By ZHU Yongling
Clothing retailer Metersbonwe’s revenue increased by 13.9 percent year-on-year to 279 million yuan (US$38 million) in Q3, the first growth in revenue this year.
Despite the apparently bright news, due to a catastrophic first half, revenue in the first three quarters was down 13.5 percent to 837 million yuan. However, net profit attributable to the parent company more than doubled to 41.6 million yuan.
But that net profit relies on disposal of non-current assets and Metersbonwe has never made a non-GAAP net profit. From 2018 to 2022, revenue plummeted from 7.7 billion yuan to 1.4 billion yuan, with continuous losses totaling nearly 3 billion yuan.
The company has closed many of its unprofitable stores to focus on e-commerce and franchising.
Compared to offline channels, online margins for clothing are low, and Metersbonwe has repositioned itself as affordable. In early August, Metersbonwe started to live streaming on TikTok, and over a month later, accumulated nearly 4.3 million viewers, but total sales that day were less than 500,000 yuan.
During the recent Singles Day shopping spree, Metersbonwe’s daily sales were around a tenth of Semir’s, a similar brand. Metersbonwe has not made it into TikTok’s top 800 fashion brands.
TikTok live streaming is not Metersbonwe’s first foray into online channels. In 2010 and 2015, the company attempted to establish e-commerce platforms but ultimately met with failure.
