Is Fast Fashion Equivalent To Resources?

Recently, there is a voice that fast fashion is actually a waste of resources. This view has aroused great concern: waste caused by "fast" or waste caused by other reasons in the course of operation? What is more reasonable for the utilization of resources by traditional clothing enterprises and fast fashion? Therefore, people in the clothing industry need to think rationally.

Association voice

Reporter: fast fashion is probably just for many people to understand this formulation.

Please explain to us what fast fashion is called.

Wang Zhuo (Secretary General of China Fashion Association): fast fashion in the whole

Fast fashion is ultimately reflected in the fashion, social environment, human thinking and changes in people's needs and so on, so as to affect the whole industry chain, so as to achieve the purpose of quickly launching the fashion products to the market.

It must be noted that fast fashion is a pattern, not a style and trend.

Reporter: where is the most attractive brand for fast fashion brands?

Wang Zhuo: I think it's speed.

For example, the Chinese football World Cup is out today, and it may be seen in the market tomorrow.

This is a quick reaction.

Rapid response can be projected through environmental changes, event changes, changes in people's thoughts, fashion trends, and so on. Finally, the products that are fashionable and meet the needs of consumers are quickly launched.

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Reporter: there is a certain contradiction between fast fashion and low carbon economy and advocating economize.

How do you view this problem?

Wang Zhuo: the whole industry chain of brand enterprises is running fast, through cater for

Low carbon consumption, environmental protection and energy saving are consumers' consumption thinking and consumption concept. Fast fashion is a mode of brand operation. These are two different concepts.

The current consumption trend is low carbon, environmental protection, energy saving, but fast fashion enterprises can also make low-carbon and environmentally-friendly products, such as pure cotton products, degradable products and so on.

Reporter: many people reflect the quality of fast fashion products.

For example, the international brand ZARA has been exposed to quality problems.

Is there a necessary link between quality problems and fast fashion?

Wang Zhuo: there is no necessary connection between the two.

Fast fashion requires enterprises to have strong industrial chain integration capability and strong quick reaction capability.

The brand we advocate is a four in one brand with quality, innovation, quick response and social responsibility.

Quality is the foundation, innovation is the means, quick reaction is the way to earn money, fast fashion is a kind of quick reaction.

For fast fashion, enterprises may simplify the process in order to save time, and respond to the product with the simplest design, but they must also ensure the quality.

If fast fashion is at the expense of quality, it is a misunderstanding of fast fashion.

Fast fashion also needs rapid response under the premise of quality assurance, and then continues to innovate.

Generally speaking, fast fashion is not contradictory to quality and social responsibility.

Fast fashion does not necessarily bring about quality problems, nor is it low carbon and environmental protection.

It is only said that some enterprises in the operation process, one-sided pursuit of rapid response, ignoring the quality, this phenomenon will exist.

But this is not the sin of fast fashion itself.

If enterprises can not apply the concept of fast fashion well, problems will arise. This is a matter of operation rather than a necessity.

How to react quickly under the premise of quality assurance, how to react quickly when innovating, distinguish from other brand products, and at the same time, take into account social responsibility.

Fast fashion products are also indispensable in these four aspects.

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Reporter: do you think fast fashion is more reasonable for the use of resources than traditional enterprises?

Wang Zhuo: fast fashion has to respond quickly to the market, which has certain requirements for the operation ability of enterprises, the integration ability of industrial chain, the logistics system and storage system.

I think fast fashion, if run well, can create more benefits for enterprises and reduce the inventory of enterprises.

Because enterprises can be exploratory production, phased order.

What are the benefits of fast fashion? First products can be marketable at once, rising to a higher level, which can expand consumer demand; second, reduce inventories.

This is a good thing for the operation of an enterprise.

Reporter: compared with the fast fashion abroad, what is the biggest gap in China? What will be the trend of China's fast fashion in the future?

Wang Zhuo: compared with foreign countries, the biggest gap between China's fast fashion industry lies in the integration ability of the industry chain.

Fast fashion calls for shortening the production cycle, shortening the operation cycle from product development to manufacturing, logistics, distribution, and shelves.

This requires enterprises to greatly improve their ability to control and operate the entire industrial chain such as product development capability and production.

Compared with foreign countries, we still have a big gap in the above aspects.

Therefore, fast fashion will become the basic operation capability and operation level of enterprises.

I remember that Zhou Chengjian, chairman of Metis Bon Wei, said a sentence. He said that the contest of future enterprises is a contest between the resources integration ability of industrial chain and the resources of the industrial chain.

It means that whoever owns more resources of the industrial chain can make the operation more rapid and who will get more benefits eventually.

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Fast consumption induces fast fashion.

In a recent report entitled "a series of studies on the consumption of urban young women", zero survey company pointed out that the consumption behavior of Chinese urban women in various fields has a serious blind tendency.

The zero survey company conducted a qualitative and quantitative spot check for young women aged 18 to 35 in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou three.

According to the survey data, the proportion of women who bought things that they did not need or did not intend to buy by discount had reached 56%; the number of women who had been interested in buying and implementing various forms of sales activities in the shop also amounted to 40.8%; in addition, there were not many women who were influenced by advertisements to buy useless things or improper consumption.

According to the survey, more than half of young women belong to individualized or casual groups that are not easy to grasp. They focus on self satisfaction. They are the main body of emotional consumption, while older married women tend to be rational and mature.

This news represents a trend of consumption in the city now. People no longer have planned consumption, but begin to enter the period of casual consumption.

Fast fashion is also the promoter of this "casual consumption".

As a famous fast fashion brand, compared with other clothing retailers, ZARA has a very small number of garments for each garment, which artificially creates a scarcity.

The more it is not easy to get, the more it can stimulate people's desire to buy.

ZARA executes a strategy of always out of stock. For a garment of the same style, there are only a few stocks in the retail store. Perhaps, because of your hesitation, you will miss the chance to finally own it, because you may see a new shelf tomorrow.

This initial chagrin is a decisive purchase speed when customers are patronizing again.

Buying clothes quickly and buying a lot of clothing are direct evidence that "fast fashion is a waste".

Is it really the fast fashion brand that has induced the consumers? Or has the clothing become the consumer goods in people's daily life? The reporter has learned from the interview that nowadays the clothing consumption of the 80 and the 90s is gradually becoming fashionable and personalized, and there is little chance for a garment to wear more than two seasons. "But the expensive clothing will stay in the wardrobe, though it may not be worn again, but it will be reluctant to throw it away. The cheap price will be directly packaged and thrown away."

A Post-80 consumer said so.

At present, there is an empirical value in the world, with a per capita disposable income of more than 3000 US dollars, which is a dividing point.

The per capita income of more than 3000 US dollars is regarded as a boundary of major changes in people's consumption behavior.

Huatai Securities made a calculation of per capita income. In 2002, we had less than 10% of the average annual income of US $3000 and nearly 40% by 2008.

So $3000 is bound to usher in a major shift in consumption patterns and consumption patterns.

And the change in clothing consumption is a form of this change.

"This is the product of the proletariat's consumption to the middle class in the pition period," Zhou Tong, a famous display expert, has seen this trend of consumption.

"Fast fashion is the product of fast consumption from the point of view of consumption; from the point of view of operation, fast fashion is a more efficient improvement," said Yao Xiaoyun, a famous buyer.

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Fast fashion leads to productivity wastage?

Gu Bo, director of clothing and footwear products in the online store of the former shop, has over 10 years of experience in traditional clothing industry. When talking about the issue of fast fashion and waste of resources, he said: "from the perspective of production chain, fast fashion is indeed a waste.

For a production factory that meets certain quality requirements, assuming that it usually takes 300 weeks to produce a garment, it may take only 10 days to make 3000 garments.

Why? Because, at the beginning, the workers needed to adapt and master the characteristics of this type of clothing, but the more skilled the lathe workers became, the more stable the quality and the higher efficiency. That's why factory processing always needed a certain quantity.

But the fast fashion small batch will make the lathe operator just adapt to the version of the clothes, and it will end because of the small volume. Therefore, the fast fashion in the production process must be wasted on the labor productivity.

After all, clothing is not coke, as long as a large machine and a small number of labor can be completed. Clothing is a labor-intensive enterprise. It is made by sewing workers. The production efficiency is a large part of the cost of clothing. "

Gu Bo also said that if the order is very small, it will lead to the supply of raw materials.

There is a concept of minimum order quantity in every aspect of the garment industry. This minimum order quantity is the node that maximizes the efficiency of all aspects. It is not wasteful to meet this node from cotton yarn, sliver, to grey cloth, to dyeing, to cutting and sewing.

Fast fashion is a small batch, resulting in many links can not meet this order quantity, resulting in waste of raw materials.

Gu Bo believes that fast fashion is a challenge to production and supply chain, which is based on production efficiency and technology productivity.

Fast fashion is seen from the perspective of industrial chain. This is a fast production and marketing process built on the basis of wasting part of raw materials and sacrificing part of quality and following the fashion trend in real time.

Under current scientific and technological productivity, it does not apply to some brands that pursue high quality images.

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For traditional brands, does it really avoid wasting in the process of industrial chain? Traditional enterprises also take a lot of waste in the course of operation, such as waste of quantity production, waste of waiting, waste of pportation, improper processing waste, waste of inventory, unnecessary action and poor quality. This is often the 7 waste in lean production.

In addition to these, there are also waste of heat and energy, as well as potential wastage of human resources, waste of environmental pollution, unnecessary waste of management, inappropriate waste of product design, and so on. This is a waste of production.

There is also a waste of logistics, premature completion of work, unnecessary ergonomics, additional consumption, including training, error, improper pportation, unnecessary inventory, excessive packaging and environmental pollution, waiting or delay, waste of power and energy, waste of human resources, inappropriate waste of facilities, all of which should be avoided in Logistics distribution and warehousing, so that supply chain can be refined.

Moreover, the PtoD mode adopted by the traditional clothing enterprises (traditional enterprises must produce according to the seasonal orders obtained in advance) determines that enterprises must predict the needs of consumers for production.

After predicting the market demand for the next season, the factory will mechanically carry out mass production according to this demand.

Large scale production enterprises must purchase large quantities of raw materials at a time to ensure production, and in actual production process, they often consume all raw materials and produce a surplus of raw materials.

These raw materials, which have no problems with their own quality, are not likely to be processed in large quantities, and are likely to be treated at low prices to small garment factories, and even many materials can only be treated as waste products.

This not only caused the enterprise to bear enormous production pressure, but also caused a lot of waste of resources.

The famous fast fashion brand ZARA is famous for its small quantity and variety. ZARA introduces about 12000 kinds of fashion in a year, and the amount of each fashion is not large.

Even with the best selling style, ZARA supplies only a limited number, often only two pieces in one store, sold out and not replenished.

Just like the limited issuance of stamps has raised the value of philatelic products.

ZARA has trained a large number of loyal followers through this way of "manufacturing shortage".

"Multi style, small batch", ZARA achieved a breakthrough in economic scale.

It is widely believed that the shortest time for ZARA to sell clothes from the counter is only 7 days - 12 days.

However, according to the industry, many ZARA products are not running on the shortest operation time, but run step by step according to the plan and cycle. This is not the same as the futures operation of traditional enterprises.

ZARA is the ZARA futures operated by the buyer system. Its mature operation mode ensures the cycle of the product's shelves. This part of futures products cooperates with the fast fashion products of some fashion categories, forming the impression that ZARA is now in the eyes of consumers in a variety of styles and keeping up with fashion.

It also guaranteed the fast turnover rate of ZARA.

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Fast fashion leads to operational change.

Lang Xianping, a famous economist, once pointed out: "successful enterprises after 2000 are not created by innovation, but by rapid reactions."

It is not difficult to see that the "quick response capability" to the market will become the key to measure the core competitiveness of modern enterprises.

For the garment industry, which is known for its "timeliness", "popularity" and "seasonality" constitute the salient features of clothing products. Garment enterprises must be able to maintain a firm foothold in the increasingly fierce market competition in order to achieve "efficient information feedback and sensitive market response".

Fast fashion is the representative of fast reaction in garment industry.

The speed of the famous fast fashion brand ZARA solves the time cost of the whole operation.

The excellent product information and inventory management data system enables the ZARA team to manage thousands of fabrics, all kinds of decorations, and design lists and inventory items.

ZARA's logistics distribution system is very developed. About 20 kilometers of underground conveyor belt delivers ZARA products to the cargo distribution center in La Coruna, Spain. The center has a very mature automated management software system.

To ensure that every order arrives on time, ZARA uses optical reading tools to conduct product inspection and selects and inspected more than 60 thousand items per hour.

The pport trucks in the logistics center continue to drive to Europe based on the fixed departure timetable.

ZARA also has two air pport bases. Usually European stores can receive goods within 24 hours, and American stores need 48 hours, and Japan is 48 hours -72 hours.

Under the intervention of information technology, the accuracy rate of ZARA shipment is as high as 98.9%, while the error rate is less than 0.5%.

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Although speed is a magic weapon for ZARA to occupy the market, behind the "speed" is ZARA intensive intensive management and strong IT support.

Information technology supported by high technology plays a great role in promoting the breakthroughs of traditional business models.

In addition to ZARA in Spain, Sweden's H&M is also using another way of information management to explain another legend.

For ZARA and H&M, it is a common feature of their success to have fast, multi style, small volume, and quickly and accurately occupy information resources.

"Fast fashion is a good thing for clothing marketing. Fast fashion reduces the risk of inventory and increases operational capacity and efficiency.

Inventory is the most fundamental point of operation. How to reduce inventory is the key to profitability.

Gu Bo thinks.

At present, most garment enterprises in China are still at a low level of informatization.

Due to the lack of timely information management tools, enterprises can not quickly and accurately understand the sales and inventory status of branches, stores and sales outlets. It is difficult to accurately distribute the stores and sales outlets, and it is also very difficult to predict and analyze sales.

The traditional distribution system basically adopts manual operation. It takes a few days to make a basic form, not to mention the general statement. The leaders of the enterprise can not make decisions in time and accurately.

"Waste of resources is also a problem of many companies.

Because a lot of reasons ignore the information provided by the market itself to clothing companies.

Wang Qiangsheng, sales director of ARRTCO under Han Po banner, said.

Inventory has become the biggest pain of traditional clothing enterprises.

In 2010, the state's business revenue reached 7 billion 500 million, but inventories were 2 billion 500 million, and the inventory grew by 192% over the same period last year.

Among them, the United States and the main brand accounted for 1 billion 800 million, ME&CITY and online shopping brand AMPM accounted for 700 million.

After eliminating the impact of new products on warehouse and new brand inventory, the inventory size is still 1 billion 500 million yuan, up 62% over the same period last year.

More than 30% of inventory is absolutely high voltage for other garment enterprises. Several garment enterprises have indicated that inventory control is reasonable at 10% to 15%.

Too high inventory can lead to cash outflow.

ZARA's chief executive said that the fashion world's stock is just like food, and it will deteriorate for a long time. We must do everything we can to reduce inventory time, so that our profits will be there.

Fashion needs speed. The so-called fast fashion also changes the speed of fashion, speeds up the elimination of fashion, breaks the laws of fashion and achieves the initiative.

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Expert opinion

Relativity between fast and slow

Chen Guoqiang, deputy director of the Institute of industrial economics, China Garment Association

On the surface, there seems to be an inventory problem between traditional enterprises and fast fashion enterprises.

In other words, due to problems in the production cycle and logistics problems of traditional enterprises, some costs will increase.

But one thing to note is that it can not be regarded as a waste.

"Waste" and "cost increase" are two different concepts.

Fast fashion enterprises, because of its fast pace, and advocating and practicing the principle of "zero inventory", especially after the implementation of information technology, fast fashion really reduces the cost of industry.

On the face of it, fast fashion enterprises seem to be a new mode instead of an old mode compared with traditional enterprises, but actually they are not.

Because fast fashion, to a large extent, is the use of information technology, and it is through information technology to upgrade traditional industries.

Fast fashion is not to break away from traditional industries, but to upgrade traditional industries with information technology.

Therefore, the premise of fast fashion development is to rely on traditional industries.

If fast fashion loses its support for traditional industries, its speed is also impossible.

It can be said that fast fashion relies on traditional industries and relies on information technology to enhance the products of traditional industries.

It is undeniable that fast fashion is a revolution and a promotion.

It seems that fast fashion is the negation of traditional industries, but from a philosophical point of view, it should be said that it is a kind of sublation, both inheritance and upgrading.

On the other hand, fast fashion can not be successful without the support of the entity manufacturing industry.

Why did PPG fail? Although it did well in information technology, it failed to cooperate closely with the traditional manufacturing industry and was not strong in supporting. Secondly, it made a big mistake in logistics, and did not build a logistics system centered on the professional logistics of garment industry.

So even though PPG was fast, it still ended in failure.

After the Japanese earthquake, we should have a new understanding of fast fashion. We should not overemphasize its "fast".

Extremes must be reversed, and problems will arise if they are too fast.

The so-called "zero inventory" is not necessarily one hundred percent correct.

Everything is relative.

For example, when natural disasters and natural disasters happen, absolute speed and "zero inventory" may quickly break the industrial chain.

For absolute "zero inventory", Japan is also reflecting on it now.

Now there is a view called "industrial backup".

For example, a factory in Japan can produce core material, but often in case of accident, another factory needs to be built in another place.

Can this be a waste? Of course not.

Now, many traditional enterprises have undergone great changes. They will divide the industry into R & D centers, sales centers, settlement centers, manufacturing centers, and even a large number of logistics bases.

Enterprises have built their own logistics centers. They are a professional and rigorous logistics company. They not only distribute goods, but also recycle waste clothes. They are a kind of logistics from cradle to grave.

Some people may have such a misunderstanding: one "fast" is to save money, one "slow" is wasted, one "fast" is to invest less, one "slow" is to invest more.

But actually, otherwise, "fast" is not actually a reduction in cost. From another point of view, its other costs are increasing.

But it is undeniable that fast fashion is indeed a promotion and revolution to traditional industries.

Therefore, when we consider the relationship between the two, we must not simply oppose it.

The two are complementary. Fast fashion must rely on traditional industries, and traditional industries must rely on information technology to improve themselves.

In order to upgrade traditional enterprises, we should minimize inventory and speed up turnover.

But inventory is low, and there is stock. Speed is fast, and it takes a time.

A balance should be found between the two, rather than either or both.