On weekends, Bosideng (003998. HK) flagship store, there is a continuous influx of customers. A middle-aged couple dressed in fashion was choosing outdoor clothes, and when the wife flipped through the tag, the husband asked in passing: "How much?" The wife replied: "This piece actually costs more than 4,000 yuan." ”
On the other side, a customer asked the young salesman in the store: "Is this pure duck down?" The clerk immediately corrected him: "No, we are all goose down, not duck down." ”
In this renovated two-storey Bosideng flagship store, some lightweight down jackets or children's clothing down jackets are priced below 1,000 yuan, while many down jackets that are 3,000 yuan to 4,000 yuan or even 8,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan will make people think which international big name.
Recently, netizens have called for the rise of national brands.
For a time, Bosideng was pushed to the cusp of hot discussion. Counting up, the local down jacket brands that have national popularity and can impact high-end prices are counted by one hand. The company, which has been established for 45 years and is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to make down jackets, has to be said to be the leader in the industry.
Chinese brands that have been complained about "soil and earth", but also based on high hopes, can they be hardened to impact the high-end market, and how many roads still need to be walked behind this? Some insiders pointed out that the transformation and upgrading of domestic brands need to make up for the brand premium ability, and the high price is not simply dependent on the added value of the product, but also depends on the added value of the brand.
The high-end dream of Chinese brands
Before this wave of public opinion on "which Chinese down jacket brands can fill the vacancy of international brands", Bosideng has also been on the hot search, but it is not "supported", more is "questioned".
At the beginning of the first wave of this year's cold wave, Bosideng took the lead in seizing the wind, but the first to bring momentum and rhythm was its several expensive series.
In October, Bosideng launched a trench coat down jacket starting at 3,000 yuan, and another catwalk model exceeded 5,000 yuan. According to the brand's publicity, the new model is made by the hands of well-known designers and uses special craftsmanship and fabrics. With the listing of the new model, the brand has also found the endorsement of the current popular traffic star. In this way, it seems natural that the price will rise. A month later, Bosideng launched several outdoor mountaineering down jackets, and the price was even more staggering, priced at 11900 yuan-14900 yuan. Down jackets of more than 10,000 yuan are rare among domestic local brands, so as soon as the 10,000 yuan model is listed, it has aroused heated discussion. Many netizens feel that as a mass brand, it is appropriate to mention the price to the price of luxury goods.
Bosideng for its new products is more emphasis on the black technology content behind, said that the series of products using the company and the China Aviation Industry Culture Center jointly developed 3S fabric, and the use of China Beidou positioning system. This is the first time that aviation material technology and Beidou satellite navigation system have been applied to the field of down jackets. The brand also stressed that this 10,000 yuan down jacket is not a regular version but a limited edition, with a total of only 200 pieces.
But regardless of whether the public opinion is positive or negative, the hot search of the down jacket of 10,000 yuan has indeed made Bosideng "fire" a wave, attracting people to discuss and make people think: can domestic local brands sell so expensive, and whether the market can buy it after selling so expensive?
After the first financial reporter checked the Bosideng Tmall flagship store, he found that the women's trench coat down stock priced at 3599 yuan had sold more than 600 pieces in the past month, and another star with the same price showed that the monthly sales were more than 700 pieces. Among the 10,000 yuan down jackets that have aroused heated discussion, 84 people have paid for the 14,900 yuan style, but 13,900 yuan and 12,900 yuan show that the number of people purchased is single digits.
Industry insiders generally have a pertinent marketing evaluation of Bosideng, and most people believe that this is an attempt by the brand to explore its price ceiling, and how much it can sell in the end is secondary.
"Bosideng's high-end price strategy is really just a means. Its message to the outside world is that it has the ability to lead the local down jacket industry. Cheng Weixiong, a brand management expert in the footwear industry and general manager of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd., said.
Looking back over the past few years, consumers clearly feel that the original "people-friendly" Bosideng has become more expensive. According to the research report of Guojin Securities, in 2018, the price increase of the main brand of Bosideng was as high as 30% to 40%. In the following three years, the company's continuous launch of new models often exceeded the four-figure price, which also made many people exclaim "expensive".
Another aspect of the price increase is to pull Bosideng's performance. According to the company's annual report, Bosideng has been growing revenue for three consecutive years, even under the new crown epidemic, the company's revenue in fiscal 2020 has hit a record high, reaching 13.52 billion yuan, an increase of 10.9% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to shareholders is about 1.71 billion yuan, an increase of 42.1% year-on-year.
On the evening of November 25, 2021, Bosideng released this year's interim results financial report, which showed that its revenue was 5.39 billion yuan, an increase of 15.6% year-on-year; Net profit attributable to shareholders was approximately RMB640 million, up 31.4% year-on-year.
At the bosideng interim results conference held the next day, Zhu Gaofeng, chief financial officer and vice president of Bosideng, said that the main price of Bosideng down jackets last year was about 1600 yuan, and the sales of down jackets with more than 1800 yuan under the company this year may reach more than 40%, which is expected to achieve double-digit improvement compared with last year.
Obviously, after adjusting its strategy to focus on the down jacket category, the veteran company does not want to just be a popular brand, but expects to raise its brand power to a higher level, shoulder to shoulder than some international brands. In the past few years, Bosideng has been constantly moving, working with several former designers of luxury goods, doing joint names with well-known IP, participating in international fashion week catwalks, etc.
Zhu Gaofeng said that the company's strategy of moving the price segment up in the next three years will be unswervingly realized. "Since 2018, the company has continuously promoted brand transformation and upgrading, and has made great innovations in terms of design raw materials and technical processes." In the face of the previous online hot discussion about the price increase of Bosideng and the question of whether it is worth the price, in his view, these are not problems, "there is no bubble in the price increase of the brand." Judging from the current recognition of Chinese consumers as Chinese brands, as long as they can make good products, even if the price of the product increases, it will be recognized by consumers. ”
Cheng Weixiong believes: "The promotion of the Bosideng brand from a popular down jacket brand to a mid-to-high-end brand is a huge challenge in itself. How to rise to the middle and high-end of the brand's popular DNA, especially the brand DNA of light luxury, Bosideng's transformation and upgrading especially need to make up for the brand premium ability, the high price is not simply dependent on the added value of the product, but also depends on the added value of the brand. ”
The mass market is still in full swing
The general view in the industry is that the domestic down jacket industry has great growth potential and the market size continues to increase. This is also related to the climate, ice and snow tourism, and the holding of the Winter Olympics.
The first financial reporter interviewed and learned that the recent cooling and the approaching of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have heated up ice and snow tourism and related sports, and Fliggy data shows that as of now, the booking volume of ice and snow tourism products, including ski tours, snow country tours, snow world tours, etc., increased by 206% year-on-year. It is understood that the Fliggy ice and snow tourism products currently on sale support consumers to "hoard first and then make an appointment", and the appointment deadline is mostly until the end of the snow season next spring. The northern ice and snow tourism destinations are gaining momentum, and the indoor ski resorts in the south are also hot. The attention and order volume of outdoor ski resorts such as Jilin Changbaishan, Heilongjiang Yabuli, and Hebei Chongli have grown rapidly, and indoor ski resorts and snow worlds in Wuxi, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other places have also become places for ice and snow sports enthusiasts. With the promotion of domestic ice and snow sports in recent years, ice and snow sports have not only been in the north, and the effect of promoting ice and snow sports "south exhibition, west expansion and eastward expansion" is remarkable. Ticket sales for many snow resorts in Sichuan, Hubei and Yunnan have surpassed pre-epidemic sales. As of now, half of the top 10 snow parks (snow parks) with the fastest growth in tickets on qunar platform are in the south, of which the ticket sales of Lijiang Yulong Snow Mountain Ski Resort have exceeded 40% in the same period in 2019.
Zhang Xuguang, general manager of the Marketing Center of Secret Garden Genting Park and Genting Hotel, said that driven by the Winter Olympics effect, more and more young people have joined the ice and snow sports, and the current proportion of young consumers aged 20 to 40 is more than 70%. On Ctrip's platform, among the people who booked this winter's ice and snow tour products, the post-90s and post-00s accounted for nearly 50%.
These winter tourism products not only drive the consumption of cultural tourism, but also drive the sales of down jackets, winter sportswear and other products, and more consistently, many young customers after the 90s are the main buyers of ice and snow sports and down clothing. Data from the China Garment Association shows that between 2014 and 2019, the domestic down jacket market grew by 11.8%, according to statistics, the size of China's down jacket market in 2019 was about 120.9 billion yuan. It is estimated that by 2022, the market size of China's down jacket industry will reach 162.2 billion yuan.
In the past, the high-end market for down jackets above 5,000 yuan was basically monopolized by brands such as Moncler. The market size of the blank price band of 2000 yuan to 7000 yuan will be more than 10 billion, and the market space is huge.
"Bosideng's transformation is aimed at the price range of 2,000 yuan to 7,000 yuan, and this part is still a competitive gap." Zhu Gaofeng said.
Nowadays, under the trend of mature technology and diversified channel marketing, Bosideng wants to go up enough, which is the choice of the enterprise according to its own development, which is beyond reproach.
For the Chinese market, the low-end market may be larger. Now it seems that Bosideng, which wants to go up, has given up the mass market below a thousand yuan. The "2021 China Down Jacket Industry Analysis Report" shows that down jacket products are still dominated by domestic brands, and these are distributed in the field of low-end products, and the market share of high-end priced products is less than 10%.
Enterprise investigation data show that there are 49,900 down product-related enterprises in China. In 2019, 11,100 new companies were added, an increase of 51.17% year-on-year. In 2020, 5451 new companies were added, a year-on-year decrease of 50.69%. In the first 10 months of 2021, there were 2948 new down products enterprises in China, a year-on-year decrease of 64.89%. In recent October, 191 new companies were added, a year-on-year decrease of 43.82%. In September, 430 new companies were added, a year-on-year decrease of 15.69%. In August this year, there were 464 new down product-related enterprises in China, an increase of 6.91% year-on-year, which was the largest number of new additions in the first 10 months of this year. From the perspective of regional distribution, Jiangsu ranked first with 10,900 down products enterprises, and Zhejiang Province and Shandong Province had 8427 and 4129 down product related enterprises, ranking second and third. After that, it was Shanghai Municipality, Guangdong Province, Guizhou Province, etc. From the perspective of urban distribution, Nantong ranks first in the list, with 4746 down products enterprises. Hangzhou and Suzhou have 3847 down products-related enterprises and 3252 respectively, ranking in the top three. After that, it was Shenzhen City, Bijie City, Jiaxing City, etc.
Although affected by last year's epidemic, the number of new down products related enterprises has decreased, but it still maintains the momentum of growth. "In fact, compared with some foreign countries, the penetration rate of down jackets is 60% and 70%, and our domestic penetration rate is currently less than 20%." In the view of Ni Bei, head of the duck and duck channel department, the down jacket market has great potential.
Public information shows that the establishment of the duck and duck down jacket is even older than Bosideng, founded in the 1970s in Jiangxi Gongqing, produced China's first down jacket, and even was selected as a national gift to former Soviet President Gorbachev in the 1980s. At its peak, duck and duck stores opened nearly 3,000 across the country.
Ni Bei told the first financial reporter that before the current company took over the operation, the annual sales of the duck and duck brand were less than 100 million yuan a year, and the combined sales of 1,000 stores offline were less than 200 million yuan. She said that the previous boss is doing real estate, the operation idea of clothing is more traditional, and last June, the current boss acquired Duck Duck and re-formed the operation team, "The current team is professional, and has its own understanding and insight into the sales and operation of down jackets, and Duck Duck is originally an old professional down jacket brand, the supply chain is mature, so as long as the operation is proper, the effect obtained is very significant." ”
According to her, in the year after the acquisition, the sales of Duck and Duck have reached 3 billion yuan, and this year it is expected that under the expectation of cold winter, sales will double, "For down jacket companies, the best selling is from November to January every year." We have shopped on Tmall, JD.com, Douyin, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo and other channels. Ni Bei concluded that one of the reasons for the explosive growth of Duck and Duck is cost performance, "Our goal is to make Uniqlo in the down jacket industry. Of course, the price is on the one hand, and we can also do the same trendy as other fast fashion and fashion brands in style. If you look at our design, you will find that the down jacket is no longer bloated, the color is only black and white gray and other monotonous solid colors, we can do a variety of styles, slim, there are colors. Ni Bei said that its designers can launch about 2,000 categories a year, "see which style sells well, our flexible supply chain can immediately achieve rapid return." ”
The first financial reporter inquired about the Tmall flagship store of Duck duck, the current best selling short down jacket price in the store mainstream pricing at 200 yuan, 300 yuan, a month of sales are more than 10,000 pieces, while the medium and long models are priced at about 400, 500 yuan, the number of hot styles monthly sales show more than 20,000 pieces, although the store also has more than four figures of relatively high-priced down jacket products, but the current monthly sales number shows only single digits.
Tmall New Life Research Institute found that for today's consumers, down jackets are not only warm but also fashionable and thin, such as this year's emerging shirt down jacket on Tmall a trend, a 4-fold increase over last year. In men's down jackets, the new trench coat down jackets that are both warm and suitable for formal business occasions increased by 500% year-on-year.
"We found that the new consumers are actually not very old, under the age of 30." Ni Bei told the first financial reporter that in the low-end market, even young consumers are not sensitive to brands, "customers are more concerned about the style is not trendy, the color is not good." If you can do this, of course, provided that your quality is also online, then you have a consumer. ”
"The market space freed up by (Bosideng) not only gives Yalu and Duck ducks, but also gives the living space of brands such as Snow Fly and Shangyu in its own brand matrix, and everyone is happy." Cheng Weixiong said.
(The first financial reporter unveiled the book and contributed to this article)