BELLE 880 Million Bought Sportswear Dealer &Nbsp; Accused Of Expanding Blindly.

　　 BELLE's ambition

Following the acquisition of the lead at the end of the year, Belle International Holdings Ltd (hereinafter referred to as BELLE) once again stepped up the sports apparel industry, and spent 880 million yuan to acquire Big Step Limited, a sportswear dealer with 600 stores, to attack the sporting goods market in full swing.

At the end of February this year, BELLE launched its first mid and low end brand of women's shoes, "15MINS". The unit price of about 200 yuan means that BELLE will enlarge its vision to a wider public group and launch a "take all" strategy for women's shoes market.

In addition, its actions in the men's shoes market, the wading of children's shoes market and the power of the electricity supplier field make BELLE busy in this cold winter.

　　進軍運動服飾

BELLE, which has had many takeover moves, is now playing again.

Recently, BELLE officially announced the purchase of 880 million yuan. Big Step Limited All rights and interests. Although the company is not strong enough, it sells mainly Nike and Adidas brand products, and operates about 600 self operated stores in many provinces and cities throughout the country, which is sufficient to explain this unexpected and reasonable acquisition.

The surprise is that this is an industry that is not very prosperous at the moment.

According to PEAK sports latest performance data, although its annual business income in 2011 reached 4 billion 647 million yuan, an increase of 9.4% over the same period last year, its net profit was only 778 million yuan, down 5.4% compared with the previous year, and net profit margin also decreased by 2.7 percentage points. Anta's net profit margin of 1 billion 730 million yuan in 2011, though increased by 11.5% over the same period, is still slightly lower than the market expectation. It is also the first time that Anta's net profit growth has been below 20% in recent years. However, the sales growth of Lining has been reduced by 5.8% to 8 billion 929 million yuan in 2011, and the net profit has dropped by 65.16%.

In 2012, Lining layoffs, Nike stores, Anta high inventory, PEAK sales decline...... A lot of negative news came from various enterprises, which once triggered a discussion on "cold winter" of sports goods.

"First, fierce competition in the industry, channel warfare and price war have led to a sharp decline in industry profits and an increase in inventories. Second, the growth of terminal operating costs at the retail level is fast and profits are low, and the confidence and sustainability of business are seriously affected. As a result, the sporting goods industry is experiencing the most painful adjustment period in the industry. Shoes and garment industry independent critic Ma Gang to new financial reporter said.

In Ma Gang's view, in the past, sports brands rely too much on the growth of the number of channels to drive the growth of performance. At the moment, the number of channels is approaching the limit of growth, which needs to be driven by category breakthroughs and single store promotion, which determines the slow pace of growth. Compared with the high annual growth rate of 30%-50% in China's sporting goods industry in 2000 (-2009, -1.20, -0.07%) for the ten years in 2000, the industry fatigue has already begun to appear, and the growth rate is expected to further slow down to 5%-8% level this year.

BELLE also felt the cold wave attack. Although the number of sporting goods terminal stores in BELLE is 14950, it is far ahead of the size of 10270 of its footwear products, but the latter business is far more effective than the former. In BELLE's total sales of 28 billion 900 million yuan in 2011, the contribution from sporting goods was only 10 billion 400 million yuan.

Even so, BELLE has not ceased to scale up sporting goods.

"After a high fever, it will be healthier to live." Beijing CEO, a key sports consultancy company, told the new financial reporter that the sporting goods industry will have a huge future space. And BELLE has begun to fight for market share of sporting goods.

"High quality channel resources are relatively scarce resources, and there is a limit, which is an important reason for BELLE to buy large regional agents." Ma Gang believes that in the sporting goods retail industry, the network has been substantially divided, and the possibility of new distribution networks in the future is not large. This means that only if we continue to grow bigger can we increase the winning weight in competition. "BELLE actually looks at the channel resources of agents."

This is indeed the case. The acquisition leader at the end of last year is the largest sports brand agent in Southern China. Nike Adidas, Reebok, Kappa, Puma and other 9 series of products, the business area covers more than 35 cities in 5 provinces and autonomous regions such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Fujian and so on, with nearly 800 kinds of shops, just to make up for the weaker channel system of BELLE in Southern China. And after integrating Big Step Limited with 600 stores, BELLE will also work hard in the strategic development of some regions.

"Take all" layout

In fact, BELLE shows the most incisive part in its frequent acquisition, not in sports apparel business, but in its footwear business.

Since its listing in 2007, BELLE has set a record of buying 4 companies for 3 billion in six months. In addition to the brand name of the sports brand Fila, which had been acquired and spanferred to Anta at that time, it also swallowed hundreds of retail terminals, including Miu Li, Shanghai shoes, and Jiangsu's shoes brand, including its own brand and other brands.

Among them, BELLE used 1 billion 600 million yuan RMB to swallow the case, which was the most popular in the history of Chinese footwear industry. Now it seems that the money is not naturally wronged.

Prior to the acquisition of BELLE, there was only a relatively high positioning Brand FATO, which had little influence on the men's shoes market. And through the acquisition of 50% businesses for men's shoes, BELLE, a low risk and low cost curve, cut into the men's shoes market.

Up to now, BELLE shoes sales accounted for more than 15% of men's shoes. According to the plan, the future will continue to increase investment in research and development of men's shoes, and increase the allocation of men's shoes SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), inventory units, namely inventory entry and exit measurement units in the existing mid-range women's shoes shops, and gradually open BELLE shoe brand stores in areas with mature conditions and shopping malls.

After completing the layout of the male consumer market, BELLE quickly pulled the front line into the children's shoes market. Not only acquired in 2011 Children's shoes (Hello Kitty, Disney), in addition to the international cartoon brand, the introduction of functional international children's shoes brand, at the same time, to prepare for the development of independent brand children's shoes.

According to relevant sources, BELLE plans to launch Belle kids, Tata kids and other brands of children's shoes this year, opening up the era of BELLE's children's shoes, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of children's shoes business.

In fact, compared with men's shoes, children's shoes seem more attractive to BELLE. The overall development level of children's shoes market is relatively low. At present, the brand positioning is not clear, and the channel mode is not clear. Not only the importance of department stores is not enough, but also the shopping habits of consumers are not established. In the men's wear, women's wear, casual wear, sportswear market maturing, there is no much room for rapid development, children's wear and children's shoes will undoubtedly become the most popular cake in the footwear industry at the moment.

At the end of last year China International Clothing and Accessories Fair The data disclosed above show that the total size of children's shoes and children's clothing in China's children's products market will exceed 100 billion yuan.

"BELLE has announced a blueprint for the 5 year plan to expand its market share by stepping into men's shoes and children's shoes. Because BELLE used to sell mainly high-end women's shoes, and has achieved good results, and then open a number of sub brand business, success or not will not affect the main business, so the risk is very small, success is icing on the cake, increasing the market share; unsuccessful, the impact is not big. " Cheng Huixian, an international retail analyst at Jiayin, said.

However, in any case, for the current size, men's shoes and children's shoes are only sidelines of BELLE.

At the end of February this year, BELLE launched its first low-end brand 15MINS, and plans to open 100 popular shoe stores in the year to specialize in mainland wage earners with a monthly income of about 3000 yuan. It is worth mentioning that this field is BELLE's "disdain" entry market for many years.

"In fact, from the current macro environment and micro environment, the demand for products and luxury goods with high price is more vigorous." Li Weihua, founder of China franchise research and China University of Political Science and Law franchise Research Center, told the new financial reporter.

At present, the brand layout of BELLE's mid-range and high-end market is basically complete. Under this background, BELLE's reverse operation and the development of low-end fields, the extension of price bands is bound to be the focus of its next step.

"In my opinion, BELLE's intention to make low-end brands is to try three line cities and even lower markets." Wang Li, a rival manager of BELLE (alias), told the new financial reporter that the purchasing power of the three tier market is becoming stronger and stronger.

According to Nomura data, by 2015, the number of shoe stores per million in China's small and medium-sized cities will increase by 60%, an increase of two times that of the first tier cities.

Moreover, in Ma Gang's view, BELLE's pursuit of the middle and low end market is only part of its strategic intentions, and the other meaning is to defend the high-end market: "with the rapid growth and upgrading of products, the low-end competitors will inevitably bring some challenges to the high-end market of BELLE in the future, so it is a good choice to start attacking their competitors at this point." "In the face of competition and attack, the best defense is competition." Li Weihua described BELLE's action so much.

In this way, BELLE will achieve all age groups (middle age, youth and juveniles); full category (men's shoes, women's shoes, children's shoes, sports shoes, leather shoes); all channels (shoe city, sports city, e-commerce, direct placement, franchising); cross market coverage of the whole market (high-grade, medium and low grade) to further strengthen its scale advantage. However, the complex system and the heavier body also pose a greater challenge to BELLE.

Sales pressure increased

In any case, in the long run, BELLE has to be forced to act like this.

BELLE's 2011 Annual report shows that by the end of last year, the amount of BELLE's stock increased by 34.1% from RMB 4 billion 859 million 100 thousand to RMB 6 billion 516 million 600 thousand, and the total inventory turnover days also increased from 152.6 days in the previous year to 167.6 days in 2011.

Such data in BELLE's chief executive and executive director Sheng Bai Jiao, "inventory situation is just a little more, and has not deteriorated", and firmly believe that there will be no large-scale promotional activities, and will not affect the gross profit margin of the group.

However, in recent years, Daphne, which is eye-catching, seems not as optimistic as BELLE. Chen Yingjie, chairman and chief executive of Daphne, has said that considering the high level of inventory in the same industry, this year's market will be a year of "split promotion": "I can definitely say that this year will definitely slow down. In the first quarter, because of the different weather and spring festival days, basically, consumer confidence is a little bit inadequate. Some of them have stock problems. There may be more promotions this year. We need to be careful. " In fact, Chen Yingjie has set Daphne's growth target for the same store as 12% this year, and in 2011, Daphne's performance index was 21%.

Today's reality is just like Daphne Anticipate the general osseous sensation. Taking the Tianjin market as an example, the situation in previous years is that the winter products have not yet been completely delisted in the current season, and the spring products have just been listed. There will not be any vigorous activities during the period after the Spring Festival. It will not enter into the promotion period until April, until the climax of the May 1, and the discount of the promotional activities will be upgraded, but at most half off. This year's situation is, just after the first month of the month, the major shopping malls can see greater sales promotion. BELLE, yalstan and other influential second tier brands are not "spared".

"During the Spring Festival in the past, sometimes it was only about thirty percent off of the activity. Now, from the beginning of" 38 ", forty percent off of the activities have appeared. If we spend two days in the Qingming Festival, we can do half off of the activities. I really don't know how to get to" May 1 ".

Compared with the past, the scale of promotion has been one month ahead of schedule. This is enough to explain the pressure on the sales performance of each brand. It has to start to seize the market share from the early stage of new product introduction. "However, this means that the import period is shorter, the maturity period will become longer, and the recession will definitely come ahead of schedule."

In fact, since last year, the footwear industry has entered the most brutal winter in history. With the rising prices of raw materials, rising labor costs, tight money, and the appreciation of the renminbi, the whole shoe and clothing industry is almost out of breath. Many small and medium-sized shoe companies are closing down in front of this crisis.

Under this background and pressure, today's BELLE is no longer able to grow and grow quietly, just like before the market. Instead, it is going to rush, rush and try in the capital car with thick armour, in exchange for more lasting power.

Liu Hui, chief consultant of Beijing zero Business Management Consulting Co., Ltd., said: "BELLE has been the leading enterprise of female footwear sales, and has been benefiting from its lightning speed. But when it develops to a certain scale, the situation will be very different."

BELLE has been following the scale economy mode, but it is because its business development has reached a certain scale. In the future, it will be difficult to increase sales in the same store or increase branches to sustained growth. Coupled with fierce competition and rising costs, future growth will slow down.

Obviously, for BELLE, the expansion is not enough. Only by constantly searching for new business growth points, exploring new marketing channels, new store models, and exploring new brands and new markets that are compatible with existing businesses.