Comparative Study on Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market in Beijing and Doota Fashion Wholesale Market in S

Economic Management Journal November 2015, Volume 4, Issue 4, PP.67-74

Comparative Study on Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market in Beijing and Doota Fashion Wholesale Market in Seoul Jishun Niu 123 Business School, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Number A2 of Yinghua East Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, P.R. China Email: sxynjs@bift.edu.cn

Abstract Taking two nation-wide famous fashion wholesale markets for case study, i.e. Zoo Market in Beijing and Doota Market in Seoul, a comparative study is carried out on the fashion wholesale markets of Beijing and Seoul. The history, general situation, surrounding environments and characteristics of the markets in the two cities are introduced and analyzed. The sameness and differences are compared. Suggestions are put forward to Beijing fashion wholesale market according to the disadvantages compared with Seoul.

Keywords: Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market; Doota Fashion Wholesale Market; Beijing; Seoul

1 INTRODUCTION Fashion wholesale an important process in fashion manufacture industries. It is said that those who controls fashion wholesale control the fashion market.

Beijing has been developing fashion wholesale market distribution industriously for nearly 30 years and is still improving the distribution continuously.

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, has built an effective and convenient fashion wholesale marketing distribution and set a good example for Beijing.

Both Beijing and Seoul are capitals in Asia countries, sharing similar economic, political and cultural positions. The fashion wholesale markets in the two capitals share comparability too. It is easy for Beijing to draw lessons from Seoul in the field of fashion wholesale market development because of the close aesthetic sentiment and cultural ideas of the two countries.

In order to promote the development of Beijing fashion wholesale market, this paper applied the methodology of comparative study and case study for research. Taking two nation-wide famous fashion wholesale marketing zones for case study, i.e. Zoo Market in Beijing and Doota Market in Seoul, a comparative study is carried out on the fashion wholesale market of Beijing and Seoul.

2 ZOO FASHION WHOLESALE MARKET IN BEIJING Most of Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets are evolved from street vending by Zhejiang businessmen from the 1

Supported by The Project of Construction of Innovative Teams and Selection and Development of Excellent Talents for Beijing Institue of Fashion Technology, Project Number: RCPY20150043/003 2 Supported by The Project of Construction of Electronic Commerce Data Analyst Teaching Reform Team for Beijing Institue of Fashion Technology, Project Number: RCPY20150040/001/003 3 Supported by The Project of Study on Consuming Behavior Mining and Key Technology under Fashion Electronic Commerce for Beijing Municipal Education Commission, Project Number: KYJH02150201/021/002 - 67 www.emj-journal.org

early 1980s. They have been developing at an amazing speed and turned into famous fashion wholesale markets, such as the Zoo Market, the Great Red Gate Market, Yabao Street Market, Jingwen Market, etc.

Among these markets, the Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market is well-known and popular. It is a good representative to be taken as a case for this paper’s comparative study.

2.1 History The Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market began to emerge in 1980. At the beginning, there were only scattered stalls in the air. Gradually sheet metal sheds were built and evolved into wholesale buildings in the Zoo region and the markets were becoming famous.

Around the year of 2000, Beijing adjusted the general business structure[1]. The individual fashion wholesale markets in buildings and underground space were rebuilt and integrated into the huge Zoo Fashion Wholesale Market Zone, including nearly ten large-scaled professional fashion wholesale markets. Presently the Zoo Business Zone is the largest fashion trade and distribution center in Beijing.

2.2 Characteristics 1) Rapid Manufacturing Supports There are effective manufactures in the suburb of Beijing which give strong supports to fashion wholesale markets in Beijing. They could make new-designed fashion in a short time.

2) Mature Logistics Network The commercial tenants have set up distribution networks. Their wholesale store networks supply commodities for the retail stores in a large radius. The logistic network of the Zoo Market could cover northern China. For example, one commercial tenant have established about 100 retail stores in Beijing, Inner Mongolia and part of Heibei Province in four years, with one store in a distance of 100km in average and over 1000 employers working for the network. This kind of logistics network has strongly increased the market share of the Zoo Wholesale Markets [2].

3) Strong Competition There are new commercial tenants entering the Zoo Zone and old commercial tenants leaving the Zone constantly.

The creativity in design and management is becoming more difficult. The competition is becoming fiercer than before.

3 DOOTA FASHION WHOLESALE MARKET IN SEOUL Fashion industry in South Korea began to adopt the strategy of production with the advantage of low labor cost and wholesale of quick returns and small margins in the 1960s. In the mid 1990s, South Korea began to change its strategy from domestic demand oriented to export oriented. It increased high value added and proprietary brand fashion production, and developed in the way of advanced ready-made clothe wholesale. Up till now, fashion wholesale still plays an important part in the economy development in South Korea[3].

The most well-known fashion wholesale market in Seoul is Doota (the East Gate) Market where the commodities are abundant, the price is reasonable, and the customers are numerous. It is a good representative to be taken as a case for this paper’s comparative study.

3.1 History Doota Fashion Wholesale Market began to emerge in 1905 and is about 75 years older than the Zoo Market in Beijing. At the beginning, there were also only street stands. Doota expanded continuously and developed into a logistics center in South Korea in the early 1900s [3]. After being appointed as a special business street for fashion wholesale, it developed more quickly. Nearly 30 giant buildings have been built in Doota. Tens of thousands shops and manufactures gathered there.

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3.2 General Status Doota is the largest and nationwide fashion wholesale and retail market, and a distribution center of apparel and accessories. It is also one of the largest fashion wholesale markets in Asia.

Doota is composed by 29 huge buildings, over 30 thousands specialized store, more than 50 thousands manufacturing enterprises and above 400 million floating population [4]. All the functions for fashion industry could be found in a region of 1km radius, including cloth, accessory, manufacture, fashion design, management plan, logistics, etc.

With all kinds of fashionable elements gathered, Doota almost has all that is necessary. Doota is a core business zone integrating fashion, travel, sightseeing and shopping and has won the name of “shopping paradise”.

Doota opens on whole night and attracts massive wholesalers, customers and oversees tourists. It is estimated that more than half of the international travellers will visit Doota because the fashion is faddish, the quality is good, and the price is reasonable.

3.3 Characteristics 1) Fashion Weather Glass Doota is the fashion center in South Korea and is honored as the fashion weather glass because over 4000 new commodities will appear there every day [4].

The businessmen in Doota will launch new designs into market immediately and modify the designs according to the feedbacks from experts and customers. They will carry on this process twice. After the comprehensive evaluation, they will make final decision on the design, either for commercialization or for abandonment. The products will be replaced by new ones in three to four weeks after they have been put into market.

2) Long Business Time Doota almost opens for 24 hours a day. Doota is famous for its night market. The most popular period for wholesale purchase is from 9p.m. to 4p.m. This kind time arrangement is convenient for wholesalers since they could save the hotel expenses and night time for daytime business.

3) Significant Economic Status Doota occupies over 30% share of South Korea fashion market and above 50% share of Seoul fashion market. The daily statistical data of Doota are as follows: the average sales volume is about 40 billion Korea Won; the customers are up to 600 thousands; overseas travellers are 5700.

International customers are as much as 700 thousands each year and own an ability to bay of $4 billion, which holds more than 50% of textile export volume and exceeds the notebook computer export volume of South Korea.

Doota is expanding into other countries, such as China. Being an export base, Doota is called “dollar box” of South Korea [4].

4) Advantageous Fashion Industry Cluster Almost all kinds of materials and accessories could be bought in a one-stop way in Doota, including zippers, buttons, packages, labels, etc.

The logistics distribution is very fast in Doota. For example, a brand new fashion, worn by a noted actor or actress on TV show, would be produced at night and be displayed in a fine position in the market on the second morning.

5) International Service Doota is an international market and offers international service, such as translation, consultation and mail.

There is an information center where foreigners could ask questions or ask for helps.

The information in Doota is given in Korean, Japanese and English. Most businessmen could speak some Japanese, - 69 www.emj-journal.org

Chinese or English.

Most international customers or tourists are from Japan, P.R. China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. In recent years, wholesalers from Russia, Mongolia and Africa also come to Doota. The multinational customers give Doota Asia wide influence.

6) Self-designed Brand Doota developed a new business model of self-designed brand when cheaper fashions from other countries entered South Korea and occupied 80% market share, threatening Doota’s traditional core-competitiveness of cheap price.

Currently, 70%~80% of the fashions sold in Doota have self-designed brands and 70% of the goods are sold in regular chains [4]. If the boss is not a designer, then he or she would hire designers to ensure the brand initiative.

Most designers in Doota have working experiences in famous international fashion companies.

The self-designed brands are well received by customers and are becoming internationally popular. Self-designed brand has become a symbol of strength and taste in fashion for Doota.

7) Cooperative Relation with Universities and Research Institutes

The government of South Korea supports the cooperation among fashion industries, universities and research institutes. These organizations collaborate in the fields of wholesale distribution creation, logistics system building, professional talents training, etc.

The wholesale process is optimized through these cooperation. For example, Doota has cooperated with South Korea Creative VMD Consultant Company in improving its brand selection, fashion display, employee training, layout optimization, and CI design. The cooperation has brought reasonable structure, more customers and sale volume to Doota.

8) Fine Fashion Display Doota has two main regions divided by a street, one for wholesale and one for retail.

The fashion in Doota wholesale market, especially female clothing, is fine displayed instead of carelessly stacked in many other wholesale markets. The stores are decorated elaborately. In this way, Doota makes a comfortable shopping environment for customers.

4 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ZOO AND DOOTA WHOLESALE MARKET 4.1 Similarities Analysis Being Capitals of the nations, Beijing and Seoul own similar economic, political and cultural positions. And they also share many similarities in their fashion wholesale markets as follows. 

Fashion wholesale market is an important type of distribution for fashion selling and will play an important role over a long period of time.



Both the fashion wholesale markets are large-sized and popular, with convenient transportations, banks, restaurants and historical or cultural sceneries in the region. The costumes there are abundant in variety, ranging from low-end to high-end, and reasonable in price.



Both the fashion wholesale markets are influential on the surrounding cities and act as key collecting and distributing centers.



Both the cities have favorable manufacturing industries to produce popular and fashionable clothing so that they are quick-responded to customers’ needs and could put new commodities into markets immediately.



Both the cities have effective logistics networks which support the transportation among fashion industries, upstream material supplies and downstream dealers.

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4.2 Differences Analysis Comparing with Seoul, Beijing’s fashion wholesale market has a much shorter history, and has a gap to Seoul in both software and hardware. The differences between the two cities are compared as follows.

1) Maturity Although both the fashion wholesale markets were evolved from the initial form of small villages of wayside booths, Seoul’s fashion wholesale markets have a much longer history, and are more experienced, mature and developed.

2) Influence Seoul’s fashion wholesale market has an Asia-wide influence. Doota Fashion Wholesale Market has become one of the largest fashion shopping centers in Asia and is the fashion export base of South Korea. However, Beijing’s fashion wholesale market only has a regional influence, which is even lower than Shanghai and Guangdong in China.

From this point of view, the position of Beijing’s fashion wholesale market is not inappropriate to its beneficial geographical position, i.e. the capital of China.

3) Economic Position The position of Seoul’s fashion wholesale market in the national economy is much higher than that of Beijing. For example, Doota Fashion Wholesale Market is honored as “the Dollar Box” of South Korea. It contributes a remarkable share and holds a very important position in Seoul’s economy. Doota Fashion Wholesale Market is influential not only in Seoul, but also in the whole South Korea, which is much more superior to Beijing.

4) Function Seoul’s fashion wholesale market has more functions than Beijing. Doota Fashion Wholesale Market is a core trade area with functions of shopping, fashion and tourism.

On the other hand, Beijing fashion wholesale markets only have the function of fashion wholesale and retail, with narrow aisles, crowd shopping space, undesirable sanitary conditions, and the outside streets are not clean and tidy enough. So under the impression of the customers, these markets are just for gewgaw shopping and far beyond a sightseeing zone.

5) Business Hours The business hour of Doota is almost 24 hours a day, and Doota opens at the whole night. In contrast, the business hour of the Zoo Market is much shorter and excludes night time.

6) The Extent of Industrial Cluster Although the fashion industries in both cities have developed industrial clusters encircling the fashion wholesale markets, the industrial cluster in Seoul is more centralized, comprehensive and advantageous.

7) Advertising Publicity While improving the service quality step by step, both Beijing and Seoul attach importance to the publicity of the markets in a various ways so as to improve the influence among the customers.

On one hand, Beijing advertises for pure commodities, which offers detailed introduction to the customers in different periods of the year, including categories, price, selling positions, etc.

On the other hand, Seoul advertises for brands, which especially encourages the large general agents to put advertisements outside the markets in order to promote the popularity of the brands and even the markets through advertisements effectively.

8) Collaboration with Professional Organizations Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets collaborate with national and international organizations and build branches in the field of textile and fashion, such as China Knitting Association, China Fashion Designer Association, and - 71 www.emj-journal.org

American Cotton Association.

Seoul’s fashion wholesale markets organize expert committee, which is composed by experts, scholars, enterprises, businessmen in fashion field all over the country. The committee holds meetings regularly in the markets every year so as to discuss about the developing strategies of the markets.

It could be seen that Seoul’s markets are more professional than that of Beijing.

9) Relationship with International Fashion Industries In recent years, Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets have begun to cooperate with first-class consulting organizations in the world, such as China Alliance Times Consulting Management Ltd. (Beijing). They release market reports and developing plans periodically.

While Seoul’s fashion wholesale markets set up global strategic alliances and partnerships, with world-famous fashion brands, including manufacturers, business, and brand groups. Meanwhile, they develop fashion wholesale business overseas actively by way of business offices or branch offices.

10) Relationship with International Fashion Industries In recent years, Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets have begun to cooperate with first-class consulting organizations in the world, such as China Alliance Times Consulting Management Ltd. (Beijing). They release market reports and developing plans periodically.

While Seoul’s fashion wholesale markets set up global strategic alliances and partnerships, with world-famous fashion brands, including manufacturers, business, and brand groups. Meanwhile, they develop fashion wholesale business overseas actively by way of business offices or branch offices.

5 SUGGESTIONS TO FASHION WHOLESALE MARKETS BEIJING Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets are developing rapidly and have a bright future. While compared with the markets in Seoul, Beijing still needs to improve in several aspects.

Taking examples from Seoul, suggestions are given in this part in order to promote further developing of Beijing fashion wholesale markets.

5.1 Place Importance on Fashion Industry Development The main reason why Doota could evolve into one of the largest fashion center in the world is the continuous development of the fashion industry in South Korea.

With the drive of the individualized and diversified needs of customers, Seoul’s fashion competitive power is increasing constantly in designing standard, manufacturing quality and selling price. In order to keep the balance among upstream and downstream fashion industry, the administration level of fashion wholesale marketing distribution has to be improved accordingly so as to be paralleled to the competitiveness of fashion industry. From this lesson, it could be learned that the development of Beijing fashion wholesale markets could not only depend on the development of the markets themselves, but also on the support of fashion industry, and the latter one plays a more important role.

5.2 Build Asiawide fashion Wholesale Market Turning into a fashion power from a fashion giant, China should build up a fashion wholesale market offering service to Asian customers as South Korea has built the Asiawide Doota. And it is rather appropriate to build this Asiawide fashion wholesale market in Beijing. Beijing owns the natural geography advantages and affluent human resources to supply international services to customers all over Asia, even all over the world. The reason is that Beijing is a worldwide political and cultural center, with abundant historic figures and cultural heritages, professional Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, famous fashion designers, world-renowned Beijing International Fashion Week, ample exhibition resources, numerous international businessmen, workers, tourists and - 72 www.emj-journal.org

students. And Beijing is on the way of becoming a world-class fashion capital, building an Asiawide fashion wholesale market is very helpful for Beijing’s developing goal.

5.3 Accelerate Fashion Industrial Cluster From the mid of 1970s, Doota has realized a high-level fashion industrial cluster with Doota itself being the center.

Since the cluster could supply all kinds of commodities related with fashion, the competitive power of Doota has been increased. For example, the businessmen could solve all the problems in the process of planning, producing and selling inside Doota. In comparison, Beijing’s fashion industrial cluster is far behind Seoul’s one-stop administration and needs further development.

5.4 Emphasize the Cooperation among Industries, Universities and Research Institutes Being the capital of China, Beijing owns Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology which is the best university in fashion field in China, and many world-class universities in other fields. Beijing has natural-born advantages in the cooperation among industries, universities and research institutes, however, the advantages have not been fully used.

The fashion wholesale markets in Beijing are developing through practice without making use of the intellectuals in universities and research organizations. Beijing should learn from Seoul in promoting the cooperation with scientific organizations so as to improve and optimize Beijing fashion wholesale markets. In this way, Beijing will move forward to “fashion weather glass” and create its own designer brands as Seoul.

5.5 Absorb the Quintessence of Department Stores As Seoul has done, Beijing’s fashion wholesale markets could learn from department stores’ administration methodology, especially in self- designed fashion display and shopping environment design. Combining the attractive display, comfortable environment of department stores with the characteristics of wholesale markets, Beijing would make great progress in wholesale market management.

5.6 Deal with the Relation between Wholesale and Retail In China, it seems to be a rule that a parallel business model with both wholesale and retail in fashion wholesale market is sure to fail.

However, in Doota of Seoul, wholesale and retail could coexist well. In Doota, the business region is divided into two parts, one for wholesale and another for retail. Doota has made full use of the occupied business zone to build new department stores for retail. And the popularity of the original wholesale market has brought a mass of customers to the retail region. Wholesale and retail in Doota complement each other instead of nonsupport.

In Beijing, wholesale and retail are divided by time instead of area. It is hard for businessmen to give consideration to two different businesses.

The success of coexistence of wholesale and retail in Seoul is worthy of analysis, research and reference.

5.7 Change the Opening Time Properly Doota opens at the whole night, which not only meets the demand in the shopping time of customers who are in a hurry of transportation and those who work at day time, but also could solve the problem of traffic jam. Beijing, which is a city facing great challenge of transportation, could draw on the experience of Seoul to open the wholesale markets at night or drafts a system of staggering working hours to attract more customers and ease the traffic congestion.

5.8 Lay Stress on Advertisement Seoul attaches importance to making advertisement in wholesale markets, including the way of showcases, storefront decoration and brand style promotions. The reason why Seoul makes advertisements in wholesale markets is that the customers there possess the highest amount and they are the clear-targeted group. On the contrast, Beijing has not taken the full advantage of fashion wholesale market for advertisement; and Beijing may improve in advertisement - 73 www.emj-journal.org

in the way of Seoul.

6 CONCLUSION Comparing with developed Seoul fashion wholesale market with a history of over 100-year, Beijing’s fashion wholesale market is still in developing. Seoul has set a good example in the field of fashion wholesale market for Beijing to learn from. Since Beijing and Seoul share many similarities in economy, history and culture, it is easy for Beijing to draw lessons from Seoul.

Beijing has many advantages in developing fashion industry and fashion wholesale market as Seoul has. Beijing should make full use of the beneficial conditions it owns. Beijing should study the developing history, experiences and lessons of Seoul and other successful cities and areas so as to develop better and faster.

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"Shopping in Doota Fashion Wholesale Market in Seoul”, available at: http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=yrjHQAhCbCSspVa0DkbbY0jsCnEcxjulRYjz0q9vSTsRNYPBMOqIoWBZw8EHa_UmpDr6N0B6uO0UP1He1Jqzivdxl4Ao3fT6bOmCj4Tac7(acces sed 25 May 2014)

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“How to do wholesale business in Doota Fashion Wholesale Market in Seoul”, available at: http://bbs.eelly.com/thread-531951-11.html(accessed 25 May 2014)

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“Doota”, available at: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_777b55ad0100tefb.html (accessed 25 May 2014)

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Niu Jishun(2010), “Study on the Management Traits of Seoul Doota Fashion Wholesale Market and the Enlightenment for Beijing”. China Business & Trade, Vol. 7 No.12, pp.16-17

AUTHORS Jishun Niu is a professor in Business School, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. She graduated in Peking University and got Ph.D degree. Her major field of study is fashion marketing and fashion enterprise management, and fashion electronic commerce.

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