“I wanted to prepare several sets of New Year’s‘ battles ’, but I carried the entire Spring Festival with a piece of pajamas.”

A section on the Internet reflects the crisis in the clothing industry.

The Spring Festival, which should be the clothing sales season, has no sales. The sudden black swan has a big mouth for every boss who has finished the spring merchandise plan.

You ca n’t eat without meals, you do n’t have to wear clothes

Consumerism has a classic brainwashing word: XXX is just the need of the XX group. This time the epidemic came, we knew what was really needed.

Do n’t eat meals for a day. In terms of categories, except for mask alcohol thermometers and Shuanghuanglian, which has a hard time making money, the growth rate of essential consumer goods during the epidemic period is the most stable. Some cities require that public places that are not necessary for life be closed, but Vegetable markets, etc. must not be closed arbitrarily, and residents are unwilling to go out (wasting a limited number of masks at hand) , allowing fresh e-commerce to usher in a peak order.

But I ca n’t buy the clothes. It ’s a true portrait of many people if I do n’t go out for half a month. The house rushed the game to the highest level in history. Finally, I started working. I had a remote meeting at home. Cotton drag pants.

You can’t see any young people who like to show their ankles and necks in the winter this year. It’s not that they are more destined for life. Movies were withdrawn, malls closed, and flights canceled. People used to go to crowded places, but now they are afraid to avoid them, especially when the door handles have detected the virus.

The Spring Festival is the peak season for apparel sales. From the sales of apparel listed companies over the years, sales from the end of January to the end of February can account for about 10% to 15% of the year. Due to the suspension of express delivery during the Spring Festival, online consumption will usually enter a low season. However, the return of the Spring Festival to the hometown across the country, a sudden increase in domestic and foreign tourism personnel, originally all this will create the most favorable consumption scene for offline.

However, in order to curb the spread of the virus, people are not staying at home, and offline businesses miss the Spring Festival opportunity. At this point, the clothing industry’s most mainstream offline retail channel is no longer generating sales, not only has zero revenue, but also pays hard costs.

Adidas issued a statement saying that it would temporarily close some Chinese stores and said it would have a negative impact on short-term results. Nike has also temporarily closed 50% of its stores in mainland China. UBS released a report that Nike ’s performance from mid-January to the end of February will drop by 70%.

Large enterprises have accumulated funds and financing capabilities, which is helpful for dealing with the current situation, but for small and medium enterprises, the epidemic will hurt their lives. Stores do not open, regional distributors and agents have lost cash flow, but also have to bear employees’ wages, rents and property costs. Facing backlogs of goods inventory and futures execution, there may be store tide in the first half of the year.

The factory is postponed to resume work and stalls are not allowed to open. For example, Hangzhou Sijiqing Guangzhou White Horse Market has been postponed to open on February 10, and Changshu Clothing City is tentatively postponed to February 21. Whether to continue the delay has not been determined. Downstream The street shops or Taobao shops of individual industrial and commercial households operating simultaneously also went out.

The high-end market is also not good. The 2020 Fall-Winter Fall-Winter Fashion Week has kicked off in New York, and restrictions on entry and exit have blocked Chinese buyers at home. Michael Kors and Versace parent company Capri Holdings have declared a new coronavirus epidemic It will have a significant impact on the company’s performance and is expected to have a negative impact of $ 100 million on its fourth quarter earnings. Coach’s parent company Tapestry also expects to lose about $ 200 million to $ 250 million in sales in the next six months.

Overwintering, stocks overwhelm channels

Many listed companies blame when explaining poor performanceWeather, said that weather affected company sales. But this is not a paragraph. The relationship between temperature and retail is often underestimated. Even beer and beverage sales are related to the weather.

This is even more true for the apparel industry. Last year’s warm winter gas just lost money, and the black swan epidemic ushered in an even worse situation.

Affected by the warm winter, Uniqlo’s parent company’s revenue in the first fiscal quarter fell for the first time in three years. In the three months ended November 30 last year, its sales fell by 3.3% year-on-year and operating profit fell by 12.4%.

According to the CCTV survey of the sales of cashmere in Inner Mongolia, the prices of cashmere products, which have always been high, have been lower by about 10% this year than in previous years. Local cashmere orders this year have decreased by almost 30%, and even orders from cashmere roughing factories in the intermediate industry chain have plummeted by 30%.

There is a small news recently that Bosideng pressed the channel for goods, the channel was slow to sell and the goods were sold at a low discount, and the company continued to lower its performance evaluation targets, which shows that the warm winter has a huge impact on the down jacket market. According to the report of Zhejiang Business Network at the beginning of the year, the price of down raw materials fell by nearly 40% year-on-year.

Large pieces don’t sell well, let alone small ones. Some wholesalers say that this year’s large-scale backlog of gloves, scarfs, hats and other downstream products.

In addition, last year’s Double 12 discounts on many e-commerce platforms were even greater than Double 11’s, because the performance of the Double 11 apparel category was not satisfactory on all platforms. Merchants had to clear their inventory. After finishing the winter model inventory, anyone can make more money on the winter model.

The cold winter of 2017 promotes winter clothing consumption, driving higher expectations for the clothing industry in 2018; a larger industry winter clothing inventory in 2018, allowing WeChat to open up on the inventory platform; 18 years of winter clothing inventory is large, overlapping 2019 In the warm winter, the clothing industry may have to start destocking again.

The characteristics of clothing itself are strong seasonality, coupled with the shortening of the popular cycle, the inventory backlog is a fatal pain point for clothing companies. The emergence of new pneumonia hinders the process of destocking and disrupts the introduction of new spring models.With new spring inventory, the epidemic has not ended, and this part of the loss is still unpredictable.

Not only sales affected

Although this new type of coronavirus is not the same as that of SARS, the impact on social and economic life is similar to that of SARS 17 years ago. The sudden atypical pneumonia caused many garment companies to fall into high inventory levels, resulting in a lack of liquidity, which led to the abnormal production of garments in the new season.

From the performance of various types of retail consumption, apparel, footwear, and jewelry products were the hardest hit during the SARS epidemic, with negative growth in May, the worst of the epidemic. However, the aftershocks of the retail industry are shorter than those of the catering and tourism industry. After the epidemic subsided, consumers ’backing of shopping desires was released and consumption recovered quickly.

According to statistics, from 2003 to November, the total sales of apparel products of key large-scale retail enterprises in the country reached 35.82 billion yuan, and a total of 186.64 million pieces of apparel were sold, an increase of 22.3% and 8.6% over the same period of 2002.

Unlike in the past, in today’s environment, the growth rate of per capita clothing consumption expenditure has fallen, and the sales of clothing have been decreasing year by year, but the overall sales have remained stable. The most affected are the market structure and individual enterprises.

After SARS, the growth percentage of sales far exceeded sales, which is related to the continuous increase in the level of per capita income of residents, and to the rapid rise in the overall production and operating costs of the industry in 2003. Although the impact of the epidemic on sales is one-time, the impact will be amplified by the industry chain: rising costs will have more impact on profits than on income.

Second is the difference in market rebound. For the sake of health and the importance of physical fitness, it will be more deeply rooted. The continuous strengthening of the concept of health will further promote the growth of the market demand for sportswear. In contrast, the general casual wear market may continue to shrink.

The most important thing is how much the epidemic affects consumer mentality, which is crucial for the sale of luxury goods.

Everything is here to survive

Compared to the SARS period, our online shopping accounted for 23% of total retail sales of consumer goods. The epidemic is likely to accelerate the development of online shopping, and clothing e-commerce and online sales will further erode offline market space.

First, in this case, the management level of the company is a big challenge. At present, it is necessary to reduce all expenses as much as possible to protect the cash reserve. Tax reduction and exemption policies; strive for the landlord of Party A to be able to grant longer rent exemption, rent reduction support, etc.

Second, strengthen the development of online sales channels. The epidemic situation has not subsided, and it will not be restored for a short time offline. Moreover, the procurement of masks, disinfectants and other employee protective equipment after resuming work is also a problem. However, on the 10th, online logistics will gradually get on the right track. In addition to the main e-commerce platforms, WeChat marketing channels and short video and live broadcast platforms are worth exploring.

There is also the need to expedite the clearance of inventory, redo the product plan, and the business rhythm disrupted by the epidemic situation. The layout needs to be reorganized according to the next situation. Only by maintaining operating capacity can cash flow be maintained. Appropriate clothing companies can try to produce masks and protective clothing.

Finally, I hope that the government will not put all the pressure on enterprises. It is better to have a long-term reduction and exemption policy. Large and medium-sized enterprises should not squeeze small and micro enterprises at the end of various industrial chains. The demand is always there and everything is To get back on track, as long as it’s spring.

_