Apparel Retailing: Shuffling And Upgrading

"The price of children's clothing in winter has increased by at least 35%."

Shandong children's clothing

He has the same feeling as Ms. Wang, who has been doing women's clothing business in the mall for 5 years, and has been accustomed to the rise of clothing prices every year. But in the winter of 2010, she didn't get a rise in the spectrum, which was still the first impression in her mind.

However, not only is the department store's brand clothing price rising collectively, clothing wholesale.

"The prices of autumn and winter clothing this year are higher than those of the previous two years."

Most of the department stores and the heads of the enterprises interviewed by the reporters said that the price of clothing was set up according to the production cost and market price of clothing, and it was not automatically raised by people for reasons.

The rise in clothing prices is due to the rising production of raw materials such as cotton and chemical fiber in 2010.

At the same time, the prices of these accessories, such as zippers, buttons, glass and crystal products, are also rising rapidly.

In addition, the labor shortage in domestic garment industry is increasing, and the labor cost is increasing year by year.

Besides the pressure of rising raw material prices and rising labor costs, the pressure from commercial real estate costs is not small.

Nowadays, the location of large cities in China is becoming less and less suitable, and rents are showing a steady rise every year.

But in many domestic clothing wholesale markets, many businesses are also complaining of rising store rentals.

"The same clothes, the purchase price is raised, the retail price must be mentioned.

Plus, in the past two years, the electricity and water rents in the shopping mall are rising, the wages of salesmen are rising, and discount activities are going to take part. Our pricing has naturally increased.

A brand agent said that they also did not want the price to rise, the price rose, the sale was not good, completed the store sales volume to have the difficulty, but because all kinds of cost pressures increased, they also had to take advantage of the situation to rise a bit, also did not dare to increase.

The marketing director, Hu Wen, said that consumer loyalty is based on price and quality, and consumers have accepted your current price. If suddenly increased prices will cause customers to lose.

"The company is very reluctant to raise prices, but now the cost pressure is too great, so we can't afford to lose it."

Inventory pressure increases

However, the rise in clothing prices did not bring corresponding sales growth to dealers, and in 2010, the peak season for sales of cotton and down garments did not appear.

"For over ten years, children's clothing business has never seen such a light winter clothing market."

Mr. Ma said that sales of cotton clothes began to rise in mid October, and the sales season for cotton and down clothing was at the end of November, but there was no sign of peak season.

Although the foreign trade store has a stable customer base, many shopkeepers also lament that the clothing business is not good now because the old customers are more inconsistent with the price increase, and the unit price is hard to get in place, resulting in a decline in sales. The turnover in 2010 is at least 25% lower than that of last year.

Do not visit the small clothing store in the street. In the large shopping malls with high consumption level, brand clothing is also facing the dilemma of business.

Ms. Lee just went to the mall in 2009 to sell clothes.

She said, "business in 2010 is not very good. In the past, we could walk a dozen pieces of winter clothes every day, and now we can sell several pieces every day."

At the Beijing zoo's Julong clothing market, Hao Xiaoli, who manages men's casual wear, said that the current business situation is full of bitter water.

"After five or six years of clothing, I felt so miserable the first year!"

In the past, the wholesale market was crowded and busy.

Since the price of clothing has started to rise, there has been no previous busy scene.

Although many people choose in front of the booth, most of them see more and buy less.

"Half of the thousand pieces of winter clothing that we enter are still on the backlog. If we can't sell them before the Spring Festival, they will really be in their hands. It will be money for us."

Hao Xiaoli's words were filled with helplessness.

2010 winter clothing market "bet" cold winter merchants are few.

Seven Ruan manager of Jinhua dress told reporters that a few months ago, he heard the rumors of "a thousand years of extreme cold". He not only entered 30% more goods than before, but the price of the goods was 20% more than that of last year, and now they are all stored in the warehouse.

The ups and downs of prices in 2010 seemed similar to those in 2005.

Down jacket for four or five years, it was thought that in 2010 can earn enough, I did not expect, a thousand years of extreme cold into a bubble, the sale of down clothing has become a bubble.

Businessmen are worried that if prices continue to be strong and warm winter continues, I am afraid that the future down garment market will become extremely dangerous.

Speeding up the delisting of small and medium-sized enterprises

In November 26, 2010, cotton futures prices rebounded after falling to 24460 yuan / ton, and recently returned to 28000 yuan / ton, and fluctuated frequently every day.

"Although the price of cotton has been temporarily lowered by macro-control, the contradiction between supply and demand has not changed completely, and it is unlikely to fall before the boom of September 2010." Zhao Weixiong, director of Jiangsu Hongye futures, believes that if the excess liquidity is not controlled, cotton prices will not be rationally returned in the short term.

In fact, from cotton to clothing has to go through dozens of processes, so clothing prices have a certain lag. In addition, clothing enterprises usually buy raw materials in advance for half a year or even a year. At present, most of the raw materials of enterprises are purchased during the rising period, so the price of clothing will not drop in the short term.

"All clothing products will increase in price next year, and the price increase will be about 10-20%."

Zhou Shaoxiong, chairman of the seven wolves shares, said in an interview with reporters that the trend will increase, but it will return to a relatively rational space, and the entire price level is unlikely to go down again.

Due to the worry that consumers can hardly accept the price increase, many brand clothing enterprises have pferred the cost pressure to the production process, so the processing plant in 2010s is the worst day.

A garment processing enterprise in Yangzhou told reporters that the cost of production has been rising, but many orders have not been raised.

"Now the company hopes that the price of orders will be high after the cost price stability in 2011, otherwise it will be faced with losses and closures."

This phenomenon not only appears in the Yangtze River Delta, but also in the Pearl River Delta Guangzhou, Dongguan and other places, many small and medium-sized garment enterprises are facing enormous pressure, and there are signs of closing or closing down.

"To support these two months, 2011 is not enough, only to go home."

Chen Bo, owner of Guangzhou Tengfei garment factory, told reporters that he had been in Guangdong for more than 10 years, and 2010 was the most difficult period.

Liu Sheng, the boss of the friendship garment factory, told reporters that the year-end year is the peak season of the year, and the profits of the whole year depend on these months.

Because of the brutal market competition, the small garment factories in a weak position lack the bargaining power and can only choose to absorb most of their rising costs.

Yu Hongfeng, the head of the fashion fashion company, said that although the price was raised by only 5% in 2010, Miss Me, a long-term customer, still made some lists for Vietnam and India, and orders in 2010 were 1/3 less than that of last year.

A chief executive of an enterprise in South of Jiangsu also said that in 2010 the foreign trade fair was generally unacceptable to more than 20% of the increase, and some European and American customers began to reduce the volume of purchases.

Now, Chen Bo has sprouted a retreat.

The rise of clothing prices in 2010 is actually the beginning of another shuffling and upgrading of the industry.