The Ultimate Confrontation Between Fast Fashion And Sports Brand Giants In Women'S Sports Market

Fast fashion and sports brand giants compete against women's sports market

Nike CEO's everyday words changed a little.

"In 2013, Nike trainers conducted 40 thousand training projects." 9 million of the women downloaded the application of Nike+ Running. "Our digital community has a good relationship with 65 million women." "exercise and fitness are promoting the pformation of the global lifestyle of women. In the global gym, the number of female athletes exceeds that of men for the first time, and the development of fitness and health management App is far faster than that of other categories of App".

Listen, in late October 2014, when the sporting goods manufacturer launched the 2015 women's spring and summer products conference, faced with hundreds of media, CEO Mark (Mark Park) talked about how many times the word "female" was used.

This is not just because the theme of the conference is limited.

In the early 2014, in the first quarter of the earnings conference, Parke had frequently mentioned the word "female" - a total of 21 times.

You know, "innovation" has always been the word most frequently mentioned by the executive.

This phenomenon is rare for Nike employees.

Of course, new keywords usually correspond to a new business objective.

At the press conference, Mark Parker, standing in the center of the black stage, said the most important number: "we hope that in the 2017 fiscal year, our revenue will increase by US $2 billion to US $7 billion."

Previous media reports were more straightforward. Nike hopes to total revenues of $36 billion in 2017, of which women's products account for 20% of total revenue.

Parke said this in New York's trend Building 1 months later, in November 29th, Nike opened the first Chinese women's experience store in iAPM four level, Shanghai's Trading Plaza.

This is also the second woman experience shop in the world after the first women's product experience shop in Newport Beach, Newport.

The store is equipped with the Nike+ gait analysis system. The experiencer runs on the treadmill. The salesperson will record his running speed on iPad, and shoot two videos of the back and side of the running.

Numbers and storefronts only illustrate one aspect of this growing market segment.

1 months ago, Nike's old rival Adidas opened in the women's product store in Financial Street shopping center, Beijing.

At the beginning of December 2014, Adidas opened its own women's product store in Chengdu Ocean Pacific and Kate Tianfu shopping center.

In addition to running, training, yoga products, in the women's product store, Adidas will also

The product of Stella McCartney cooperation has been placed in the exhibition area.

The opening plan of the above stores was in 2013, when Adidas began to increase its investment in the subdivision of women's sports market - launched a marketing campaign called "sister name", and even hired Hebe Hebe Tian as spokesperson.

Gao Jiali, managing director of Adidas group Greater China, said: "women's products have always been one of the fastest growing categories in our business in China" (Colin Currie).

On different occasions in 2014, executives from Adidas Greater China mentioned that women's products contributed 40% of sales during the event, and the two digit growth of women's sales in 2013.

"We realize that China's market potential is enormous," 2013 women's series.

After the start of the activity, our store access rate increased significantly.

Meng Shuman, vice president of Adidas Greater China market (Simon Millar) said.

Although the specific sales figures in this single area can not be reflected in the earnings report, it can indicate that the giants are paying great attention to the market.

Such signs were also discovered by third party organizations.

At the end of each year, Euromonitor, a market consultancy, will update its research on clothing and fast cleaning companies. In the impression of market analyst Sun Fangting, after the end of the year end survey interview conducted in late 2013, she found that many companies have proposed a new growth plan for the female market.

"Even some companies mentioned it.

The product will increase faster than men's shoes, "she told reporters." of course, this is related to other market factors, and also has a small correlation with the sales base of women's shoes market. "

The staggered opening time of Adidas and Nike women's stores is a typical sign of the battle for female consumers.

In the past few years, not only the traditional international sporting goods companies have aimed at the market of women's sports products, but also the movements of other sports companies have also confirmed the judgment of market research institutions and consulting companies from side.

Competition for women's sports products has been launched worldwide.

In 2014, after Hongkong, Lululemon also opened 1 showrooms in Shanghai to display.

And yoga mat products.

The company only focuses on yoga products for sports and leisure purposes.

Another sports brand, Under Armour, hired supermodel Gisele Bundchen as spokesperson in 2014.

Slogan's I Will What I Want is a tribute to the behavior under pressure. The audience is directly referring to women, which is the response of Lindsay Vaughan, a fast runner.

In addition, Under Armour has launched an online fitness competition specifically aimed at women's What 's Beautiful, not only online Under Armour also has a female product store in Shanghai.

The sporting goods company, founded by professional athletes, is considered by market research group NPD to be the biggest rival of Nike and Adidas in the future.

This can be seen from the proportion of product line sales - Under Armour's sales of women's products account for about 30% of its total revenue.

Earlier, the company's CEO Kevin (Kevin Plank) said that the Under Armour program was consolidated in women.

The growth rate of the market indicates that the prospect of women's sports products can be as large as that of male sports products and may even exceed men's market on many occasions.

Fast fashion brands are also involved in this competition.

In 2010, the American fast fashion brand Forever 21 released the sports leisure product line.

The development momentum of Athleta such as Gap is also very fast.

Earlier in 2004, Adidas's cooperation with Stella McCartney in women's product design opened the curtain on this war.

And some of Nike's management started the LUCY brand after leaving, and began competing for the American women's movement.

Market share further escalated the war.

"For women, participation in sports and buying products can not only mean fashion," said Trevor Edwards, Nike brand's global president. He thinks that this represents a change in lifestyle. "I believe this way of life has been spreading all over the world. In North America, Western Europe and even China, we have seen this change."

Perhaps Edwards's words can be seen as the war for women's consumers has expanded from North America to the world, and in China, this kind of competition has begun.

This war is crucial to the future development of various companies in a single market. In the past two years, China's sports market has been brutally competitive, and almost every brand has gone through the adjustment stage of cleaning up stocks, closing stores, replanning stores and processing product lines.

It is a natural business decision to enter and even create a new market segment after the traditional market is saturated.

"Male consumption is relatively saturated, and the competition for male sports products has been very intense," said market analyst Sun Fangting. "Plus, there are more and more women's sports such as night running, yoga, Pilates and so on, and the market is no longer a male sport."

In a previous earnings call conference, Parke also acknowledged to analysts that some efforts to cater to female consumers benefited the company, such as developing applications targeting women and updating regularly selected series of women products.

On the other hand, this means new opportunities for traditional sporting goods companies, emerging sporting goods companies and fast fashion brands.

However, considering the different sports habits of women in different regions, there are great differences in the performance of products, the channels for purchasing products, and the understanding of products.

For companies that want to seize growth opportunities in new market segments, it is not easy to understand consumers in each region.

Over the past two years, Nike has developed a new sports bra for women consumers. The demand for products is significantly different from that of men who used to emphasize their functions.

"We find that women's needs for products are: they must look beautiful, comfortable to wear, and very functional -- and these needs are arranged sequentially in this order."

Trevor Edwards said that this conclusion is for all female products. He said Nike knew at first that such elements would affect female consumers, but did not think that the weight of the impact factors would be so great.

After investigation, this conclusion is more clear.

Similar results have been obtained in Adidas's market research in China.

Prior to the launch of marketing campaigns targeting the female market, the Adidas team conducted a network survey and focus group survey.

Focus group adjustment