Daphne'S "Pain In Joining" And "Difficulty In Performance"

Although the proportion of franchisees has been less than 10%, this "tiny part" still looks like.

The disease is common and sometimes happens.

Especially in the context of low performance and declining industry, Daphne is undoubtedly suffering from the pain of salting.

Pain of joining

What should be the order of spring shoes in the new year? When the market is good, it may be the plot of "bright sword" and franchisee's "gall bladder". When the market is in a downturn, it may be a drama of mutual warming and occasional Tucao.

Anyway, this is still a kind of warmth.

However, this common sense obviously failed to take place in Daphne.

The collective protest of franchisees undoubtedly robbed the new products.

According to the accusation of franchisees, Daphne has a lot of "many crimes" such as unauthorized collection fees, the use of franchisees to digest inventory products, Direct stores to sell goods at a price below the franchised stores, and so on, because Daphne's "unfair" treatment has resulted in serious losses and that Daphne can not give satisfactory solutions.

In this regard, Daphne believes that this is only "some individual problems reflected by some franchisees", and emphasizes that after the communication and coordination of the top executives of Daphne, most franchisees have understood and completed the next season's orders.

"As a whole, it has not caused too much impact on the company."

Huang Yingzhe, director of public relations at Daphne, told the new financial observer.

It is not the first confrontation between Daphne and franchisees that they ignore the truth and the truth.

Since 2000, Daphne gradually shifted its focus to direct stores, and the relationship between franchisees and Daphne began to crack.

In 2012, Daphne was also criticized for its unilateral non renewal policy for most of the franchisees.

Over the years, franchisees have been constantly rebuking Daphne for breaking the bridges, while Daphne has always stressed that it has never taken franchising in the past.

But there is no doubt that the proportion of franchisees is shrinking.

In 2012, Daphne closed 113 franchises all year round; in 2013, Daphne reduced 114 stores and increased 64 outlets; in 2014, Daphne closed 174 stores and opened 257 Direct stores; in the first half of this year, Daphne sold 181 stores, including 117 stores and 64 stores.

So far, by the end of June this year, there were only 590 stores in the 6221 core brand sales outlets owned by Daphne, accounting for less than 10%.

In the early days of Daphne, the proportion of its franchisees was about 80%.

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Nevertheless, Daphne still said that franchisees and direct stores are two indispensable parts of the company's overall sales strategy.

"The company adopts an open and pparent management policy and tries to guide the development of franchisees. It is expected that franchisees can adapt to market changes and keep pace with the times, manage their affiliation business and seek the goal of coexistence and common prosperity."

Huang Yingzhe said.

However, in the current downturn of the industry and the shrinking proportion of franchisees, it is inevitable that the franchisees who are in the "joint suffering" have to imagine that there is no time limit.

And these anxious franchisees will undoubtedly become the next anxiety of Daphne.

Difficulty of performance

If the collective protest of franchisees is only an episode in Daphne's troubles, then the sluggish performance can be regarded as the main theme of recent years.

Since 2012, the decline in revenue growth and net profit decline have become the norm for Daphne.

According to the 2015 mid term earnings report released by Daphne recently, as of June 30, 2015, the group's turnover was HK $4 billion 374 million, down 13.9% compared with the same period last year, and its profit plunged 95.4% to HK $11 million, closing 181 stores.

Among them, the number of closed shop in the second quarter reached 167, almost every half day will close one.

In addition, the group's core brand business Daphne and shoe sales declined 13.9% to HK $4 billion 34 million in the first half of the year.

Although the overall inventory level dropped somewhat from 6 months ago, the turnover period increased to 238 days due to reduced sales.

In fact, it's not just Daphne.

The industry is suffering from the cold wind.

Take BELLE shoes, the world leader in women's shoes, for example. In the first quarter (3-5 months), the sales volume of shoe sales as the core business of BELLE decreased by 7.8% and the number of stores decreased by 167.

But unlike competitors, the difficulty of Daphne's plate is obviously greater.

"In the past few years, which day is not good, but this" low price fashion "the most difficult days.

A saleswoman of a woman's shoe brand told the new financial observer that the brand represented by Daphne in the mass market sector was the biggest hit by the Internet and the strongest replicability.

In this regard, Daphne apparently has the same feeling.

Daphne said that in the mass market sector, Daphne faced fierce competition. Despite the slowdown in the overall macroeconomic environment and the decrease in street pedestrian flow, some unlisted local competitors have been expanding rapidly in recent years, regardless of the cost, and they are cutting prices early.

Over the past few years, the rapid growth of e-commerce has also made the competition in the mass market more intense, resulting in a certain degree of impact on the performance.

"At present, our industry is more challenging than ever: in addition to the slowing consumer market and rapidly changing consumer behavior, there are fierce competition from local competitors and online competitors. At the same time, rising operating costs, such as rent and labor costs, also bring cost pressures to the group."

Huang Yingzhe said frankly.

But Huang Yingzhe also expressed the ability to increase consumption in Chinese market and women's shoes.

The long-term growth is still confident that the group is also committed to taking the necessary measures to improve future performance, such as improving sales, improving inventory management, controlling expenditure and strengthening the development of e-commerce.

However, even if the desire is good, the judgment is accurate, the measures are in place, whether the effect can manifest and when to appear is still unknown.