At the beginning of 2018, Chinese sports brand Li Ning made a splash at New York Fashion Week with trendy T and "Wudao" shoes emblazoned with the words "China Li Ning", which was seen as the beginning of the "new China Fashion" movement. Since then, anta, Xtep and other domestic clothing brands have landed on the fashion week one after another, pushing the topic of "new National fashion" to its highest point. These once regarded as "cheap" and "old-fashioned" old brands of domestic goods began to be held in both hands by young people, and burst out a surprising vitality.
Many seem to have forgotten that li Ning was in trouble only a few years ago. Since adjusting the brand strategy, li Ning changed to high-end route, 2012-2014 three consecutive years of losses, accumulated losses of more than 3 billion.
Similarly, 2012 was also a dark year for xtep, another popular domestic brand today. This year, its performance began to decline year after year, the total number of stores fell to 6,000 from a peak of more than 7,500.
What happened to Li Ning and Xtep? Where is the "new national tide" that revitalizes them? Is it just more aggressive design and marketing?
Before answering these questions, let's take a look at what has really changed in China's consumer market today.
The great era of new brands
Not long ago, COO Huan Fang expressed a view that China has entered a great era of new brands emerging rapidly. Huan fang's observation was based on five points:
First, the post-90s and post-00s, who grow up together with the Internet, have become the new main force of consumption. According to statistics, in 2019, people born in the 1990s accounted for 24 percent of China's total population and 28 percent of Internet users. This group has different consumption habits from the "older generation". Among them, 60.9 percent have used installment purchase and 45 percent have credit cards. They become an important consumer group, which will bring a huge increase and change the original retail format and consumption form.
Second, China has abundant resources of origin and industrial belt. The world's highest quality supply chain and production line have been set up in China. We have the ability to produce any quality consumer goods and are transitioning to a new manufacturing method of C2M. On the basis of supply chain maturity, branding has become the direction that more and more manufacturers and retailers are aiming at.
