Why does the physical clothing store have a bad business now?

If you ask the owner of the clothing store: Why is business not good now? They are almost always the same answer: Consumers have gone online to buy.

Do shop has become the garment industry consensus, whether active or passive, this seems to have become a business to survive the inevitable. However, the brand maturity and visibility of the higher, online conflicts tend to be more intense, the most direct response on the price, because online prices are often physical stores one-second or less.

How to expand online business without affecting physical stores? How to use other than the "low-cost strategy" of things, netting the customary parity of the net to buy a family? With this doubt, the reporter visited Hangzhou local two clothing enterprises, one is a 20-year history of the old Hangzhou-school women's representative "Blue Portrait", Another is on Taobao's rookie brand "Seven", listen to them about the road of the electric business.

How to settle the price difference under line

Active embrace E-commerce Hangpai women's "Blue Portrait", in 2012, the turnover is 50 million, for a 2011 to start doing E-commerce brand, this performance is very impressive. However, the founder Qian reported this data, just smiled, he is not dissatisfied, but feel the bottleneck.

Blue Portrait is the brand that Qian founded in 1993, has gone through 20 years. Compared to sales, Qian more concerned about, is this he painstakingly built the brand image, will not enter into E-commerce, gradually become a "bargain"?

Blue Portrait at the end of 2011, at present, his cat shop sells two kinds of products: one is offline physical store inventory, discounted sales, accounting for One-third, and the other is for the 25 to 35 years old women research and development of new products, in the positioning and physical retail stores (30 years old to 40 years old) to open the gap, The price is only one-second or even one-third of the physical store.

To this end, the blue portrait of the beginning of the line, set up their own design team, including designers, sample clothing workers, Seihan division, such as a total of 15 people. This year's online team design spring, from the beginning of January, the end of February, a weekly push new, a total of 96 models. Consistent with the offline design rhythm.

"Although there is an independent fashion design team, but in the face of each month to design dozens of pieces, and even hundreds of clothing styles, and then the top design team also have the wisdom of the poor to do." "Qian said.

In order to maintain the brand image (afraid of falling into the low price model), 2012 Taobao "Double 11", Blue portrait did not participate, see 19.1 billion sales figures, Qian also have no heartbeat. Because the blue portrait 2012 line 50 million of sales, accounted for the line of One-tenth, which is the weight?

Qian is now more to take into account the line of the customer's feelings. Many old customers attracted to the shop, but this is also let Qian headache reason, because the online customer unit price is only one-second or even one-third of the entity shop. Brand awareness has thus become a double-edged sword, on the one hand to benefit the online business, on the other hand also eroded the brand's intangible assets.

"The line is under the same brand, how to balance?" Qian joked that the brand he created had a split role.

Shop Marketing Strategy stunt

The exposure of the seven is much higher than these traditional brands. Hungdaiseng, the PR manager of the seven-princess, revealed that they had recently received journalists from The Economist and Businessweek. In the Economist's "Alibaba scene" cover, although the seven is only a simple description of 124 words, but is the only one used to prove the success of Taobao case.

At present, the seven-princess has accumulated more than 2 million of customers, pushing at least 100 to 150 new models each month. Company more than 20 departments, product design, page design, the highest position, the company's founder, Brand director Jianghai boat in the interview, the most talked about is the personality, visual effects, this how much with his professional origin of advertising.

2009, seven chattered 1 million do Taobao home shop recommended, a 100,000 yuan, done 10 times, unknown Seven is from then on the explosion of growth.

For this gamble, the seven princess made full preparation, such as marketing point design gimmick, called "pseudo trend", small crowd but can impress others, their benchmark is Hong Kong's fashion brand I.T, in most sellers still just "take a picture on the sofa, put to shop to sell", they pay a big price to sign the silk of the champion when model, and signed an exclusive agreement.

Seven of the short hair model, after browsing Taobao tens of thousands of models, but still can remember this face. "You see a lot of Taobao model show clothes are posing a few, photographers take a shot, in foreign countries is not so, if you want to shoot two days, then the photographer has a day and a half of the time is to communicate with the model." "The Jianghai boat smiled and said," Seven to the outsourcing of photography this piece, not satisfied with the end can only do their own.

"We're going to do the fashion company." "Jianghai boat repeatedly stressed that in other online shop with micro-letter, micro-blog and fan interaction, seven to its SVIP to the invitation letter, to participate in Shanghai Fashion Week." The micro-movie "Alien", launched last July, hit 1 million in two days.

At present, it seems that the seven play fashion is very handy. Its strongly is based on sales of 350 million in 2012. This is a brand that has not been established for more than 4 years.

Let the shop become the "front desk" of offline trading

Don't look Amoy brand seven to play the Wind, complacent, Jianghai boat revealed that in the near future, seven will open the entity shop, already in the shop.

Imagine, you in the seven online shop to get all kinds of information, to the physical shop fitting, after the direct delivery door-to-door. This is the current very popular concept of "O2O", that is, through discounts, provide information, service booking and other means, the offline store message to the online purchase users, so that they convert to their own offline customers, so that online shop become the "front desk" transactions.

Qian also hope that the O2O can be realized as soon as possible, so that there is no need to consider online, offline differences, a team of ideas on the deal, do not worry about the brand erosion.

More recently, the media reported that bonobos, the largest online apparel brand in the United States, opened 6 entities, not just bonobos, but also the world's largest auction site, ebay, to start planning and investing in physical stores. According to Retialnet, which specializes in retail marketing consultancy services, online sales still do not exceed 10% of the overall retail trade in most countries. This is mainly because consumers complain of "physical and web description," There is a gap, return is a troublesome matter. This became the Achilles heel of online shopping.

Bonobos also will be the entity store as the brand spirit of the delivery, the most direct way is one-on-one VIP services to meet the customer is "attention" needs. This confirms the old designer's view that consumers need not "buy a dress to wear" so simple, but a very sensitive thing, is a set of vanity, visual impact, such as complex and subtle feelings.