Behind the huge cake in the children's wear market: "The princes" and "the defeat" are still inconclusive

At present, the growth space of China's adult wear market has narrowed due to the gradual maturity of the market, and companies are eager to find more business opportunities for children. In their view, the children's wear industry is now in the transition from the Blue Ocean to the Red Sea, and it may be too late to seize the opportunity.

Sports brands such as Nike, adidas and local brand Anta already have their own children's wear product lines; several fast fashion brands including Uniqlo and GAP, and hope that when parents go shopping, they will bring back several basic models in the children's wear area. Hoodie. Local clothing brands such as Taiping Bird, Jiangnan Cloth and GXG also sell children's wear, and Jiangnan Cloth even retains the tone of adult costumes.

Taobao is also a lively event. According to the data provided by Taobao, as of March 2018, 1,700 designers have opened a children's clothing store in Taobao.

Thanks to the young fathers and mothers. In the past, the consumption of children's wear led by parents after the 70s is gradually dominated by parents after 80s, 90s and even younger. Taobao data shows that young consumers are the main audience of the platform, and maternal and child users are showing a younger trend. In the past year, there were an average of 29 million consumers per month. They chose to buy children's clothes in Taobao. The mainstream buyers of 25-34-year-old people's platforms, repeated purchases of up to 60.46%, and the proportion of mothers and babies aged 19-24 also rise.

These young people have higher aesthetic, functional details and safety requirements for clothing. Especially in Chinese society, there are more and more "6+1" family structures in the same family. The young parents have relatively little economic pressure to raise children, so the investment in all aspects of children is gradually increasing. They are willing to spend more on all the consumption of their children.

Various research institutions and experts agree that the domestic children's wear market will usher in a larger outbreak period, which will further increase the confidence of brand enterprises in the turbulent period.

But the business of children's wear is not as simple as letting designers make adult clothes a mini version.

Despite his extensive experience in the field of adult clothing, Taiping Bird has fallen into a lot of “experiences” when launching the children's wear brand MiniPeace.

When MiniPeace was first launched, it used the same fabric as adult clothing. The store was equipped with a wooden fitting room with a door lock, and even the new strategy was synchronized with the adult. Later, they discovered that these measures did not take into account the reality of children's wear. For example, parents actually used to prepare the next season clothes for children in advance, and the children would not stay alone in the fitting room of the store.

The more important part is reflected in the fabric technology of children's wear products and the control of safety. After market research, MiniPeace began to replace domestic cotton with American cotton, and the quality inspection process was more stringent. Each product was tested by saliva resistance, formaldehyde and heavy metals.

In terms of design style, the aesthetic taste of young parents also influences the decision-making of children's wear brand designers. While paying attention to the comfort of children's wear, young consumers will also value the design and uniqueness of their products.

MiniPeace has already noticed this. Before 2014, their consumers will also accept embellishments such as lace or pop colors, but a new generation of young parents feel "somewhat earth".

Now the brand will actively cooperate with the popular IP image, so that children will have more resonance. Similarly, the men's wear brand gxg.kids of the men's wear brand GXG is also experienced in cross-border joints with trend elements. In 2016, gxg.kids and Korean YG KIONK launched a joint model. In 2017, we cooperated with American pop artist RONENGLISH to launch a stylized cooperation.

For those parents who are more concerned about children's psychological needs, the elements of fashion and fashion are far from enough. Therefore, when designers are looking for design inspiration, they should think about the problem from the perspective and perspective of the child. In the communication and interaction with the child, think about what they are interested in, what they like or what they are afraid of.

Although children's wear brands are ignoring their parents' wallets, this market is still in the growth stage. The market share of each brand is not high, and no brand has used the first-mover advantage to become a market oligarch. In 2008, the market share of the top 30 brands of children's wear sales was 8%, compared with 17% in 2017.

The data of Zhiyan Consulting also proved the low concentration of the children's wear market. In 2017, except for the Barabala and Adidas children's wear under the Senma, the market share of the top 10 brands in this market is less than 1%, and TOP10. The combined figures only account for 11.3% of the entire market – and this figure for mature markets in foreign countries will reach 30%-50%.

The huge market space has increased the motivation for children's wear brand companies.

MiniPeace combines the consumption insights of young parents with offline channel retail data feedback, adjusts, converts and closes stores with low overall efficiency, and promotes and completes the conversion of joint stores to direct and franchised stores.

The children's wear brand “British Baby Boy”, which is invested by Haishu Home, is actively exploring new retail. On March 28, 2018, Yingshi announced cooperation with Tmall to explore a new retail development model for the maternal and child industry, and plans to conduct multi-faceted cooperation in data mining, user operations and offline.

A group of Internet children's wear brands that emerged around 2015 are born with Internet genes. They are more flexible and digital in terms of supply chain model, marketing methods, and brand operations.

Vanke Eslite's original founder, Zhong Yixin, founded the Internet original brand “壹果” in 2016, mainly through the social media test market such as WeChat, and obtained the first batch of seed users. At present, the results and cooperation factories also adopt a flexible supply chain model. Online sales are estimated in advance by pre-sales to reduce inventory pressure.

With the rise of the post-90s and younger consumers, there will be more room for quality in the future and a space for children's wear brands that have a quest for style. Before the next outbreak, every brand has an opportunity to compete for the head brand. No one doubts that the children's wear market is a tempting cheese. But they must seize the opportunity.

Look at GAP Kids and know how cruel it is. In 2014, the brand's children's wear product line ranked seventh with a market share of 0.6%, but with the emergence of more local brands, GAP, which is based on basic models, was squeezed out in the top ten in 2017, but this is only It’s only three years.

At present, China's children's wear industry is transforming from extensive operation to large-scale and refined operation, from product competition, price competition, marketing means competition to product development competition (product strength), brand culture competition (image power), and brand service competition ( Operational power), in the future, the Chinese children's wear market will become more rational and mature.

One side is the ambitious new entrant, and the other side is the step-by-step squad. Among them, there may be hard successors or overthrows. "Children's clothing heat" looks beautiful, but there are many injuries in the world. It is not as easy as "imagining down".

The market rules of the big waves will reveal its cruel side, and the survival of the fittest will spread from small and medium-sized enterprises to larger enterprises or brands. There is no design advantage, only the quantity is not quality, and enterprises that do not pay attention to operational norms or brands will not be spared.

At the same time, the new demands of consumers' individualization, fashion and branding, the comprehensive strength of the children's wear brand's original design, market segmentation, brand positioning, brand image, terminal operation, marketing level, product strength, brand power, and operational strength. And the brand concept puts forward the updated requirements, which also makes most children's wear enterprises will once again start on the same starting line.

Of course, in terms of theory or market feasibility, children's wear is undoubtedly the gold-clad place of the clothing industry. The Chinese market is too big. Maybe companies of all grades can find their own position, but for new entrants, they must learn Becoming a fashion and taste leader, instead of following the trend of imitation, falling into a homogenous competition.

In the future, who will be the "princes" in the children's wear market, and who will become "defective", perhaps only the market will eventually give an accurate answer.

Editor in charge: Gao Wei