02 The Most Fashionable Boss in Garment Industry – 52 Years Old, Still Playing Music, But Opened More Than 4,500 Stores.

Over these years, Peacebird has become the most fashionable garment brand for its two-time presence at New York Fashion Week, stepping onto the world stage of fashion trend.

For more than a decade, the Chinese local brands have been under sharp impacts by “fast fashion” brands. Compared with the latter, the former seems to be the synonym of “the out-of-date”, so a great number of stores were shut down and lots of famous brands fell into a dilemma.Casual clothing such as Baleno, Jeanswest and Giordano which became popular in China has been rejected by youngsters one by one due to aging of the product. Even the first national men’s wear brand HLA has been named as the out-of-date national brand.

Over these years, Peacebird has become the most fashionable garment brand for its two-time presence at New York Fashion Week, stepping onto the world stage of the fashion trend. Moreover, Peacebird intensifies cross-border cooperation among brands to join hands with Coca Cola, Phoenix Bicycle, HEYTEA, Pikachu and other famous IPs to put forward the youngster-specific promotion schemes like the concept Peace Youth, favored by post-90s/post-95s generations. As a result, Peacebird has achieved increasing performance. In 2018, it witnessed its operating revenue of 7.712 billion yuan and a net profit close to 600 million yuan, hitting a record high again.

According to public information, Peacebird, founded in 1995, is a brand engaged in the garment industry earlier. With more than 20 years of developments, Peacebird has become a diversified fashion retail group to integrate six co-developed major brands including men's wear, women's wear and children's wear.

Peacebird owns 4,508 offline stores and is brought to online e-commerce sales channels such as Tmall, JD and Vipshop. It currently has more than 5,000 employees, is among the top ten garment brands and the top 500 private enterprises in China. Of course, the Peacebird Group also operates in the automobile, supply chain and other industries.

Zhang Jiangping, the founder of Peacebird, born in 1967, has never left the garment industry since his graduation from junior high school, so he can be regarded as a senior professional. Whether from apprentice to clerk in state-owned garment factory, or from setting up a stall to establish a garment store, Zhang has always been progressing step by step to create his own business. In 1992, he and his younger brother founded MDS Garment Factory, implying his real startup in business. In 1995, Zhang founded Peacebird to begin nationwide expansion.

Despite of twists and turns in the development, Peacebird has made current achievements by following market change closely and adjusting and transforming unceasingly. It operates in the same way as Adidas and Nike. That is, it outsources its production and takes charge of research and development and design, becoming an asset-light entity with reduced burden. Peacebird started its diversified development very early in brand development strategy. In 1997, it was involved in women’s wear sector, then in children’s wear. Nowadays, its men’s wear, women’s wear and LED'IN women's wear are all favored by youngsters. Zhang Jiangping was aware of the danger of walking on one leg early, e.g., some brands have encountered a bottleneck in their development currently due to single-brand operating mode. In addition, regarding supply chain, Peacebird has transformed from traditional ordering mode to TOC management mode, which bases production on sales prospects and imposes high requirements on the supply chain. That is to say, new arrival should be launched quickly. Currently, Peacebird’s shortest new arrival launch period is one week, compared with the longest period of 15 days. Such period is almost equal to that of international fast fashion brands like Uniqlo, which is certainly attributed to Peacebird’s over-500-person design team. Peacebird has also set up its own logistics storage center, the biggest and the most advanced one in the industry, ensuring the efficient duration from design to shelve.

Of course, there is also a larger segment, the channel, whose importance is noticeable for retail brands. Zhang Jiangping, founder of Peacebird, said that its success is mainly based on the platforms created by two Chinese richest men, Wang Jianlin and Jack Ma. Specifically, regarding the offline operation, Peacebird has opened stores in Wanda Plaza; regarding the online operation, it has developed an Internet celebrity economy. Indeed, where there is Wanda Plaza, there is Peacebird. Thus, Peacebird has opened up its offline market. Moreover, Peacebird has also signed strategic cooperation agreements with SZITIC Commercial Property (Group) Co., Ltd., Yintai Real Estate Co., Ltd., Parkson Retail Group Limited and other leading real estate developers, being established in the shopping malls operated by such developers. 

Following changes in the environment in recent two years, Peacebird also settled in Outlets, which has become another growth source due to its sales of over 30 million yuan (up 70%) in 2018. In online operation, it settled in Tmall early in 2008 with constant growth of performance. In 2017, its online sales reached 2.166 billion yuan, with an annual average compound growth rate of 39.67%. And, Peacebird has signed an overall strategic cooperation agreement to link online business with offline one and strengthen new retail business, which is undoubtedly an enabler for Peacebird.

In recent years, post-90s/post-95s generations have become mainstream consumers who, unlike previous mainstream consumers, are seeking novel, fashionable and trendy things and have higher demand for brand innovation practice. Following changes closely, Peacebird transforms to fashionable and young styles with comparatively trendy product design. Meanwhile, by catching up with the national boom, it transforms the brands to cater for youngsters’ demands and becomes the representative of a fashion trend among national garment brands.

Actually, Peacebird‘s maintaining of fashion and youth-oriented practice is closely with the fashion behavior of the boss. Zhang Jiangping, aged 52, can dye his hair as a granny one, and act as a DJ in riveted jacket and leather pants for motorcar. He has more clothes in wardrobe than that of his wife and dresses himself up in different styles. There is no brand leader but Zhang Jiangping who is the most fashionable in the garment industry. It is his mentality of youth that keeps Peacebird ahead of others by catering to demands of post-90s/post-95s generations. Keeping up with market change and following consumers’ trend results in present-day Peacebird.