Wrestling Channels, Chinese Shoe Enterprises To Cope With Market Changes

If BELLE International's listing in HKEx stimulated the nerves of almost all domestic footwear enterprises, BELLE acquisition and beauty bazaar International Holdings Limited lost the practical examination question of shopping arcade to domestic footwear enterprises.

How much competition is there for many domestic shoe brands that are lagging behind in shopping malls?

Wang Zhentao, chairman of AOKANG group, a leading shoe manufacturer in China, said: "AOKANG really feels a lot of pressure."

In fact, from the end of last year, AOKANG, which was dominated by exclusive store channel mode, has quietly made efforts to compete in the market channel.

In the past, some shopping malls, such as Nanchang department store, which did not cooperate with AOKANG, began to be listed in the AOKANG expansion list. AOKANG also opened up the shopping mall through the "acquisition" positioning of high-end Italy shoe enterprises Wanli Wei.

This is regarded as "follow up" of AOKANG's channel strategy for BELLE's previous acquisition.

"Shopping mall is the key direction for AOKANG to focus on its layout," Wang Zhentao told the China Commercial Daily reporter at the interview of AOKANG's investment in the western shoes city industrial park.

In the way, Wang Zhentao said he would also choose to buy some shoe brands and enter the shopping mall.

At present, taking AOKANG as an example, AOKANG has more than 85% of its channels as exclusive stores, while BELLE 85% has its layout in shopping malls.

Although nearly half of the shoe brands in major shopping centers in China belong to the BELLE group, AOKANG's confidence in the shoe industry is also dependent on the checks and balances between the channel providers and the suppliers.

Wang Zhentao said, "no shopping malls would like to see all brands in their stores come from the same business."

In fact, BELLE's "monopolistic" monopoly has also attracted the attention of the shopping malls. In order to avoid the strength brought by BELLE's dominance, some domestic shopping malls began to contact AOKANG actively, hoping that AOKANG would enter.

Wang Zhentao said, "before that, we were the main channel to store stores. Now we have to enter the shopping mall vigorously. I think this is easier for us. BELLE may be more worried about us."

On the other hand, the rapid expansion of BELLE also lurks domestic shoe companies to wait for an opportunity. That is, as BELLE opens more and more stores, the channels become deeper and deeper, the difficulty of fine management will also increase, and marketing itself will become more and more complex.

Once BELLE's management, talent and other effective facilities can not keep pace with expansion, the problem will follow.

In particular, BELLE, the main attacking middle and top grade route, is obviously facing certain business risks in the development of the two or three line cities with lower consumption capacity than the first tier cities.