The transformation of the Internet to the clothing industry

When fast fashion brands such as Uniqlo quickly occupy the Chinese market, and the traditional industrial model has been unable to adapt to the rapidly changing consumer demand, change is imperative. The Internet-based flexible supply chain replaces the traditional upstream and downstream industry model of the clothing industry and has become a necessary condition for the development of the current clothing industry.

What can the Internet do for the textile and garment industry chain of 170 million workers

In 2007, the total employment population absorbed by the upstream and downstream industrial chains of China's textile and garment industry is said to be as high as 170 million. In his view, before the flexible supply chain transforms the production line, it is necessary to ensure that the demand can be quickly gathered to achieve centralized production, and at the same time, the factory and fabric manufacturers need to be given flexibility.

In 2007, the total employment population absorbed by the upstream and downstream industrial chains of China's textile and garment industry is said to be as high as 170 million.

Although the specific figures cannot be verified, the textile and garment industry undoubtedly accounts for half of the national economy. As a pillar industry, the domestic textile and garment industry is facing a crisis of internal and external troubles. In the past 6 months, more than 9 well-known textile and garment enterprises went bankrupt. Metersbonwe made a profit of more than 1 billion 4 years ago. Today, this former clothing empire is on a downward slope of losses, and international fast fashion brands represented by ZARA and Uniqlo have become the new favorites of young people.

At such a moment, the transformation of the Internet to traditional industries, reflected in the field of clothing, is actually much shallower than we imagined. When my colleague asked me why tech media like 36Kr wanted to chat with people from traditional clothing companies, I thought that a topic of Zheng Qingsheng's speech some time ago -- "trying to understand the real operation of the world" -- maybe is the best answer.

"Just a simple hang tag is a very complicated thing in traditional retail stores"

Clothing is a huge manufacturing system. What we talk most with people from traditional clothing companies is the back-end production supply chain in clothing. Every link in the clothing supply chain is like gears with intricate designs. These gears mesh with each other to form a huge machine, and this machine is really affecting the development of the clothing industry.

In the traditional clothing industry, there are three rough divisions of the supply chain: clothing companies, clothing factories and fabric factories. Geographically, the entire garment industry is concentrated in Qingdao, Guangzhou, and the Yangtze River Delta in Shandong. The fabrics are distributed in Keqiao, Shaoxing, and Guangzhou Zhongda. The production bases are mainly in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Wang Jinhua, general manager of Youluobao, who has been in the traditional clothing industry for 15 years, told 36 Krypton, "In terms of the specific operation of the supply chain, some clothing companies are very light and only do brand operations that are close to marketing. Their clothing It will be outsourced to the design team to design. Some clothing companies are more important, and the corresponding design department will be configured below. No matter which kind, the final design of the designer can only be called a work. Important garment production links, including nesting, cutting, sewing, ironing and other processes."

From design to production, there are two most common models in the current industry in the processing and manufacturing of clothing: one is the all-inclusive model. The factory is directly responsible for the whole package, the clothing company directly pays the total price, and finally only the finished product is received; one is the pure OEM model. The factory is only responsible for processing, and the fabric is bought by the clothing company itself. The clothing company will pay two fees, one for the processing fee to the factory, and one for the fabric fee to the fabric factory. As for the logistics of fabrics from the fabric factory to the factory, you can choose to pull it yourself, or you can ask the factory for distribution.

In addition to the fabrics that need to be purchased, there are also accessories, which refer to the button materials on the clothes. If it is an all-inclusive model, the factory will directly prepare the accessories for the clothing company. In another way, the clothing company will buy the accessories themselves, and the factory is only responsible for the assembly.

"The fabrics and raw materials that are more upstream than processing and manufacturing are also very complicated. The fabric itself has its own craftsmanship. For example, different fabrics have different base fabrics. For a hemp gray knitted T-shirt, its base fabric should be from The initial white is dyed into hemp gray; a skirt has lace, and during production, the fabric base first needs to be processed by the lace process. These treatments may be done by the garment factory itself, or it may be the bottom The cloth is ready-made by the fabric factory. Under different cooperation models, the upstream and downstream chains may be longer." Wang Jinhua said.

This complex production process and intertwined chain nodes can be reflected in the simplest T-shirt.

T-shirts can be regarded as a very standardized product in clothes, but to make a T-shirt, the supply chain involved is also very troublesome. Starting from the procurement of clothing embryos, it is necessary to find a printing factory, then go through many different processes (such as printing, labels, etc.), then to packaging (at this time, you need to connect with packaging workers), and finally to logistics suppliers and after-sales. Before the clothes embryo, there is the finishing process, which includes ironing, inspection, folding and other processes, as well as washing, shearing, steaming, pressing and other methods. In front, there are garment processing, fabric procurement, printing and dyeing, raw materials and so on.

Liu Chao, the founder of YouT, who is a custom T-shirt maker, told me that they went through a pit for several months when they entered the market in the early days. In the end, they could only do what they could. They chose to only do a very shallow layer, that is, to develop the system. For the supply chain, I focus on tracking and tracing the status and monitoring the chain. For the rest, I try to find a good brand partner to cooperate and solve it, so that these brands can guarantee the operation.

"There are many doors in the manufacturing industry of clothing. A simple hang tag is a very complicated thing in a traditional retail store. The information on the tag and the description of the clothes need to be very accurate, and there are so many SKUs in the store. , It is not easy to make one-to-one correspondence. If there is any discrepancy between the tag information and the clothing, it will be very troublesome, because the store has a purchase record, it will be sent according to the matching number, and the quality supervision department will conduct random checks. The punishment measures are very strict. Some stores simply stick the labels to save trouble, but the retail clerks often don’t understand.” Liu Chao told me.

It can be seen that the entire chain in the clothing supply chain is very long and has many nodes. Almost every process involved has a different factory responsible for it. It is very professional and subdivided. The cooperation methods of the supply chain are also very flexible and diverse, but in the end it is A result of the cooperation of multiple suppliers.