It is true that the impact of the epidemic has had a great impact on sportswear and sneakers brands, but it is a “double-edged sword”.
Xinhua News Agency, Chengdu, March 6 (Ji Yanhao) according to previous practice, January to February is the peak season for sportswear and sneakers products. However, due to the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, in late January, almost sportswear and sneakers offline stores in China were forced to close, and sales fell in a cliff-like manner.
Under the epidemic, problems such as reduced passenger flow, frozen production capacity, declining profits and overstock of inventory all put forward tests to the sportswear and sneakers industry.
△The picture shows the technical officer wearing 361 Degrees clothing shot at the badminton stadium of Rio Olympics. Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Peng took
double doors: the production capacity shrank, the inventory was high
affected by the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, and the offline stores and factories of most sports brands were temporarily closed. For sports brands that rely on offline sales, the entire industry has been greatly impacted.
Adidas said by email that the company’s sales had dropped 85% in the weeks since January 25. The senior management of puoma also said that its sales and earnings in the first quarter were damaged, and the annual profit was expected to be lower than expected. Nike officially announced in early February that it would close nearly half of its stores in China.
Hu Haobo, the founder of R2 running shoes who deeply cultivates the domestic road running market, said in an interview with Xinhuanet that because most of his running shoes were sold through the Internet, compared with the same period last year, in terms of online sales, it still maintained a small growth. However, he also admitted frankly that the offline sales volume was relatively bleak after receiving the impact of the epidemic.
Hu Haobo originally planned to launch the new cross-country shoes after the year. However, due to the factory shutdown, it is now optimistic that the market will not be launched until at least May or June. In his view, the impact of the epidemic on the production capacity of shoes and clothing brands such as Nike and Adi is relatively large, “because the premise of sales volume is production capacity, while most domestic shoes and clothing substitute factories are in a state of complete shutdown during the severe epidemic, after returning to work at this stage, the production capacity is slowly climbing.”
He analyzed that although about 80% of the output of futures-based brands such as Nike and Adi has been transferred to Southeast Asia, under the circumstance that domestic production capacity cannot be spread out, its overall sales volume in the first quarter and the second quarter will decline.
For sportswear and sneakers domestic enterprises, they are facing the problem of Overstock. “According to the normal production mode, in order to ensure the supply of goods, shoes and clothing will be produced in advance before the season changes. Some sports brands may have produced some shoes and clothing in the first quarter, that is, Spring. If they cannot be handled as soon as possible, these goods may become overstocked stocks.” A boss of a garment factory in Jiangsu said.
Inventory backlog will have a negative impact on sportswear and sneakers enterprises and affect their cash flow. In a sense, cash flow is more important than profit, and cash flow is a necessary condition for enterprises to maintain normal business operations.
Based on this, Han Mu, founder of Lazy Bear Sports, told Xinhua sports, “for shoes and clothing enterprises with overstocked goods in the first quarter, it may have a vicious circle effect, thus affecting orders in the second quarter.”
△The resumption of Anta during the epidemic.
The industry may seek to change
during the epidemic, shoe and clothing enterprises still have to bear many costs including employee wages and physical store rents. This will not only test the cash flow of the enterprise, but also test the anti-risk ability of the enterprise.
When offline sales are blocked, major domestic sports brands are “self-help” one after another, making up for the short-term impact of the epidemic through plus-sized penetration of online channels and private traffic.
Recently, domestic leading sports brands such as Anta, Li Ning and 361 Degrees have all promoted all online sales. Anta opened and launched Anta micro mall for various regions to handle offline goods. It is understood that Li Ning has made certain reserves in brand endorsement and e-commerce activity planning while promoting online marketing for all employees. On February 27, Li Ning officially became the spokesperson of Li Ning’s sports fashion products on the singer-songwriter of the new generation.
Some sports brands also choose to cooperate with well-known Internet celebrity “bring goods” anchors, micro mall, Pinduoduo and other emerging channels. Develop new customer groups and supplement online consumption by sharing profits. To some extent, this also accelerates the pace of domestic sports brands to build online sales matrix.
However, behind the active market development of domestic sportswear and sneakers brands, they are also facing the “attack” of international sports brands “. Some international sports brands also offered powerful discounts to seize the share of the “cake” in the sinking market.
In the middle of February, Nike carried out a big promotion campaign of “50% off” across the country; adidas even shouted out the promotion slogan of “February 21, 11.11 belonging to adidas, advance the discount only available on Double 11 every year to 2 months.
Compared with the sales price of international sports brands, Xinhua Sports found that the promotion price of some of its products was almost the same as that of domestic sports brands. In a live studio with a cargo anchor, a pair of popular shoes of the famous running shoes Brand New Bailun even cost less than 200 yuan.
Multi-party wrestling, a race belonging to sportswear and sneakers enterprises is starting. No matter who is the winner in the end, it will accelerate the change of the shoe and clothing industry.
△Li Ning Guangxi base.
The impact of the shoe and clothing market has become the driving force
in order to help enterprises survive this “cold winter”, government departments at all levels have issued relevant supporting policies one after another. For the vast number of domestic shoes and clothing enterprises, this is undoubtedly a good news.
The relevant person in charge of Bosideng, an ice and snow clothing enterprise, told Xinhua Sports that the government has recently launched a series of measures to plus-sized the support of fiscal and taxation policies and plus-sized financial support, which strongly support the enterprise to celebrate the winter and spring ‘.”
It is true that the impact of the epidemic has had a great impact on sportswear and sneakers brands, but it is a “double-edged sword”.
The Statistics of relevant data after the SARS epidemic in 2003 showed that the sales volume of sportswear and sneakers had increased significantly. According to experts’ analysis, the main reasons lie in two points: first, the psychology of revenge consumption after the epidemic; Second, the epidemic has promoted people’s attention to physical exercise.
In Hu Haobo’s view, the positive stimulation of the new coronavirus epidemic to the sporting goods market is self-evident, “The opportunity is here, but there is a timeliness. In the past one or two months, the epidemic prevention and control is still in a state of glue, which should not be reflected; But this stimulus will benefit from the Tokyo Olympic Games from the middle of the year, and will tend to be long-term and gradual.”
On the other hand, since 2015, the domestic sportswear and sneakers market has ushered in a period of high prosperity. The epidemic has also broken the “comfort zone” of some enterprises, forcing some enterprises to re-examine their own development direction.
The relevant person in charge of Bosideng said that this epidemic forced Bosideng to think and innovate in aspects such as the improvement of digital management ability and the reform of development model.
In his view, the impact of this epidemic on the existing industrial pattern may stimulate the industry to generate huge development space and vitality.
“We can look forward to and participate in this development process and turn the epidemic crisis into an opportunity for enterprises to change and upgrade themselves.”