The Standard Uniqo Everlane Entered The Chinese Market

Driven by the Chinese market, Japan's fast fashion UNIQLO is becoming a new benchmark for the apparel industry, and its competitors are constantly emerging.

According to fashion business news, Everlane, the US environmental protection fashion brand, has announced that Tmall will open its flagship store in August 26th. It will officially open in August 26th. Besides the full range of men's and women's wear products, it also includes the brand new environmental shoe series this year, which has attracted nearly 5000 fans. In addition, Everlane has opened WeChat official public address and micro-blog, and has officially entered the Chinese market in an all-round way.

According to the first article in the Everlane WeChat public address, "Everlane" was translated into "real life". It was founded in 2011 by MichaelPreysman in San Francisco, USA, which is a high quality basic fund. At first, only a cotton T-shirt was awarded $1 million 100 thousand in angel investment.

Although Everlane resolutely does not open a physical store, it will set up an experiential store "TheLab" online, and online will invite different models of skin and color to take photos of products to meet the needs of different consumers. In order to fully stimulate consumers' curiosity and desire to buy, Everlane will also announce the new products in the official website.

Under the premise of guaranteeing quality, Everlane's products strictly comply with the environmental protection principle from the very beginning. The production of ordinary jeans needs 1500 liters of water, while Everlane only needs 0.4 liters of circulating water. The brand Renew series is made of 3 million non degradable plastic bottles. MichaelPreysman said that if a brand wants to really implement the concept of environmental protection, it must have high quality and wearable clothing.

It is noteworthy that Everlane is one of the few fashion brands in the fashion industry that has a transparent and non discount pricing process. In each product detail page, Everlane will have a column to introduce cost price, including raw materials, labor costs, customs duties and freight charges. It will also mark the profits of Everlane and the profits of general retailers. Now this practice has been extended to Tmall flagship store.

Everlane is also the first fashion brand that dare to open factories and suppliers together. In the fiercely competitive apparel industry, it is doubtless crucial to have reliable factories and suppliers. Many brands often encrypt the relevant information in order to avoid counterfeit products or otherwise circulate in the market. Everlane will not only disclose the name of the manufacturer, but also include the establishment time and the total number of employees.

A high degree of transparency gives consumers a great trust in Everlane. Whether it is brand or product quality, Everlane does not need to do too much marketing. It has established a good reputation among consumers. It has achieved sales of $12 million in only 2 years, doubled in 2014, exceeded $50 million in 2015, and broke 100 million dollars in 2016, and its valuation is now close to $2 billion.

Careful observation shows that Everlane's success path is very similar to that of UNIQLO.

UNIQLO has become an exception to the fast fashion industry by selling basic funds. Like Everlane, UNIQLO's main source of revenue is the foundation. The brand's parity, simple and quality products become consumers' first choice for every season.

UNIQLO is also the first traditional fast fashion brand to publish the list of supply chain. It aims to enhance its transparency so as to get consumers' trust. According to the latest public reports, the suppliers of UNIQLO are mainly distributed in the names and addresses of 242 factories in 11 countries, including China, Indonesia and Burma. There are 128 foundries in China, accounting for 50% of the total. The group also has many factories in Southeast Asia, including 44 in Vietnam and 24 in Bangladesh.

In order to find a breakthrough, the founder of UNIQLO Liu began to focus on the technological innovation and channel digitalization of products, and accelerated the expansion of globalization. In his latest earnings report, he stressed once again that the group's medium-term vision is to become the world's leading apparel retailer by virtue of "digital consumer retail enterprises". Last week, Ryui Masa admits that in order to revive the already touches of Japanese business, the group is strengthening its learning business model in China.

Willow well is also pointing out that the future of clothing is more important than fashion. He believes that fashion trends will change over time, but it is possible to provide functional products from actual needs, regardless of trends, and UNIQLO's business in China is also seen as an important part of promoting globalization.

After entering China for 13 years and landing on Tmall 10th anniversary, UNIQLO's overseas business scale has exceeded Japan's domestic market under the impetus of Greater China. According to fashion business express data, in the first 9 months ended May 31st, UNIQLO's sales in the international market rose 14.6% to 820 billion 500 million yen, or 52 billion 100 million yuan. China is still the main driving force for the growth of international business, and the sales volume of the brand in the Chinese market has increased to double digits during the period.

Up to now, UNIQLO has a total of about 700 stores in mainland China, and plans to increase to 1000 in 2020. The number of fans in Tmall flagship store is as high as 18 million 610 thousand. It is also the first fast fashion brand in WeChat's official flagship store.

Analysis shows that the rapid growth of UNIQLO's performance in China is inseparable from the brand's active expansion strategy. In addition to opening nearly 100 stores a year, the business and digital businesses combined with offline shops are also advancing smoothly. UNIQLO is trying to learn from its successful experience in the Chinese market to stimulate its growth in the local market.

Another industry pointed out that Everlane chose to enter the Chinese market with great potential at this time, which is related to the pressure of market competition. As the overall recognition level of the fashion industry has improved, more and more brands have begun to regard sustainability as a prerequisite rather than a cost. Zara, H&M, Gap and other fast fashion and traditional clothing brands have promised to further implement sustainable development measures. Each enterprise has submitted specific targets for sustainable design, old clothes recycling and the use of recycled textiles by 2020.

According to the report released by Lyst, the global fashion search platform, since last October, the search volume of consumers for sustainable fashion has increased by 66% over the same period last year. The social media has discussed 9 million 300 thousand of the discussions. Among them, the cooperation series launched by StellaMcCartney and StanSmiths is one of the products with high volume of search. In addition, the number of words such as "econyl" and "moral brand" has been rising.

However, recent surveys have found that consumers can hardly distinguish brand initiatives. The terms used by different brands are extremely vague. For example, "sustainable", "green", "green", "moral", "responsible manufacturing", or even "upgrading" and other words lack specific and unified definition. Brands and consumers have not yet reached the legal basis for consistent compliance.

To be sure, Everlane will force the Chinese market, or pose a further threat to UNIQLO. Before this, H&M group's high-end brand COS, which also has the basic funds, has already entered Tmall. At present, the number of fans has reached 650 thousand.

In the past, the clothing industry has discussed more about cost, price advantages and how to survive. Until today, enterprises with far sighted vision have more opportunities. With the increase of the number of entries, the business of sustainable fashion has just begun.