What counts as a "new" product? Let's take an example, new energy vehicles VS fuel vehicles.
At first, many traditional car manufacturers thought that Tesla is an electric car. As long as the fuel system is replaced by an electric system, we can also become a new force in the car. Later, everyone suddenly understood that the essence of Tesla is not an "electric car" at all, it is a "smart mobile terminal". Tesla is not selling cars, but technology services.
For the automotive field, "new energy vehicles" are not new products, but "smart mobile terminals" are truly new products.
Similarly, in the field of consumer goods, if you only replace or upgrade a certain link, then you are not really a new consumer product at all.
For example, traditional consumer goods are mainly sold in supermarkets, while you sell goods in emerging channels such as Douyin Xiaohongshu live broadcast. This kind of replacement or upgrade, traditional consumer goods can be easily realized.
As I said in " The "New" Scam of New Consumer Products, the so-called "new people", "new products", "new media" and "new channels" of new consumer products are all "pseudo-new".
The reason why new consumer goods can be called new consumer goods must be that the "way of driving growth" is different from traditional consumer goods. If new consumer goods do not find new ways to drive growth, the rest of the "new" is just the skin.
Today, let's dismantle a very important topic: where is the "new" of new consumption?
1. Who is the "elephant" in new consumption?
In the field of new consumer goods, a very interesting phenomenon is that it is easy for a brand to go from 0 to 1, and it can easily achieve sales of 100 million+, but from 1 to 100 is difficult. If you want to break through the 1 billion mark, for 95% of new consumer goods, there is no path and no hope.
The world of new consumer goods is a world of fast-growing and dying, a world of ants and no elephants.
The only "elephant" is a very low-key business, its name is Shein.
Let’s take a quick look at the brand through a set of descriptions:
Shein's revenue in 2020 is 65 billion, equivalent to 1.5 Uniqlo;
Shein is a cross-border fast fashion e-commerce, buying clothing in 220 countries around the world, but its headquarters is in Nanjing, China;
Shein has about 120 million registered users in the whole station, ranking first in 56 countries in the world on the Apple App Store;
Shein has been established for 13 years, and the latest valuation is 47 billion US dollars, with an annual growth rate of more than 100%.
It is said that Shein is low-key because before 2020, you can hardly see the shadow of this company in any report. From The Wall Street Journal to China Business Weekly, the e-commerce giant has been left out of every organization.
Although many new consumer brands have created a lot of topics on the Internet in recent years, it is this seemingly low-key brand that really leads the new wave of consumption.
It is said that Shein leads the new wave of consumption, because young girls overseas are addicted to Shein like TikTok. Shein opened a store in Miami for the first time. In the first 3 days, 125 people entered the store every hour to spend...
On the surface, Shein is the online version of Zara, taking the fast fashion route. All fast fashion brands have two characteristics: one is cheap, and the other is fast.
The reason why Shein is sought after, first of all thanks to its outrageous price. Like $7 hoodies, $12 skirts, $17 jeans.
In the new speed, Shein is better than the blue. Generally speaking, Uniqlo's new cycle is half a year, Zara needs 14 days, and Shein's new cycle is 7 days. If you log in to Shein, the words "Daily New 1000+" are prominently displayed on it. Moreover, Shein's interface is more like Xiaohongshu rather than Taobao. A large number of new styles + information flow interface telemarketing list can make girls keep swiping.
What exactly is Shein? It's cheaper than Amazon, faster than zara, has more choices than Vipshop, and is as addicted as Douyin. This is Shein.
The point is, how is this all done?
All clothing business, the biggest pain point is: how to grasp the trend? When consumers buy a piece of clothing, it has long passed the stage of quality selection. What everyone values is the aesthetic temperament expressed by design, tailoring and materials.
If the wrong trend is judged, no one will buy the clothes produced, and the unsalable clothes will cause a backlog of inventory, which can only be telemarketing list sold at a discount.
Moreover, there is a long production period between the prediction of the trend and the arrival of the goods on the shelves. If the production cycle is too long, the tide is over. The reason why fast fashion brands beat traditional clothing brands is that Uniqlo, Zara, and HM have solved this problem.
The way for fast fashion brands to grasp the trend is one word - copy. Take a look at all the popular styles of big-name clothing this season, and then refer to the design of big-name brands for "optimization".
Then, they will produce some clothing orders in small batches according to different design styles, put them in the store to see the sales performance, and then add more orders to the factory for the clothing that sells well. This model is called "quick return for small orders" in the industry.