She Sells The Tail Goods Industry Activated By The Stock Epidemic For Brand Merchants

Liu Na likes her current "job": selling inventory tail goods for brand merchants. Through her platform, the gap cotton jacket with the original price of 599 yuan is only 80 yuan; the 699 yuan Taiping bird dress, with its label cut off, costs 69.9 yuan Liu Na's job is to pull up a wechat group, lose product links and pictures, and when someone places an order, she can get the corresponding Commission.

"Three thousand, about two months." Liu Na told reporters. But we can't get high revenue from customer service.

According to the National Bureau of statistics, from January to May this year, the total inventory of finished products of China's industrial enterprises reached 4.47 trillion, up 9% year-on-year. The total inventory and total clothing inventory reached 16.59 billion yuan.

With "brand discount tail goods" discount promotion, consumers save money, enterprises can quickly return funds, the whole link benefits. Outlets is the main offline platform, while vipshop, aicang and other platforms are available online.

In this special spring, stores are closed, logistics is suspended, and inventory e-commerce platform ushers in a wave of dividends.

"After the outbreak, the inventory of the whole industry has increased, and suppliers are willing to offer better products and lower discounts. At least by the end of this year, we do see a huge amount of goods. " In the last quarter of vipshop's financial report conference call, chairman and CEO Shen Ya stressed.

The immediate dividend does not belong to the inventory e-commerce only. Both the brand itself and the e-commerce platforms such as Taobao special edition, Jingdong and pinduoduo have entered the inventory tail market.

Inventory has changed from a "hot potato" to a "pity to abandon".

"There's more and more inventory and more competition. We see that many platforms are also selling tail goods, and we hope to occupy a large market share in the whole inventory link of suppliers. " Shen Ya said.

The significance behind this sentence is that the sales pattern of inventory tail goods will usher in a hard battle.

Before talking about competition, we should also discuss whether there will be long-term and large-scale inventory of brands? Can there be a second Taobao in the field of inventory e-commerce? As well as Taobao special edition, pinduoduo's end, what does it mean for the players to inventory?

　　 Inventory that can't be removed

Consumers will not step into the same commodity flow. The demand for new products must always change.

In the field of clothing, this change is particularly obvious. When SKU (inventory unit) superposition can create more profits, all brands rush forward. The sprint has also brought inventory pressure.

"There are four seasons of clothing: spring, summer, autumn and winter, and at the end of the season, new products have to be introduced in every quarter. And popular styles will soon be out of date, cotton and linen textiles will also over time and storage problems, leading to quality problems Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd. General Manager Cheng Weixiong told.

These characteristics determine that the inventory problem is most concentrated in the field of clothing. If a red l SKU generates 100 pieces of stock, then 1000 SKUs have 100000 units in stock.

When a brand loses its vitality in the market, the common solution in the field of clothing is to launch a "multi brand" strategy, set up a sub brand to cover different consumer groups, so that their products can get more opportunities.

Taking Li Ning as an example, under the multi brand front, the product SKU doubled rapidly, which led to the difficulty of supply chain management. Once, the loss exceeded 3 billion because of out of control inventory.

"For clothing brands, it's good to control the inventory within 10% a year by franchising; it's OK to control the direct marketing brands at about 20% Cheng Weixiong estimates.

However, under the mechanism of highly inflated SKU and multi brand operation strategy, it is not easy to realize the inventory rate of 10-20%.

At the end of June, the city beauty released a performance forecast, saying that it expected a loss of no less than 120 million yuan in the first half of the year, and a profit of 35.5 million yuan in the same period of last year.

As the leading enterprise of Chinese women's underwear, now the stock price is only more than 4 Mao. According to the financial report, from 2016 to 2019, the inventory of urban beauty was 1.151 billion yuan, 1.112 billion yuan, 1.165 billion yuan and 680 million yuan, respectively, with a sharp decrease. But this year, the influence of "black swan" has dragged many brands back to the swamp.

There is no doubt that the antidote to inventory losses is to reduce them quickly. But as soon as the price goes down, the price will gradually go down. "The higher the selling price, the higher the gross profit; on the contrary, the larger the inventory, the lower the gross profit brought by the enterprise, and the lower its value in the future." Cheng Weixiong analysis said.

　　 Who will solve the inventory problem

With so much inventory, why can't we reduce production from the source? Can the flexible supply chain model of "small quantity and quick production" solve the inventory problem fundamentally?

Taking Zara as an example, the agile flexible supply chain has always been Zara's successful methodology, which determines that it can quickly understand market changes.

Zara has launched 120000 fashions a year, each of which is produced in small quantities to reduce the inventory pressure caused by the huge SKU.

But under the influence of the epidemic, the supply chain failed. In this year, inditera reported a net loss of $2.2 billion for the first time in the history of the company. More than 1000 stores in inditera were closed.

C2m reverse customization and flexible supply chain can reduce a certain amount of inventory, but when the product "push the old" and "out of the new" continue to cross, the enterprise's test is great.

It's a long process from fabric to fabric Suppose that the first batch of a product sells 5000 pieces. When an enterprise wants to add 5000 pieces in the second and third batch, it is likely to be unsalable.

The market is changing at any time. This includes climate change, promotion change, or user change, as well as other brand competition.

"Supply exceeds demand" goods only exist in a few products, "oversupply" is the norm.

There is always a gap between reality and anticipation. If the boss wants to test the market and place a small order first, the production cost will not have an advantage; if there is an order of 1000 pieces of clothing, the boss thinks, in case of selling 2000 pieces? If you don't make 2000, you lose the chance.

The large and small gap directly leads to the size of the inventory.

In addition, when the sales end can't keep up with the change speed of products, it will lead to overstocking.

"Fashion products are like selling fruits. They should be sold fresh. If they are out of date, they may become stale. When your product style is not so new, the brand can only be sold by discount. At this time, assets and inventory will be devalued, and the gross profit will be affected, and the impact will be linked. " Mark Huafei CEO Yang kuntian once told the media.

　　 Where are the clothes that can't be sold

Three years, this may be a clothing sales cycle.

A clothing industry practitioner said, "inventory tail goods are generally divided into new product surplus and previous season. Now, the off season funds sold in 2019 are still good, and the unsalable funds in 2018 are basically not sold."

Different years determine the discount of stock tail goods. Before the announcement of clearing inventory in Southeast Asia (about 0.5% off), the inventory of Lishui is still sold to developing countries in 2017.

Generally speaking, the sales chain of clothing is as follows: first, the clothing will be sold in the first and second tier cities, the out of season and outdated ones will be moved to the third and fourth tier cities, and then the clothing will be sold to the developing countries.

The further down, the lower the price. From the perspective of world demand, there are more consumption layers and longer sales cycle. The price difference brought by different time and region makes the inventory gasp.

In this process, inventory e-commerce becomes the existence of "catching the last breath". Online, including vipshop, Aiku, BeiCang and other platforms; offline, outlets is also the main position of inventory tail goods.

We also choose our own sales channels such as discount stores and tail stores.

Measures to reduce inventory include focusing on classic products and substantially reducing SKUs, providing reasonable discounts through sales and distribution channels in various centers, and opening more than 100 factory discount stores to clean up inventory.

The distributors are not willing to sell their own brands directly to the factories, and they are not willing to give them decent prices at the end.

　　 "Unsalable" giant

It is not difficult to see that rapid de stocking is a brand demand, which also means that downstream can grow more de inventory sales channels.

Offline, according to the data of Aolai leading show, the sales volume of 34 olai projects in 2019 is more than 70 billion yuan. Statistics show that there are more than 400 discount stores named after "outlets" nationwide. To some extent, Ole's prosperity represents the vitality of the stock tail goods.

Online, inventory e-commerce is also fertile.

According to the report of iResearch in 2019, the scale of inventory e-commerce market reaches tens of billions. There are about 100-150 players, and players of the first and second echelons account for more than 80% of the market share.

The most well-known brand discount platform vipshop. As early as 2013, Yang Donghao, the CFO of vipshop, said: "China's annual inventory of 400 billion clothing needs to be cleared, vipshop is still early from the ceiling."

In 2019, vipshop created RMB 148.2 billion of Gmv (platform transaction volume). According to the annual clothing inventory of 400 billion, this market can still accommodate two or three vipshop.

AI inventory, which also started as an inventory e-commerce, has completed four financing times in 2018, with a total amount of more than 1 billion yuan.

It is revealed that there are 1.5 million small inventory suppliers of jueying, the vice president of distribution.

Different from the logic of OLE and vipshop directly facing the C-end, AI inventory undertakes the inventory tail goods of brand manufacturers at one end, and connects to C-end consumers through numerous small B's in the middle. To achieve this process, the upstream price negotiation ability and downstream sales speed should be strong.

However, with the increase of sales channels of inventory tail goods, brands continue to increase their own discount stores and factory stores, and the advantages of third-party sales channels will be reduced. Inventory e-commerce has not established obvious barriers to competition.

　　 Imagination of inventory E-commerce

Side B is the opportunity inventory. Once upon a time, e-commerce was still underdeveloped. Many brands used online as a channel to sell inventory, and sold off-season and outdated products at low prices.

Today, tmall and other e-commerce platforms have become the main front for brand to release new products. Accordingly, de stocking also differentiates more sales channels. Taobao special edition, Jingdong, pinduoduo began to become a channel to inventory.

Conversely, no enterprise is willing to put eggs in the same basket. Sales channels can not do only this one, it is difficult to bear the huge inventory throughput, which leads to diversification.

No one can eat the cake alone. The determining factor is how many consumers can be reached.

Taobao connected 846 million consumers, followed by Jingdong and pinduoduo. By comparison, vipshop has only 38.6 million active buyers. When vipshop can't digest so much inventory, there are other functions of e-commerce. If they can't digest, there will be pinduoduo.

In addition to the variables brought about by consumers, we are faced with tens of millions of brands in China.

Different from the integrated operation of European and American enterprises, the inventory of a certain brand is concentrated in supermarkets and shopping centers to realize single channel buyout. China's de stocking channels are more about providing services, inventory is still brand-name, and the third-party channel creates platform value, rather than dealers, to buy and sell inventory.

On this link, the third-party channel lacks bargaining chips.

However, Ju Ying told the media that the inventory e-commerce should be called a new e-commerce now. Its core logic is that people do not move and goods move. It is very different from the traditional platform e-commerce in that every brand goes to open a store on the e-commerce platform, and consumers find stores and goods through search, which is a state of people looking for goods. However, in the love inventory mode, it is more recommended by shopkeepers, and consumers are passively perceived in the community.

Whether this will become a commercial barrier is still unknown.

If the financial crisis in 2008 has brought vipshop an opportunity to open the door to discount products, then this epidemic has once again activated the enthusiasm of the inventory market. When de stocking becomes a hot spot, the market race starts again. The 100 billion level clothing "inventory" is likely to create the next Ali and pinduoduo.