On the eve of Double 11, did Inman founder Fang Jianhua and Handu Yishe founder Zhao Yingguang fight?

On the eve of Double 11, Fang Jianhua, the founder of Inman, and Zhao Yingguang, the founder of Handu Yishe, had a falling out?

The thing is like this. Recently, at Inman’s Double 11 mobilization meeting, Fang Jianhua emphasized: “Internet brands will have no future if they don’t go offline within five years. I also want to see how a certain friend who insists on saying that he only operates online will still succeed. How long can I hold it in?” After Inman’s Double 11 mobilization meeting speech was made public, Zhao Yingguang responded immediately, expressing his praise for Fang Jianhua’s passion, but if the friend mentioned was Handu Yishe, it is recommended to say it directly.

Later, Fang Jianhua, the founder of Inman, published an article to publicly persuade Handu Yishe Group to expand its offline business. This open letter also attracted attention in the industry.

What’s going on behind the scenes? In 2016, Huimei Group, to which Inman belongs, plans to open 1,000 offline stores. At the same time, Zhao Yingguang, the founder of Handu Yishe, has made it clear on multiple occasions that Handu Yishe has no plans to operate offline physical stores for a long time, but will focus on the direction of multi-brand operation on the Internet.

Collision of views: Does the offline market have a future?

Behind the two different choices is a fierce collision of two viewpoints.

Fang Jianhua emphasized in the company’s internal meeting today that the integration of online and offline omni-channels is an inevitable trend in the future. Prior to this, Fang Jianhua made it clearer to the media that I think Internet clothing brands that do not open offline stores within three to five years will definitely have no future.

Zhao Yingguang’s previous views on the media were also quite sharp: the most terrifying brand is one that wants to be “50/50” online and offline. If a brand owner wants to do both online and offline, it will be impossible to do both online and offline.

What kind of thinking led the two sides to come to completely different and diametrically opposed conclusions?

Zhao Yingguang does not think of the Internet as a channel, but as a change of the times. Under this change, although the offline clothing industry will not die out intensively, there will be a gradual shrinking process. At the same time, the online clothing market continues to expand.

Why make such a judgment? Zhao Yingguang pointed out that for the post-90s generation, the main consumer group in the future, they live in both the real world and the virtual world, and the virtual world will consume a lot of their time. Everyone only has 24 hours, and the time that users can spend is fixed and limited. The reason why users choose online is no longer because it is cheap, but because it can save their increasingly scarce time. “As long as we agree that the Internet will provide better and better experiences, future consumers will have to complete everything that can be done online. This is an irreversible behavior.”

But Zhao Yingguang also believes that physical stores will not disappear. “Eating, drinking and having fun require physical experience, and we still need to be guided and influenced online to experience the physical experience. In this process, there are still some opportunities for physical retail, but the overall magnitude will be greatly reduced. Just like the Internet today after so many years There are newspapers and magazines of various types, and they will not disappear, but will become more and more ‘rare’…”

“80% of the online clothing market is reserved for brands with Internet genes.” Zhao Yingguang also analyzed the different trends of the two brands in the next five to ten years: traditional offline brands will still focus on offline sales, while online The proportion is difficult to exceed 10% to 20%. Internet brands will achieve tens of billions of sales online by incarnating into dozens of small but beautiful segmented and positioned brands. Internet brands need to focus their main efforts online.

What is the difference between the genes of these two brands?

Zhao Yingguang pointed out that offline traditional brands do not have the genes to expand their online business. If a traditional brand wants to achieve tens of billions of sales online, it must incarnate into dozens of brands. However, it does not have such the ability to incarnate. Its genes It was decided to rely on large centralized brands to complete sales in offline stores. The proportion of online sales of traditional brands cannot be too large, otherwise it will lead to the collapse of the entire offline system. Internet brands can make pricing strategies based on the characteristics of the online market, while the price system of traditional brands is difficult to adjust online.

In contrast, the operation of Internet brands has the characteristics of multiple models, small quantities, low-end sales, and fixed production. This kind of gene is not suitable for offline, but it is necessary to continuously use the advantages of the Internet to achieve greater scale.

Jia Peng, vice president of Handu Yishe Group, also explained to the media the specific reasons for not opening offline stores. Jia Peng pointed out that the clothing sold online by Handu Clothing House is now basically guaranteed to arrive the next day, and buyers can return it if they are not satisfied. This is no different from the offline try-on experience. Moreover, users can engage in shopping behavior at any time during fragmented time, and online can use fragmented time more efficiently. Moreover, there are many ways to play online marketing activities, and their spread is unimaginable.

In comparison, Fang Jianhua’s thinking is simpler and more direct. Fang Jianhua believes that when everyone thinks that offlineBusiness is shrinking. In fact, the cost of entering offline at this time is low. The cost of opening a store in third- and fourth-tier cities is even lower than opening an online store. Although online is growing rapidly, 80% of clothing retail is still completed offline. The offline market is huge and helps improve user experience and brand image.

Regarding the fact that Internet brands do not have the genes for offline retail, Fang Jianhua refuted that they often come up with new ideas without experience. “When I was doing traditional foreign trade ODM, I had no e-commerce genes, so I also made Yinman. We selected some people from the Yinman team, and also hired some people with rich offline experience. I think this is Our timing.”

Unlike Zhao Yingguang who believes that the Internet is a revolution, Fang Jianhua believes that with the rapid development of the Internet today, all channels have entered an era of integration, regardless of online and offline. And Fang Jianhua gave an example. There is a clothing brand that really started to develop on Tmall last year. They have thousands of stores across the country and broke into the TOP10 of the category last year. Because they have a foundation offline, they can support it online. Start running.

There are not a few merchants who support the idea that brands do not distinguish between online and offline. Internet snack brand Three Squirrels also recently announced that it will go offline. Zhang Liaoyuan believes that omni-channel retailing is definitely an inevitable trend, because where the consumers are, the three squirrels will be there.

Pattern Collision: How are the underlying architectures different?

Under the guidance of different ideas, different development models will inevitably evolve. But in fact, as Internet brands that both started online, the development models of Huimei Group and Handu Yishe Group were similar in the early stages.

After the main brand gained a foothold, both parties broke the ceiling of Internet brand development through multi-brand strategies and gradually increased the number of their own sub-brands. Later, Handu Yishe expanded rapidly through the group model and developed rapidly. It also cooperated with well-known offline stores to launch a series of sub-brands. Huimei Group has also built its own designer brand matrix by cooperating with designers.

After that, both parties began to transform into a brand incubation platform: Handu Yishe improved the support functions of the group and built Handu Quality Manufacturing, Handu Image, Handu University, Handu Storage and Transportation, Handu Intelligence, Handu Customer Service, Handu Operations, Handu Finance, and Handu Media modules; sub-brands of Huimei Group can also choose to share the group’s supply chain, finance, HR, and IT management systems.

However, the underlying structures supporting the development of both parties are different, and both parties also have different predictions for the future development of the apparel industry. The group management model of Handu Yishe Group determines that it can expand its business more quickly and support the online operations of more brands. In July 2016, at the launch site of Zhihui Blue Ocean Internet Brand Incubation Base, Handu Yishe Group revealed Handu Yishe’s new goal “121” in the next ten years: to serve 1,000 brands, reach a market value of 200 billion, and create 1,000 Multimillionaire.

The system that supports Huimei Group’s designer brand incubation platform is the partnership model, through which Huimei Group fully mobilizes the initiative of its brand partners. The brands under Huimei Group are not only more concentrated, but also pay more attention to the in-depth development of the brand, and the brand incubation time is also relatively long.

Due to different predictions about the future development of the clothing market, Yinman launched an omni-channel development strategy with thousands of stores in thousands of cities, while Handu Yishe insisted on focusing on online development.

Performance competition: evenly matched?

With the support of two different development models, what sales performance have Handu Yishe Group and Huimei Group achieved respectively?

According to public information, in 2015, Handu Yishe’s revenue reached 1.206 billion yuan, with a net profit of 33.2017 million yuan; in 2014, the revenue was 831 million yuan, with a net profit of -37.5593 million yuan.

Huimei Group’s revenue in 2014 was 940 million yuan, and its net profit was 31.9 million yuan; in 2015, its revenue reached 1.14 billion yuan, and its net profit was 15.81 million yuan. Its net profit showed a downward trend, mainly due to the rapid incubation of new brands that had a certain impact on performance.

Beginning in 2015, Huimei Group began to move from online to offline, launching O2O projects for its brands. The “Yinman + Thousand Cities and Ten Thousand Stores” project developed rapidly. By the end of 2015, “Yinman + Thousand Cities and Ten Thousand Stores” had already 163 offline stores have been signed, covering 23 provinces and cities, and investment is still continuing this year. Huimei Group’s prospectus shows that in 2015, Huimei Group’s offline business revenue accounted for 2.01%.

Judging from the revenue of both parties, it can be seen that the size of the two parties is basically similar. Huimei Group has just launched its offline O2O project in 2015, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in the proportion of offline revenue.

In addition, according to available information, Huimei Group owns 15 brands. After three years of development, the sales proportion of the main brand Inman has continued to decline, while the sales of brands such as Chuyu and Life in Zuo have increased significantly. Handu Yishe Group has 28 brands, and brand sales are more scattered.

Collect�Brands under the group

The Double 11 events held by both parties over the years have also been remarkable. According to media reports, on Double 11 in 2015, Huimei Group’s single-day sales exceeded 166 million, including 85.16 million for the Yinman brand and 47 million for the Chuyu brand. In 2014, Huimei Group’s sales reached 185 million yuan; in 2013, it was 165 million yuan.

On Double 11 in 2015, Handu Yishe E-commerce Group won the Internet apparel brand championship with a transaction volume of 284 million yuan. The sales of Handu Yishe’s sub-brand group increased by nearly 40% from 28% last year. In 2014, the total sales of Handu Yishe Group reached 280 million yuan on Double 11, and the sales of Handu Yishe flagship store exceeded 199 million yuan.

This year’s Double 11, Handu Yishe’s sales target is 400 million yuan, and it stated that it does not pursue rankings, but treats this Double 11 as another rare opportunity to test the secondary ecosystem created by Handu Yishe.

Although Yinman has not disclosed specific goals, he said that he will hit sales performance at his own pace, and said that this year’s Double 11 will have big offline moves. Fang Jianhua introduced that recently, Inman’s offline physical store transactions have exceeded 100 million.