American-Bank is at a loss: After turning losses, it expects losses and misses and fails to make the future unpredictable

　　Just shortly after Metersbonwe (hereinafter referred to as "Metersbonwe") announced that the company's performance turned losses into profits last year, Metersbonwe once again issued an announcement of its first-quarter performance decline and expected losses in the first half of the year. Meibang Clothing, which previously relied on the profits made by selling its subsidiaries to solve urgent problems, still cannot fundamentally solve business problems. Where should Meibang Clothing go in the future after adjustments such as store closures, change coaches, and transformation have become a huge problem facing the current chairman.

　　Sluggish performance

　　The brief recovery in performance did not bring real spring to Mebang Clothing. On April 26, Mebang Clothing released its first-quarter financial report, showing that the company achieved operating income of 1.674 billion yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 12.89%; net profit of 28.935 million yuan, a decrease of 43.68% from the same period last year. At the same time, Mebang Clothing expects its net profit to be lost in the first half of this year, with the loss expanding to 0-60 million yuan.

　　At the end of last year, Mebang Clothing dropped a bombshell. The company's founder Zhou Chengjian resigned as chairman of the company and returned to the group to serve as the group, handing over the banner of Mebang Clothing, which had significantly declined in performance to his daughter Hu Jiajia, born in 1986. Shortly after Hu Jiajia took office, Mebang Clothing's performance turned losses into profits compared with last year, but the key role in turning losses into profits was an asset transfer conducted in the fourth quarter of last year.

　　In the fourth quarter of last year, Mebang Clothing sold 100% of its equity in its subsidiary Shanghai Metsbonwe Enterprise Development Co., Ltd. for 983 million yuan. This time, the divestiture of assets cannot be avoided and the suspect of supporting the company's performance. According to the 2016 financial report, Mebang Clothing has obtained investment income of more than 500 million yuan. According to the financial report, this income mainly comes from the disposal of its subsidiaries.

　　Regarding related issues, a Beijing Business Daily reporter contacted Mebang Clothing. As of the time of publication, the other party has not responded to the interview letter.

　　Trial and missed

　　In recent years, the "playing style" of American clothing has been very chaotic. In 2014, the number of stores closed in Mebang Clothing nationwide reached 800, and in 2015, it encountered a risk of decline in operating income. In 2016, it turned losses into profits by selling its subsidiaries. As a brand with 20 years of clothing experience, Mebang Clothing is actively exploring transformation, but it is difficult to achieve results.

　　As the main business of Mebang Clothing, franchisees and direct stores have always been the focus of Mebang Clothing's business, but due to Mebang Clothing's multi-brand strategy, Banggo.com and "Youfan" App trial and error, Mebang Clothing closed nearly a thousand stores from 2013 to 2015. Min Guangya, chief consultant and clothing marketing expert at Guangzhou Lanao Retail Consulting, said in an interview with a Beijing Business Daily reporter that the multi-brand strategy has dragged down the performance of Mebang Clothing. "In 2008, Mebang Clothing spent a lot of money to build a higher-positioned brand ME&CITY, hoping to expand its new consumer group. In the following years, ME&CITY opened an independent flagship store with an area of ​​thousands of square meters. However, due to the vague brand positioning and too radical opening of stores, this new brand soon fell into trouble. In 2012, Mebang Clothing closed its store on 2,000 square meters of Huaihai Road, Shanghai, and ME&CITY evacuated Beijing Wangfujing in 2014."

　　In order to expand the new consumer group, Meibang Clothing began to build a vertical clothing e-commerce platform Banggou.com. Since the discounts of Banggo.com are much lower than those of physical stores, the conflict between Mebang Clothing and franchisees in its main business segments has further intensified, and Banggo.com has become a low-priced shopping website today. The "Youfan" App, a fashion e-commerce platform promoted by Mebang Clothing, seems to have not achieved results with high marketing investment. In 2014, MeBang named the first season of "The Debater" for 50 million yuan. The two seasons of "The Debater" had over 1 billion views, but did not bring the expected promotion results to the "Youfan" App. According to financial report information, in the first half of 2016, Mebang Clothing invested 70.34 million yuan in information technology alone.

　　Yang Dayun, president of Youta International Fashion Brand Investment Company, said that most local listed clothing companies are currently facing difficulties, and companies generally adopt capitalized operations to try to transform to the Internet. One of the purposes of USBank's promotion of "Youfan" app is to propose the concept of the Internet to attract more investment.

　　Unpredictable future

　　At present, American clothing has reached a critical stage of life and death. In recent years, Mebang Clothing has basically not found a way to revive the dead, whether in terms of layout of the Internet or physical stores. Faced with the rapid development of the market and fierce competition from clothing brands such as Semir, the future development of Mebon Clothing is very worrying. In recent years, the children's clothing business has effectively driven Semir's performance growth. In 2016, the children's clothing sector accounted for 46.88% of Semir's annual operating income, an increase from 41.81% in 2015. The gross profit margin of the children's clothing sector increased by 1.78% year-on-year to 42.87%.

　　Min Guangya told Beijing Business Daily that in the face of continued sluggish performance, Mebang Clothing has launched a large-scale store reform to implement the "one city, one culture, one store, one story" strategy. Without deep digging into urban culture, the "one store, one story" has become a formality, ineffectiveness, and a waste of money. In terms of layout of the Internet and e-commerce, neither Banggou.com, "Youfan" App or "Strange Talk", there is no in-depth exploration, let alone any characteristics. In the process of transforming into the Internet, American Clothing underestimated product research and development and put the cart before the horse.

　　In the future, Mebang Clothing should return to the essence of the retail industry, devote itself to researching customers and products, and focus on customer-centricity. Developing better products to meet customer needs is the real development direction of Mebang Clothing and the only way out. Clothing companies without this awareness of "customer-centralization" and implementation of strategy will definitely be eliminated by the market.

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