Recently, MANGO, a fast fashion brand from Spain, has closed two offline stores in Beijing, leaving only Yantai Joy City, the only offline store still open in China.
The trend of international fast fashion brands closing stores has spread from ZARA and H&M to MANGO. European and American fast fashion clothing is becoming more and more “difficult” in China.
“The ZARA store I used to visit frequently was closed two days ago.” Ms. Gao, who lives in Shanghai, told Value Planet. “The original stores on Nanjing West Road and Ganghui Hang Lung have been replaced by other brands, and the clothing displays in the remaining stores in other shopping malls also look very confusing – this was the most fashionable high-end brand at the time, and little girls were queuing up at the door! ”
On major social media platforms, the news of European and American fast fashion brands closing stores has also maintained a high degree of discussion: “I want to return the goods but the ZARA store at the door is closed” “Every summer, most of the clothes are from MANGO” , if the store is to be closed, can I only buy online?” “The two recent H&Ms have closed, it seems that they are really no longer popular”…
In fact, these European and American fast fashion brands are not in total decline, but they are no longer as popular among young people in the Chinese market as before. Especially in offline physical stores in major first- and second-tier cities, investment is greater than output.
According to MANGO’s financial report, as early as three years ago, its sales in the Chinese market accounted for less than 1% of its total sales, and 70% of this 1% came from online sales in the Chinese market.
Will European and American fast fashion, which once existed as a landmark brand in shopping malls, really disappear in the Chinese offline market? Why have a large number of European and American fast fashion clothing stores chosen to close their stores and move online? Who was beating European and American fast fashion, which was once hailed as a “high-end line”?
Offline turns to online, fast fashion “retreats”
After 12 noon every day, MANGO’s online live broadcast room is extremely lively.
“Will the broken one be restocked tomorrow?” “Can you try the striped one?” “Please give me a link to this one~” Farewell to MANGO in offline stores, there are still many in the online live broadcast room Fans follow. However, since customers cannot try it on in person, they can only leave a message and ask the anchor to show it on their behalf.
According to data from Taobao Live, the number of fans of “MANGO Flagship Store” is 3.597 million, and the live broadcast is almost continued for more than 10 hours every day, and the number of live broadcast views every day can be maintained at around 10,000 to 20,000 people.
Although this traffic is obviously not large compared to the top anchors who often have 10 million+ views, this is already the main online position left by MANGO, a fast fashion brand from Spain, in the Chinese market.
It is hard to imagine that this brand, which entered the Chinese market in 2002, four years before ZARA entered the Chinese market, has closed its offline stores one after another, leaving only one store in Yantai Joy City still in operation. .
As early as 2019, the brand reached a cooperation with Hangzhou Jingzhe Clothing Co., Ltd. with the purpose of “enhancing MANGO’s online visibility in the Chinese market.” According to a Reuters report in March this year, MANGO CEO Toni Ruiz said, “In the next three years, the brand will no longer prioritize the Chinese market, but will focus on the US and Indian markets.”
MANGO is not the only European and American fast fashion brand that chooses to focus on online. In early January this year, ZARA started online live broadcast on Douyin, and continued to live broadcast for more than 20 games in 3 months. The current number of fans is 1.04 million.
While transforming online, fast fashion brands in recent years have been quietly closing offline stores and leaving in a low-key manner.
MANGO’s offline stores in China have closed from more than 200 at its peak to just one now. ZARA, another well-known Spanish fast fashion brand, has 13 offline stores in Shanghai. Not long ago, it closed its first store after entering the Chinese market, the Nanjing West Road store. As early as 2021, Bershka, Pull & Bear and Stradivarius, which belong to the same parent company Inditex as ZARA, have closed all offline stores in China, leaving only online e-commerce channels.
2007-2017 was the “golden decade” for European and American fast fashion brands in China.
“ZARA is the first ‘big brand’ item I bought.” Lulu, who graduated from Beijing Institute of Technology, told Value Planet that when she was in college ten years ago, ZARA was a very high-end and fashionable brand in the minds of students at the time. In college, she also participated in ZARA’s internship program and worked in offline stores, which made her dorm roommates very envious.
“Actually, when I think about it, I’m just selling clothes at ZARA. People around me look at me as if I work for a foreign company,” Lulu said.
In that era, ZARA, H&M, and MANGO were synonymous with fashion. In addition, European and American fast fashion brands such as C&A, GAP and Forever21, as well as a series of their sub-brands, have chosen large shopping malls in mature business districts as their key offline areas to enter, and have quickly become the first floor of many large shopping malls. Landmark settled brand.
Japanese fast fashion brands entered the Chinese market at almost the same time as European and American fast fashion brands, such as UNIQLO, MUJI, etc. Different from European and American fast fashion brands, Japanese fast fashion focuses on texture, environmental protection, minimalism, and tasteful stores.�Design style. ”
Therefore, European and American fast fashion brands represented by ZARA, backed by a strong supply chain and design team, launch new products twice a week on average and launch more than 10,000 new clothing products every year.
However, today’s rapid-response supply chain is no longer the exclusive advantage of overseas fast fashion brands. The supply chain advantages of domestic brands are gradually becoming more and more prominent. Compared with European and American fast fashion brands, many domestic clothing brands are now “faster” and more “fashionable”.
Mr. Wu, who is engaged in garment OEM production in Zhejiang, told Value Planet, “In the past, many large-scale domestic OEM factories for Japanese, European and American brands moved their factories to Myanmar and Vietnam in Southeast Asia as early as 2010, while many small OEM factories The factory is now also accepting sporadic foreign trade orders and domestic pattern making orders.”
Even when “flexible supply chain” is mentioned, the first reaction of many people in the industry is no longer an overseas clothing brand, but SHEIN, a master of Chinese supply chains that exports to Europe and the United States.
It is precisely by virtue of its supply chain advantages that SHEIN has entered the crowded Red Sea North American market. According to a research report from Zhongtai Securities, SHEIN’s supply chain is scattered among thousands of Chinese garment factories. These small and medium-sized garment factories can accept small orders of less than 500 pieces and quickly produce “small orders” that meet market demand. “Quick Return” mode.
SHEIN also has an efficient software system that can quickly capture the rising popularity of user search keywords. After quickly grabbing popular trends, it can provide factory design and production for these “small orders and quick returns”, which can be completed in less than 7 days. A process from demand feedback to production and then to market feedback.
With the emergence of fast fashion brands and platforms with Chinese supply chain backgrounds like UR and SHEIN, European and American fast fashion will undoubtedly face greater challenges both in the Chinese market and in the local market.
Although Mango only has one offline store left in China, other European and American fast fashion brands are gradually withdrawing from the Chinese market. But its failure in the Chinese market does not mean that the brand itself is declining globally.
In order to solve the problem of “fast fashion” losing its advantages, European and American fast fashion brands are trying to “slow down”. According to data disclosed by Mango in its 2022 performance report, they opened 119 new physical stores overseas last year and will return to the US market in 2023 to launch a strategy for high-end consumer groups.
For European and American fast fashion brands, the era of new speed and low prices is over, and there are latecomers on this track. As the CEO of Mango said when referring to the price war: “This is not our war.”
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