"Mass Shoe King" Daphne'S Mid Term Turnover Fell By 22.3%

Known as "the king of Volkswagen shoes"

Recently released interim results report: turnover fell 22.3%, total sales point decreased from 466 to 5464.

Looking back at the peak, mainland China sells five pairs each.

One of them came from Daphne.

After experiencing the initial high speed growth, Daphne has been in a quagmire in recent years: losing money and closing stores, these words are winding up once brilliant.

。

Once brilliant --

For every five pairs of shoes, there are Daphne.

In 1990, Daphne was born.

In the days when the competition was not fierce, though Daphne was a brand name, it did wholesale business, selling shoes to agents.

In 1999, Daphne encountered a channel crisis, a sharp increase in inventory pressure and a tight chain of funds. Daphne began to "clear the warehouse", replace the brand logo and shop decoration style, and set up a proprietary store network. The business scope was also expanded from the shopping mall counters to the street store.

To avoid middle and high-end routes, Daphne is positioned in popular popular parity strategy.

At the price level, the average price of Daphne women's shoes is between 200 and 300 yuan; in the channel terminal, Daphne mostly adopts the street store mode.

The new business model has enabled Daphne to reinventer and blossom everywhere.

Since 2003, Daphne has fully expanded its speed with the opening of 150 stores in the mainland every year, and has rapidly expanded its market share in the two or three line market, which has become an important source of profits for Daphne.

The dividend from the market gave Daphne a taste of sweetness.

As of June 30, 2010, Daphne opened 3077 Daphne brand terminals in China.

At the peak of its performance, Daphne's market share of women's shoes is close to 20%, which means that one out of every five pairs of women's shoes sold in the mainland comes from Daphne.

"Daphne's early success is not entirely a credit for its own mode. In the industry development stage, Daphne stepped on the rhythm and pulse of women's shoes development market, focusing on the small fashion line, and the terminal network just covered the industry blank."

In the case of the State Council Development Research Center, the Shanghai municipal government brand expert committee and the founder of Jinkun cultural development group, Daphne was later confronted with obstacles in the upgrading of brand and fashion.

The declining trend is more and more obvious.

Cheap fashion meets multiple crises

"Beautiful, no discount, beautiful 100 points", in the field of Chinese women's shoes, this slogan makes Daphne particularly eye-catching.

Unfortunately, since 2012, Daphne's development has been no longer successful.

Sustained impact by the electricity supplier, the footwear market has been saturated, product demand is weak, coupled with the increase in physical operating rents and labor costs, which has brought greater pressure to the entity business.

As a low-end product in the popular brand, Daphne has been hit hard.

Since 2011, domestic apparel brands have been tortured by stock, but Daphne's expansion has not stopped.

"When the traditional brand is successful in a particular environment, if we want to continue to laugh, we must have a clear strategy to cope with the changing environment."

Shi Zhang Qiang, founder of the Kun Kun culture development group, said that when the industry situation and market environment changed, it was difficult for Daphne to stick to its original mode and stick to its position.

In addition, the design of Daphne shoes is regarded by many consumers as outdated, unattractive and unattractive.

Even if the price is high enough to invite stars to be creative directors and endorsements, it is difficult to develop the declining trend.

Regrets --

Difficult to see profit business is more like chicken ribs

Since 2011, the electricity supplier has entered the outbreak of development, and Daphne set foot in the electricity supplier as early as 2006, but the road of the electricity supplier has gone rather tortuous.

In 2009, Daphne entered Tmall, and set up a self operated electronic business company "Ai Dai". It divided the e-business strategy into a female platform, focused on creating a female community, and the other one was footwear marketing, with the brand advantage of full network marketing, and devoted to the online market development.

In 2010, Daphne invested 30 million yuan to build a new platform for online shopping with Baidu - 100 of the shares, accounting for 10% of the shares.

Two years later, Yao point 100 went bankrupt, and Daphne's independent B2C failed.

100 of investment is thought to be a decision making mistake in Daphne's pformation, but the more important fact is that Daphne did not take care of the electricity business. Until 2013, the wording of e-commerce appeared in Daphne's annual report.

"Daphne does not have a clear and effective top-level design in the area of e-commerce, and it keeps wavering around, leading to failure to catch the peak of the development of e-commerce."

Shi Zhangqiang, founder of the Kun Kun cultural development group, said that the development of Daphne's beachhead business is "catching up early in the morning". The development strategy of enterprises is most afraid of hesitation and watching. "The development of electric business must be a leader project, and only a leader can grasp the strength and persistence of strategy."

For Daphne, which is at its peak, the electricity supplier's annual sales of several million yuan is only half a day's performance.

What's more, the pain that e-commerce urgently needs to solve is "cheap". The price of Daphne products is 200 to 300 yuan, but it has no advantage in Taobao's shoes store.

As a result, the electricity supplier in Daphne's system has become "abandoned, unfortunately, tasteless".

{page_break}

Offline -

Products are overwhelmed by brand competition.

In the face of rapid changes in consumer behavior, Daphne's offline development has also been "left behind".

In the four to six line cities, which are regarded as the core of sales by Daphne, the crisis is expanding.

In the four to six tier cities, although the number of Daphne shops is 2350, accounting for 46% of the total number of shops, the number of shops is the largest, reaching 204.

On the surface, it is the impact of the electricity supplier that makes Daphne's direct mode no longer exist, but the fatal blow is the impact of the product.

The emergence of the electricity supplier has completely changed the operation mode of channel as king, and has returned to the product itself.

"In the original main battlefield of the channel is not firm, the development of electronic business ideas are not clear, take trial and error lead to the main position is affected, leading to the existing franchisee complain, the new franchisee hesitant, Daphne's development and internal and external difficulties."

Shi Zhangqiang said that in the face of the new market environment, the positioning of Daphne's original products has not been upgraded and the design has not been updated. When the multiple factors such as channels, brands and designs are superimposed, Daphne's development is in a predicament.

Looking back to 1990, Daphne has no obvious characteristics. It is a brand dealer, a distributor or a foundry.

At the same time, Daphne's focus on the core products is not high. From the annual report, investors rarely get a description of Daphne's design, production and positioning of its products.

Top-level layout --

Upgrading the brand to make a comeback

Daphne's channel advantage is no longer, the product is also flooded in the competition of countless brands.

Then, can the old "public shoe king" still be able to make a comeback?

"This requires a short and long term layout.

In the short term, Daphne should start from the channel to solve the problem of losing the main position, and the existing more than 5000 stores should ensure the improvement of single store performance.

Shi Zhangqiang said, closing stores is not terrible, but can not be blind, to make system consolidation before deciding, those who support the brand image terminal, even if losses must continue.

In Shi Zhangqiang's view, for better selling stores, we must continue to consolidate the results. "You have to observe and analyze who has sold all these shoes for many years, and we must not lose old customers while we are developing."

He said no profitable terminal shops should be stopped quickly.

Some terminals ignored by Daphne should be expanded, such as how to quickly cover community and commercial office buildings, and how to open physical stores into tourist attractions such as characteristic towns.

"While consolidating the original main position, Daphne's electricity supplier should be rearranged to join Tmall or vip.com in the form of alliance and joint venture."

Shi Zhangqiang suggested that the long-term development of Daphne should focus on solving the problem of brand products. "This is not a problem that can be solved by a celebrity endorsement. Daphne needs to design the layout from the top of the brand, activate and enhance the brand, and adjust the product accordingly."

Expert comment

There are many such enterprises in China: when the external environment is good, it is wrong to regard external opportunities as their own competitiveness. Actually, it is not how strong they are, but that the competitors are too weak and the consumers are too low. When the external environment is bad, and when the competitors start to become stronger and the demand for consumption starts to escalate, these enterprises begin to be vacant and blind.

Daphne is such an enterprise. It always seeks outside rather than inward.

But opportunities will not always exist. With the surging of similar rivals, the dividend opportunities will gradually decrease, and the comparative advantage has disappeared. With the sweeping sweep of the brand and the channel of e-commerce, the old yellow calendar will be defeated.

The solution is very simple. In solving the short-term terminal problem, we must solve the medium term channel problem and the long-term brand and product problems.