The Old Shoe Market Is Not A Single Image, But The Result Of Skech'S Deep Youth Culture In The Chinese Market.

In 2018, Cage ushered in the Chinese market "explosion red" - as if overnight, Cage's "elderly walking shoes" is well known.

The world cup is the most popular topic in the year, attracting many sports brands to regard this football event as a marketing hot spot.

But some brands do not catch a cold. SKECHERS is one of them, and the world cup has hardly left any trace of Cage.

Skech China market and store development

Explain to the interface news: "Si Cage is a life leisure sports brand, not from the origin of football, especially in the United States, but there is no introduction of this category in China."

However, it can also be understood: in 2018, Cage ushered in the Chinese market "explosion red" - as if overnight, Cage's "elderly walking shoes" is well known.

Even after such an explosion, people have almost known that the sports brand has entered the Chinese market for 10 years, and that brand was popular among young Americans in the past.

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At the turn of the world cup in June and July 2018, Cage held the 2019 spring order meeting, which is the largest order meeting in the 10 years since the US brand entered China.

Lian Tai garment factory located in Fenggang town of Dongguan is one of Skech's main bases in China.

In October 2007, Cage and Hong Kong listed companies joined the joint venture company of Hong Kong listed companies, Luen Thai group, to set up Si Cage China Limited. Both sides each accounted for 50% of the shares, and the US brand was declared to enter China.

From 2008 officially entered the market so far, in the past 10 years, Cage's sales grew by an average annual growth of 73%, from 74 million in 2008 to 10 billion 430 million in 2017. It has become one of the fastest rising international brands in China's sporting goods market.

Skech's greater ambition in China, Cage, China CEO Chen Weili, said: "according to the present development situation, I am very confident that the sales volume of China's retail sales exceeded 15 billion yuan in 2018."

This means that Cage's annual sales growth will exceed 40%.

In order to achieve these goals, Skech is desperately approaching the youth culture in China market and learning to do "net red shop".

Young brands, but old people go for shoes and fire.

Whenever anyone asks for a fitness boot for a social platform, he will probably get the same answer: Cage.

In the product recommendation mainstream website "what is worth buying", Skech was described as "give my mother the walking shoes".

A woman who bought two pairs of Cage GO WALK series walking shoes has attributed the purchase to "simple and lightweight, comfortable sole and cost-effective."

In the early days of China, Skech had dominated leisure and leisure products.

Unlike the major sports brands, which are different from their sports functions and fashion attributes, Cage emphasized the importance of "comfortable clothes" rather than high tech brands.

Therefore, the price of Cage's walking shoes series is relatively moderate, mostly in the range of RMB 400 to 500 yuan, which is an important reason for middle class consumers.

Even if the trend shoes such as panda shoes and so on for young people have long been popular, the GO WALK walking shoes series has a very small market in the middle and old age areas in China, occupying about 30% of the total retail sales, which makes Skech fall into an impression of "walking shoes for the elderly" in the Chinese market.

GO WALK series walking shoes

What's interesting is that Skechers comes from slang in the southern California, which means "sitting young people". The US brand is interpreted in the official website as "young people pursuing fashion and individuality".

But obviously, in the Chinese market, the image of "elderly walking shoes" is in conflict with the desire of mainstream young consumers.

Skech, vice president of China's market and store development, said frankly that the contradiction exists. She believes that products are welcomed by consumers of all ages. It is a good thing that the market dividends of domestic and middle aged people will be bigger and bigger, but at the same time, it will bring some challenges to the brand.

Zhang Ruiyan said: "in fact, this is a great challenge for us to do brand promotion, because we always hope it is a young brand, and young consumers will always be our main communication partners, so this is a difficulty."

As a matter of fact, Skech, founded in 1992, has only 25 years ago. It should indeed be a youthful brand with a vibrant and free atmosphere.

From the current situation, Skech's main consumer groups in the Chinese market are divided into two age groups, 18 to 25 years old and 35 to 45 years old.

The former is more interested in sports trend series such as D Lites shoes, while older consumers mainly buy functional products such as running or walking.

In recent years, data feedback, whether it is fashion series or sports functional category products, has achieved good sales performance in the Chinese market.

Although brand communication is mainly targeted at young people aged 18 to 25, Cage will not give up consumers of higher ages and continue to provide products for different needs.

In fact, even though it had entered China as a joint venture in 2008, it was not until the last two years that Cage's brand communication activities really entered the public eye.

Zhang Ruiyan said that from 2008 to 2013, Skech was exploring basic adjustments to adapt to the Chinese market, including product lines, sales channels, business models and business partners.

Skech concluded that the most important conclusion is to quickly launch various positioning products to deal with market competition -- from life leisure, sports functional products to children's shoes, the brand develops more than 3000 shoes each year, exceeding ten thousand SKU units.

After the adjustment was completed, in 2014, Cage began to force the brand communication, the effect is considerable.

Skech's official view is: "the popularity of its brand has increased by leaps and bounds, from 14% in 2016 to 38%."

However, Cage's product line has a large age span, and the brand fails to focus on the most important young people's market. The impression of elderly shoes is not without reason.

To this end, strengthening communication with young groups has become an important goal of Skech's brand communication in recent two years.

This brand of sports from California is clear. The millennial generation means strong purchasing power. Youth has always been the most important strategy for sports shoes and clothing companies.

Skech betting on hip hop dance

Can hip hop and net red shop help to shake off the image of old shoes?

In Cage's view, the most important thing for young people is resonance.

Zhang Ruiyan said: "they will feel that this brand can represent my pursuit and my attitude towards life. This is the most important thing.

Now young people in China can get information on global news or fashion trends in various channels. They are the most difficult consumers to get to know what these young people like.

Skech seems to have had the answer: young people can resonate with the trend culture of youth.

For this reason, they chose hip-hop.

In fact, American brands have hip-hop genes.

In 1990s, Cage and American pop idol "Britney Spears" Britney and other singing stars and many west coast street dance groups to open up the hip hop culture.

In China, Skech also thinks of the local street dance.

From 2010 onwards, Cage began to set foot in this field. Apart from holding a contest for dancing competitions and sponsoring hip hop institutions in China's universities, Cage also formed the China hip hop All-Star team, providing them with opportunities to travel around the world, sponsoring shoes and clothing.

The real systematized entry into the field of hip-hop was in April of this year, when Cage founded his own hip hop college, from Beijing, Shenyang, Guangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan and Chongqing, Henan, Xinjiang, Jiangsu to Shandong and other places, Cage held an open teaching and competition.

At the same time, Skech invited international celebrities such as Rich brian and rapper Gin Oy to take hip-hop culture MV, each wearing D 'Lites series products, promoting Cage's understanding of hip-hop spirit.

Hip-hop dancers love to express themselves and have their own attitudes.

Hip hop is compatible with the spirit of young people, and it has athletic attributes, and requires your physical ability and coordination to persevere.

Skech has been in the field of Chinese hip-hop for more than three years. We are not co operating with the street dance. Cage's position is very clear. We want to be a communicator, "Zhang Ruiyan said.

Dou Xiao, who is good at sports, speaks for Cage.

Skech betting on the field of hip hop, with Tang Yan, Wu Chun, Dou Xiao and other star endorsements to promote, brand image to a large extent become young and lively.

But hip hop is still a niche field. It seems that it is still not enough to win the recognition of young consumers on a large scale.

As to whether to consider the signing of the athlete spokesman, Skech said former gymnast Li Xiaopeng is a brand friend, but no special athlete spokesman.

It is reported that they are looking for suitable candidates, and do not rule out signing some popular sports stars.

Over the past three years, Skech's marketing expenditure in China has grown at an annual rate of 30%. In 2017, it spent about 200 million yuan on advertising and marketing.

The main goal of their heavy investment is to approach the youngest consumers.

In addition to the special product line and the marketing orientation of youth culture, Skech also tries to cater for the new generation's taste in retail channels.

Zhang Ruiyan, who is responsible for the development of stores in China, mentioned that Cage attached importance to physical stores and had always wanted to make the shop under the net a "net red shop".

"I like to communicate with the younger generation after 95 and after 90s. As long as there is something, there is a high degree of communication among them.

This group of consumers has a big appetite and needs a lot of new things that can trigger new things. So we must constantly find something interesting and interesting to attract them. This is called the net red shop, "Zhang Ruiyan said.

Similar to the current net red milk tea shop, she thinks, net red shop is very important factor is to meet young people's social needs -- not only shopping in the shop, but also enable consumers to feel the brand image, everyone wants to "punch card" and take photos, and make friends circle.

Skech is already doing "net red shop".

In October 2017, Skech D 'Lites shop in the Bund, Shanghai, opened. This is the first brand image shop with D' Lites products as the theme, with a total area of 441 square meters, adjacent to Nanjing East Road, with a unique geographical location.

Shanghai D 'Lites fashion shop, Shanghai

The design of the shop is integrated with the fashion elements. The center of the shop on the first floor uses the neon light wall. The graffiti on the staircase wall shows the hip hop culture highlighted by the brand. The elements of hip-hop, DJ and HIP-HOP are also displayed.

In addition, the product is placed on a music theme display wall full of current. D 'LITES shoes are designed to be integrated into the screen elements.

Shanghai Cage D Lites shop

Zhang Ruiyan said that although there is room for improvement, the first store design is in line with expectations, and two D 'Lites trend stores will be opened in Xi'an and Shanghai this year.

In Cage's vision, they hope that the trend shop can become a pilgrimage to the brand loyal consumers.

By the end of 2017, the number of Cage's brand entities has reached 2446, but the number of stores is not the primary consideration for Cage at this stage.

They are still cautious in setting up shop, especially the red tide shop must meet multiple conditions - choose the best location, integrate the elements of the trend, have uniqueness, that is, each store's internal design is different, the so-called "good shop, meet the location of the shop."

When the bulky shoes such as "Daddy shoes" become popular all over the world, D 'Lites panda shoes become the representative of the Chinese market.

By the beginning of 2017, the pair of black and white matching thick shoes had sold over 3 million pairs in China, which accounted for more than 20% of Cage's Chinese sales.

In contrast, the GoWalk series of walking shoes, commonly known as "old shoes", account for about 30%.

In Cage's view, these betting culture and setting up the net red shop are closely integrated with the brand's trend series, and are driving the sales performance for young people.

Skech's best-selling product D 'Lites panda shoes

Annual sales target is broken 15 billion

Unlike Nike and Adidas, which directly entered the Chinese market by setting up branches, Cage China adopted a joint venture mode.

More than 10 years ago, Chen Weili worked for the family business, Luen Tai Group, which is responsible for the supply chain services such as clothing and accessories.

Soon after, he began to go deep into the domestic retail market to make clothing brands.

However, the overseas Chinese of Quanzhou, who was originally from Fujian, did not embark on the road of Jinjiang local common sports brand entrepreneurship. Instead, they did business by introducing international brands.

In addition to the special business models of Skech and China, compared with Nike, Adidas and other international brands, as well as Anta, Lining and other local enterprises, Cage's positioning is also different from the two main camps in the Chinese market.

Chen Weili once said that Cage has precise product positioning, "we will not make 299 yuan customers, that is Anta, Lining's customers.

But you want to find an international brand price of 399 yuan, 499 yuan, you come to me.

In addition, the price of Nike and Adidas is usually above 600 yuan.

In other words, Skech, who is in the price range from 400 to 500 yuan, takes Anta Lining and Nike ADI as her own development space.

Zhang Ruiyan believes that such a "sandwich" state is not awkward, but in a good position, "in addition to international brands in China, there are many domestic brands, the environment is good.

Nike and Adidas, which are famous sports brands in the world, have been in China for a long time. They play a very good role in education and guidance for Chinese consumers.

Then, the competition for domestic brands is getting bigger and bigger, and it also inspires Cage to do better.

Apart from the price fixing position in the middle tier, which can avoid many competitors, Cage believes that consumers have more reasons to choose them. Compared with the international brand, its lower price means high cost performance. For local brands, Cage has more internationalized brand effect and quality.

However, what needs to be noticed by Skech is that when more and more enterprises are looking at this big cake in the Chinese market, the "sandwich" space will become more and more crowded.

In recent years, brands such as Nike and Adidas have launched some "civilian funds" to meet the popular demand while attacking the middle and high priced market.

In addition, with the upgrading of consumer demand, Anta, Lining and other local enterprises are already not satisfied with the middle and low end market. Many of them play the "500 yuan" shoes of "technology card".

Skech's practice of deepening youth culture is more similar to that of early XTEP, which has invested heavily in variety shows and entertainment celebrities.

But with the rise of the sports market, in 2015, XTEP began to shift from fashion to professional sports, and implemented a strategic pformation dominated by running and fashion.

Last year, XTEP sponsored 40 running events to become a local brand that supports the most marathons.

For such a market trend change, Zhang Ruiyan believes that when the early Chinese entertainment program was rising, many brands chose such a breakthrough point to enhance their popularity. However, Skech's investment in variety and celebrity endorsement remained cautious and needs to be highly consistent with the brand characteristics.

In fact, Skech also has few actions in the field of professional sports marketing in China, including sponsoring the Shanghai 10 km international competition.

Moving closer to sports, Skech may expect to serve a wider range of young people.

Skech sponsors Shanghai international 10 km elite competition

After winning the first quarter of the season, Chen Weili has mentioned more than once that China's retail sales in 2018 are expected to exceed 15 billion yuan sales expectations, and he will once again give his partners confidence in the order meeting in Dongguan.

Compared with the 10 billion 430 million sales in 2017, this year's performance is expected to increase significantly, and is expected to be mainly reflected in the field of clothing and electricity suppliers.

Skech is strengthening

The product line will be developed and the clothing will be displayed on the spot. The next spring will also launch the cross border clothing with the well-known IP.

In terms of channel, online sales performance is dazzling, just finished the 2018 "618" e-commerce Festival, and the sales volume of Cage electric official store increased by 77% over the same period, and the overall growth rate is expected to grow faster this year.

Obviously, the goal set by Skech is not simple.

The annual sales exceeded 15 billion, which means that the performance of Anta, a local brand, was 16 billion 692 million in the 2017 fiscal year, of which more than 95% of its revenue came from China.

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Although Skech stressed that it is satisfied with the current demand of sales from different ages, but from the design of new products with lively and fashionable orders, the most urgent desire of Cage or young people to pay the bill is higher.