Sports brand differentiation competition start

“Li Ning is out of stock”. For other industries, this may not be a valuable information. For domestic sports brands suffering from inventory pressure, it is a ray of light.

Destocking According to the financial report data of the major companies in the past two years, the inventory pressure of sports brands has not been optimistic. Li Ning’s inventory at the end of 2011 was 1.13 billion yuan, and the inventory amount was 920 million yuan as of the end of 2012. Anta's inventory at the end of 2011 was 620 million yuan, which rose to 690 million yuan as of December 31, 2012. Xtep's inventory at the end of 2011 was 670 million yuan, and inventory at the end of 2012 was 580 million yuan. Among them, Li Ning's operating revenue fell by 2.2 billion to 6.7 billion, ANTA revenue fell by 1.3 billion to 7.6 billion, special steps increased slightly to 5.55 billion.

Recently, at the 2013 Chengdu Fortune Global Forum, some customers originally intended to buy Li Ning products. The result was told to be out of stock. In desperation, only a few seller orders were found. In addition to Chengdu, there was news that Li Ning was also missing in Wuhan. goods. The industry has speculated that Li Ning stocks have been basically cleared.

The inventory problem is one of the sensitive issues for listed companies of several major sports brands. Through inventory changes, investors can directly understand the company's operating conditions and at the same time have an impact on the trend of stock prices. In the above-mentioned summit forum, Ding Shizhong, president of Anta Sports, made it clear: “We have a good news that the inventory is handled almost.” Ding Shizhong said that last year suffered a negative growth in the first year since the establishment of the company and is currently undergoing brand upgrading. And retail transformation. Ding Shizhong disclosed that ANTA same-store sales data has begun to increase.

Ding Shuibo, president of Xtep International, also revealed that “the inventory is handled very well. According to the plan at that time, it is almost the same.” He said that Xtep quickly clears inventory according to the original plan. Before Xtep said that it will give distributors 30% off in the peak season, 50% off sale, at the expense of profits for sales. Ding Shuibo said that the Group and agents and franchisees have reduced their order arrangements and are more aggressive in cleaning up inventory. However, Ding Shuibo believes that the entire industry is facing more serious issues of business model and product homogeneity.

For the way companies clean up their inventory, some insiders disclosed that “Several companies have increased their efforts to shut down their stores and sell their products, while at the same time digesting their inventory through online channels and selling them to other regions in the Middle East and Africa through packaging. Inventories are basically digested.” Through the above-mentioned clean-up inventory methods, although the current inventory of each company’s inventory has declined, the above-mentioned approaching ANTA people also stated that such clean-up of stocks is only a temporary solution, if several companies themselves The sales model will not change, and inventory issues will continue to be repeated for the next year.

At present, in order to tie in with the inventory clean-up of the three major brand companies to close stores one after another, incomplete statistics indicate that Li Ning closed 1,821 stores last year; Anta closed stores of nearly 600; and Xtebu Close stores had nearly 100. In terms of discounts, the three companies even got a 30% discount.

At the same time, it is understood that the store will continue this year. Some analysts said that the Anta brand is expected to close about 6.5% of its retail stores in 2013. In the case of continuing store closures, it will be difficult to see high growth in the 2014 order book driven only by the same store, unless it continues to increase dealer stocks.

Changes in channel inventory are closely related to the growth of performance. How to balance has become a major issue in the industry. At present, the channel reforms of the above three companies are in a period of pain. Some people in the industry predict that it will be difficult for them to get out of the reforms by 2015.

In accordance with the three-stage reform blueprint created by Li Ning to improve the company's core strengths and profitability, the channel renewal plan is a key step for the company's transformation and is also fundamental to the success of the reform. The purpose of the channel reform is to increase the proportion of direct operations, increase the right to speak in the distribution channels, make the management flat, remove the intermediate links, and leave profitable space for dealers. In 2012, Li Ning integrated 256 inefficient single-store distributors and launched new dealer strategies and policies, which are shifting from scale growth to retail efficiency. At the same time, dealers are encouraged to develop self-operated stores and separate assessments of self-operated and wholesale businesses.

In addition, another core of the three-phase reform is aimed at Li Ning's "three focus" strategy, focusing on the core brand - Li Ning brand, focus on core business - return to the essence of sports, focusing on the core market - the Chinese mainland market. Li Ning revealed that after focusing on the core brand Li Ning, the company will not immediately stop operating other brands, but will take external resources to develop those non-core brands. In fact, starting from last year, the company has begun to sort out its brands, some shortened the operating period, while others decided to terminate operations.

Anta's channel structure is also in the middle of the "destroyed channels," allowing brands to directly deal with consumers for retail direct sales. Anta re-examines consumer demand, conducts direct vertical guidance for distributors and customers, increases direct store management, and more directly collects and satisfies consumer opinions. The concept of retail culture transformation is realized while clarifying consumer status.

In an interview with the media, Ding Shizhong said: “It is more important to increase the efficiency of single stores and optimize channels than to open stores and expand store size. It will not be tangled in the number of stores.” Future growth will be driven by the increase in single store sales.

Differentiated competition Starting inventory pressure and homogenizing vicious competition have been two major problems that have plagued the industry. The burden of inventory has been laid down. Right now, various companies are beginning to find a living space for differentiation.

For the homogeneity of sports brands, in Li Ning's view, it is a problem that must be solved. “The threshold of sportswear and sports shoes is low, and large amounts of capital and resources have entered the industry, which has brought serious homogeneity to the industry. The future companies should develop according to their own characteristics and market needs.”

Visiting the sports fitness market, the reporter saw Li Ning's store shelves, in addition to conventional sports clothing supplies, also introduced Tai Chi clothing and other clothing more suitable for Chinese people's fitness, according to reports, Li Ning's move although little action, but But it quickly gained market recognition. Because there is no professional brand in the country to pay attention to the needs of this segment of the market, the introduction of Tai Chi clothing is also due to the original intention of Li Ning to focus on the domestic market.

And Peak President Xu Zhihua is looking for a way to start his own life. Xu Zhihua will focus on personalized custom brands - love and guest, and put into the starting capital of 10 million yuan.

Love Dingke invites consumers through the official website. Customers only need to click the mouse. According to the options of different colors, materials, and graffiti, choose six parts such as toe cap, heel and shoelace, and then attach a personalized signature. DIY a pair of shoes.

Although international brands such as Nike and Adi have custom-made shoes for a long time, their customization needs 5 weeks, the price is about 1000 yuan, and the price of love dingo is about 200 yuan, and delivery is within 7 days. The founder, Dang Qiyuan, attributed Nike and Adi’s ambiguity to the lack of a dedicated production line for custom shoes. At the same time, Love Dingke has an independent factory in Shanghai. A five-story building houses a material warehouse and a workshop. It has two assembly lines.

"So there is no such company in the world. We produce 1,000 pairs of products every day. Each pair of colors, materials, signatures and patterns are different. We will ship within 3 days. This is the only thing we can do in the world. That's it," said Dang Qiyuan.

Anta is actively participating in the children's wear and outdoor product market, and learns from the experience and lessons learned from the previous development of sporting goods. “A lot of companies will understand that after going through the lessons of previous development, it is not enough just to fill a gap. It is necessary to innovate and avoid the homogenization again,” said Ding Shizhong.

According to the analysis of the chairman of Shenzhen Good Family Industrial Co., Ltd., the difficulty faced by China's sports brands is the extensive and rapid growth of the industry from scratch. The next development is branding and market competition.