Clothing Network Marketing: 2010 May Become A "Watershed"

This is an era that never lacks creativity, but the creativity generated in this era has its ups and downs!

The rise and prosperity of online shopping clothing industry in China is just within three or four years. When talking about its rise, people always have to mention PPG and Li Liang again. Although PPG has long since passed away, its significance for online shopping clothing brands as a pioneer seeder cannot be denied. The financial crisis has made the foreign trade channel of traditional clothing enterprises suffer a relatively big impact, but it has made the online channel "unexpectedly" prosper in the active and passive way, just as it prospered the online game market and online shopping market in China during the SARS period.

Also at the time of the financial crisis, we noticed that venture capitalists have found new uses for a large number of real gold and silver, and online clothing B2C companies are becoming new favorites. As the representative of online shopping clothing brands, Chen Nian, CEO of Vancl, was busy in the fourth round of financing in 2010. Some industry experts said that, according to the general practice, this may be the last large-scale financing before Vancl's listing; As a peer but with a different model, Macalline successfully completed a historic financing equity change in 2008. Sequoia China bought the shares previously held by Warburg Pincus Fund at the cost of 80 million yuan, officially holding Macalline. Subsequently, a series of actions by Macalline showed that it is likely to become the first "light company" to enter the US capital market this year. In addition, almost all traditional clothing brands have participated in the development of online clothing B2C business in depth or shallowly. If Taobao stores are included, this group has become impressive.

However, behind the boom, especially with the frequent appearance of investment institutions, people found that this emerging industry was accumulating Matthew effect: the strong were getting stronger, the weak were getting weaker, or could not keep up with the pace. In 2010, people found that the pioneers or excellent people were constantly speeding up, while the latecomers or followers were being confused. People can't help asking whether it will be China in 2010 online shopping What is the year of clothing distribution? Fenshui brand?

Subdivide the participants of online clothing shopping in China into three categories. One is companies that build their own online clothing brands, that is, pure e-commerce companies, that is, "mouse companies", such as Vancl, Martha Marceau, etc; One is the network sales channels established by traditional clothing enterprises; Another type is multi-channel clothing B2C enterprises, the most representative of which is McCullin. A large number of clothing e-commerce businesses on Taobao are not included here. On the one hand, many e-commerce businesses on Taobao are C2C businesses, and on the other hand, some stores on Taobao have become one of the franchise channels incorporated by traditional clothing enterprises.

Among the three kinds of participants, the first and third companies undoubtedly need to make brands. Although online shopping brands of traditional clothing enterprises also need to be made, after all, due to the supplement of other offline channels, there is often no sense of brand crisis that is so urgent. Market statistics also strongly prove this point. According to AC Nielsen's advertising monitoring results, in the first two months of 2010, Vancl and McCullin became the first and second runners up in online advertising, with the estimated advertising value of 50.8 million yuan and 50 million yuan respectively. If the advertising in print, outdoor and other emerging media is included, I believe their investment will be quite amazing, even the traditional clothing enterprises with "deep pockets" can hardly match it. Obviously, as two leaders in this industry, both sides are making unremitting efforts for the brand.

The reason why we should continue to brand On the one hand, because it is an effective way to stimulate sales, most companies are still at this stage of advertising, and only a few online clothing brands have begun to promote brands; On the other hand, this is also the necessary price to build a new clothing brand. After all, clothing ultimately depends on the value of the brand; Of course, there is also pressure for investors to move towards the capital market.

However, online shopping started with the advantage of low price far lower than that of traditional channels. Therefore, in the subconscious of consumers, the first direction of purchase is often price, and this thinking pattern will be a fatal blow to companies that want to do online shopping clothing brands. According to Zhengwang Consulting's research on Chinese clothing brands and online shopping of clothing in 2009, if all clothing brands are put together, people's recognition (reference rate) of clothing brands is basically based on familiar names, and emerging online clothing brands are far from appealing. Among the top ten well-known brands for men and women released in the survey, Adidas, are the top three brands for men and women, and emerging brands such as Metersbonwe and KAPPA are also among them.

If the white-collar class in the first tier cities is simply taken as the survey object, it is believed that online shopping brands such as Fanke and Macaulin still have considerable popularity, because this class is one of the most active online users. It is also aware of this that Vancl is constantly promoting the brand of these online customers. Xu Xiaohui, vice president of Vancl, told the reporter that Vancl had decided to use the brand spokesperson, and the internal staff had basically determined the candidate, which was Wang Luodan, a new star who became popular with the help of "Struggle" and "Who's in charge of my youth". The reason for choosing Wang Luodan, Xu Xiaohui said, "Wang Luodan has confirmed that she will be the heroine of the TV series" Promotion ", and this white-collar fashion role is just in line with the brand appeal of Vanke." In addition, Vanke also focuses on college students. According to the information learned from Vanke, Fanke is now carrying out the selection of image spokesmen in major universities across the country, and will influence this important group of network users through this event marketing.

Even microblog, as an emerging way of information exchange, Everyman I will not let it go. They were among the first to enter the microblog internal test in August 2009. In a few months, VANCL has launched a series of activities: 1 yuan to kill the original price of 888 yuan clothing, online shopping gift, inviting Yao Chen, Xu Jinglei and other celebrities to interact and attract users, together with Sina related users to present VANCL brand Weibo, and use the designers of best-selling clothing to tell the story behind the design, Let the employees who have just been on the job for three months freely express their emotional feelings... In addition, the reporter learned from an insider that Fan Ke actually wanted to become the sponsor of the Chinese Football Super League this year, but finally put it aside because of the price.

In addition to ordinary people, McCullin is also constantly bombarding the media. Since the second half of last year, McCullin has not only increased its investment in advertising, but also vigorously carried out publicity and reporting in major mainstream financial media. In addition, it has cooperated with Shanghai TV Station on fashion columns to continuously spread the brand concept of fast fashion.

Compared with these companies committed to building online shopping clothing brands, more enterprises still regard the Internet as just another sales channel of clothing, especially for traditional clothing enterprises. Shao Guoyun, a senior e-commerce researcher, said, "In the eyes of most enterprises, the network is defined as a channel." For these enterprises, it is obviously unrealistic to create online shopping brands. Even their understanding of online shopping clothing B2C is uneven, and this difference in understanding is leading them to another watershed.