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Recently, the complaints about the “automatic deduction” and “unordered goods” were caused by the complaints of the head office of the shared wardrobe, which once again triggered public concern about the industry.

In 2011, Yi Ersan jumped into the industry unicorn with a $50 million investment from Alibaba. If you don’t remember this company, it doesn’t matter, you probably won’t forget that two years ago, a “Vivian Wang dress promotion” advertisement, more than 60 million plays in a week, caused a screen effect.

In the film, Vivian Wang relied on Gaoyi Q to take the following test, defeat the boss, conquer the returnee Jack Ma and talk about financing. Finally, she wore champagne in her bathrobe, mysteriously opened her double-door wardrobe, and said the slogan “There is only 499 yuan per month, you can have such a bright and beautiful life.”

The shared wardrobe industry represented by Yi Ersan allows users to spend money to become a member, rent a Prada with a Zara money, and return shipping and cleaning costs to the platform. This kind of model can be said to be a “life-saving medicine” for the contemporary young people who are addicted to the “wallet” while tightening their wallets.

However, after the industry’s rushing in 2015 and two rounds of shuffling, the problems frequently appeared. Since this year, there has been no news of corporate financing on this track. Not only does the story told to investors not work, but with the development of the company, the revenue rate cannot cover the operational pressure, and the shared wardrobe is destined to encounter a bottleneck in its niche business.

Nearly half of the business closed within a year

With the establishment of the goddess in 2014, the banner of the shared wardrobe was opened in China.

Public data shows that there were 12 shared wardrobe projects in China in 2015, but by 2016, the magic wardrobe, beauty, worry-free, clothing, Mocha box, jump color wardrobe and other platforms stopped.After the operation, the market pattern experienced a round of reshuffle.

According to this death list, the life cycle of these shared wardrobe projects is relatively short, and most projects have not even lasted for a year.

In 2017, with the hot concept of sharing economy, the shared wardrobe became the hottest track after sharing bicycles and sharing charging treasures, which has won the favor of many capitals. That year was also called “the first year of sharing” by the media. Almost everything can be shared, from the network car to the shared bicycle, from the shared charging treasure to the shared umbrella, and even the shared Mazar.

Whale quasi-data shows that the amount of financing for the shared wardrobe industry reached a new high in 2017. Compared with 2016, the amount of financing has increased, while the number of financing events has decreased, indicating that the amount of single financing has increased, gradually forming a head effect.

Among them, in September 2017, the only two-year-old Yi Ersan was awarded the largest investment in the shared wardrobe industry – $50 million from Alibaba’s lead, and the shared wardrobe field once again ushered in a highlight.

But not all projects have developed smoothly. In March 2017, Doraemon also announced that it has received a $12 million A+ round of financing from Junlian Capital and clothing brand La Chapelle. Inadequacies in user acquisition, product planning, and offline expansion ultimately failed to survive the end of the year.

It is worth noting that among the many investors who share the wardrobe track, Alibaba is frequently seen.

As early as 2016, Ali participated in the angel round financing of YEECHOO, a Hong Kong apparel leasing platform. In 2017, he participated in the C-round financing of Yi Ersan, and continued to increase in September 2018. In March 2018, Ma Yun and Alibaba Group Executive Vice Chairman Cai Chongxin invested $20 million in the US women’s rental website Rent the Runway through Blue Pool Capital. Some investors have told the story of fuel economy, which may be due to the layout of the new retail.

Heading companies face operational challenges

There is now a tumult of the sharing economy, and after sharing the wardrobe, there are only a few platforms, such as the goddess, the clothing, the clothes store, the tote, the beautiful rent, and the clothes store. The operational pressure is becoming more apparent. Since the beginning of this year, there has been no news of the company’s announcement of financing.

Finishing / Burning Money

In October last year, there was a media outlet that “clothing two or three” unilaterally revised the content of the agreement without first notifying the user in advance, so that the platform promised “the seamless connection of the monthly suitcase” and “members”. Privileges and other issues that promises cannot be fulfilled. At that time, the response given by Yi Ersan was that “the old rules are too costly and difficult to profit” and will be implemented in accordance with the new rules in the future.

The company found that in Weibo and black cat complaints, there are still many users who are dissatisfied with the service of sharing wardrobes. In addition to some previous complaints, the contents mainly include clothes dirty, platform tampering rules, Automatic deduction, parcel abnormal four categories.

The first category: dirty and damaged

“The more intimate things you are, the less likely you are to share it with others.” One user told the Finance, the clothes for autumn and winter are good, the summer clothes need to be worn, and she is often worried about the cleanliness and cleanliness of the clothes. . This has also become the psychological threshold for users to try to rent a new lifestyle online.

In the case of complaints, there is still a problem with the wrong version of the goods. The gap between style, quality and size is beyond the distance between the buyer’s show and the seller’s show. Even if the clothes are damaged, the merchants have not found it. Reduced user experience.

Second category: tampering rules

Since October last year, the time when Yi Ersan returned the old suitcase at the latest was changed from the original “24 hours after receiving the goods” to “24 hours after the order was placed”. According to the original rules, the time for users to return clothes and receive new clothes could have been seamlessly connected, but now there is a blank period waiting for express delivery, which shortens the user’s use time. Users believe that the platform is changing the rules unilaterally and has initiated complaints.

Third: Automatic debit

This kind of situation is directly related to the interests of users, and it also reflects the lack of operation and difficulty of the platform. Many users originally tried for one month, and the results were automatically deducted monthly, and they applied to the customer service, but they were unable to refund the fee.

Fourth category: Parcel anomaly

Users and platform parties often have differences on whether the package is received or not, and there is no actual evidence to be dragged, which affects the subsequent use process and cannot be completely transparent.

For the user’s complaint, Yi Ersan responded to the fuel economy, saying that the adjustment of the clothes box rules is to optimize the idle loss of the clothing in the process of changing clothes, so as to further improve the operational efficiency, and the platform can be upgraded once. The number of single items to optimize the user experience. Before modifying the rules, the platform publicized one week in advance, and reminded the users through SMS, push, and pop-up windows. If the user does not accept the rule adjustment, he can apply to cancel the membership agreement and refund the membership fee within 30 days.

As for the problem of “automatic deduction”, Yi Ersan said that there are two situations: one is to select “continuous monthly subscription” when the user opens the membership and manually agree to authorize automatic deduction, the system will automatically automatically at the specified time. The member fee is deducted for the next month; the other is that the user has opened the “credit loan” service and agrees to authorize the automatic deduction. The member service can be used without paying the membership fee. After the end of the use, the system automatically deducts the member fee.

In addition, all transceivers on the platform have monitoring records. If the user complains about missing packages, the platform will provide monitoring records.

Before, some investors told the media that sharing wardrobes is extremely demanding for the team’s operations. The entire chain will involve selection, logistics, cleaning, and wear and tear. Once there is a problem with the operation, the user will have difficulty retaining it. “The Economist” also issued a document saying that “the business of clothing rental (sharing) is complex but the prospects are bright.” The clothing leasing business perfectly interprets a sentence: “The devil is in the details.”

The story to the capital does not work

The frequent occurrence of complaints also exposed the shortcomings of the shared wardrobe business model.

In the beginning, the industry told investors a good story: First, to resolve the contradiction between user income and consumer demand upgrade, while helping users to find more suitable dress style, and second, to help brands solve inventory. Demand is an optimized configuration of resources.

But if you look closely, these two things are not good.

For the first point, brands that have the ability to buy on a daily basis, users don’t have a strong driving force to rent. The data shows that millions of fashion brands on the Yisansan platform, commercial brands accounted for 30%, designer brands accounted for 50%, and the most popular luxury brands accounted for only 20%. Many users have reported that “some designer brands simply can’t find it” and will not go to rent.

Before, Doraemon dreamed of trying to pass a lower rentThe rental price goes to the people-friendly route, so the platform provides more fast-moving brands, but the low-sales products make the platform’s revenue unable to cover the operating costs. Later, the team has to transform into a women’s subscription “hands-on”.

For the second optimized configuration story, Ma Fei, an investor in the long-term observation industry, said that from the perspective of merchandising rate, really high or scarce goods are still the hottest. The most sought-after goods, the remaining medium and long tails, even if the price is cheap, no one cares, so the entrepreneurs originally wanted to tell the story, the long tail of those sku did not be washed out.

The domestic shared wardrobe area is always a niche business. In an event last year, Yimeng CEO Liu Mengyuan disclosed the company’s relevant data: more than 10 million registered users, more than 500 fashion brands, and built self-built warehouses in Beijing, Guangzhou, Nantong and Chengdu. Operations Center.

As an industry head enterprise, its data portrays the characteristics of this track: The platform users are small, the cost and inventory pressure are high, and the membership model is risky. As the users grow, they will face the middle and late stages. Management pressures for operations and self-built warehousing. The cost input is too high and the rental income is slow. Once the capital chain breaks, the danger will break out.

This industry is not a purely online type of online interaction. In order to bring non-standardized services to the ground, there are still a lot of offline links to be opened, including procurement of products, automatic sorting, cleaning and maintenance, warehousing and transportation, Customer service, etc. Whether you are researching software and hardware, whether you build your own factory, you need a lot of investment.

The nature of the shared wardrobe itself determines the business model of its membership. Those who have the need to rent clothes are likely to continue to repurchase, so membership mode is more likely to increase user stickiness.

The profit model of this industry mainly comes from three aspects: membership fee, purchase conversion and B-end sharing. Among them, membership fees account for the majority. According to statistics, 75% of the income of Yi Ersan platform comes from membership fees.

Registration of the use of each APP member / fuel economy

For the platform, the user’s early adopter period, the user experience can support the desire of members to renew and repurchase, is a big challenge.

Can you copy the US rental model to get through?

When the shared wardrobe first entered China, the benchmark was already in the US in 2009.The country’s Rent the Runway, which started as a dress rental, began to switch to daily clothing rentals in 2015. The monthly membership fee of $139 is the same as that of several domestic companies. However, whether this model is feasible in China and when it will be able to usher in the turning point remains to be seen.

The reason why shared wardrobes are popular in the United States is closely related to their mature Vintage and Party culture. On the other hand, in addition to the annual scenes, graduation trips, wedding celebrations and other specific scenes, it is more convenient to rent clothing. In the daily clothing demand, more people are more inclined to buy, and the demand for uniforms has not been proven.

According to the data, Rent the Runway completed the latest round of financing of $125 million in March this year, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Judging from the heavy operation mode of shared wardrobes, the strength of financing ability determines the competition barriers of players to some extent. Many investors believe that at least a similar company can be born in China.

Industry investor Ma Fei believes that the biggest barrier in this industry is whether demand is just enough. From the demand side, there are many problems in the middle operation. As long as the demand is large enough, a single platform can just use this to deepen the operation, impress users and become the industry winner. The more the service is done, the greater the platform advantage, so the core barriers are still appeals.

According to statistics, it is estimated that by 2020, the retail sales of China’s women’s wear market will reach 1.4 trillion yuan, and the average consumption of women’s wear in China will reach 2368.7 yuan.

Bill Gates said, “People are always too optimistic about the short-term trend, too pessimistic about the long-term trend.” Before we saw the fading shared charging industry, it was largely overconfident about the development of battery technology. I think that you no longer need to charge treasure. However, in the past two or three years, the larger screen has brought about faster power consumption, and the industry has completed the initial shuffling, giving the remaining companies the opportunity to make money.

From the current number of users, shared wardrobes are still a niche business. But what is certain is that the industry still has some opportunities to exist.

“For example, smarter and more efficient traffic acquisition, from WeChat public number to small red book to vibrating fast, if you are more comfortable with the new media placement environment than others, take the lead in occupying the commanding heights of traffic, then you It has advantages over others because your customer acquisition cost is low.” Ma Fei said that retention is also very important and cannot be won by volume. “Sku can continue to be updated, whether the operation can be more extreme, there is a lot of room for improvement.”

Liu Bo, executive director of Qingliu Capital, has the same view. She believes that nowadays, whether in the logistics distribution, cleaning, or e-commerce data algorithm technology, it is more mature than five years ago, so the shared wardrobe is Both the supply and demand matching end have the opportunity point, and the clothing itself is a long industrial chain market, and the imagination space extending to the back end in the future is relatively large.

In the eyes of Eric, an investor close to the head of the industry, five years later, it may be ideal to have one or two larger apparel groups to deeply bind a shared wardrobe company and make it a fashion. New product or trend release platform. Deep customization for specific consumer groups will have more market space, and there may be several industry dark horses running inside.

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