Footwear Industry Pformation Actively Seek To Create Brand Strategy

In 2009, the impact of the financial crisis on the real economy did not slow down.

As a labor-intensive Chinese footwear industry, it has also experienced the winter of the market.

The external demand weakened by the global financial crisis, coupled with rising prices of raw materials, changes in the RMB exchange rate, the implementation of the new labor law, the adjustment of processing trade policies, the change in the export tax rebate rate, the technical barriers to trade in major export markets and many other factors and constraints, the Chinese footwear industry has been faced with unprecedented market challenges in the past 2008.

In February 18th, Wang Jiwan, vice-chairman of the China Leather Association and chairman of Hengda Group, interviewed by the China national economic news reporter, said how to break through the crisis, how to move from the low-end market to the high-end market, change from quantity type to quality and efficiency type, upgrade and replace actively, and become the way for Chinese shoe enterprises to take the initiative.

According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs in January 5th, 1 pairs of export shoes in 2008 were 7 billion 440 million pairs, 1.3% lower than the same period in 2007, valued at 25 billion 350 million US dollars, an increase of 15.2%, especially for small and medium-sized shoe enterprises.

As many small and medium-sized shoe enterprises are mainly engaged in OEM production, they are at the low end of the industrial chain, and lack of R & D, brand and international channels, coupled with a single customer, and the ability to resist risks is very weak.

Industry entrepreneurs believe that with the overall impact of the macro environment, the purchasing power of consumers will decline, and the shoe market will show a bleak situation in the first half of 2009.

In order to ensure sales, businesses will have to carry out bleeding promotion, and corporate profits will generally shrink.

Some enterprises will temporarily abandon model investment and turn to rescue and break the market.

To assess the situation has become a common problem for Chinese shoe companies in the new and old era.

In the early 90s of last century, due to the large-scale introduction of the production line, China had ushered in a prosperous period of production scale expansion and technological upgrading.

Now, the development of Chinese shoe industry has entered a new stage of development, and the market competition has put forward higher technical and cost requirements. It is impossible for manufacturing enterprises to turn into brand type and research style overnight.

"The only way out is to increase production capacity through refined production and enhance profitability and brand premium capability."

Wang Jiwan thinks.

In the long run, the marketing experts who studied the Hengda case said that in the Puritanism, Hengda could achieve steady growth and deal with calmly before the crisis, mainly due to the pformation strategy from traditional product operation to brand management which began in the past few years. The strategic response to international market risks, especially the strategic cooperation with the world famous brands, has not only spread the international market, but also promoted the brand's influence in the international market, and effectively avoided trade barriers such as anti-dumping.

"Nike and Adidas succeed because they really grasp the essence of the industry and find the essence of the brand from the renewal of their consumption concept."

Yu Qingjiao said.

He said that many Chinese entrepreneurs believe that more products will make more money, but as the market environment changes, especially in 2008, the impact of the financial tsunami on Chinese enterprises, how to make brands in 2009 will become the most talked about issue of Chinese enterprises. The essence of cognitive brand needs many Chinese enterprises to break through.

In fact, more and more enterprises are working towards the direction of brand recognition.

"Brand, sales network and supply chain management are the reasons why BELLE can be less affected by the financial turmoil."

BELLE international chief executive Sheng Bai Jiao said that if traditional industries want long-term development, the way out is in their own brands.

More than 97% of BELLE's products are sold in China, and its self operated network is spread over more than 200 cities and more than 8000 stores. The shrinking demand in the international market has little effect on it.

The unique supply chain management mode of replenishment has greatly reduced the marketing cost and risk of BELLE, and effectively improved the enterprise's ability to resist risks.

More shoes and hat investment information, click here to enter the responsibility editor: Wang Xiaonan