Behind The Price Increase Of Women'S Shoes: Cost And Shopping Discount War

On April 12th, commodities such as daily chemical products, instant noodles, liquor and so on increased their prices.

Reporters visited several shopping malls in Beijing and found that when the last spring shoes were launched, the price was mostly between 600 and 800 yuan. But this year, there are few shoes priced below 800 yuan in this year's market, and prices generally rise.

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"It has risen by more than 100 yuan over last year."

Staccato promoters in a shopping mall near China World Trade Center said.

On Saturday, [15.88-1.85% shares, a staff member of the shoe industry, said that the overall price increase of single shoes this year is around 20%.

CIC consultant light industry researcher Xiong Xiaokun believes that the increase in cost is the main reason for the price rise of footwear. The footwear cost is basically leather and artificial, with the main producing area of shoes Dongguan as an example. Since the second half of last year, the wage of footwear workers in Dongguan has increased by nearly 40%, and the price of leather raw materials has nearly doubled, coupled with logistics costs. The cost increase is 50%~60%.

JieXi women's shoes said that there was no price increase plan for single shoes this year, but Jiang Meilan, deputy general manager of the marketing department of the Greater China region, said that the cost pressure is very high at present, especially in the upstream factories, the increase in manpower cost caused by labor shortage alone has increased the purchase cost of the order by 10%~20%.

"Most of the footwear manufacturers do not have the scale or brand to support the price increase, and can not pass the pressure of rising costs. Some factories in Dongguan simply shut down."

A shoe manufacturer in Guangzhou said.

But for BELLE and Saturday's downstream brand tycoons, rising costs have little impact on their gross margins.

Even though its profit margins have been squeezed, gross margins have generally exceeded 50%.

The annual report of BELLE international [15.281.19%] (01880.HK) and the footwear industry (002291.SZ) on Saturday showed that BELLE's gross margin remained at around 65%, while the gross margin of Saturday's footwear industry remained at around 50%.

"There will be no significant changes in the short term, and gross margins will remain stable for a long time."

Xiong Xiaokun believes that "the growth of cost has reduced the profit margins of brands and prompted brand dealers to raise prices to ensure profits."

However, although the retail price of women's shoes is on the rise, BELLE and other brands are not the biggest beneficiaries.

An insider of BELLE said that the actual paction price of the company did not increase significantly. "The price rises is the sign price. Actually, the factory price has not gone up so much."

He said,

The more common phenomenon in the retail market is the high price of shoes on the one hand. On the one hand, new shoes start to discount at the beginning of the listing. Beside the label of "spring new listing", the discount words like "full court low to 32% off" and "full 200 minus 60" often appear.

A salesperson on the shoe industry said on Saturday that the new spring shoes had just come into the market this year, and the counters were promoted by the notification of the shopping malls. Many brands of new shoes had to be hit twenty percent off when they first went public.

In fact, in addition to cost pressures, an important push behind women's shoes retail prices is the discount war in department stores.

This person said: "this has a lot to do with promoters. In the department stores, apart from the discount launched by the brands themselves, and in line with the activities organized by the department stores such as the total profits and the number of products sold, the brand makers will have an expectation on the promotion activities of the department stores when they are priced, and they will put the promotional price into the retail price, which will virtually raise the price tag."

The promotion war is an important means of promoting sales and attracting popularity in major department stores in recent years. "Shopping malls are very strong for brand operators. If they do not match the promotion of shopping malls, they will never want to enter again."

A shoe enterprise official said.

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In order to cooperate with the price promotion war in the mall, foreshadowing the "discount for new products" in the future, raising the retail price of commodities year after year has become the "hidden rules" of some brands.

Xiong Xiaokun believes that the relationship between the retail price of goods and the cost is far less than that of imagination. For example, in the second half of 2010, the cost of footwear has risen sharply, and few brands are eager to raise prices.