How Does Good Quality Fit Into The Market?

Many business people have encountered such a dilemma: if they want to send a special gift to a foreign customer, they will have no choice but to send the French Gucci to the Italian LV.

Such embarrassment does exist in the international arena.

Increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers seem to be deprived of third choices between brands (including light luxury brands) and local low-end brands.

If you want to pursue quality and

You have to tolerate big international clothes that neglect the design of Asians, and then go to the tailor's shop for two processing. If you want to get fit, you have to swallow the home.

The rough technology and the design of "big name is visual perception" - that kind of imitation that can be seen at a glance.

The executive meeting of the State Council in May 11th, deployed to promote the consumer goods industry to increase varieties, improve quality, create brands, better meet the needs of mass consumption upgrading.

It is noteworthy that the "quality revolution" formulation was first used in the press release of the Executive Council of the State Council, laying the keynote for the next work.

Since Prime Minister Li Keqiang first mentioned "craftsman spirit" in this year's "government work report", a "quality revolution" which is closely related to the public life is ready to come out.

Quality revolution is at its best.

According to statistics, at present, more than 100 kinds of products are ranked first in the world.

Among them, home appliances, shoes, cotton spinning, chemical fiber, clothing and other productive capacity account for more than 50% of the world's total, light industry and textile exports account for more than 30% of the world's total.

The scale of the industry is so huge, but it is hard to call it a powerful manufacturing country. The shortage of effective supply of consumer goods is becoming more and more serious. The gap between developed countries and varieties, product quality and brand cultivation can not be avoided.

Another reality that can not be ignored is that China is developing a sizable middle class, whose consumption demand is upgrading from "having" to "excellence", changing from food and clothing to well-off society.

When the huge scale of industry can not be fully connected with the huge consumer groups, there will be a surplus of low-end products on the one hand, and on the other hand, the pursuit of high-end and high quality consumption will flow overseas.

The prime minister has mentioned many times that people go abroad to buy rice cookers, toilet covers, and so on. The hidden worries are not difficult to understand.

In particular, with the increasingly rich wallet, Chinese consumers' personal experience is becoming more and more intense.

According to the TEFAF2016 global art market report, the proportion of the middle class (wealth between us $50 thousand and US $500 thousand) has reached 10.7%, and the proportion of the middle class (above 500 thousand dollars) is 0.6%.

The growth rate of the Chinese middle class and middle class adults increased by more than 60% between 2000 and 2015, significantly ahead of the old economy (22% in the US and 18% in Europe).

The wealth growth in these 10 years is nearly 620%, which is 6 times that of the old economy in the same period.

The wealth of Chinese consumers has become a powerful purchasing power.

At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce revealed that in 2015, China spent 1 trillion and 500 billion yuan on overseas consumption, of which at least 700 billion to 800 billion yuan was used for shopping, and the middle and high income groups accounted for a large proportion of overseas shopping.

No wonder the international luxury brands have launched so many Zodiac elements and big red gold designs, because the strength of China's gold masters should not be underestimated.

Then, seeing the growth of international brands under the "golden masters" in China, what should local brands maintain to retain consumers with purchasing power and desire?

The quality revolution is at the right time.

The leading role of the revolution is the market, and the craftsmen spirit must fall into a specific enterprise.

This point is clear at the executive meeting: give full play to the role of the market.

That is to say, the effective supply of rice cookers depends on enterprises, and the government should not directly manage them.

The government should also manage the effective supply of policy and institutional environment.

In view of the increasing variety, quality and brand creation of the consumer goods industry, the Executive Council will put forward: first, perfect market access, cancel unnecessary examination and approval, catalogue and unreasonable charges.

Two is to cultivate and carry forward the craftsman spirit of excellence, and guide enterprises to establish a business philosophy of quality first, reputation first, and promote the "quality revolution" based on mass consumer goods production.

The three is to create a fair competition business environment and promote domestic consumer goods and international standards.

Four, we should strengthen supervision and comprehensively push forward the "double random, one open" supervision mode, crack down on counterfeiting and shoddy, and prevent bad money from banning good money.

In the final analysis, the government plays the leading role in the enterprise.

When the government plans and promotes the reform of "letting go of clothes" through artisan spirit, creates and protects a good market environment, effectively reduces institutional paction costs, and enterprises can concentrate on products with artisan spirit, the "quality revolution" can become a grand sight.

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How does good quality fit into the market?

A Hermes Kelly bag is said to take 18-24 hours of work time, each handle needs not less than 3 hours of work hours; the whole production time of a Birkin bag is said to last 3 months; a high fashion fashion claims to cost at least 20 people more than 700 working hours; a high-grade custom watch has to wait in line for 6 months.

High quality is often the biggest selling point of luxury brands.

In the field of clothing, shoes and other consumer goods, the gold content of handicraft is often the "hard standard" to measure a high quality commodity, which is also the most direct embodiment of the craftsman spirit.

In the era of big industry, consumers are tired of stereotyped, coarse and mediocre products, and the admiration of advanced handcrafts is logical.

Handmade means that the commodity has several characteristics: one is the limited production, the craftsman's energy is limited, the factory assembly line makes one hundred handbags' time, the craftsman may only cut the leather material, and the "hunger marketing" effect has lifted the consumer's appetite.

Two, the handmade products are unique. Every piece of handmade works can not be duplicated, so it satisfies the consumers' pursuit of unique personality.

And the most important thing is that handicraft is a condensation of skills, especially the skill of many generations, so that it has worthwhile heritage value.

Hand-made products are coated with the temperature of a craftsman.

When consumers wear exquisite objects that consume a lot of manpower, they pay for the "craftsman spirit" behind them, and the "craftsman spirit" has always been the core competitiveness of luxury brands which are different from ordinary brands.

Before the arrival of the era of large machine production, China's handmade products also had many bright spots, such as Rui Xiang's cheongsam and the rising of cloth shoes.

Later, assembly line production was gradually popularized in light industry, and some brands still kept semi manual production, such as Shanghai brand watches and blue leather shoes.

But as mechanized production becomes more and more mature, and the requirement of quality is placed on production efficiency, the necessary gold content of a craftsman is also getting lower and lower.

In the industrial age, many craftsmen "abolished martial arts", but there were also some handicraft operations inherited from the workshop. They were not affected by mechanization. For example, embroidery, Miao embroidery, Suzhou embroidery and Shanghai Gu embroidery had a long history.

Wang Anyi's novel Tianxiang, the prototype of Shanghai's Lu Xiang Yuan family, is famous for "Gu embroidery". It rises in the boudoir and integrates the literati painting and calligraphy taste in the elegant embroidery.

With the return of craftsmanship to the consumers, some businesses have looked at traditional Chinese handicrafts.

The first big China brand named "Xia Zichen", who joined the French High Fashion Association, uses embroidery, printing and hand drawing to express the pictures on the fabric.

Embroidery is used in Suzhou embroidery, and there are specialized workshops in Suzhou.

But in practice, good skills and business are not easy to succeed.

One of the important reasons is that there is a big gap between traditional handicraft and modern aesthetics.

Zhang Han is the designer of "XY national style" dress, and is good at applying Miao embroidery to fashion.

She told Xinmin weekly that people's acceptance of the complete Miao embroidery folk style is not high, and they mostly appreciate wait-and-see rather than dress, so the traditional costume of the nation is only suitable for Museum exhibition, and business excavation should combine national fashion with fashion.

In addition to Yang Liping, probably no one can live in a hold embroidery dress.

It is a fashion for her to go out on a vegetable basket. If the ordinary person takes the basket and squeezed the subway to and from work, he may encounter a car's eyes.

Then, can the artisans who own traditional handicrafts turn into fashion? "Zeng Li", the founder of the "Miao River story", says Zeng Li is almost impossible.

"We tried to customize fashion products to embroidered girls, but they can't do what we want, they are only good at traditional crafts."

Therefore, she can only collect the exquisite embroidery pieces first, then cooperate with the designers and artists to make two processing, and merge Miao embroidery into fashion design.

But such a run in is not easy.

"Embroidered Niang understands craft but does not understand fashion. Artists understand fashion but do not understand Miao embroidery craft, sometimes they can not understand each other."

Once the designer put forward that making a "full embroidery" on silk is to embroider all kinds of patterns on the whole cloth.

But the material of the silk is very light and thin. It can not bear such intensive embroidery.

"Artists often draw a lot of pictures and draw a lot, but such pictures can not be shown through Miao embroidery, because stitches can not be stretched that long."

Lin Huaimin's "Cloud Gate Dance Collection" melted calligraphy into the avant garde dance. Bai Xianyong's Peony Pavilion blended modern dance with traditional Kunqu Opera, thus capturing the hearts of contemporary audiences through the ancient and modern beauty.

It can be seen that commercial development of good handicrafts also requires a group of masters, who understand traditional skills and modern aesthetic vision, and save these treasures from the old pile of paper to complete the Phoenix Nirvana.

Is the craftsman still "spirit"?

Many people will think of the wood carving instructor in the story of the little town of Taiwan.

He was the best craftsman in the whole street, who was famous for wood carving in Lukang. He spent the rest of his life polishing his skills, but his income was far less than that of his travelling souvenir shop.

In the eyes of consumers, craftsmen should be people who can't smell business. They are all proud of their craft.

To put it plainly, consumers are willing to pay for this almost religious devotion.

But is there such a craftsman in reality?

"Consumers appreciate plain and unskilled craftsmen, but such craftsmen are a difficult problem for commercial development."

When Zeng Li was amazed at the simplicity and extraordinary skills of Miao village's embroidered mother, she also fell into struggles and entanglements.

A few years ago, Xia Zichen found Zeng Li's national costume museum in Guizhou, hoping that Zeng Li could find a group of embroidery girls for Miao embroidery.

Xia Zichen's clothing style has many embroidery elements. In the past, he has been working with Suzhou embroidery. Embroidery has developed into a mature industry in Suzhou, and the efficiency of embroidery shop operation and purchase is very high.

The brand wants to develop a Miao embroidery production line and finds Guizhou.

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The museum built a bridge between the embroidered mother and the brand, and selected more than 50 skillful embroidered Nang and Xia Zichen to butt up. The two sides agreed on the reward, and Zeng Li embroidered her mother to work in the embroidery workshop of the museum every day.

But it was not long before Zeng Li found that these employees were too hard to manage. "A few days after starting work, they said they were going to leave for 3 days. They could not come back for 30 days, but they couldn't find it."

The cooperation ended in the end.

Later, Zeng Li himself did the commercial development of Miao embroidery and felt deeper.

"We signed a contract with embroidered mother, and wrote the date of delivery, but on the day, they often couldn't hand it out. They would explain to you that they went to the neighbouring village to have a wedding feast on these two days, where they went to relatives in the first two days, or they worked in the fields to harvest crops during the past few days. In short, they felt that a lot of things were more important than performing contracts."

The embroidered girls who lived in the mountains for a lifetime could not understand the validity of the contract. Miao village was an acquaintance society, and everyone felt that everything could be discussed.

The simple and loose embroidered nuns do not understand any business logic, pursue efficiency and maximize their interests, and will not even appear in their dictionaries.

While the duration of embroidered mother can not be guaranteed, it will affect the delivery time of the brand to the customer.

Zeng Li can only give clients a precaution in advance. Time can not be fixed too fast.

On one occasion, Zeng saw a long embroidered gown in a shop. It was very beautiful.

She asked the landlady how much it cost. The landlady said it was 2000 yuan.

Zeng Li immediately wanted to place an order with her, and asked, "if I buy 10 pieces and 100 pieces, can it be cheaper?" the boss wanted to say that if 10 pieces were sold, 3000 yuan would be sold, and 100 pieces would be sold for 4000 yuan.

Zeng Li was a little confused. How much more expensive it was? The boss explained to her that this one was idle and had no other uses, and could sell it to her for 2000 yuan.

If she wants more, and she will have to work harder, she will have to put aside many other important things, of course, more expensive.

The younger generation of craftsmen, though more understanding of the rules of the game in the business world, are often reluctant to accept the monotony and drudgery of craftsmen's life and escape from it.

With more and more commercial projects entering the Miao village, the order of the brand has brought extra income to the embroidered ladies and improved the quality of material life, but these changes still can not keep up with the young people.

Ceng Li said that an embroidered item, which costs about a week or so, can be sold to one thousand or two thousand yuan. Embroidered mother has an average income of tens of thousands per month. This is very impressive in the low consumption level of Miao village, even more than many migrant workers.

But young people in the stockaded village prefer to work outside the country rather than learn traditional skills.

"Miao girls have been studying Miao embroidery with their mothers since childhood. Everyone moves their needles, but young girls seldom want to stay at home to pick up embroidery. They will go out to work together in groups, and they will embroider a few pieces when they return home at the most."

In the Miao village, the post-90s young people, like all their peers, love to play, love novelty, and work outside to see the world that they can't see in their hometown. They have changed from their livelihood to entertainment.

But the attitude of parents in the Miao village is also very popular with the city people. Many people do not expect their children to send money back to support their families, so even young people who work outside the country are enjoying the "moonlight clan" even though their income is not high enough.

And the young people who have seen the outside world become more and more difficult to do embroidery at home. This kind of life is neither fashionable nor interesting.

Of course, as the traditional "artisans" are in the middle and lower reaches of the social contempt chain, this has also made many excellent craftsmen lose their interest and frighten away some young people who might have been engaged in handicraft.

Wang Jinzhong, a jade carving master of Shanghai style, once complained that he had met some tyrant clients and threw a piece of top grade. Tian Yu said that you carved an emperor for me and carved it into my style.

"But different seeds should design different patterns according to their characteristics, for example, the part with skin color can be carved into a leaf, which is ingenious and carved into an emperor without a sense of art."

Consumers do not know crafts, nor do they respect the craftsmen, so that the craftsmen are helpless.

Wang Jinzhong's studio is also very difficult to recruit suitable people.

Many parents do not want their children to be craftsmen, and few schools have specialized in jade carving industry.

"We have tried the students from the Academy of fine arts, but the basic skills of plane painting are good, but when they arrive at the solid jade carving, they show their legs."

In addition, many excellent craftsmen are not well managed, and their interests can not be guaranteed in cooperation with commercial organizations.

In the end, the meat of the market has been eaten by businessmen, and the artisans only have to drink soup, which is frustrations.

Some good skills have been lost.

Pay for "craftsman spirit"

Only when the craftsmanship is valued and the status of artisans rises, can some good things be passed down.

The best respect for the craftsmen is to pay for the craftsmanship.

Over the years, people's consumption habits have changed. The giants in the big industrial era have crashed into the market. Once the Big Mac "Procter & Gamble" announced in 2014 that it sold, terminated or eliminated up to 100 brands, cut the advertising agency fee by 500 million dollars a year, and cut out 40% of the agents, saving 15% of the agent fees and production costs.

The era of mass advertising to stimulate sales has passed. At the moment of information explosion, consumers are more aware of what they want and pay more attention to quality and passion for customized products, so that there is room for development of craftsmanship.

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After the rough and mediocre production of large mechanized production, people began to pursue pure handmade or semi hand-made products again, because in many people's opinion, the grinding of hands often shows the craftsman spirit.

Especially in the field of light industry such as clothing, shoes and bags, a pair of leather shoes that are hand polished by 300 processes, a cheongsam produced by the tailor for one month, a watch that each part is carefully polished by the watchmaker, seems to be able to imagine the workman's attention to the work picture when he wears it.

Handmade products are much more expensive than factory lines. The craftsman spirit means several times the price. Is the consumer ready to pay for the added value?

In the process of market cultivation, some enterprises adopt a compromise market strategy in order to accommodate as many consumers as possible.

For example, "XY national wind" brand has two kinds of positioning: one is to keep the original style of embroidery and original ecological processing with the national culture as the main line, to collect high standard folk embroidery in the village, and make it blend in fashion design, made by XY exclusive workroom.

They are works, not products, so they are valuable and unique. They can not be copied and belong only to those who have the ability to collect.

The other is to take the national culture as the main thread, only to extract the elements of national patterns, and to cooperate with machine embroidery factories to produce machine embroidered pieces with national characteristics, greatly reducing the cost of handcrafts, and combining the design with the most popular fashion styles, and cooperating with experienced garment factories to produce large quantities of products.

They are products, not works, so the price ranges from tens to thousands of thousands of dollars, so it can meet most of the consumer groups.

"Miao Jiang story" also adopts the same market strategy: the embroidery price of complex technology is even tens of thousands, which is pure works.

And the use of Miao embroidery elements of the scarves are priced a little lower, between works and products, mostly from the Miao embroidery patterns in the extraction of image characters, printing and dyeing and other means of production, the price can be affordable to ordinary consumers.

"Miao embroidery has no specific image, but it is all abstract, because it was first used in the worship of heaven. Different patterns have different meanings. Some designs represent good fortune, some are healthy, and many modern people are very interested in mysterious symbols."

Ceng Li said.

She believes that the existence of the consumption of craftsmanship exists. Many people are willing to pay for some of the best products, such as the ultimate craftsmanship, or the unique design, or the mysterious culture, which can impress consumers.

But now the market is not mature enough, many consumers do not really understand craftsmanship, there will be some misreading.

"Some customers like Miao embroidery and sew on the cushions. We can't see the taste in them.

Because Miao embroidery was first used for respecting heaven. It was blasphemous to take it as a cushion.

The spirit of the craftsman is not only an attitude of the handicraft, but also the spirit of the craftsman, which is the best of the consumers. It should also be the common idea of the owners and operators of the enterprises.

If the enterprises in all aspects of production, from the research and development of the product, design to the production to pursue excellence, uphold the "craftsman spirit", Chinese enterprises in the global competition will have more advantages.