UGG Snow Boots: Market Chaos Under The Explosive Growth Of The Industry

Once upon a time, when the autumn wind started, the girls around them would wear a "round headed brain" made of sheepskin.

This is an imported product, which many people call it "."

Behind the explosive growth is chaos, which is first reflected in the Internet. Sales of counterfeit UGG information and web pages are overwhelming.

The price of a pair of genuine snow boots on the counter ranges from 1500 yuan to 3000 yuan, and the reporter will search for "UGG" keywords on some domestic main e-commerce websites, and will come out with a large number of counterfeit UGG snow boots priced at only one hundred or two hundred yuan.

Reporter survey found that only in Gaoqiao Town, Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province, there are more than 150 shoemaking enterprises, which are counterfeited UGG, and are known as "the largest imitation brand UGG production base in the country".

Earlier this year, the Beilun public security sub Bureau and the industrial and commercial bureau of Ningbo seized a case of a seller selling fake UGG snow boots. The owner of the shop said that the source of the goods came from factories such as Zhenjiang and Wenzhou. The price of the network was only 120 yuan a pair, and the law enforcement officers seized four trucks' fake "UGG snow boots" on the spot.

The information from Putian, Fujian is even more shocking. In the designated warehouse of the industrial and commercial bureau, there are one hundred thousand pairs of UGG counterfeit boots seized.

UGG is brand name or snow boots collectively confused.

Why counterfeit UGG will be popular? In addition to cheapness, the reporter found in the interview that many Chinese consumers could not tell whether UGG is a collectively name for snow boots or a brand product of a company, so it is often easy to be misled by merchants in the process of buying.

In fact, UGG originated from the traditional handmade boots of Australian fur and fur, and is the general name of "Sheepskin Boots". It is commonly known as snow boots in China.

The history of UGG sheepskin boots goes back to the Australian countryside in 1920s. Australian farmers used this kind of shoes to wrap their feet for warmth. During World War I, Australian pilots wrapped two pieces of sheepskin to make shoes on their feet to keep out the cold. By 1960s, the surfers wore this boot to warm their feet in the sea for a long time. Surfing made this stupid round headed boot popular. In the last century 70s, this kind of hand-made boots with wool and fur were collectively referred to as UGG, and gradually formed a unified name in Australia.

DECKERS, an outdoor company in the United States, is aware of the business opportunities of snow boots. Since the middle of 90s twentieth Century, it has started to register "UGG" trademarks in various countries in the world, and has carried out commercial operations, and has shifted the production of UGG to mainland China. UGG of "MADE IN CHINA" has been continuously exported to North America and Europe, and has been rapidly gaining popularity in the world. "UGG IN" is a popular brand.

Because of the registration of the "UGG", which was originally referred to as snow boots, as a trademark, DEX has made it impossible for manufacturers of snow boots in Australia to use the "UGG". In response to the move of DEX, Australian manufacturers have jointly established UGG snow boots association to fight against DEX.

They believe that the traditional handicraft industry has been in existence for decades in Australia. UGG, as a general term for Australian sheepskin boots, is a commodity category rather than a proprietary enterprise.

The Australian Trademark Office adopted the above request in 2006 to withdraw the trademark privileged rights of DEX company in Australia.

But in other countries of the world, such as the United States, Britain and China, they maintain the exclusive right of UGG to register trademarks.

This means that other companies can no longer promote their products in the name of "UGG". Therefore, a large number of products marked "UGG" sold in China are actually suspected of trademark infringement.

But "UGG", as a traditional Australian handicraft and as a general name and category of sheepskin boots, has been known to consumers all over the world, so many consumers abroad tend to pay special attention to whether they are from Australia.

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Costly and profiteering temptation leads to counterfeiting.

When talking about another reason for the chaos in the snow boots Market, senior people in the industry told reporters the reason why a pair of top-grade snow boots cost only raw materials and crafts is very expensive, and the price of the inferior snow boots sold on the market is often only tens of dollars.

The essence of snow boots is material.

The raw materials of a pair of genuine snow boots are made from Australia's A-class Merino (Merino) two-sided lamb and made from the whole sheepskin.

Snow boots made of other materials such as cowhide, artificial wool and domestic sheepskin can only be similar in shape but not in spirit. They are quite different in terms of warmth, air permeability and comfort.

In recent years, as the global snow boots are booming and sales are increasing, the prices of Australian top grade sheepskin are also increasing. A pair of snow boots with exquisite workmanship and genuine materials are expensive, ranging from one thousand yuan to three thousand or four thousand yuan.

It is precisely because of the high cost and high price of the brand snow boots that many domestic businesses, especially online sellers, often make false propaganda with the "genuine products", open the Taobao network, and sell countless Shanzhai snow boots online shops. In fact, the cost of purchase is very low, the price tag is very high, and the profits are huge, and the underground factories that use the "high imitation" means are also everywhere, such as Zhenjiang, Wenzhou and other places have already formed the snow boots counterfeiting industrial gathering area.

Industry prospects, Australian brands try to layout China, domestic capital "eager to try"

Yuan Haoliang, marketing director of Shellin Australia, told reporters that the company was the first Australian snowshoe manufacturer to try to lay out the Chinese market.

Shellin Australia, a well-known UGG workshop in Nan'ao, was acquired by Australian JEFF TRAN, and developed rapidly into an international brand with the opportunity of high quality products and UGG industry.

In 2009, there was a chance to have the first close contact with Zhejiang businessmen who had a keen sense of capital, which triggered a series of capital restructuring and opened up the chance to smoothly enter the Chinese market.

According to the reporter's investigation, due to China's manufacturing advantages, the world's Australian leather tanning industry is basically domestic, raw skins imported from Australia, leather processing in the country.

Because of the global popularity of snow boots, the domestic tanning giant such as Longfeng fur has also been created.

For these reasons, China is already the global snow boots manufacturing center.

At present, the products of UGG AUSTRALIA, JUMBOUGG and so on are basically produced in China.

With the increase in snowshoe sales, factory production is far from enough to meet demand. Some Australian companies are also starting to produce products in mainland China, and then pporting semi finished products back to local packaging sales. In fact, it is also a hidden "made in China".

For the Chinese market, leading enterprises in these industries are stepping up their layout.

"The initial sales volume is not bad. After 2008, the Chinese market showed explosive growth. Last year, the sales of us Dex in the world exceeded 5 billion yuan."

Yuan Haoliang is clear about the market share of his competitors. He told reporters that the sales of snow boots in the whole Chinese market is as high as tens of billions.

DEX has shifted its strategic focus to China. On the one hand, it has accelerated the speed of opening stores in China. On the one hand, it has intensified its efforts to crack down on counterfeiting UGG.

Yuan Haoliang said they will also intensify their efforts to crack down on the infringement of "JUMBOUGG" intellectual property rights in China, in cooperation with industry and commerce.

Behind the explosive growth of snow boots in the Chinese market has also achieved the "high imitation industry" of Gaoqiao Town.

According to the statistics of Zhenjiang's industry and Commerce Department, in 2010, Gaoqiao Town had more than 200 leather products manufacturing enterprises, employing more than 1 people, producing about 20000000 pairs of shoes and about 1000000000 yuan of output value each year.

Among them, more than 150 shoemaking enterprises mainly produce snow boots and indoor shoes, and the snow boots affixed with UGG trademark are mainly exported to Northeast China and other places.

It is reported that snow boots in Europe and the United States has been very popular, many people often have more than one person, and the Chinese market is still young women consumers are mainly different, foreign countries are often men and women, young and old like to wear snow boots, has gradually changed from fashion to practical footwear.

The Chinese market will also accelerate the popularity of this trend, like sneakers or fashionable products in 80s, and now it has become a daily shoe product for many people.

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Online and offline counterfeit rampant industry needs urgent guidance

Due to interest driven, despite the continuous counterfeiting, but similar to Gaoqiao Town in Zhenjiang, "brand-name" enterprises are everywhere, the phenomenon of open shop selling fake.

After each holiday, the "high imitation" UGG is still being shipped out from Gaoqiao Town.

The reason for these shoemaking bosses is that the "brand name" is only an expedient measure, but the ordering party asks for the identification of the UGG. If it does not paste, it may lose large orders.

At present, the Gaoqiao shoe industry has formed a complete industrial chain.

After being repeatedly attacked by "fake products", the enterprises in Gaoqiao Town began to find a way out.

Last winter, Wang Zhengjun, the boss of Jiaxin leather company, was waiting for Beijing to produce the "Chang Jia" brand snow boots with a registered trademark material and production certificate.

However, insiders told reporters that it is not easy to start a local brand. In addition to tens of thousands of yuan of capital investment, there is still a lot of work to do. Most factories do not have this strength. They are still very worried that they can not eliminate the large number of selling and selling by relying on the anti-counterfeiting power of several leading enterprises, or they need more regulation by market regulators.

Facing the increasingly fierce "intellectual property storm", what is the way out for Gaoqiao shoe industry? The analysis of law enforcement departments of Zhenjiang quality supervision, industry and commerce thinks that the urgent problem of Gaoqiao shoe industry is "lack of intellectual property rights".

Regarding this, Gaoqiao Town government responsible person said that the strategy of local government is mainly to grasp the small limit, regulate the development of industries by means of land supply and other means, encourage large-scale enterprises to strengthen their independent research and development, and guide enterprises to extend to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain; at the same time, they should set up Gaoqiao fur gathering group and pay close attention to the relevant work of registering collective trademarks.

The boss of the interviewed company also expressed the hope that the government would introduce corresponding support policies to guide enterprises to tide over the confused period.