无名服装推动零售业“大崩溃”

几个月前，随着亚马逊服装业务迅速扩展，公司代表跟时尚设计师杰姬•威尔森见了面。他们希望威尔森设计一款女性针织上装，贴上亚马逊的自有品牌销售，还希望服装感觉厚实而且优质，也就是长期以来人们对品牌服装的印象。

威尔森的公司设在纽约锡拉库扎，为科尔百货、American Eagle Outfitters和杰西潘尼提供服装。她说：“他们根本不管能卖出去多少件，也不重视利润。他们关注的是客户满意度，想要五星好评。”

对自有品牌的推崇颠覆了销售额达2750亿美元的美国服装行业。威尔森的针织上装就走在潮流前列。亚马逊、沃尔玛、塔吉特等大型零售商都在扩展服装品类，吸引对Gap和耐克等知名品牌兴趣下降的购物者。连锁超市经营商克罗格都有所行动，因为利润率远高于香蕉和纸巾之类。

美国富国银行预计，今年亚马逊将超越品牌折扣店T.J. Maxx的母公司TJX Cos.和梅西百货，成为美国第二大服装鞋类销售商。研究机构NPD指出，在某些品类中，自有品牌的整体市场份额已经达到20%，比如美国人越来越喜欢的运动装，去不去健身房都喜欢穿着。结果是自有品牌的总量超过了任何一个单一品牌，露露柠檬、耐克和安德玛的高层确实应该害怕了。

威尔森说：“运动装简直太流行”，原因很简单，“因为再也不用去试穿弹力裤。如果我主要业务是做弹力裤，就会很担心。”

自有品牌服装并非新生事物。西尔斯和Roebuck & Co.在1894年的产品价目表中首次推出了服装，沃尔玛的自有品牌Faded Glory于1972年问世。但多年来，自有品牌服装既呆板又俗气，无法和品牌服装相提并论。

1990年情况开始有了变化。英国连锁超市Asda Stores请设计师乔治•戴维斯为其打造一个专门的服装系列。结果就是George品牌在英国走红，并引起了加拿大零售商Loblaws Cos.的注意。Loblaws在2004年聘请Club Monaco联合创始人乔•米姆兰设计。米姆兰的Joe Fresh品牌后来拓展到了专门的服装店中，还和杰西潘尼建立了合作关系。但这个品牌没能博得杰西潘尼顾客的青睐，米姆兰在2015年离职，Joe Fresh的业务也大幅调整。

虽然近况欠佳，但咨询公司柯尔尼合伙人阿德赫尔•巴由卡尔指出，Joe Fresh的尝试“对其他零售商来说是个惊喜，他们会说‘嘿，要是他们能做得到，我们也可以。’”

随着零售商加大投资，联系上亚洲供应商并挖来时尚达人负责内部设计团队，现有著名品牌日子越来越不好过，因为购物中心客流下降，大量库存开始挤压。此外，品牌忠诚度也开始下降。

运动鞋增速放慢后，安德玛备受打击，长期担任首席执行官的米基•德雷克斯勒的离任业让休闲服装品牌J.Crew Group陷入困境，折扣连锁业务Old Navy 变成Gap最近唯一的亮点。就连老牌子耐克也在今年宣布金融危机以来首次大规模裁员。

巴由卡尔说：“新一代年轻人的品牌忠诚度越来越低。80、90后不太在乎衣服上的商标。他们买的东西五花八门，哪儿来的都有，什么价格都有，这是个很大的变化。”

品牌忠诚度下降对塔吉特来说是个福音。这家廉价时尚零售商就是靠服装打响了品牌，主要通过跟艾萨克•米兹拉希、吴季刚等顶尖设计师合作。近几年，该公司利用名气创立了几个自有品牌，其中最知名的是童装品牌Cat & Jack，上市刚一年多销售额就超过20亿美元。塔吉特的成功也鼓舞了沃尔玛，最近沃尔玛聘请了一位曾在萨克斯第五大道精品百货店和拉尔夫•劳伦工作的资深人士，目的就是提振时尚业务。

如今人们购买服装的第一步往往是在网上搜索。贝恩公司的研究显示，不带任何品牌的搜索数量惊人。比如消费者会只输入“瑜伽裤”，然后看能搜到什么。

贝恩公司指出，亚马逊上的商品类别搜索结果会出现很多自有品牌。在领尖有钮扣的男士衬衫等品类中，第一页的搜索结果中有四分之一都是自有品牌。这也是为什么Euromonitor的统计数据显示，美国服装鞋类产品在线销售额里亚马逊的份额从2014年23%升至今年的近40%。

亚马逊的做法具体包括两方面。首先，力推自有品牌的同时想办法把自己打造成时尚汇聚之所，主要通过吸引希望提高网络销售额的成熟品牌，代价是要服从亚马逊的定价规则。今年夏天耐克开始在亚马逊上卖鞋，引起不少注意。Calvin Klein最近在纽约和洛杉矶各开了一家快闪店，试衣间里都配备了亚马逊的Echo智能设备，用户可以上传试衣照看系统有何推荐。Calvin Klein还专门在亚马逊上开了店卖自家产品。

也并不是所有时尚品牌都愿意跟亚马逊搭上关系，主要怕影响形象。但高盛分析师预计，随着购物中心里的百货商场日渐冷落，“绝大多数”品牌都会选择这条路，深化跟杰夫•贝佐斯的合作。

与此同时，亚马逊推出了Peak Velocity等一系列自有品牌，涉及品类包括衬衫和运动服饰，选购这些服装时贴身程度、功能性，以及自由选购的便捷性往往比跟上最新潮流更重要。贝恩公司指出，大号女装就是其中一例，三年来亚马逊在该领域的份额已经增长了50%左右。

贝恩合伙人塔玛•多尔-内尔说，大号服装“非常欠缺，购买大号服装的人通常都不喜欢去实体店，进一步增加了亚马逊的吸引力。”

柯尔尼指出，购买服装的人里有四分之三仍然喜欢买之前去实际感受和试穿，对大品牌来说是个好消息。所以露露柠檬等品牌可以用所谓的展览式商品推销来进行反击。这是业内行话，意思是向购物者展示某件上装和某条裤子搭配起来好看。虽然亚马逊用Echo做了类似尝试，但实际效果还是要差一些。

消费研究机构WSL Strategic Retail总裁坎迪斯•科利特说：“我还没听说过有人在亚马逊上买衣服会激动。因为亚马逊上很多衣服都是中等价位，看起来也很一般。”

但自有品牌并不需要创意。就像杰姬•威尔森的针织上装，只要满足某种需求就可以。

柯尔尼的巴由卡尔指出：“我们认为自有品牌很难跟上时尚，但足够新颖，也能推动销售。总之，跟亚马逊对着干肯定是亏本生意。”（财富中文网）

A few months ago, Amazon.com Inc. representatives met with fashion designer Jackie Wilson as part of the expansion of Amazon’s surging apparel business. They wanted her to make a knit top for women that would be sold under an Amazon-owned private label. And they wanted the fabric to feel heavy and high-quality—the sort of attributes long associated in the shopping mind with name-brand attire.

“They are not concerned at all about how many units they sell, and they’re not focused on margins,” says Wilson, whose company in Syracuse, N.Y., makes clothing for Kohl’s, American Eagle Outfitters, and J.C. Penney Co. “They’re concerned about customer satisfaction. They want five-star reviews.”

Wilson’s knit top is in the vanguard of a private-label push that’s upended the $275 billion U.S. apparel sector. Amazon, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., and other big retailers are beefing up their clothing lines to grab shoppers whose loyalty to established brands such as Gap and Nike has waned. Even supermarket chain KrogerCo. is getting in on the act, attracted by profit margins that far exceed what they earn on bananas and paper towels.

This year Amazon will leapfrog T.J. Maxx owner TJX Cos. and Macy’s Inc. to become the second-biggest seller of apparel and footwear in the U.S., Wells Fargo estimates. In some categories—like the active wear that Americans increasingly wear all day, whether or not they hit the gym—private labels combined account for 20 percent of the market, according to researcher NPD. That makes store brands in aggregate larger than any single brand, which should strike fear in the executive suites of Lululemon Athletica, Nike, and Under Armour.

“Active wear is going like wildfire,” Wilson says, for the simple reason that “you don’t have to try on spandex pants. If I was in those categories, I would be worried.”

Store-brand apparel is nothing new. The Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog first offered clothing in 1894, and Wal-Mart’s Faded Glory house brand began life in 1972 as a department-store label. But for years, private-label apparel was dull and dowdy, no match for branded threads.

That started to change in 1990 when British supermarket chain Asda Stores asked fashion designer George Davies to create an exclusive clothing line. The result, George, was a hit in the U.K. and caught the attention of Canadian retailer Loblaws Cos. Ltd., which in 2004 hired Joe Mimran, co-founder of the Club Monaco chain, to do the same. His Joe Fresh expanded into standalone stores and a partnership with J.C. Penney in the U.S. But the brand didn’t click with Penney’s shoppers, prompting Mimram’s departure in 2015 and an overhaul of the business.

Despite its recent struggles, Joe Fresh “was a nice surprise to other retailers who said, ‘Hey, if they can do this, we can, too,’” says Adheer Bahulkar, a partner at consultants A.T. Kearney.

As retailers stepped up investments, connected with Asian suppliers, and poached fashionistas to head up in-house design teams, the established brands stumbled under the weight of declining mall traffic and heaps of unsold inventory. Brand loyalty began to crater.

Under Armour has been battered by slowing growth in athletic footwear, J.Crew Group has struggled to reinvent itself after the departure of longtime Chief Executive Officer Mickey Drexler, and Gap’s only bright spot lately is its off-price Old Navy chain. Even mighty Nike this year announced its first major layoffs since the financial crisis.

“Every new generation is becoming less and less brand-loyal,” Bahulkar says. “Millennials don’t care as much about logos. They will buy anything from anywhere at any price point, and that is a big change.”

The erosion of brand loyalty has been a boon for Target, the cheap-chic retailer that made its name in apparel via partnerships with top designers Isaac Mizrahi and Jason Wu more than a decade ago. It’s leveraged that success to create its own private labels in recent years, most notably Cat & Jack, a kids’ apparel line whose sales surpassed $2 billion after a little more than a year on the shelves. Target’s winning formula has emboldened Wal-Mart, which recently hired a veteran of Saks Fifth Avenue and Ralph Lauren Corp. to boost its fashion game.

Apparel shopping these days often begins with an online search, and research from consultants Bain & Co. finds that a surprising number of those queries don’t mention a brand at all—consumers just enter “yoga pants” and see what comes up.

Searching for generic product categories on Amazon turns up plenty of private-label options. More than one-quarter of first-page Amazon search results in categories such as men’s button-down shirts were private labels, Bain says. That helps explain why almost 40 cents of every dollar spent online on clothing and footwear in the U.S. will go to Amazon this year, according to data tracker Euromonitor, up from 23 cents in 2014.

Amazon is capitalizing on this in two ways. First, despite its private-label push, it’s simultaneously trying to create legitimacy as a destination for fashion by luring established brands that want to improve their digital sales, even if it means submitting to Amazon’s pricing algorithms. Heads turned when Nike began selling its shoes directly on the site over the summer. And Calvin Klein recently opened two pop-up shops in New York and Los Angeles whose fitting rooms are outfitted with an Echo, an Amazon device that lets users submit photos of outfits and recommends the best one. There’s also a dedicated Calvin Klein storefront on Amazon.com with exclusive items.

Not every fashion brand is as willing to hop into bed with Amazon, fearing a loss of cachet. But with mall-based department stores falling out of favor, analysts at Goldman Sachs say they expect the “vast majority” of labels to follow that path and deepen their relationship with Jeff Bezos.

Simultaneously, Amazon has introduced a bevy of private labels with names such as Peak Velocity in categories that include shirts and sportswear, where fit and function—plus the convenience of free shipping—are often more important than the latest fashions. One example is plus-size for women, where Amazon increased its market share about 50 percent over the past three years, Bain says.

Plus-size is “radically underserved,” Bain partner Tamar Dor-Ner says. “The thing that made it even more attractive for Amazon is it’s a shopper who traditionally doesn’t want to go into the store.”

Luckily for the big brands, three-fourths of apparel shoppers still prefer to feel or try on the product before buying, A.T. Kearney says. The likes of Lululemon can counterattack with so-called curated merchandising, industry jargon for showing shoppers that this top goes well with those pants. Despite experiments such as the Amazon Echo, the online giant is not there yet.

“I don’t know anyone who is jumping up and down about buying clothes on Amazon,” says Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail. “They’ve put together a lot of midpriced, uninteresting stuff.”

But private labels don’t need to inspire. Like Jackie Wilson’s knit top, they just need to satisfy a need.

“We don’t expect private labels to become fashion houses, but they can create enough newness that they can capture sales,” A.T. Kearney’s Bahulkar says. “Competing with Amazon is a losing proposition.”