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New Chinese Aesthetics Behind The Huge Traffic And Sales Bonus Of E-Commerce

2024/4/7 12:34:00 11

After the test of time, it is obvious that the new Chinese aesthetics is still high. For China's fashion industry, it has gradually become an opportunity to start from local cultural assets, link designers, brands, retail platforms, and social media, and gradually activate the vitality of overseas consumption.

After explosive expansion, how does the market increment transform into stable stock?

It is undeniable that when the new Chinese aesthetics frequently triggered the boom in traffic and sales, the hidden worries and questions of the industrial end have always existed - is it still impossible to avoid the development line of high opening and low going? Behind the upsurge, what structural problems exist in Chinese cultural consumption represented by the new Chinese aesthetics?

According to the longer cycle data provided by Weibo Fashion to WWD China, in 2023, the cumulative number of readers of topics related to "New Chinese Style" on the Weibo platform will be nearly 3 billion, with women accounting for 73% of the original bloggers; In terms of age, 54% of them are 19-29 years old, followed by 30-39 and 20%; Third tier cities and above accounted for 69%.

The volume of notes related to the "new Chinese style" on the Xiaohongshu platform increased by 390%+, and the total amount of interaction increased by 188%+. The Xiaohongshu platform became universal, phenomenal, and commercial.

According to the latest data from Taobao, as Taobao's Spring and Summer New Power Week, which is the most cost-effective way to buy spring clothes, this year, the sales of Hanfu, New Chinese style and other clothing also rose with the opening of the New Power Week. The sales of Taobao's Hanfu in March increased by 115% year on year, with an average of more than 1 million people searching for Hanfu on Taobao every day. It is worth mentioning that this year's 2024 "Silver Needle Clothing Guide" of Taobao Clothing also split the new national style track into new Han style clothing and new Chinese style clothing, providing more display channels for national style businesses.

Among them, the new Chinese style award-winning stores in the first three days of the New Forces Week saw a year-on-year increase of 161%, and national style clothing is becoming routine. As the person in charge of Taobao women's clothing style operation said: "Compared with the traditional Han and Tang clothing, the new Chinese style clothing weakens the established sense of ceremony and grandeur, and pursues more daily."

The omni channel good news has been reported frequently. "New Chinese style" is obviously becoming an important window for the upgrading of China's clothing market, which has also spawned accelerated expansion and cultural application rates from market participants in different fields, subtly changing the market share of the clothing industry.

Fashion brands with a keen sense of smell are entering the new Chinese style track with greater volume and brand advantages. Both domestic clothing brands, international luxury brands, and even sports brands have begun to create new Chinese style series. In addition, a number of original new Chinese brands have entered the consumers' eyes, among which the weaving department, which relies on the horse face skirt, is one of them. In addition, many Chinese stars have also brought more designers or brands into the public eye, such as M essential, Zhizhi, etc.

At the same time, the fashion oriented women's wear brands of Taoxi and Shuaixi also started to create new Chinese styles, which is no longer limited to "OEM" business. The huge market base of the new Chinese style has also attracted the attention of white brand merchants. It has grown up in the platforms of Tiaoyin, Taobao, 1688, Pinduoduo, etc. with the advantage of low price, and has seized market share through the advantage of price.

In the collective action of market participants, traditional culture, modern design and industrial chain, new sales channels, national identity and other factors jointly promote the emergence of a market wave with greater radiation effect. But can this consumption landscape stand the test of time and a larger market?

As the market worries, the tuyere triggered by the new Chinese style clothing inevitably faces a growth bottleneck.

Behind the rapid growth of the segment market, the development status quo of the industrial chain, such as cultural abuse, aesthetic form standards, quality chaos and so on, is not only a hidden worry.

First, the concept is rampant. First, the biggest problem of the new Chinese style is imitation. In order to catch the express train, many merchants simply copied the elements such as buckles and embroidery carelessly, resulting in uneven design quality, or even bad money driving out good money, squeezing the living space of high-quality merchants or brands. The process of bubble bursting inevitably leads to consumer suspicion.

The second is the confusion between quality and supply chain. In fact, the production costs of raw materials, plate making, process, etc. are relatively high for the new Chinese style clothing category. However, in the process of pursuing mass production scale and the speed of launching new products, we finally face the outcome of "more sales, more retreats".

Third, aesthetic misdirection and cultural misunderstanding. Taking the rise of the live broadcast with goods mode as an example, the new Chinese style air outlet is strong, and the anchors naturally flock to it. However, on the road of commercialization in pursuit of traffic and sales, many anchors have exposed the problems of inadequate checks on new Chinese style clothing and blind delivery of goods, leading to public ambiguity about the form and culture of new Chinese style clothing. Not only is it limited to the popular channel of e-commerce live broadcast, including design and development, supply chain, communication and other links, it has sounded the alarm bell to the cultural consumption field represented by the new Chinese aesthetics.

This just shows that the new Chinese aesthetic consumption is moving towards a new stage of qualitative change. As non-standard products, new Chinese clothing is more influenced by consumers' subjective preferences, and more valued by the emotional value and cultural potential behind the goods.

Kan Shan, general manager of Taobao Clothing, believes that if we pay attention to the new generation of young people and their growth background, we can see that they are growing up in an era when China's international influence is rising. What we can see is the process of spreading China and Chinese civilization overseas, "The population structure of the consumer market is changing, and the post-95s and post-00s have become an absolute main force in today's consumer market that cannot be ignored. Their national pride and self-confidence are very strong, and they have greater willingness to dress to express their group identity as Chinese."

Xu Fanglin, deputy editor in chief of Sina Fashion, said to WWD China: "The rapid development of social networks and e-commerce, such as the use of microblog platform, mainstream media reports, we media recommendations, brands and designers' self marketing, all allow consumers to have more channels to understand and understand the new Chinese style, find new Chinese brands and designers, and have more choices. The skills and materials used in the new Chinese style clothing are enough exquisite. During the period of economic fluctuation, high-quality products are their best reputation. "

For the young generation, new Chinese consumption is not only about rational aesthetic consumption, but also an infectious cultural action. Therefore, only a solid market moat can make the new Chinese aesthetics usher in a life cycle with a long tail effect.

In the first half of 2022, the hot market is "Han Element", and the rapid rise of horse face skirt occurs between the second half of 2022 and 2023. Xie Linglong, co-founder of the Weaving Department, said: "Many years ago, although the discussion about Hanfu has been very lively in film and television dramas, news and hot search, it has not formed the transformation of market consumption."

Now, faced with huge consumption and flow dividends, how can the new Chinese style stop following the old path of national fashion and become popular after the tide fades?

First of all, as Ms. Xu Fanglin pointed out to WWD CHINA, "language" and "industrial chain" are the two keys, "language is the first. A more specific intuitive feeling of the macro concepts of cultural identity and sense of belonging is the barrier of language. The uniqueness of the Chinese language, even if there is translation, will lose in translation. It is also very important to be able to communicate and express smoothly, and clear the barriers to communication with global consumers. The second is the improvement of the industrial chain. Whether the supply chain can keep up with the demand of design thinking and consumption habits, and whether it can be unblocked in different regions from fabric to design and production, to logistics, to marketing. "

It is worth mentioning that the flow side needs more spontaneous sources or engines, and trend icons naturally become the best candidates for this link. On the other hand, the combination of Chinese fashion icons and new Chinese costumes, or Chinese culture, is actually releasing differentiated influence to the international arena with a greater voice. Kan Shan, the general manager of Taobao Clothing, pointed out that "every time a star wears a hanfu, it will further enlarge the circle of hanfu groups."

In addition, the popularity of the new Chinese style has affected the operation logic of the market. On the contrary, the support of e-commerce platforms has further boosted the visibility and standardization of this track. On December 26 last year, Taobao Clothing added "Han Suit" as a secondary category, which is equal to "wedding dress/cheongsam/tuxedo". Under the second level category of Hanfu, there are five sub categories, namely, Hanfu Tops, Hanfu Trousers, Hanfu Suits, Hanfu Skirts and Hanfu Dress, which means that the Hanfu commodities sold by merchants need not be included in the major categories of "women's clothing" and "national clothing", and will reach consumers more independently and accurately. Kan Shan pointed out: "Now we have just finished segmentation and upgrading. In a while, consumers will find that the shopping experience and supply of Hanfu will be qualitatively different from those before."

A trend of "new Chinese style wear and match" has swept the screen on the Little Red Book. In addition to planting grass, the buyers on Little Red Book introduced many new Chinese style items in the live broadcast, used their own aesthetic and professionalism to solve the personalized purchase needs of more users, and accurately linked the needs and goods.

Behind the new Chinese aesthetics, China's fashion industry has a long way to go if it wants to achieve a breakthrough with more globalization and significance.

Today, from conscious protection of traditional culture to unconscious integration into daily dress; From the brief scenes only existing in film and television works to more and more young consumers are willing to consume new Chinese clothing, it can be regarded as the user penetration of new Chinese aesthetics at the initial stage.

As a cultural asset born in China and now evolving in more markets at home and abroad, New Chinese Aesthetics has no absolute formula or ceiling. But it is certain that for any consumption boom, the bubble will eventually dissipate, and only after the bubble dissipates can the market see the opportunities that really need to be grasped and more possibilities behind the new Chinese aesthetics.