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interface news reporter | zhu yongling

interface news editor | lou qiqin

the established ladieswear brand juzui is seeking to upgrade and transform.

recently, jiuzi released its 2025 spring and summer collection at the new york fashion week in september, and also invited the world's richest manelonmusk's mother maye musk served as the finale model to endorse the brand. this was jiuzi's second appearance on the platform after the new york fashion week in february this year.

the new products displayed in these two shows are all inspired by peony, because "flower" is the iconic brand gene that jiuzi wants to create now. this is a youthful innovation led by taoray wang, the brand creative director who joined jiuzi in 2023.

wang tao is a regular at new york fashion week.owns her own eponymous brand, taoray wang.also served aschief designer of the british high street brand rebel belle london, design director and general manager of the local women's clothing brand broadcast:french brandcharles jourdan's creative director is much more famous in the international fashion industry thanjiuzi. the last and first time jiuzi participated in an international fashion week was the milan fashion week in 2018.

in addition to inviting wang tao to join, anzheng fashion, the parent company of jiuzi,chairman zheng anzheng also returned as president (ceo) in september 2023. previously, zheng anzheng resigned as general manager of the company in 2021, and his younger brother zheng ankun took over.

the presence of two key figures, the founding father and the creative director, as well as the high-profile marketing with intensive appearances at international fashion weeks, seem to reveal that jiuzi is ready to make a big move.

prior to this, jiuzi had been stuck in a growth bottleneck for many years. in 2023, jiuzi's single-brand revenue was 928 million yuan, less than the 936 million yuan when it went public in 2017. jiuzi is not completely standing still. its revenue exceeded 1.1 billion yuan from 2019 to 2021, but its performance has declined significantly in the past two years.

such performance has lagged far behind its peers. for example, lancome, a local women's clothing brand that is also aimed at working women aged 25 or over 35 and positioned in the mid-to-high-end market, saw its revenue increase from 727 million yuan in 2017 to 1.42 billion yuan in 2023; during the same time span, koradior's revenue increased from 1.234 billion yuan to 2.387 billion yuan. in addition, lancome's parent company lancome holdings and koradior's parent company winner fashion also expanded their businesses by developing medical beauty and acquiring brands, driving the company's total revenue to rise.

in the past few years, anzheng fashion has also acquired e-commerce services and children's clothing businesses, so its annual revenue once reached a peak of 3.6 billion yuan in 2020, but these new businesses are not enough to become a stable growth point. in 2023, in order to focus on the mid-to-high-end consumer market, anzheng fashion divested part of its children's clothing business, causing its revenue to fall back to 2.17 billion yuan, which is lower than the 2019 level.

at present, jiuzi is still the most important performance pillar of anzheng fashion, contributing more than 40% of the total revenue in 2023. in addition, anzheng fashion's brand apparel sector also includesmoissac, imm, annakro, anzhenganzheng and other brands. although the scale of e-commerce services, another major business segment of anzheng fashion, is comparable to that of jiuzi, its gross profit margin is less than 20%, and its contribution to profits is limited.

therefore, anzheng fashion has placed its hopes of reviving its performance on jiuzi. according to the plan revealed in anzheng fashion's financial report, 2024 will be the year for the comprehensive upgrade of the jiuzi brand, and it will create a "jiuzi+ ecosystem" to make jiuzi a "more people-friendly" brand.

in terms of products and formats, in addition to inviting creative directors to control fashion design, jiuzi will also focus on the needs of all life scenarios, expand its products to home clothes, sportswear, jewelry, cleaning and care, etc., and improve the quality-price ratio of products. accordingly, jiuzi's offline stores will also make adjustments and set up different areas such as category areas, handmade areas, and personal areas.

at the channel level, jiuzi, as an old women's clothing brand founded in 2001, used to be mainly based on the traditional wholesale franchise model, and has accumulated many stores in third- and fourth-tier cities. in order to cooperate with the brand's upgrade strategy, jiuzi plans to transform into a retail operation organization, explore the direct-operated dtc model, and fully develop the first- and second-tier markets, and accelerate the layout of shopping mall stores. as of the end of june 2024, jiuzi has a total of 443 offline stores, of which 112 are directly operated stores, accounting for 25%.

at the same time, jiuzi plans to improve the construction of online e-commerce channels, open live broadcast rooms in stores across the country, and coordinate multiple e-commerce platforms with regular prices as channels for product promotion and traffic diversion; it will also open online agency rights to customers to enable customers to achieve omni-channel operations.

jiuzi said that its full-price e-commerce will be officially launched in 2024. jiemian news found that jiuzi has opened a new independent brand flagship store on the tmall platform to sell the same products as jiuzi in the mall. the previous brand store has been renamed "jiuzi annako", which is an independent brand from jiuzi's original online exclusive products. this is also another growth point that anzheng fashion hopes to cultivate. the company plans to position annako as a high-quality and cost-effective, young brand for women aged 25 to 40, and gradually transform from a pure online brand to an omni-channel brand.

in other words, jiuzi's strategy is to split the original main brand into two. one part will be developed as the jiuzi brand towards full-price direct sales, younger and higher-end sales, while the other part will be independent as annakou, taking a relatively friendly mid-range route, covering groups with weaker purchasing power than the core customer base of the main brand.

whether it is to deploy omni-channel, increase direct sales, optimize store structure, or innovate brand image and launch complementary sub-brands, these measures are common practices for clothing companies to improve their business. but for jiuzi, a brand that has been stagnant for many years, it may not be easy to promote all-round reform measures at the same time.

for example, considering anzheng fashion's financial foundation, it requires the company to strike a balance between long-term investment and short-term benefits. in 2022 and 2023, anzheng fashion has recorded a net loss attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring items for two consecutive years. in the first half of 2024, anzheng fashion's net loss attributable to shareholders was 12.11 million yuan, and its net loss attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring items was 18.46 million yuan.the net cash flow generated from operating activities was -50.52 million yuan; as of the end of the reporting period, the company's cash and trading financial assets totaled 540 million yuan, and short-term loans were 151 million yuan.

the current cooling of the consumption environment is likely to make the returns come more slowly. according to the data from the national bureau of statistics, from january to august 2024,the retail sales of consumer goods such as clothing, shoes and hats, and needlework and textiles increased only slightly by 0.3% year-on-year, slowing down further from the 1.3% growth in the first half of the year.