AOKANG Shoes: Sell Shoes Like Fruit.

In the process of China's rapid economic development, numerous fast companies have sprung up. Rather than growing fast, these fast companies are riding on a fast moving train, and even if they can travel a thousand miles, it is difficult to walk at full speed.

Unless the enterprise itself can realize the fundamental sense of physical fitness through the evolution of the mode, the "external speed" can be pformed into "internal acceleration".

AOKANG is such a pformed enterprise.

The beauty of speed always makes people intoxicated.

Xiao Li flew a knife and his knife fell, and his opponent did not see how he was going to get his knife out of his death. Boulter went to the finish line 100 meters to sprint to the end. He could still look left and right, and it was staggering. Watching F1 racing is the best way to fight for the bend, to see who can keep balance in the high speed and seize the opportunity to overtake.

The shoe giant AOKANG is also focusing on the speed of competition, which makes the case we want to discuss.

The background of AOKANG's thinking is that the development of the footwear industry is at a very special stage. Taking Wenzhou, known as China's shoe capital, for example, statistics in 2010 show that shoe companies have fallen from 6000 to 2000 at the peak, and the cards have been severely reshuffled.

AOKANG also has deep feelings. Wang Zhentao, chairman of AOKANG group, has calculated such an account. "Foreign exchange rate changes have led to a loss of 2~3 percentage points in export business. Raw materials, such as chemical glue, and oil prices have skyrocketed. The cost of materials has increased by 15%~20%. Labor cost has increased by 10%~20% since the implementation of the new labor contract law."

The average profit rate of the industry in normal years is only 8%~9%. Under the pressure of rising costs, the profit pressure can be imagined.

Wang Zhentao said, now is not the age of "big fish eating small fish", "fast fish eating slow fish", but "lion eating tiger" era.

In times of crisis, we can always think of changes. At this time, the wisdom of bursting is often the most valuable.

AOKANG found that with the highly convergence of footwear companies in products, customers and pricing, the key to competition lies in the speed of competition.

AOKANG's practice is to decompose the traditional four seasons of new products into eight seasons, which will be divided into two small seasons in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and design and develop new products according to the characteristics of each small season.

Product design must be fast, production must be fast, listing must be fast, replenishment must also be fast, and products can be sold in the fresh period.

The effect has been seen that AOKANG's sales increased by 30% compared with the same period last year, and its profit increased by 20%.

"Eight seasons in a year or four seasons, this actually reflects the problem of rapid reaction mechanism in enterprises. What we are advocating now is selling shoes like fruit, demanding the fastest way to meet the needs of consumers."

Wang Zhentao explains this.

This is actually doubling the operation cycle of the past, just like making a magazine from a monthly magazine to a semi monthly publication, and making a restaurant from doing dinner to lunch, and doing a lot of work has doubled. It is a test of the comprehensive strength of the enterprise. Will it be deformed and lost at high speed?

Sell shoes like fruit.

The more fashionable, faster and more personalized consumption demand test the demand of the enterprise's market strain, especially the new challenge to the industrial production and channel that pays attention to the scale, efficiency and cost.

AOKANG was in the first half of 2009 for a trial run of one year and eight seasons for fruit marketing. The first reaction of Qu Xiaoling, a distributor in Hangzhou, was that the goods were too much, the cost of the store would increase, and the price of the single product would be lower, and the whole Maori would fall.

Luo Huirong, general manager of AOKANG division, admits that this is a test of the ability of regional distributors to read the market and control the price of products, but once the operation is right, the energy of the outbreak is enormous.

Qu Xiaoling's concerns were solved in practice. Sales in Hangzhou area increased by 30% over the first quarter of 2010.

Her most obvious feeling is that the new marketing method has made the biggest extension to the product line, and has made a precise division of the customer.

The way of rapid marketing actually improves the turnover rate of stores, and the rate of single shop fees is also decreasing.

The secret of this is:

"We sell cotton shoes every September."

Now, the function of shoes has changed a lot. It is no longer a durable product that is worn until it is broken. The renewal cycle has been greatly shortened. Therefore, fruit marketing is to emphasize the seasonality and keep the shelf life short.

Qu Xiaoling said AOKANG sells cotton shoes every September.

The reason is that the products are subdivided according to the needs of different customers. The cotton shoes category is divided into: fashion shoes in September, fashion shoes from September to November, warm cotton shoes in November to January the next year, and cotton shoes in January to January are greatly increased.

In design, early winter compared with the end of winter, shoes should be lighter in color and lower in upper and thinner in leather.

Consumers will not immediately feel the ingenuity of the manufacturer, but for a long time, they will feel subtlety and the customer stickiness will naturally increase.

The advantage of speed is also reflected by the extension of the product. Taking advantage of the opponent's goods and shipping a month means that the market is first occupied.

For the same products, the time of listing is different, and the paction price must be different.

A slower pace often means reducing prices and reducing profits.

And in the distribution of goods on the store, we should also pay attention to the small quantity of new products and a small number of old products.

This matching ensures both basic sales and innovation.

This is like selling fruit, the price of newly listed fruit is expensive, but there are always many people who want to try the world.

One step ahead, you can catch those who are not sensitive to price, willing to try and pursue fashion.

When the pawnshop's imitation is attacked, it will not be swallowed up. Only the next wave of new offensive will be launched.

In publicity, attention was paid to the match between product listing and advertising time.

Many consumers may have such an experience. There are some advertising products on TV. When you are ready to buy, you run around every corner of your city and you can't find them.

As a result, the cost of information is increasing, resulting in lower profits.

AOKANG's advertising strategy is that advertising and products are listed or advertised later than products.

In this way, the product can be preheated at the beginning of the listing, and the relevant information after the listing can be collected, which will facilitate product publicity and further development and design of the returned shoes, so as to meet the requirements of high sales volume.

Price changes around product value

AOKANG also made meticulous guidance to the product prices of stores, and maximized profits according to the product's life cycle and price leverage.

Qu Xiaoling introduced that the discount treatment in the past was mainly sold at the highest price before the end of the season and at the end of the season.

The price line of the product is a steep downward curve.

Now, AOKANG's handling is that prices are closely following the value, and there are several discounts in the middle, and the price line becomes gentle.

Take a new $439 shoe, for example, if the store enters 10 pairs, the previous paction price may be 439 yuan for 5 pairs, the remaining 5 pairs will be discounted at the end of the season and sell 3 pairs at 299 yuan, and the remaining 2 pairs will only be sold at a lower price in second years.

Now, if we enter 10 pairs and sell 5 pairs with 439 yuan, we will immediately adjust the price and promote sales according to the sales situation. In the middle, we may sell some of them at the selling price of 399 yuan or 369 yuan, and at the end, we will have little discount when dealing with 299 yuan, and there will be basically no stock.

The ordering strategy is also different from the past. It is no longer a big order meeting of only one spring, summer, autumn and winter, but rather 4 orders, 4 orders, 24 orders in a year.

The ordering method is more scientific and precise. After ordering, the first arrival is 50%, while the other 30% is replenished according to the product's sales situation, and the 20% will be replenished according to the market reaction after improvement.

Fast logic

How fast is design and production?

The goal of AOKANG is to design ahead of schedule for a year.

In the same industry, AOKANG is willing to spend money in designing. It invested heavily in the establishment of the largest footwear design and Research Institute in the country, and established R & D centers in Shanghai, Dongguan and Milan in Italy, forming a strong R & D team with more than 300 people.

They pay close attention to the international fashion design elements of Hongkong, Korea, Japan and Europe and America, and then boldly introduce them.

From two aspects to be verified, one is to listen to the opinions of the upstream suppliers, to improve the raw material processing technology, to apply these innovations to the terminal products; the other and most importantly, to conduct in-depth analysis of the data of the terminal sales, and to improve the Chinese market by the latest trend pin, so as to realize the landing and dissemination of fashion in China.

AOKANG's design team, on average, has designed more than 3000 new designs every quarter, constantly using new products to stimulate the market, and ensuring that the branch has enough new money in the process of making up the bill.

How is production and logistics?

Many shoe companies adopt the mode of fixed sale marketing - what headquarters produces, what marketers sell, and what agents sell.

And AOKANG implements the order system, that is, what the production department produces, not the production department, but the marketing department has the final say.

The marketing department integrates the information according to the market information, the needs of the branch and the order of the agents, and finally forms the demand and orders the production department.

In the past, AOKANG's shoes processed in Shenzhen, Chongqing and other places must be consigned to the Wenzhou headquarters through the consignment Department. After passing the quality inspection, they can be distributed to various provincial companies throughout the country, thus making the logistics chain very complicated.

Now AOKANG is letting quality inspectors go to the manufacturer for quality inspection. After the quality is qualified, the manufacturers can deliver goods from local to AOKANG provincial companies directly, so as to simplify the chain.

Wang Zhentao's goal is to remove warehouses at the provincial level in the future, to borrow other people's factories and warehouses to store AOKANG's products, or even directly send products to local sales outlets from manufacturers.

This can substantially reduce inventories or even maintain zero inventory.

AOKANG has established a fast information response chain.

No matter to any computer in any branch or office of AOKANG, you can know the total number of products, sales, accumulative sales, products and sizes of a certain type of product. The headquarters can respond immediately to some of the best sellers.

It has promoted the overall decision-making of headquarters and the national logistics and reduced the risk of national logistics.

AOKANG set up a product Committee, which is responsible for supervising the order and shipment of products. It ensures that orders can be delivered within 3~5 days, and production is shipped within 15~20 days, greatly reducing the time of products in the enterprise and taking the initiative for fresh listing.

How can organizations provide support?

All these "fast" needs the support of the whole organizational structure.

The AOKANG model is in line with the US special forces' call for fire.

The US special forces in Afghanistan can directly give orders to artillery and air force, a communication call, the aircraft will be blown up, and the artillery will fight.

In combat units, front-line needs are not superfluous.

What kind of support is needed in the front and how much support is needed, and the corresponding platform or organization should be set up.

AOKANG's approach is to build an organization based on marketing, and reverse the traditional organization of Pyramid.

First, make the group smaller and enlarge the branch company.

AOKANG, which has tens of thousands of employees, is already an elephant. To get up quickly, it must be effectively controlled.

In the internal market, the relationship between the group and the suppliers, the production departments, the head office and the branch offices is established.

Each unit is a profit center.

The two is the "24 hour time limited reply copy", that is, the formal request from the branch office. If the headquarters reply is not received within 24 hours, it is deemed to be the default and can be executed autonomously.

The front line has more power and the front line drives the rear.

The three is to break the ice, pfer the engineers in the production department to the sales department to carry out the cost planning, pfer the finance department personnel to the sales department, and pform the traditional financial control group management mode into business centered.

The next AOKANG

Through the remodeling of its own genes, AOKANG has achieved initial acceleration.

However, in the face of a more long-term future, whether AOKANG shoes can create a new trend leading to slow and fast manufacturing in China, and whether the new situation of "running shoes running out of shoes" can be opened depends not only on the understanding of the market, but also on the pace of the evolution of modern marketing models.

AOKANG's first 10 year model is manufacturer's joint venture, and the second 10 year model is chain operation. Now, AOKANG has opened the next 10 years.

What will the future be like?

There are two trends that are clear:

One is to subdivide the minority and divide the minority into more individuals.

That is, the market gradually dispersed, consumers from seeking common ground to seeking differences, production from scale to personal customization, marketing from the overall strategy to "one to one".

In a sense, shoes are the most characteristic. "Shoes fit or not, only feet know."

Whether we can give more personalized design and attention to a pair of shoes will be a key to the future footwear industry competition.

AOKANG already has a shoe measuring machine. In the next 10 years, there will be a leap in the more accurate measurement of feet, and the only shoe that can be generated according to the sole foot of consumers.

The two is combination of deficiency and reality.

Wang Zhentao said that we should go beyond the mode of selling inventory. "The products we produce are first put into warehouses and then sold out". However, good foreign enterprises have combined the virtual network (Internet) with the real network (including logistics, marketing, service, etc.), and the needs of enterprise production and consumers have basically been synchronized.

That's the speed of a higher realm.

Now it seems that the supply chain of AOKANG is still more complex, and the products have too many links to consumers, which limits the fast circulation of products.

In the future, AOKANG needs to realize "direct connection between production and sales", that is to say, "customers" and "producers" are directly linked.

By directly listening to the needs of customers, we will reorganize the whole process from planning, production, logistics to sales, and discard distributors and other intermediate links, so as to achieve rapid sales and updating of products.

This requires a strong scientific research and creative strength as the core, with the help of the first-class supply chain management method, to achieve direct pactions between consumers and factories, so that their products and services can be compared with traditional logistics.