4 Reasons For The Weakness Of BELLE Shoe Business

Compared with the excitement of Chinese clothing brands this year, a big wave shoe business led by BELLE is slightly dull.

Recall once brilliant

The number of enterprises in China, the largest shoe manufacturer and retail companies, is a strong example.

At the moment, frequent negative news, shop closures, shareholder reduction, slow development, not to mention surprises, even calm need courage.

I can't help asking, what's wrong with BELLE?

Compared with the excitement of Chinese clothing brands this year, a big wave shoe business led by BELLE is slightly dull.

Recall the brilliant BELLE, the largest shoe production and retail companies in China, and how many companies have been trying to follow the example.

BELLE needs it.

If you forget, we can warm up again.

The business of BELLE group consists of two parts: footwear business and sportswear business. Its own brand operates 13 footwear brands: Belle (BELLE), Teenmix (Teenmix),

(he she)

(Staccato), Joy&Peace (Zhen Meishi), Millie 's (Miao Li), Senda (s), Innet (Basto) (Basto) and so on. At the same time, it also manages 7 brands: Bata, Clarks, CAT, Fitflop, HushPuppies, Fitflop, and so on.

Yes, these brands that we all know well are all BELLE's.

BELLE group is not only the largest female shoe retailer in China, but also the leading consumer market share in the capital market. As of last August, there were nearly 2 retail outlets in the world.

At the moment, frequent negative news, shop closures, shareholder reduction, slow development, not to mention surprises, even calm need courage.

Some even predict that BELLE will die without pformation.

I really can't help asking, what's wrong with BELLE?

Expansion slowdown

In fact, BELLE shoe business has been weakening for some time.

From 6 to August 2014, the number of retail outlets in mainland China decreased by 56 in 2014.

Rough statistics will close a store on an average of less than two days.

Time passed in the past year.

Today, there is no improvement, only worse.

According to BELLE international latest retail business data released in the first quarter of this fiscal year (3 to May), the number of retail outlets in the mainland has decreased by 167.

At the same time, BELLE's core main business footwear business and same store sales fell by 7.8%.

What does this figure mean? We can learn one or two from the comparison of past data.

Previously, the scale of stores has always been the advantage of BELLE international.

Since 2010, BELLE has been roping around with more than 2000 new stores every year.

In the craziest days of opening stores in 2011, BELLE international opened 2 to 3 stores every day.

After the rapid development of BELLE, BELLE suffered the most sluggish time in China's footwear industry. Its share price dropped by nearly half of its historical high price of HK $17.86 after being listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong.

From peak to trough, survival is like roller coaster.

By 2014, the wheel of BELLE's fast forward came to a halt.

In 2014, in the three months from 6 to August, the number of retail outlets in the mainland was reduced by 56.

This is not only the first time that BELLE has seen a negative growth in the number of shops, but also embarrassed BELLE to start a shop in an average of less than 2 days from the previous day to an average of less than 2 days.

Now, when the number of 167 stores in a single season has been reduced, the BELLE shop's record has also been replaced by the embarrassing rhythm of closing nearly one half a day.

The leader is still so, and the performance of other peers can be imagined.

In the first quarter,

The performance of women's shoes such as Saturday is also not satisfactory.

Among them, the total number of Daphne core brand outlets decreased by 14 to 6388, and the same store sales of core brand businesses fell by 15.9% on a year-on-year basis. The operating income on Saturday decreased by 8.93% compared with the same period last year, and net profit dropped by 27.36% over the same period last year.

The bad news is that such a momentum is unlikely to be reversed in a short time.

BELLE CEO and executive director Sheng Bai pepper has said that the weakening of sales performance of footwear companies is mainly due to structural problems rather than cyclical problems, which will not be improved in the short term.

At the same time, this year's footwear profits will decline further, and the same store sales will also be worse than last year.

The slowdown in group business growth will become normal and there will be no explosive growth in the short term, so the pace of opening stores will slow down in the future.

This statement can be seen that in the next few years, the tone of BELLE's slowdown has no suspense.

The age of crazy horse shop was completely over.

Shareholders selling

The direct result of the slow down of the expansion, the shrinkage of the line and the unsatisfactory results were the sharp sell-off of BELLE's major shareholders. The Credit Suisse trust reduced 94 million 449 thousand and 506 shares of BELLE shares, accounting for about 5% of its total holdings, with a total cash dividend of HK $9.37600246062. After the reduction, the agency still accounted for 21.44% of BELLE's shares, holding 1 billion 808 million 399 thousand and 41 shares.

The deal took place after BELLE released its first quarter results.

And then HSBC issued a report that BELLE's first quarter footwear business in the same store decreased by 7.8%, its performance was disappointing, and it made an unexpected profit factor for the market. The bank maintained BELLE's "reduction" rating and target price of 9.3 yuan, which is quite forecasting 13.7 times earnings in fiscal year 2016.

Although sports and clothing business has recorded growth, HSBC believes that this contribution to the group's profits is relatively small.

Transboundary clothing

Traditional business growth is weak, so we have to find new market growth points. This is also one of BELLE's strategic development directions.

In fact, BELLE was planning cross-border pformation earlier.

In August 2013, BELLE acquired 31.96% stake in Barok Japan company for HK $733 million.

Just a week later, he signed a takeover agreement with LNUOI in Italy, referring directly to the high-end fashion market.

This campaign declared that China's "women's shoes king" formally crossed the realm of clothing.

Intervention in the fashion industry will undoubtedly help to try and cultivate a new retail mode. Although the shoe business is weak, BELLE's sportswear business is doing well. In the first quarter of last season, the same store sales of BELLE sportswear business increased by 12.4%.

BELLE said that in the next 3 to 5 years, the main business of BELLE international will focus on the retail business of fashion shoes and sports shoes and clothing.

Late business

From the current trend of development, it is revealed that "can be expected", in addition to the sports clothing business, there is an e-commerce business.

BELLE in

The action has been slightly passive and slow. Sheng Bai Chai has said that the electricity business "did not want to understand before, so far, it is still not very clear".

But in any case, even if we did not want to understand, BELLE has made a bigger move this year, and resolutely listed the electricity supplier as the group's top priority and actively expanding new business.

BELLE's e-commerce business includes independent e-commerce platform, excellent shopping mall and other e-commerce businesses, and excellent shopping is the top priority.

In 2014, the purchase amount of excellent purchase and BELLE electric business reached 2 billion yuan, an increase of more than 80% compared with 2013.

By the end of 2014, sales of excellent mobile terminals accounted for nearly 40%, while sales of mobile terminals increased by 400%.

According to the excellent purchase network data, the electricity supplier business momentum is still this year.

It is understood that this year's excellent purchase and BELLE electricity providers continue to maintain strong growth, clothing category growth of more than 200%.

Mobile APP and WeChat users continue to increase, mobile terminal revenue accounted for nearly 60%, the peak value of more than 70%.

At the same time, excellent purchase also maintained a good gross profit, which also made excellent purchase achieve sustained profit after March, and it is expected to make overall profit in the whole year.

It is good news for BELLE, which is increasingly weak in offline business.

Not long ago, BELLE signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tmall. In the future, it will carry out deep cooperation in various aspects such as goods, marketing, O2O, membership value and so on.

At the same time, BELLE group will help Tmall upgrade its own industrial upgrading by optimizing the raw materials gathering and manufacturing process in the upstream of the supply chain, and by digging big data and studying ergonomics.

In addition, BELLE group's well-known brand Teenmix will launch Teenmix's crowd raising project this year, and cooperate with Tmall and Taobao public funding platforms.

But objectively speaking, this is just a late start.

As far as the entire electricity business can go, how much effect will it play on the performance of the entire BELLE group?

But being late is always better than not. It's hard to say whether the late departure will arrive late.

An increasingly unneglecting reality is that under the joint constraints of market saturation, rising costs and persistent impact of electric business, the extensive development mode of women's shoes brand simply scale and assemble capacity and reduce costs is clearly not feasible.

Although loss or profit is not the only criterion to evaluate the quality of an enterprise's business, to some extent, the business mode behind the business and the strategic pformation preparation for the profit are far more important than profit and loss.

But unfortunately, on these two points, shoe industry hegemony BELLE does not show its advantages.

On the one hand, the offline business is frequently closed, the footwear industry continues to slump, while the sports business is reviving, and the electricity supplier business is expected to achieve full year profits.

On the face of it, the fact that the East is not bright and the Western light has not made BELLE's life seem too difficult or even pleasantly surprised.

But objectively speaking, for the biggest shoe manufacturer and retailer in China, who has dominated the shoe industry for many years, the main industry has been declining even slightly. It is perhaps unrealistic to rely on these sideline to help and nurture the whole BELLE's performance, and at least for the time being.

As for the future, how does BELLE develop and how the road goes? Is it true that some people have predicted that BELLE will die without pformation? We will not make any comments or speculate.

But some of the reasons are universal, whether big or small.

To achieve a centennial enterprise, or to keep a good track of development, it is probably not the market nor the opportunity, but the thought and the pattern.

Business operators should understand the trend and essence of the development of the industry, hold the spirit of "looking up at the sky and walking down the road", both have a broad vision and practical actions, and integrate all kinds of resources effectively, so as to jump out of the predicament of losing your win and win the game and maximize the value of the enterprise.

Even if you are depressed, don't worry.

After all, there are poems and distant places.