Japan Business Report

The China Businesswear Entrepreneurs Delegation headed by the Organizing Committee of the China Businesswear Expo has conducted a one-week visit to the Japanese business wear industry. During the day, the delegation held two "China-Japan Business Wear Entrepreneurship Exchange Symposium" and successively visited Osaka Osaka Dafil Co., Ltd., Japan Uniform Center, Japan Marubeni Co., Ltd., and Okayama Prefecture Co., Ltd. Japan. He visited the production base of Japan’s business wear, and had face-to-face exchanges with well-known enterprises in Japan’s professional wear, and conducted a beneficial discussion on the further cooperation between the two companies in the business wear industry in the future. Through a few days of intense inspection visits, we have a relatively clear understanding and understanding of the Japanese business wear industry.

Japan's professional wear market is known as the "universal kingdom," said Japan's professional wear has a long history of development. Japan's initial business wear appeared in the 6th to 7th century AD. Japan's business wear that has been active along with economic revitalization has been in the last 40 years. For Japan, the promotion of business wear has truly become an economic highlight, and the popularity of business wear has reached its peak in two major world events in Japan - the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 1970 Osaka World Expo. Japan's professional wear industry has seized this opportunity very well and used this as an opportunity to make the popularity of business wear infiltrate various industries and become a fashion in Japan. In particular, with the rise of the Japanese economy, advanced management and product quality management, and the integration of the CI system, Japan’s business wear is at the forefront of the world in both style and business philosophy.

However, **** also brought a negative impact on the Japanese business wear industry. In the 10 years after the collapse of ****, it was called the "lost 10 years" by the Japanese business wear industry, and the market has been shrinking. In particular, the elimination of women workers’ overalls by various institutions centered on financial institutions has hit Japan’s business wear market. In the early 1990s, Japan’s peak sales during the peak period were about 7,000-800 billion yen. At present, sales in Japan’s uniform terminal distribution market have fallen to about 500 billion yen.

Japanese business wear sales methods Japanese business wear is divided into “commercial”, “school”, “group” and other industries according to demand. The largest market is the commercial sector, including uniforms, office uniforms, and service uniforms. Medical nurses and other services. Japan’s sales of business wear is different from that in China. Production companies do not directly face users. Instead, they are in the form of sales relations between agents and users. Products are promoted to companies in accordance with the annual catalogue of printed products. According to the user's selected clothing style and then ordering with the manufacturer, this approach is mainly targeted at enterprises and institutions with 300 or less employees. The second method is a custom-tailored method called “Alternative Ordering”. This sales method is mainly for **, post offices and large enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. In view of Japan’s national conditions and a relatively mature market, especially the relatively standard market order, these two sales methods of business suits have been implemented in Japan for many years and continue to continue. There are indications that Japanese business wear companies, while using China as a production base, are also considering China's consumer market and exploring in China by means of Japanese sales agents.

Japanese business wear - people-oriented, let the work of people smile, "uniforms make work people show a smile," This is the Japanese industry's understanding of the meaning of the meaning of business wear and interpretation, at the same time, they also summed up the 8 words - " "Proud", "grade", "happiness", "service", "trust", "relief", "responsibility" and "cleanliness" to illustrate the image and status of the wearer in the wearer. Therefore, in this sense, the design of Japanese business wear is full of creativity; the production of Japanese business wear reflects the business philosophy of “people-oriented”. An entrepreneur in Japan once explained the secrets of the production and management of Japanese business wear. He said that there are three realms in the profession: one is to satisfy the image of the company or company, and the other is to do according to the needs of the wearer's labor environment. Really consider for the wearer, such as business wear needs to have comfortable, easy to wash, easy to dry, free ironing and other functions; third is to really face the customer facing a certain type of industry, and serve them. For example, in the subway industry, the requirement for this type of business wear in Japan is that this type of clothing does not meet the hygienic standard. After subway workers wear it, the people who ride the subway know who is serving them. Who can I find if I have difficulty? Therefore, the Japanese uniform is the company's advertisement.

Japan's business wear classification Japan's business wear is divided into office uniforms, overalls, service uniforms, white uniforms, school uniforms, sportswear six categories. The office uniform market fell sharply after Japan's collapse. In particular, banks and other financial industries have successively cancelled their uniforms, causing business wear manufacturers to suffer a heavy blow. In the last year or two, the Japanese office uniform market has shown signs of recovery. The financial community represented by Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Bank is scheduled to resume wearing office uniforms in January next year.

In Japan, the service industry wear market is showing a rapid development trend. Due to the growth of employment in the service industry, the demand for business wear has been stimulated. The catering industry, entertainment industry, beauty salons, and the sales industry have become increasingly active. For manufacturers, there is no doubt that business opportunities have been provided. However, due to the fact that these industries have a relatively small number of business wearers and a wide range of types, they have become a challenge for Japanese business wear manufacturers. Due to the high labor cost, enterprises with significant advantages in mass production are faced with small batch changes. During their visit to Japan, we learned that Japanese business wear companies are not very familiar with Chinese companies. They think that Chinese business wear companies also only accept large orders like Japan, but in fact "small-scale production" and individualization. Service and tailoring are characteristics of China's business wear enterprises. The development of cooperation between Chinese and Japanese business wear enterprises in this area is promising.

The work wear of the medical industry, food processing and other industries is called "white uniforms" in Japan. This kind of clothing is mainly promoted by washing companies to **, and its manufacturers are mainly concentrated in several large manufacturers, so it has a relatively stable market.

As another large and stable market, it is a school uniform. School uniform production is mainly concentrated in Okayama Prefecture in central Japan. Although the birth rate in Japan has been declining year by year in recent years, it is considered to be a target consumer group with a clear grasp of the number of new students in advance, and it can effectively grasp the stable production areas of the market. At present, 90% of junior high school students and high school students in Japan must wear uniforms. It can be said that school uniforms have become popular in this field. In addition, the education reform implemented by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan also stipulates that elementary school junior high schools should be set up as a joint school from April next year, so that it is speculated that the implementation of uniforms in elementary schools is not far off.

The main wearers of sports uniforms are gymnastics wears used by high school students for sports. This type of clothing is generally purchased at the same time as the students' uniforms. Therefore, the sales of sportswear in Japan are relatively stable.

Japan’s domestic business wear market remains severe In the past two years, the Japanese business wear market has begun to show signs of recovery. Sales of work clothes began to pick up from two years ago, and office uniforms have begun to contain the decline in the situation of large clothing companies. However, an indisputable fact is that price competition is fierce, which plagues Japanese business wear companies to find it difficult to escape from the predicament. Judging from the overall situation in Japan, on the one hand, the price cut trend cannot be effectively controlled. On the other hand, orders with more customized uniforms tend to adopt more bidding methods, so that the profit margin becomes smaller and smaller, and the manufacturers are miserable. In addition, due to the financial difficulties of the government, official demand is also shrinking, and the service life of uniforms is relatively extended, even if the number of updates is small. According to Japanese industry analysts, this situation may be prolonged.

Japan looks forward to the Chinese market, which has a large population and is a veritable clothing consumer. The rapid development of China's economy has brought a huge room for development for the demand for professional wear. In this case, the attention of the Japanese business wear industry to the Chinese market is also obvious.

In order to reduce production costs, Japanese business wear companies have set up factories in China, taking advantage of the low cost of labor in China to develop designs in Japan, and then selling products back to Japan. At the same time, Japanese business wear companies also use training methods for Chinese trainees to allow them to intern in Japanese companies. In terms of product sales, many Japanese companies started from making Japanese-funded enterprises to make clothing for Japanese-funded companies in China, and gradually explored their experience in developing the Chinese wearables market.

However, because China's wearables market is a very promising market, it is at the same time an immature market at the initial stage. Therefore, the real sense of awareness of professional wear on the market still needs to be in-depth development. Therefore, similar to China’s professional wear enterprises, Japanese business wear companies also have a task of popularizing the culture of business wear in order to develop the Chinese business wear market. Moreover, different national cultural backgrounds and cultural environments will be established for Japanese business wear enterprises. The goal also has a long way to go. In spite of this, Japan’s professional wear companies are optimistic about the development opportunities of the 2008 Olympic Games in Shanghai and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, and promote the development of the Chinese professional wear market by promoting Japan’s occupational wear industry from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1970 World Expo in Osaka. strong interest. It is understood that many Japanese business wear companies are currently planning, and some have begun to implement development plans in China. At present, the enterprises that have started production in China are still producing better products. Among them, establishments in Shanghai, Nantong, Tianjin, and other places have worked well for business wear manufacturers, which has further enhanced their interest in developing the Chinese market.

Sino-Japanese business wear companies have strong complementarities. Japanese business wear companies have a long history of development, and they have good business ideas and management experience. In particular, as the modern industrial economy in the new era requires functional functional wear, the development and application of new materials and new fabrics are of utmost importance. In these areas, the Japanese profession is endowed with unique conditions.

Although the history of the development of the professional wear industry in China is relatively short, the strong development trend has attracted worldwide attention. The processing capacity, technical level, and product quality of China's business wear have been recognized internationally by Japanese companies. Not only that, China has more than 25,000 business wear manufacturing companies and a broad base of corporate cooperation. Because of the relatively low labor costs and resource integration advantages embodied in industrial clusters, it has become a strong potential for the development of China's business wear industry. At the same time, at this stage, the structure of China's professional wear industry, which focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, can better reflect the production advantages of a small boat and a good company. This is the basis for Japanese business wear companies seeking cooperation. Therefore, Sino-Japanese business wear companies have a strong economic complementarity. Whether it is a Japanese business wear firm investing in factories in China, cooperating with Chinese outfitting companies, or Chinese outfitting companies going abroad to develop overseas wearables markets, it can be said with certainty that they have become a new economic highlight of China’s economy. Unquestionable.