Daphne Women'S Shoes Chen Yingjie, Taiwan'S Handsome Mistake

Chen Yingjie is currently well-known in the mainland Women's Shoes The chairman of the board of directors of the brand Daphne International Holding Company, who took over the general manager of Daphne Group from the age of 29, was not optimistic about the outside world, but Chen Yingjie was able to hand over a beautiful report card. This year, he will also actively enter Taiwan and the global market.

Chen Yingjie is the nephew of Daphne founder Chen Xianmin and graduated from the Department of International Trade of Zhongyuan University. During the middle school, he formed the "Red Snake" band with Ren Xianqi and others. Ren Xianqi acted as the lead singer, he acted as the keyboard player, and he also knew many people in the performing arts circle in the studio. Yi Nengjing, who had been rumored to have affairs with Chen Yingjie, was also familiar with the band when performing. At the request of his elders, Chen Yingjie entered the family business Daphne at the age of 23. At first, he started as a grass-roots operator, then transferred to various departments for training. Since 1999, he has taken over as the general manager of Daphne. Chen Yingjie once said that starting from the foundation, let him have a complete understanding of the process of shoe making and the concept of brand marketing, which will help him manage the brand later. Chen Yingjie was faced with a crisis when he took office. At the beginning, Daphne was under a lot of pressure because of its large inventory, which was mainly wholesale. At that time, he advocated developing brands and its own channels, began to establish Daphne's own sales network, and closed the stores with poor health, and continued to increase the size of stores. So far, there are more than 3300 counters in the whole mainland.

In 2001, Daphne International, the predecessor of Daphne International, which later became the sales leader in China's women's shoes market, was at its lowest ebb. The current Daphne was still named Prime Success International at that time. Since the late 1990s, Yongen International's profits have continued to decline, and then began to eliminate inventory writedowns. After that, the company appointed "Eddie" Chen Ying Chieh, who came from Taiwan's shoe industry family, to pull the company's mainland business out of the quagmire. When he walked along the streets of Shenzhen with the store designer, the scene he saw was exciting. In the shoe industry cluster area of Shenzhen, there are many products in every block, but these products are not different for consumers.

Chen Yingjie saw the market's demand for better choices, as well as the growing demand of urban white-collar workers to fill their closets. Compared with western women, Chinese women buy less than one third of their clothes and shoes. He led the launch of a new retail series, which has opened a total of 4120 stores in mainland China by last year. In 2005, Wing En International (renamed Daphne in 2008) was rated as the best company below $1 billion in Forbes Asia. Last year, it returned to the list with a revenue of $682 million and a profit of $64 million in 2008.

With Daphne's brand of affordable route and the cheaper "Shoebox" product line (the average price of each pair of shoes is only $18), Daphne's sales revenue in mainland China is only second to Shenzhen Belle International, and the price point of Belle's products is higher than Daphne's.

The expected production of Daphne's own brand women's shoes this year is 35 million pairs, which is the best proof of Chen Yingjie's foothold. Chen Yingjie, 41, is now the president of Daphne. This month, the company will release the semi annual report for the first half of the year. The figures in the semi annual report will indicate whether Daphne's sales revenue in 2010 can exceed 800 million dollars.

Chen Yingjie is very modest. "Like many mainland upstarts, we have accumulated wealth and achieved great success, but we did not know how we succeeded until a long time later. Our success was largely due to catching up with good opportunities, rather than the results of deliberate planning," he said. Of course, he also agreed: "It is very important to seek opportunities and correct changes."

Daphne has a design team composed of 100 designers in its Shanghai headquarters, led by American Edison Andrew, who previously worked for American shoe brands Kenneth Cole and Guess. They are working hard for Chen Yingjie's planned "transformation" into high-end market. In January this year, Daphne acquired 60% of the shares of Full Pearl International, and Taiwan Pou Chen Group, the world's largest sneaker manufacturer, held another 40%. Through this acquisition, Daphne has gained sales channels to 200 department stores in mainland China. With a larger customer base, Chen Yingjie's goal is to achieve an average annual sales growth of 20% in the next five years.

Chen Yingjie's goal is not only to sell shoes to new target female groups, but also to dress them up. In his words, they are "a lovely and strange group". He said that the market has played down the clear separation between different groups. Whether old or young, rich or middle class, customers want to splurge occasionally and will also choose a pair of discount shoes under impulse. {page_break}

Daphne would not disdain to create such an impulse. After years of dedication to his career, Chen Yingjie married Chinese actress Han Yuqin in May this year. After Daphne returned to the Taiwan market, 60 new stores opened a three-day buy one get one free event to celebrate. In Shanghai, customer expectations are also an important factor. Chen Yunqing, 45, a native of Shanghai, is not keen on high-heeled shoes, but says she is a frequent customer of Daphne. "Their shoes make me look younger, and the price is more affordable," she said in a Daphne store on Huaihai Middle Road.

As for Yang Xiaomin, an 18-year-old girl from Anhui who wants to save money in the business circle like Huaihai Road, no other brand is more suitable for this girl who wants to be a trendsetter than Daphne. "I like SHE (a Taiwanese women's group sponsored by Daphne). And the shoes give me a sense of fashion, which is especially suitable for young people," she said.

However, Chen Yingjie and J.M. Lin, a designer from Taipei, saw fierce competition in Shenzhen in 2010. Wei Yafei, director of the shoemaking office of the China Leather Association, said that Daphne and its competitors "can see obvious similarities in shoe design" and rarely have breakthrough styles.

Market and distribution are key issues. Daphne, which has employed 21500 employees (excluding production line employees), plans to open 750 new stores by the end of this year. Chen Yingjie said that any store that can reach the critical number of 100000 potential customers is worth investing. The president is not in a hurry to let Daphne's design go to the forefront of the trend. He believes that this will scare away some conservative customers in less international cities. On the contrary, his main opportunity is to enter China's inland provinces, where he hopes to see an increase in demand after the production sector is transferred to the inland areas with lower labor costs. In the next 20 years, the increasing purchasing power will double the number of Chinese women buying shoes.

While secretly planning to "gain a dominant position in the Chinese market", Daphne also plans to enter high-end Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea, because Chinese consumers want Daphne to be more than a domestic brand, Chen Yingjie said.

(Returning to the Taiwan market is an issue that needs careful consideration. There, "facing the rich brand choices, consumers have always disliked brands from mainland China, and they think these brands come from economically backward regions." said Lienti Bei, a professor of business administration at the National Chengchi University.)

Yongen Company was established in Taichung in the 1970s, initially as an OEM shoe factory. Later, two uncles of Chen Yingjie established Yongen International Group in Hong Kong. Chen Xianmin, Chen Yingjie's uncle, recalled that after the production line was transferred to the mainland, Yongen Company encountered the problem of excess leather inventory, and began to produce "Daphne" series winter boots in 1990 for the winter in Shenyang. 80000 pairs of shoes were sold in three weeks, which indicates the awakening demand for high-end shoes in China.

Although the company still operates part of the OEM business and is also an agent of some international brands, the sales of the company's own brand has become the pillar for the next 20 years. Early earnings helped Yongen International to be listed in Hong Kong in 1995. Shortly after graduating from Chung Yuan Christian University, Chen Yingjie entered the company's sample room and later became a department head. At that time, the company fell into a stagnant situation.

The franchise network at that time made the service level uneven, and also brought unauthorized price reduction promotions, which made the customers of department stores very unhappy. In 1999, another uncle of Chen Yingjie, Zhang Wenyi, then the president of the company, sent him to take charge of the Chinese mainland market. At that time, he had to have courage.

Chen Yingjie is a confident man. "He learned very quickly and was very bold," Chen Xianmin said, recalling the moment when his nephew carried him to change the company logo in 1999. "I gave him a lecture, but privately, I still appreciated the new logo."

"He is the kind of person who will make plans in advance. At the same time, no one in his family business has his quick thinking," said Lin Zhoumin. In 2005, his four-year cooperation with Chen Yingjie in the marketing image design of Daphne and shoe cabinet brought him the German iF Gold Award for Creative Communication Design.

With the revival of the mainland market getting better, young Chen Yingjie once again took charge of the whole group at the request of the company. Zhang Wenyi, the former president of the Group, was suspected of a fraud unrelated to the company in 2004, and was later arrested and imprisoned. She is still serving her sentence. Chen Xianmin, Chen Yingjie's uncle, is still the general manager, who is responsible for decision-making and holds 9% of the shares. Chen Xianmin holds 12% of the shares, while Zhang Wenyi's two sons, Chen Yingjie's cousin, are also active members of the board of directors. As of last year, they together hold 24% of the shares.

The impact like the illegal case of the former president is still affecting Daphne's share price, while TPG Capital's private equity investment of $81 million in May 2009 on Daphne has solved the market's concerns about corporate management. At today's prices, the company's market value is 1.6 billion dollars.

Chen Yingjie's father is a physician. Chen Yingjie said frankly that marketing was the only course that interested him in his six years of college. His real pleasure lies in his rock band. But the business world in front of him forced him to put the band behind him. However, he also found a new vitality for his life.

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