H&M How To Deal With Seven Years Itch Relief

A sunny summer afternoon in Beijing, Sanlitun, Taigu, a few blonde children are jumping up and down in the fountain. Storefront 。

At this time, a three glass house in southwestern corner of Taigu, Sweden Magnus Olsson, wearing a light blue shirt and neat trousers, is busy checking the layout, decoration and even the cleanliness of each floor.

This is the 200th door store opened by H&M, a fast fashion brand. It will host more than 600 parties in the evening. As H&M general manager of Greater China and Southeast Asia, Magnus will welcome H&M partners and fashion lovers in Beijing.

More than 1200 square meters of three new stores, providing women's clothing, men's wear, teenage clothing, accessories and many other products, H&M hopes to use this polyhedron design and store simple and refreshing style, in China's most representative commercial center to create the most avant-garde fashion sense.

"Consumers' expectations are much higher than they were 7 years ago. They always expect rapid changes and new, exciting ideas and experiences." Magnus told the twenty-first Century Business Review reporter: "we must always go forward and provide them with a lot of things. This is exciting, but it is also a challenge."

Rapid subsidence

In April 2007, H&M's first store was stationed in Huaihailu Road, Shanghai. Since then, when H&M opened for every new store, every fitting channel was lined up with a long queue of "Z" characters. The average customer waited for 40 minutes to try it once. clothes 。 7 years later, the fast fashion brand has 200 stores in mainland China.

Magnus said that in 2014 it planned to open more than 70 stores in the mainland, and last year H&M added 71 new stores in the mainland and Hongkong. In fact, in the first 4 months of this year, H&M opened 11 new stores in the mainland, including 4 in Beijing, 1 in Guangzhou, and the remaining 6 in two or three cities.

"I haven't seen my wife and children for more than 40 days before I came to Beijing." Magnus said. At the end of 2012, he formally became the general manager of H&M Greater China and Southeast Asia and was stationed in Hongkong since then. Previously, Magnus worked for H&M in the United States and Britain for more than 17 years.

The most important task for Magnus to get to China is to get familiar with a brand new market as soon as possible. Over the past more than 40 days, he has visited more than 30 prefecture level cities in the mainland of China.

"I went to many places to get in touch with local people and understand the local market environment. This is the most effective way to familiarise myself with the Chinese market as soon as possible." Magnus says that every time he goes to a new city, he will understand the local shopping centers and young people. "We are striving to get the largest opening area in the new market, and we must be in the core shopping area of the locality, which is a very potential market for us."

In fact, in addition to H&M, in the past two years, the crazily expanding fashion giants have opened up more and more shops. For example, UNIQLO has opened nearly 50 new stores in Greater China since last August to February this year.

Compared to its biggest competitor, ZARA, H&M is cheaper, and H&M is faster than other fast fashion brands developed in the same way. At the annual mainstream fashion week press conference, H&M's huge design team is eyeing the new trailer of the popular brand on the T stage, completing the design in two to five weeks, and launching about 12000 styles in the global stores every year.

"We can effectively keep the old customers and attract new customers, because the windows and display. Clothes & Accessories Updated every day. " Magnus said, "don't forget that we still have 100 people at headquarters. Designer Teams develop products. "

In 2008, the global sales of H&M were about 100000000000 Swedish kronor (about about 90000000000 yuan), and nearly 1700 stores in the world. At that time, 13 shops in China contributed only 900 million kronor (about 770 million yuan) to sales. China is the bridgehead of H&M's Asian strategy. Since the second half of 2008, H&M has begun to deploy two or three tier cities in China. The first stop is to cover the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region centered on Shanghai and Guangzhou.

For the goal of opening more than 70 stores in the mainland market this year, Magnus said: "China's economy is developing rapidly, and consumers have great demand for our brands. As to whether or not we will accelerate the pace of expansion, we value the quality of opening stores. If we guarantee the quality of the store, we will expand it at the same time. This is the ideal state.

In fiscal year 2013, H&M's net sales in the Chinese market amounted to SEK 6 billion 655 million, an increase of 21.97% over the same period last year. In terms of sales volume, the Chinese market ranks seventh in the global market of H&M.

In fact, over the past few years, the average annual growth rate of China's retail industry has reached two digits. According to the latest statistics released by the National Bureau of statistics, the total retail sales of consumer goods in China increased by 11.8% over the first two months of 2014. As the world's largest population and the second largest economy in the world, China has become the focus of attention of many international retailers.

Side effects of "quick"

From 2007 to the present, the international fast fashion brand represented by H&M seems to be the darling of domestic commercial real estate projects overnight, and its brand stores are expanding rapidly.

Data show that as of June 2013, ZARA, C&A, H&M, UNIQLO and other four international fast fashion brands in China's total number of stores has reached 523, of which nearly 40% are new stores after 2012, which means that these brands on average 3 days to open a new store.

However, when the fast fashion brand develops rapidly, it will inevitably encounter homogenization competition. Now in the first tier cities, fast fashion has become saturated.

In April, the US brand A&F entered Shanghai. In the first month, the British fast fashion brand New Look also officially launched the first Chinese store in Beijing, and then opened second in Shanghai. From product pricing to target customers, the two brands are similar to brands like ZARA, GAP, H&M, C&A, Muji and UNIQLO. At present, only one place in Shanghai Xujiahui business circle concentrates on all the above brand stores, and these fast fashion brands have begun to form a "street selling" competition.

Faced with such cruelty, Magnus said, "our core is fashion, quality and preferential prices." Relying on cost leadership, H&M still has a place in the industry.

In fact, in the eyes of many people, H&M is usually the first choice for cock silk youth in Europe and the United States, and the recent design is also more and more biased towards the street. "Big print", "big letter" and "big camouflage" are the mainstream. However, the disadvantages of the products are obvious, and the quality is very similar to that of the fabric. For quality, though Magnus emphasizes that H&M is producing products of competitive level, it is undeniable that H&M's biggest strength is the same as that of ZARA. clothing From durable consumer goods to innovators of fast moving consumer goods.

　 After 7 years in China, how can H&M relieve itching?

"China is one of H&M's most concerned markets and one of the fastest expanding markets of H&M in 2013." Magnus said, "when we first entered China, it brought a lot of surprises to consumers. But now, 7 years ago, we began to think about how to constantly bring fresh feelings to consumers."

The first step of adjustment is electronic commerce. H&M global CEO Persson has told the media that H&M is committed to a series of "sensible" long-term investment plans, which will have an impact on short-term performance.

"H&M will launch e-commerce business in China later this year." Magnus said that besides establishing online business, H&M also introduced new businesses, such as &Other Stories accessories store, and introduced new concepts such as H&M Sport apparel product line.

At present, H&M has launched network sales in 10 countries. "We hope to cover this business in all markets in the future. Recently, the French market has just launched a network sales business. We plan to extend the business to three markets in Italy, Spain and China from the second half of this year to the end of this year. H&M, director of Public Relations Department of Greater China, told reporters.

Besides e-commerce, another important thing is the home series. Since January 2014, H&M has sold H&M products in China, including Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Chengdu. "Every season, or at the turn of seasons, we will introduce new cushions and cushions to add warmth to our homes." Magnus said.

The Home series was first launched in February 2009, and has now set up H&M Home stores in some markets. This series is divided into different design concepts and furnishings, and H&M Home Kids series is also provided.

Another new business that deserves attention is the H&M sports series. This category has been finely divided by H&M, running, tennis, Yoga series, and the price is lower than Adidas and NIKE brands. According to H&M, about 1900 H&M shops around the world sell women's sports series, and about 500 shops offer men's sports series. At present, there are 60 stores selling sports series in China.

Magnus second days after hosting the opening party, H&M Sanlitun store was officially opened to the public. Today, H&M is still increasing its investment in Asia, especially the Chinese market, and hopes to constantly nugget in this fast growing market.

However, some people have begun to question whether H&M will become a "fast food fashion". Will the speed of rapid expansion after the enthusiasm of H&M make it repeat the fate of Baleno and other Hong Kong and Taiwan brands and become a cheap and low-end brand?

But in Magnus's view, H&M is not worried about this at the moment. "The reason why the brand can stand in the fashion industry is because it has found different positioning and advantages and has carried forward it, no matter the pursuit of cost or the pursuit of update speed."

What makes Magnus more resolute is the two or three line market which now looks "unlimited potential". "The consumers there need us. In those cities, we now have a large number of people queuing up in every store. We want to bring our products to more cities."

After the opening of the Sanlitun store, H&M The team went on to Xi'an, where they had a new store ready to open.