trends, and has even become the Heilan House with a market value of 30 billion.
You might say that both cosmetics and medical beauty are among the few industries that have accelerated their growth in recent years, and hot stocks have appeared frequently. But in fact, compared with international giants, domestic cosmetics and medical beauty companies are still catching up, and the revolution has not yet succeeded.
In the context of consumption upgrading, the domestic cosmetics industry has a story of localization, and the medical beauty track also has a story of increased penetration and brand concentration. However, the Hanfu business does not seem to have much to offer.
Taking this as a lesson, if we want to tap into the bonanza behind the 400 million “hers”, we still need to have a deeper understanding of the identity changes, value choices, and emotional belonging of women in the transition period in the new era, as well as the A group thus internalizes the ideas, motivations, preferences, and behaviors found in the consumer-level market.
/ 01 /
"Her Economy" upwards,
"Gold Diggers" downwards
By women's strong purchasing desire and consumption The "her economy" market driven by upgrading and joint efforts has been in a state of continuous expansion for many years.
According to Guotai Junan estimates, in the past five years, the overall expenditure of Chinese women has reached 670 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 81%. Other data show that the market size of the "her economy" reached 4.5 trillion in 2019.
The "other economy" that continues to rise has cultivated batches of "gold diggers". But reality tellsOf us, even though the "her economy" continues to rise, more people are crying than laughing.
This is clearly reflected in the Hanfu shoes and clothing market.
According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, the scale of my country's Hanfu market exceeded one trillion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 4.95%. In 2020, the scale reached 1,071.2 billion yuan, accounting for more than 60% of the clothing industry. It’s twice as expensive as men’s clothing.
But even in such a trillion-dollar market, no A-share company with a market value of tens of billions has yet emerged. On the contrary, the men's market, which was not optimistic in the past, has given birth to a Heilan House with a market value of 30 billion.
Even in terms of revenue, in the 2019 China clothing industry rankings, the top three are Heilan Group, Youngor and Hongdou, all of which are mainly men's clothing brands; the largest sales volume of Hanfu is La Chapelle (SH: 603157) is currently in trouble. The annual sales of other brands are about 2.5 billion yuan.
Ten years ago, the leading brands in the high-end Hanfu market were Caesars and Langzi (SZ: 002612). But now, Caesar Co., Ltd. has changed its name to Caesar Culture (SZ: 002425), completely divested its Hanfu business and focused on gaming and copyright operations; Langzi Co., Ltd.’s main business is still Hanfu, but the market is obviously paying more attention to its medical beauty assets.
La Chapelle, the former leader in Hanfu, once had sales exceeding 10 billion, and has now been turned into a popular "Taobao brand". Handu Clothing House, which focuses on Korean style, gave up its IPO, referring to the same Hanfu brand. The sales of Tao brand Rongmei Co., Ltd. continue to decline, and Handu Yishe’s life is not easy now.
Even abroad, some Hanfu brands have filed for bankruptcy. For example, Iger, who has witnessed the youth of countless people born in the 80s and 90s, has gone bankrupt and liquidated, retreating to the underwear business; Ascena, the parent company of Ann Taylor, one of the largest Hanfu brands in the United States, has also filed for bankruptcy protection.
In the women's underwear market, Victoria's Secret, which once sold 600 pieces of underwear every minute with sales of US$10.75 billion, has also stepped down. In 2019, Victoria's Secret will stop holding catwalk shows in 2020. Victoria's Secret UK declares bankruptcy. Many people marveled that an era had come to an end.
Metropolitan Beauty, its imitator in China, is also having a hard time, with its performance declining severely. At the same time, the rapid rise of some Internet underwear brands that do not follow the sexy path of Victoria's Secret has made the market seem to be revitalized.
As for women's shoes, Belle, the king of shoes for a generation, has sadly delisted and experienced a sharp decline in profits before delisting. The market value of Daphne International (HK:00210) and Qianbaidu (HK:01028) is only a few hundred million Hong Kong dollars, and the market value of Tianchuang Fashion (SH:603608) in the A-share market is only about 2 billion.
Taken together, the trillion-dollar women's shoes and apparel market looks extremely beautiful, but is actually quite cruel. Despite the dazzling and strong consumption power, there is no large-scale listed company in the Hanfu market. we agreedWhich is the best way for women to make money?
/ 02 /
A problem of the century,
Women are good at "changing"
Relatively speaking, changes in the male consumer market have Not nearly as quickly as women. Women are naturally more sensitive to changes in fashion and trends than men, so the female consumer market changes rapidly and frequently.
For this reason, women’s business may seem big, but it is actually not easy to do. Hanfu is typical and can easily be washed away in the next round of changes.
On the contrary, looking at the nearly 100 billion female care market, Hengan International (Seven Dimensions) has been the leader in the sanitary napkin market for so many years. In the final analysis, it is not because the market has not changed much.
In the past ten years, they were more engaged in market education and telling stories about penetration rates; in recent years, the domestic penetration rate has been the same as that of developed countries in Europe and the United States, and the market has become saturated, and they have begun to talk about high-end and high-end products. Brand story. From the perspective of its product attributes, how can there be too many changes?
Compared with other consumer goods, the most difficult thing about Hanfu is the unpredictability of demand.
Recognize the brand for men's clothing, and recognize the style for Hanfu. The styles of men's trousers have remained almost unchanged for 10 years, and they may still be the same 10 years from now. This is simply unimaginable in the Hanfu market. Last year’s clothes are simply not worthy of you this year.
In other words, the core contradiction in the Hanfu market at this stage is the contradiction between the demand for multiple varieties and the rapid changes in demand and the slow supply. Domestic Hanfu, represented by La Chapelle, wanted to break through through "fast fashion", but fell into the ZARA trap and was overwhelmed by inventory.
If Hanfu Company wants to expand its revenue scale, it needs to expand SKUs to meet the multiple needs of consumers. However, clothing companies usually stock up half a year to a year in advance, and it is still unknown whether they can be truly accepted by consumers. of.
The direct consequence of the "fastness" of fast fashion is that brands quickly launch new products while watching new products that have been on the market for less than two weeks turn into "old goods." It is said that La Chapelle releases new products about once a week, and more frequently during the season change.
According to statistics, only 50%-60% of the products in the clothing industry can be sold at regular prices in the current season, and the remaining 40% can only be sold at discounts, which will lead to a large profit margin gap. Frequent discounts are very harmful to the brand.
Compared with brand damage, companies are more afraid of inventory. That is to say, even with discounts, it is impossible to sell all the products, and the sell-out rate will not increase, which will lead to a backlog of inventory and drain the company's cash flow.
In fact, if you do not pursue large scale, smaller Hanfu companies will have a lot of inventory after the season is out of season due to poor sales. However, because the total quantity is small, they can still find ways to increase sales through Big discounts, cash back.
So there is no problem in maintaining a small and beautiful business in the Hanfu market, but if we want to achieve large-scale expansion and sustainable development, we will inevitably encounter this problem.
La Chapelle is a typical example, with revenue once exceeding 10 billion and nearly 10,000 stores. When someoneIf the sales of new products launched by the company in a year are not smooth, it will lead to high inventory and serious losses. The annual report shows that La Chapelle’s merchandise inventory was 2.555 billion yuan in 2018 and 2.826 billion yuan in 2019. The inventory has been rising.
If inventory turnover is fast, there is nothing wrong with inventory growth. But compared to other fast fashion brands, La Chapelle’s inventory turnover is significantly slower. In recent years, its inventory turnover days have exceeded 200 days, Uniqlo's inventory turnover days have been around 140 days, and ZARA's parent company has only more than 80 days.
It should be noted that the reason why these offline brands, represented by La Chapelle, cannot laugh in the upward channel of the "her economy" is because of the rise of e-commerce. The offline purchasing power has been diverted, and the decline in performance has caused business difficulties; on the other hand, because they lack innovation, the pace of chasing trends cannot keep up with the changes in female consumption.
Behind the rise of e-commerce, is it not the change in women’s consumption habits? While young girls are starting to shop online based on recommendations from internet celebrities, La Chapelle is still opening stores, and cooperating with fashion experts is a new marketing method that it did not expect.
When it reacts and chooses the layout online, everything is too late.
/ 03 /
The awakening and expression of "her power"
Even if the women's underwear business does not pursue "fast fashion" too much, it is not that easy to do. .
A market worth hundreds of billions. According to Euromonitor data, the compound growth rate of retail sales in China's women's underwear market from 2012 to 2019 was 8.26%, which is much higher than the average level of the footwear and clothing industry. It stands to reason that when the industry develops to a certain stage, resources and profits will be concentrated in leading companies.
But in recent years, whether they are urban beauties or admirers, these underwear giants have had a hard time.
The former took the franchise route and expanded rapidly. However, as women's needs became increasingly diverse and changed, they also tasted the bitter pills of inventory brought by the franchise system, and their performance changed significantly; in order to seize the market, the latter started in 2018. Increase the layout of offline direct stores and e-commerce channels.
However, the expansion did not bring rapid growth in revenue. Instead, the inventory balance increased year after year. According to the prospectus, from 2017 to 2019, inventory increased from 746 million to 1.132 billion yuan, and the inventory turnover days increased from 348 days to 377 days.
This means that more than a year has passed since a piece of underwear was produced and sold. The new model has already become the old model. It is no wonder that the company's performance has declined year after year.
After experiencing everything from scratch, women’s demands for underwear are becoming more and more diverse, and companies are facing more and more challenges.
Take fashion and trends as an example. As a social animal, humans have a strong motivation to prove to society that they are fashionable and have not been eliminated by the times. To a certain extent, the reason why a trend becomes a trend is because it is niche.Once the niche becomes the public, everyone will start looking for new trends.
These characteristics determine that businesses that take advantage of trends tend to come and go quickly, just like the trend itself. Looking back, isn’t that what Korean-style Hanfu is?
You may not know that the top three Chinese Hanfu brands in 2019 are Uniqlo (1.5%), Adidas (1.1%) and La Chapelle (0.9%). The leader of Hanfu is actually Uniqlo, which dominates the world with basic styles and men's clothing. The world has really changed.
Looking now, national fashion, boyfriend style, even Hanfu and genderless clothing are becoming increasingly popular. But La Chapelle still stayed where she was, framing herself in a sweet and cute style.
According to Tmall’s consumer insights, genderless clothing is becoming a new trend in the fashion industry, and more than 60% of consumers are women. Clothing is no longer seen as a tool to distinguish gender, it is more like an expression of self.
Behind this is actually the awakening of women’s independence and consumption consciousness. Could it be that the decline of Victoria’s Secret comes from this?
The famous fashion critic Vanessa Friedman is the pioneer of the "anti-Victoria's Secret" movement, "When I saw supermodel Shanina Shaik walking in pink tight underwear, with big bows tied to her chest and ankles, and high heels. At that time, I thought how could a woman dress up like this to please herself? "
In the past, it was often said that women should only look good to please themselves, but now, more and more people realize that all beauty should not be done. Just to please others. Women have never stopped pursuing beauty, but they have a new definition, and this definition happens to be more diverse.
Victoria’s Secrets are getting old, but the world is getting younger, and differences are becoming more important than commonalities. Women no longer use cultural aesthetics, but consumption aesthetics to highlight their individuality.
If brands that do business with women haven’t reacted, it might be another tragedy.
/ 04 /
It is better to sell feelings than to sell humanity
As the saying goes, it is better to sell things than to sell feelings, and to sell feelings than to sell humanity. The reason why the Hanfu business is not doing well has to go back to the consumer psychology affected by gender.
According to relevant research results, men and women are very different in their underlying thinking logic. Women prefer to consider and evaluate things from an interpersonal perspective, while men prefer to look at problems from an abstract collective perspective.
Therefore, female consumers are less loyal to abstract concepts such as companies and brands than men, but they are more loyal to the services provided by individuals. This also leads to female consumers being more susceptible to the influence of others, and sometimes their motivation to buy may just be because everyone else is buying.
This can also explain why women are more obsessed with the fan economy and live streaming, and why Xiaohongshu has become a mecca for female consumption.
At present, the KOL promotion and planting grass promoted by major brands are actually completelyThe beauty strikes the most essential part of their humanity:
Herd mentality: Many bloggers are using it, I want to try it too;
Authority mentality: KOL builds fans through high-quality content A sense of trust, I believe that the recommendation by KOL is correct;
Realistic mentality: Is the effect as good as the introduction, and the price/performance ratio is high, buy it and give it a try.
From a global perspective, women are much more receptive to brand information spread through word-of-mouth than men. Men believe in "black and white" and are more rational. Even in the matter of live streaming, we can see the different thoughts of the anchors.
If you have watched Luo Yonghao’s live broadcast, you will find that he especially likes to use words such as “maybe the most awesome on the planet” and “this screen has XXX resolution”. Men are very attracted to these things. And as for Li Jiaqi, how many women's pockets have been emptied by saying "This color is beautiful" and "Trust me to buy it"?
Women are more likely to be tempted and make impulsive purchases. It seems that selling things to women should be much easier than selling things to men, but the tragedies of countless brands tell us that it is getting harder and harder for women to make money. earn.
Behind this is the fact that contemporary women’s purchasing links have already undergone drastic changes. From planting to final purchase, countless details and factors may cause them to switch to other brands. In addition to price and quality, social recommendations, good looks, celebrity endorsements, and Internet celebrity recommendations may also be reasons for women to place orders.
In terms of the shopping process, men and women are also very different. Generally speaking, men don't enjoy the shopping process very much. They don't like going shopping and feel that this process does not bring pleasure. If they are short of a pair of sneakers, they will buy them as quickly as possible, in the most convenient way, and at the best price.
Women pay more attention to experience, especially young and high-income female consumers. Shopping is not only buying things, but also a buying experience and a way of life. Even if you don’t buy anything, you can still enjoy shopping for an afternoon.
Independence, pursuit of quality, cost-effectiveness, appearance, sense of ceremony, loving oneself, and being lucky, this is what Accenture strives forCrowd portrait made of women. Some changes in aesthetic trends and women's psychological needs can also be seen in the slogans of 3.8 every year: first it was a girl, then it was a goddess, and now it is a queen.
/ 05 /
Two exceptions
It is difficult for the Hanfu business to quickly improve performance in an industrially standardized way. Personality and scale are destined to be mutually exclusive. Two factors.
However, there are two exceptions. SHEIN and Lululemon.
The former’s business model is very similar to ZARA, which engages in supply chain management. The core of the company is hundreds of designers, who can receive the latest fashion trends in the market at any time and design clothes that are most in line with local fashion styles at any time; Production is handed over to domestic cooperative factories, with small batches, quick turnover and light assets. According to "Late", SHEIN has shortened the process from proofing to production to 7 days at the fastest, which is 7 days shorter than ZARA's fastest time.
Faster than ZARA, SHEIN not only sells new products quickly, but also has more styles and higher cost performance. More importantly, its sales are completely dependent on online, and 100% of its advertising exposure comes from opinion leaders in social media. , big Vs and ladies on various social media are promoting it, stimulating the consumption desire of foreign women all the time.
As a result, the trendy Hanfu fast fashion market has already become a red sea. Countless brands have fallen into decline, but SHEIN has been making rapid progress. In 2017, its GMV was 4 billion yuan. In 2019, it directly exceeded 20 billion yuan. In the first half of 2020, it exceeded 40 billion yuan, which is close to one Uniqlo, two Victoria's Secret, or three Levi's.
SHEIN has solved the inventory problem by relying on the developed domestic manufacturing industry and using small orders and quick turnaround. But this may not work in the country.
It’s very simple. ZARA sells swimsuits at a discount of 20 US dollars, and SHEIN sells swimsuits at a regular price of 13 US dollars. In the 1688 store of SHEIN supplier, the listed price is less than 4 US dollars...
In comparison, Lululemon tells us that it is better to define new categories than to create new products.
New categories are not new products. Categories need to create a product type that does not originally exist in the minds of consumers.
Founded 20 years ago, Lululemon’s sales in 2019 were close to US$4 billion with a pair of yoga pants, and its current market value exceeds US$40 billion.
The exception of Lululemon is, on the one hand, because it created a new category, yoga sportswear, and led a new trend. It meets the needs of female consumers with high-quality products, and has even become synonymous with yoga sportswear.
On the other hand, Lululemon has focused on the yoga apparel market since its establishment. In order to cater to women’s experiential consumption needs, it has created a fitness and yoga community, which not only provides regular fitness classes, but also organizes large-scale Yoga activities. In this way, consumers and products are establishedThere is an emotional connection between the cards that goes beyond buying and selling.
This emotional connection has enabled Lululemon to gain extremely high consumer loyalty, even reaching a "religious feeling." Coupled with its management capabilities, this business can be made large enough.
In fact, according to the classic value investment perspective, category has never been a barrier to competition. There are countless examples of latecomers and firstcomers in the consumer sector. Just like the first brand to make room temperature yogurt was Guangming, but this new category was divided up by Mengniu Yili.
Going back to the Hanfu market, for all players, category is not a moat. If you can do it, others can do it; design is not a moat. At most, you can poach people at double the price; for the public For consumer goods, brands are not moats, and there is no brand loyalty that cannot be bought for three cents cheaper; channels are moats, but the barriers are not high and the maintenance costs are high.
Only by completely opening up these four-point chain can the category be transformed into a brand, occupying the minds of consumers and creating barriers to competition.
Overall, women’s business, represented by Hanfu, is not easy to do, but there are ways to break the situation. The most basic products must fully meet the needs of female consumers; products must quickly keep up with or even create trends to continue to gain the favor of female consumers; although brands face the embarrassment of low loyalty, they can still obtain high-quality products through emotional connections. Loyal users.
After all, what bad intentions can a girl have?
