2012 Overseas High-End Consumption Face To Face

Luxury bags, high-end brands

Observer role: consumer location: Germany

Feel the warmth of the "angel" in China

Reporter Zhang Yongfa

In February, a "polar" cold current swept away the warm and humid climate of Europe, which gave a heavy chill to the already depressed market.

It is a group of Chinese tourists who have gone forward in succession, bringing the "warmth" to the market in every corner of Europe, and more or less the market haze caused by "European debt".

It is reported that in 2011, China's luxury goods consumption reached $7 billion, of which half of Europe's luxury goods were consumed by Chinese tourists.

Germany, which is the least affected by the European debt crisis, is also hard to defend itself.

According to a friend who has lived in Lowersaxony for nearly 20 years, it is the biggest change in decades. The sunshine tourism is no longer the seaside, it can be changed to the garden at home, the consumption of famous brand is reduced by half or the second line brand is changed, the local drivers who used to hire in the enterprises are also changed to Eastern Europeans.

In short, everything can be reduced as far as possible.

Today, there are few European consumers in high-end luxury goods stores in Europe. Tourists from China occupy the majority, which was impossible ten years ago.

In a high-end store, Chinese consumers see 18000 euro SWAROVSKI crystal dragon, without hesitation to buy gold; three hundred or four hundred euro FISSLER pot is even more difficult, one shot is two sets; large and small BALLY shoes, I wish to buy a pair for everyone in the family, as for the purchase of perfume is even more difficult.

Faced with this situation, Europeans love and fear, because Chinese tourists bring vitality to the market and promote consumption. Because of the conflicts brought by different cultures, Chinese tourists' loud noises and no rules will arouse local resentment.

But in any case, when the economy is not good, people still value the current economy and others can take their time.

It is a popular saying in Europe: "Europe is a paradise for shopping, and Chinese tourists are angels in heaven".

Looking back at history, in the 60s of the last century, Americans were the angels here. In 80s, the Japanese were the angels here.

Today, the Chinese are the angels here. This also indicates that China's economic level is beginning to move closer to the developed countries.

Observer role: high level textile enterprises: Dubai, Hongkong, China

Luxury brands rush to build flagship stores

Zhang Dongwei

During the Spring Festival, I went to Hongkong, like most visitors to Hong Kong, shopping became an essential part of the trip.

According to my view, the mainland people choose to travel in the golden week, especially for shopping groups. Hongkong is still the first choice.

In the new year of spring, local shopping atmosphere is very strong, and this is mostly attributed to the shopping enthusiasm of mainland tourists.

As in previous years, the main shopping places of the mainlanders are concentrated near Harbour City. There are large crowds of luxury goods that can be seen in front of the crowds.

Comparatively speaking, the central area is rather deserted.

What I feel most deeply about this trip is that the promotion efforts of various brand businesses have increased significantly.

In our impression, during the Spring Festival (early February of each year), we often enter the end of the promotion period.

But this year, sales promotion efforts are much larger than in previous years, including the same situation in Italy.

This may be related to the decline of the global economy in the autumn and winter of 2011.

According to my observation, sales of brands declined significantly last year due to the downturn of the environment.

In September and October, this is supposed to be the peak season of sales, but sales of many first-line clothing brands have dropped by 30%.

The decline in sales caused a large backlog of inventory. Therefore, in order to alleviate the inventory pressure in the autumn and winter of 2011, the discount rate of major brands has been rising since the beginning of this year, and this situation has continued to the Spring Festival.

However, I found that the "price tag" of each brand did not fluctuate significantly, but the intensity of sales promotion was even greater.

Recently, when I traveled to Dubai and Italy, I had a deep feeling that the international first-line brand accelerated the speed of opening a large flagship store.

Two or three years ago, not all brands were willing to spend their energy and cost on flagship stores, even in general scale brand stores.

Now, Hongkong's central and Tsim Sha Tsui's two main business circles are all flagship stores of various brands. Such flagship stores, which are often three storeys and 400~500 square meters, are not uncommon; the Louis stores of MALL OF THE EMIRATES (LV) in Dubai have set up Family room (family room) for the first time in the store, a bit like IKEA's game room or McDonald's pool, providing a leisurely shopping environment for consumers who are shopping with their children.

The most luxurious flagship store in the most famous shopping resorts seems to have become a tacit agreement between brands, and has evolved into a somewhat fixed pattern: a city has a flagship store, and then spreads several regular stores of the brand, so as to establish brand position and brand image.

Observing the sentiment: the expansion mode of international luxury brands can give us inspiration. In the same way, we should focus on propaganda or sale of the tentacles. What do they need to do most is to define their brand positioning, what is the target customer group, and whether they should be positioned on the international brand.

In the process, these brands need to have a rational attitude and focus on products that are valuable and reasonably priced to consumers.

Perhaps this is a bit conservative, but I think the way of domestic brand is still being explored, because the competitors are too strong, and the contrast between consumers' high-end brand positioning may lead to consumption pfer.

For the domestic high-end textile enterprises in Europe, the future may still focus on cost-effective products.

This year, we will introduce a new Italy fabric brand: the Vieira family.

The brand is based on innovative design and quality assurance in Italy, and is launched at a more reasonable price. It does not overextend the added value of the brand.

I think this kind of products will be more acceptable to the market in the future.

(the writer is general manager of Beijing Italy Textile Co., Ltd.)

Observer role: University scholar location: USA

Retail industry expects recovery in change

Lu Sheng

From a point of view of the industry, there are some structural changes in the US apparel retail market. These changes indicate that a new round of market and industrial adjustment may have begun.

One of the changes: "made in China" is being quietly reduced.

Although Chinese products are still in the "one brother" status in the major apparel retail stores in the United States, "Vietnam made", "made in Pakistan" and "made in Honduras" are rapidly rising.

At present, in the US market, some categories of clothing products are hard to find "made in China", especially those with low unit price and relatively simple technological requirements, such as ordinary T-shirts.

Two of the changes: retailers "competition" from the front to the rear.

According to past experience, "discount" is a common means for retailers to compete for customers when the economy is sluggish and the consumer market is weak.

Although 30%~50%'s deep discount advertising is still everywhere, this year, american apparel retailers generally focus more on improving overall operational efficiency.

A typical example is that the inventory levels of businesses have been reduced by more than 25% compared with previous years. At the same time, they have been spending heavily on new technologies such as supply chain management software and RFID, in order to reduce operating costs.

Change three: conceive the future retail mode.

With the widespread use of smart phones and social media in American society, especially among young people, the apparel retail industry in the United States has begun to actively try and look forward to the new business model in the future.

More and more businesses are starting to provide wireless Internet service in their stores, and based on "cloud technology" and other high-tech means, to customize product information to consumers using iPhone and iPad to achieve online and offline shopping integration.

Shopping scenes in some science fiction movies, such as trying on clothes in the mirror, automatic scanning and settlement, have become a reality in some retail stores.

Four of changes: upgrading from "green products" to "green marketing".

The "green" campaign catering to consumers' environmental protection concept is gradually deepening from the product area to the strategic level in the apparel retailing industry in the United States.

"Green" is no longer a synonym for "high-end" products. Even WAL-MART can buy organic cotton clothes nowadays.

Observation: January is often the most stressful day for the American Apparel Retailing industry, because after the Christmas shopping season, the bashful American consumers will not only tighten their belts, but will even return the merchandise purchased during the holiday season, and if the unsalable goods can not be emptied in a short time, they will not only affect the timely admission of the new season products, but also increase the operating costs of inventory management.

Fortunately, 2012 does not seem too bad.

Despite all the tension and anxiety surrounding the economic outlook, the signs seem to be a positive sign that the US apparel retail market is slowly recovering.

(the writer is assistant professor, Department of textiles and clothing, Rhode Island University, USA)

Observer role: location of brand sales staff: France

In the shop, work directly on crocodile brand culture.

Liu Chang

This year's Spring Festival is the fifth months since I came to practice in Paris's crocodile flagship store.

Although in a foreign country, it is not possible to celebrate the festival with family members, but the chance to work in the French flagship store, which is the first sales volume in the European region of crocodile brand and second of the world's sales volume, is very valuable for every student who specializes in fashion. But what is more valuable is the brand culture that can experience the crocodile's inheritance for more than 90 years at zero distance.

The alligator French flagship store is located at ~95 93 Champs Elysees street, Paris. It operates Lacoste Club series men's clothing, Lacoste Live series and classic Polo sweater series.

When arranged to sell classic POLO shirts to the flagship store, I always have an illusion that I came to the 1927 when the crocodile brand was born.

Alligator brand 60% sales all come from classic POLO shirts. Without these POLO shirts, the crocodile is just like a Hongkong crocodile, making its own brand of Logo so concrete.

Because this shop is located on Xiang street, there are many tourists, but there are not many Chinese people, or even many Korean tourists.

Most of the Chinese people came to the LV flagship store next to the world. The author waited to see Chinese guests every day and then talked about home dialect. But the Arabs, Brazilians and Russians who had no choice came in accounted for almost 60% of the tourists. They never seemed to consider the price of their purchases. Perhaps it was because the crocodile fashion movement was much more expensive than those luxuries. Even if they bought more than 1000 euros at a time, they were only a medium-sized bag for other luxury brands.

Crocodiles are very accurate in positioning themselves. First of all, people can afford to wear, and at the same time are related to sports. With more than 90 years of brand history, the guests rarely feel that they have spent money wrongly, and most people feel that they have taken a big advantage.

Because I practiced in Salvatore Ferragamo for three months, I feel more deeply about the difference between the two brands' store traffic and guest identity.

Ferragamo is positioning itself as luxury goods, although there will be a bunch of small Japanese loli coming in and pointing to a few purses and watching the price. But some customers are coming to Ferragamo's old customers in Paris every 15 years.

Observation: it seems to me that the cost of a crocodile classic Polo shirt is really not worth 89 euros, which sells the brand value of nearly 1000 yuan.

Again, Ferragamo men and women who buy leather shoes are not pursuing fashion or fashion. Quality and comfort are what they really want, which is the most fundamental reason for the brand to have a loyal customer.

Now, before I go to and from work every day, the LV flagship store will have long queues, whether it's windy, rainy or cold.

But what do they really pursue? Do they really know the essence of LV brand? I dare not assert the answer to these questions.