When Clothing Meets IT, How Should A Listed Company Choose?

"Changzhou, one of the world's jeans production bases, has several decades of fine tradition and experience in denim fabric processing and garment processing, with a large number of skilled and experienced technical managers, and a global cowboy market network that has been established.

What makes such a feeling is the Black Peony banner of the listed company.

Although black peony has always been dominated by traditional textile and garment business, it has always been the desire of the group to build its own brand and build a National Cowboy brand.

As the head of ERQ, Li Donglin spends almost all his time in his work.

"Since the establishment of the Cowboy brand, he basically went to the company and left the company at the earliest time every day. He was still discussing problems with his colleagues every night until late at night."

A colleague of Li Donglin told reporters.

Li Donglin may not know that his subordinates often compare him to Xiao Feng in Jin Yong's Novels: bold and generous, careless and decisive, and dare to realize his dream.

"Colleagues often volunteer overtime, but in fact, they are largely infected by his dedication and optimistic working attitude."

It is with a tenacity that does not admit defeat, let Li Donglin go to today, and take his team on this road to chase the National Cowboy brand.

When clothes meet IT

Before entering the clothing industry, Li Donglin was a real "IT man".

In 1997, he graduated from university and worked for IT in Zhongguancun, Beijing for five years. This work experience has accumulated rich experience in Internet operation and industry resources.

Until then, turning to the operation of clothing brands, Li Donglin did not give up his attention to IT.

"In those years when I was making brand clothes, in my heart of hearts, there was always a voice asking at times -- why can't we combine IT with the clothing brand?" Li Donglin has been thinking about this problem and has been trying to find the answer.

In January 2010, under the chance coincidence, Li Donglin was invited to join the black peony group, responsible for the formation of the brand clothing operation team and the overall operation and management of the brand.

"He is a person who loves to study, no matter what profession he is engaged in, he wants to explore the mystery."

Li Donglin, who sticks to studying the "mouse cement" mode, brings a fresh breeze to the black peony, a state-owned enterprise with a history of more than 70 years.

"After joining the black peony group, I was always in a state of excitement, because the problem that I had thought for many years was solved at that time. The operation of combining IT with branded apparel was not a dream. We were fully capable of developing a clothing brand that would use the Internet to open up sales channels.

Black peony has the industry resources, our team and our brand concept of clothing, these three basic conditions, we are excited.

Talking about those days, Li Donglin is still full of passion.

Black peony has been keen to observe that the pformation of enterprises is a problem that Chinese foreign trade clothing enterprises must ponder. Without their own brand, there will be no market discourse right, and in the lowest processing industry chain, they do not have the ability to resist risks in many directions.

Prior to this, although many garment e-commerce platforms began to operate in a vivid way, Li Donglin believed that many "Light Companies" in the market just did e-commerce, not clothing brands. After those e-commerce companies established their sales platform, they only chose clothes as a product for sale.

"What ERQ wants to do is a fashion brand, a brand that is rich in culture and personality. The Internet is just a medium for my brand clothes, just a sales channel."

M2C Adventure

In January 18, 2010, after more than a year's preparations, Black Peony's first e-commerce brand ERQ was born.

This day, Li Donglin led the ERQ brand preparatory department to convene dozens of people to start planning ERQ brand building.

At the meeting, we had a heated debate and finally reached a consensus: the time to build China's first M2C jeans brand is ripe.

First, the weather: the global economic pformation has made enterprises realize that labor intensive foreign trade processing will be more difficult. The government has begun to support the construction of its own brand from the height of industry.

Second, geography: Changzhou has formed a mature industry chain of jeans, clothing logistics industry and information technology has been highly developed. ERQ has its own advantages from the world's top production line to designer resources all over the world.

Third, consumers and consumers have begun to accept the elements of clothing, such as quality, fashion, service, and so on, and no longer simply believe in international brands.

The advantage of hardware and software is enough to ensure the quality, production schedule and cost control of ERQ products.

Li Donglin said confidently.

What is the M2C mode? Li Donglin explains, this is ERQ's brand building and channel breakout mode for the market and its own situation.

M2C means that the manufacturer (Manufacturer) directly provides products or services produced by consumers directly to consumers (Consumer).

The advantage of this model is that it directly abandoning all middlemen, and has strict control over product quality, inventory adjustment and new product development, with the ownership of its own factories, production staff and design R & D team, and sends products directly from the workshop to the consumers.

This practice is much less risky than the e-commerce of clothing brand OEM, and is more conducive to the long-term construction of a brand.

However, at the beginning of on-line operation, Li Donglin encountered the first challenge -- lack of professional talents.

In China, although the e-commerce industry is not a new industry, it is a new topic to combine the clothing brand with e-commerce to achieve brand value.

Another challenge comes from user --ERQ, though it is a brand launched by the black peony group, but it is also out of line with the market rules.

In response to the problem of talent, ERQ is taking talent recruitment activities all over the country. On the other hand, the implementation of internal training potential staff policy is a two pronged approach.

In order to increase the consumer's trust in ERQ brand, ERQ team quickly set up various promotional activities, using sales promotion to attract the attention of consumers. At the same time, launched a series of free trial activities for consumers to let consumers feel the quality and service of ERQ. Through a period of efforts, ERQ has been recognized by many consumers, and its popularity has also risen.

Brand road

"E-commerce is a new business mode. It has higher requirements in technology, information, products, operation and so on. It needs to invest a lot of energy and money, and there are still huge risks."

Li Donglin clearly realized that in the tide of B2C, many businesses were ruthlessly eliminated, because the product quality and after-sales service failed to meet the expectations of consumers.

"For black peony, OEM and e-business are interrelated, that is to control product quality.

Whether we are doing generation processing or doing e-commerce, we will strictly control our products and strive to present the best products to consumers.

In e-commerce, where logistics is usually weak, ERQ also has its own solution.

"The warehouse of ERQ is built in the ERQ ecological park, and is in the same area as design, technology, production and marketing management. Therefore, the logistics delivery time of ERQ is very timely, and it can be realized on the same day.

At present, ERQ has established a long-term cooperative relationship with the express delivery companies such as Shun Feng, EMS, home express, speed, Shentong, and Tong Tong, and has been trying to cover the ERQ delivery point to all parts of the country.

ERQ's efforts did not disappoint Li Donglin.

Data show that ERQ now has a repeat purchase rate of more than 80%.

This is just a good start. The goal of ERQ is to build a famous brand of jeans in China in 2 years to achieve annual sales of 180 million. At the same time, the offline stores will cover all parts of the country and complement each other online and offline.

"No matter what the mode is, the premise is product quality and service is the foundation."

Li Donglin's attitude is firm.

"The goal of ERQ is to create a black peony clothing brand, to provide our customers with products, services and values." Li Donglin said. On the way to realize his dream, he and his team are making professional, innovative and team support to ensure the achievement of goals.