Jinjiang Sports Brand Has Become The Focus Again

According to the World Clothing, Shoes and Hats Network, among the total sports industry of 1.9 trillion yuan in 2016, sports goods And related product manufacturing accounted for 62% of the total. Among them, there are 9110 sports enterprises in Jinjiang, with the total output value of sports industry reaching 147.23 billion yuan, still occupying the whole country Sportswear With a market share of more than 20%, it has become a demonstration city.

Among the hot spots, when we look back on the 30 years of turbulence in Jinjiang, we can not only see the panorama and picture of the development history of Chinese sports brands, but also help us remember, wake up and start again.

Looking back at Chinese history, Quanzhou is one of the famous historical and cultural cities in China. In the Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, Quanzhou, as a huge port for overseas transportation and trade and one of the important starting points of the "Maritime Silk Road", was known as the "largest port in the East" in the Middle Ages. Later, in the Ming Dynasty, with the further strengthening of the ban against Japanese pirates, Quanzhou Port lost its status as an international port.

With China's reform and opening up and economic development, Jinjiang, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, has made a strong mark on the map of Chinese sports brands.

It took only 30 years for Jinjiang to grow from the first pair of sneakers to the famous sports brands, from the extreme prosperity to the devastating crisis, and then to the rebirth. Now there are 9110 sports enterprises in Jinjiang. The total output value of the sports industry has reached 147.23 billion yuan, still occupying more than 20% of the national sports shoes and clothing market Anta , Tebu, 361DU and other brands have become the backbone of domestic sports brands.

Recently, Jinjiang sports brand has become the focus again.

There are two reasons. One is that the once famous sports brand Delhui announced its closure, and the other is that Ali programmers were rejected for wearing special shoes on blind dates. The birth and development of Jinjiang sports brand is full of strong magic realism.

In these two events, Del Hui is the epitome of the prosperity of Jinjiang during a period, and Special Step is the mainstay of today's sports goods industry in Jinjiang. Although the times are different and the market is different, it is still Jinjiang that cannot be avoided.

　　 Rise: the stormy road of Jinjiang thirty years ago

For Jinjiang shoe enterprises, the 1980s was the starting point of history. At that time, Jinjiang produced its first pair of sports shoes.

According to the public description of Alligator, the first shoemaking enterprise in Jinjiang, the first pair of sports shoes was born in October 1983 in Jinjiang, the capital of shoes, and was manufactured by Yangdai Shoes and Hats Factory founded by the founder Lin Tuqiu. In the same year, Ding Jiantong invested 2000 yuan to establish the earliest predecessor of 361 ° - Huafeng Shoes Factory. Like Alligator and 361 Degrees, Jordan Sports and another basically buried sports brand, Philharmonic, also have a history dating back to the early 1980s.

The earliest shoes enterprise in Jinjiang was not even an enterprise at all. It was just a small family workshop. Such a shoe factory can only produce a few pairs of shoes every day, but it has become the foundation of Jinjiang footwear industry. In the following decades, there were more and more shoes enterprises in Jinjiang, and their business grew bigger and bigger. However, the influence from the root never disappeared.

In 1987, the predecessor of Tebu, Sanxing Company, was established; In 1988, Quanzhou Huanqiu Footwear Co., Ltd., another influential shoe company, was established. Since then, more and more shoe factories have appeared in Jinjiang.

At this time, several years have passed since the birth of the first pair of sports shoes, but these Jinjiang shoe enterprises have not created their own sports brands. For some shoe factories, tourist shoes were the focus of production until the birth of the first batch of domestic sports brands represented by PEAK.

In 1989, PEAK's predecessor, Fengdeng Shoes Factory, was established. Two years later, in order to make the brand more international, the "Fengdeng" brand was changed to "PEAK". In the same year, Peak became the sponsor of the Bayi men's basketball team by coincidence, and helped the Bayi team win the championship of the year.

In the next 90's, various domestic sports brands sprang up in Jinjiang, and the first batch of shoe enterprises that entered the market began to launch their own sports brands. Jinlaike, Luyou, Xidelong, which appeared in the name of Jiuzhou Benke, and Anta, which has grown to be the largest sports brand in China, were born. With all kinds of sports brands, large and small, Jinjiang sports goods manufacturing industry began to show prosperity.

From the end of the 20th century to the Beijing Olympic Games, it was a golden decade for the development of Jinjiang sports brands. During this period of rapid development, Jinjiang brand, which can make money while lying down, began to wake up.

They began to pursue internationalization, changing brand names and logos one after another;

They began to seek celebrity endorsements, from Olympic champions, foreign players, national teams, top sports leagues to entertainment stars;

A large number of advertisements have been launched. From CCTV1 to CCTV5, Jinjiang brand almost covers all advertising time;

Start to layout in cities and towns, and strive to find their own stores in the prime areas of each city;

They began to seek to enter the capital market, and Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Germany and other stock exchanges have become the target places for listing

　　 Peak: glory before and after 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Around 2008, it was the peak of the prosperity of Jinjiang sports brands.

At that time, although Li Ning still firmly occupied the first place of domestic sports brands, almost all of them were Jinjiang brands since Li Ning. Not to mention that Anta, which has now surpassed Li Ning, is also known as Tebu, 361Du and PEAK, among the top X sports brands in China, and Jinjiang brands such as Hongxingerke, Jinlaike, Alligator, Jordan, Guirenniao, Delhui, Walter, and Xidelong, almost none of them has fallen behind, or even become stronger in some aspect. The Jinjiang brand in this period firmly locked the middle end seats in the sports brand market, and even had the spare power to nibble at a higher level.

But behind the prosperity, there are other worries.

Since it started in a small workshop style shoe factory, Jinjiang Sports Brand Company can hardly avoid the family style management. In fact, this kind of management system is not good or bad, but because most of the founders of these brands are farmers with low educational background, the companies they founded often lack scientific and modern company management systems, which is an unavoidable situation for almost all Jinjiang brands. In a small shoe factory with dozens of people and only a dozen pairs of shoes every day, this problem has little impact. But when the company has become a large enterprise with sales of more than 100 million or even billions, the lack of modern management system has become a hidden risk behind prosperity.

"At that time, there were many problems in the company. For example, there were several restaurants in the company. There was a special restaurant in the office building, one in the marketing department, and another in the staff. They often worked overtime and regarded the staff as long-term workers. The senior management also liked meetings every day, but they could not solve any practical problems at all", An employee who once worked for a famous brand posted his memory on Tianya Forum like this.

At that time, the Jinjiang brand was seriously imitated and followed the trend, resulting in serious brand homogenization. In 2010, although some companies have been listed, no matter which Jinjiang brand can claim that they have left other brands in the city behind.

Whether it's the Olympic champion, entertainment star or CCTV advertising, it's all imitated by other brands after one brand took the lead in adoption, resulting in insufficient champions and stars, and CCTV 5 has become a channel in Jinjiang, even landing in the capital market.

Hongxingerke was listed in Singapore in 2005, and Anta was listed in Hong Kong in 2007. Subsequently, Alligator chose Singapore for listing, and Tebu, 361Du and PEAK were listed in Hong Kong. Later, Xidelong and Xidelang chose to list in the United States and Malaysia, respectively. Other sports brands also set out to seek listing.

The 2008 Olympic Games is a strange node for domestic brands. This year, Adidas, the sponsor of the Beijing Olympic Games, unexpectedly sprained his foot. Li Ning became the second largest sports brand in the Chinese market, and the Jinjiang brand began to expand rapidly.

　　 Crisis: inventory crisis after expansion

But after the blind rapid expansion, the domestic sports brands quickly broke out a serious inventory crisis. In 2012, the inventory crisis of domestic brands broke out in a concentrated manner, but before that, some small enterprises had declared bankruptcy due to collapsing cash flow.

After the inventory crisis broke out, Anta was the least affected of all brands. Compared with other Jinjiang brands, Anta has a higher proportion of self run stores, so its cost is lower and more flexible. In the process of Jinjiang brand development, few companies like Anta have a high proportion of direct stores.

In order to accelerate the expansion, most Jinjiang sports brands develop more agents and franchise stores, which is why these companies lack sufficient management ability for sales channels.

In addition, because agents play an important role, Jinjiang sports brand agents provide them with very generous preferential policies and inclusive terms. After the outbreak of the inventory crisis, the company's accounts receivable were difficult to recover, and the effective way to maintain cash flow through bank loans and private lending when the market was good was difficult to maintain, many small and medium-sized brands even some big brands announced bankruptcy.

This is true of HQC mentioned earlier. In March 2013, Anta's annual report disclosed that it acquired Quanzhou Huanqiu in July 2012 for 254 million yuan. Quanzhou Huanqiu became famous very early. At the beginning of its establishment, it focused on OEM. It also launched its brand "Arid". In 2005, it invited NBA star Drexler to become the brand image spokesperson. It was the first domestic brand in China to invite NBA stars to speak for it. Quanzhou Huanqiu still had a bank loan of 85.356 million yuan from the outbreak of the crisis until it was acquired by Anta.

The inventory crisis is a devastating blow to domestic sports brands.

Li Ning spent 1.8 billion yuan to buy back inventory and sell it through discount stores, while Jinjiang brand was even worse. Dozens of once famous sports brands could only consume inventory through discount promotions.

However, the effect of this method is not good. The special step of listing in Hong Kong as one of the "four domestic sports brands" was not announced until the end of 2017 that the inventory was basically cleared, and the last part was repurchased at 150 million yuan. If such a large listed company as Tebu is still like this, we can imagine how bleak other brands will be in the crisis. This is the case. Xidelong and Delhui declared bankruptcy, Alligator was rumored to be bankrupt, and more brands died in silence.

The greater impact of the inventory crisis is that it has severely hit the brand upgrading of domestic brands. The destructive damage caused by this is partly due to the sinking channels of Adidas and Nike, but the greater reason is the "price war" waged by Jinjiang brand.

After the crisis broke out, in order to survive, all domestic sports brands chose to clean up their stocks at a huge discount, with a discount of 60% or 50%. Later, there were even old products with a discount of 20% or 1% on the Internet. The "price war" has greatly affected the brand image, and also made Jinjiang brand and even domestic brands lose their mid market position, let alone compete with Adidas and Nike in the high-end market.

While the sales of sports brands in Jinjiang have declined significantly, some shoe enterprises in Putian and Anxin Santai Town, Baoding have lived well.

Putian's shoe enterprises mainly focus on the high imitation shoes that wander in the gray area, and also rely on their own price advantages to rise in the e-commerce platform, posing a great threat to the middle end market that domestic brands give up; Baoding Anxin, on the other hand, dominated by low-cost sports shoes, but seized the rural market in the north in a more secure way.

At this time, Jinjiang sports brands were divided under the attack of many parties. Anta, relying on the advantages of its own stores and its strong competitiveness in the "price war", nearly came out of the battle. However, after several years of delay, Tebu and 361 Degrees returned to the revenue level of 2012 again. At present, many enterprises have declared bankruptcy, and perhaps there will be more later.

　　 Self help: consumption upgrading and brand upgrading

After the retreat of the inventory crisis, with the upgrading of people's consumption, although Jinjiang sports brand has made great efforts, it is difficult to regain the once mid market. The collapse of this prosperity has submerged many sports brands that were once impressive and are now called "Feelings", but also promoted the rebirth of Anta, Tebu and other brands. After the great waves washed away the sand, Jinjiang is still a force that cannot be ignored in China's sporting goods manufacturing industry.

Recently, the market value of Anta Sports exceeded 100 billion Hong Kong dollars, becoming the first domestic sports brand to achieve this amazing achievement. At the same time, Li Ning has a market value of about HK $14 billion, a special step of HK $8 billion, and a 361 degree market value of HK $6 billion. On the other hand, the market value of Shenzhou International, which is a OEM for Adidas and Nike, once exceeded 100 billion yuan (HK $122.5 billion).

Although emotionally unwilling to admit it, the fact is that there is still a huge gap between domestic sports brands and international top sports brands.

Once, Jinjiang sports brands could make money lying down, but now those who lay down to do OEM work are more profitable than those who stand to do brand work. This cruel reality may enable sports brands born in Jinjiang to recognize their differences, take measures to upgrade their brands as soon as possible, find and solve their own problems, and then catch up bravely.

Remembering will not solve the problem, not to mention Jinjiang's sports brand development history, it is unnecessary to remember, just remember and be alert. Once loved brands like foam into the water, but can carry a larger ship. Only when the dust is gone can we see the way ahead. This is true for Jinjiang, as well as for Chinese sports brands.

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