How Big Is The Mother Infant Market For Domestic Sports Brands?

This year is the fifth year that Nana sold WeChat products on mother and baby products.

In all the rising sales of mother and baby products,

She was most surprised by the popularity.

In her tiny store, children's sun helmet, sunglasses, sports shoes and helmets have accounted for 20% of the sales.

As a mother, Nana did not hesitate to invest in his 6 year old son, Li Li.

A year ago, she bought a pair of clover Stan smith shoes for Li Li.

In the Adidas Tmall flagship store, the average price of the children's version of the shoe is 600 yuan.

"Now children are getting more and more subdivided and doing better and better," Nana told reporters.

The growth of residents' income, the upgrading of consumption and the opening of the "two child era" have all contributed to the growing prosperity of the mother infant market.

At the end of 2014, the release of "No. 46" and the consequent policy on youth sports, children's sporting goods began to receive unprecedented attention.

The "four big" local sports brands have joined the battle for the attention of young parents like Nana: in 2008, Anta first launched a series of children's sporting goods; at the end of 2009, the children's wear fair was held for the first time at 361 degrees, and the children's clothing product was formally launched in the following year; in 2012, XTEP formally entered the children's wear industry.

After the two test of brand cooperation, ten months ago,

The establishment of children's wear division is now in the testing stage, and this year it launched its own brand LINING YOUNG.

Lining's children's clothing this year launched the brand LINING YOUNG.

"Children's clothing is now a blue ocean, a large market group," Lin Xianghua, general manager of Anta children's business department, told reporters.

Great potential

When the main brand is about to hit the ceiling, entering the children's clothing market is an attack to look for new growth points, and it is also a precaution against rainy days.

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, Anta layout of children's clothing in 2008, landed in Hong Kong stocks for a year.

Similarly, 361 degrees also chose to launch children's clothing products in 2010.

In order to boost the share price and maintain the growth of enterprises, we should take advantage of the good situation of the expansion of the main brand to strike the iron and iron.

However, when looking for new business growth points, Anta's attempt is not confined to children's clothing.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Anta also launched a series of fashionable shoes.

In the following year, FILA's trademark rights and business in China were also under the command of Anta.

Facts show that leisure fashion is divorced from sports genes and is not suitable for running with the main brand itself, while children's clothing and FILA are worth investing for a long time.

After tasting the sweetness, Anta launched FILA KIDS in 2015, combining the advantages of these two brands to dominate the high-end children's wear market.

Although Anta has not announced the specific performance of children's clothing business, but according to people familiar with the matter, in 2016, the total volume of Anta children (including e-commerce sales) was close to 2 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 15% of Anta's 13 billion 350 million yuan annual revenue.

In 2016, 361 yuan children sold 651 million yuan, accounting for 13% of the group's total revenue, up 10.6% over the same period last year.

This proves that children's clothing is indeed a good business for sports brands.

The performance of the 361 winter children's wear that has just been announced in 2017 has also highlighted this point - the high double-digit increase has made the 361 degree children's clothing grow for Twelfth consecutive quarters, and this year's new children's underwear series is also sought after by the market.

"Children's clothing opportunities are very large. They should keep long-term double growth and help the group grow stronger and bigger," said the 361 degree president, Ding Wu, in an interview with reporters.

In June 25th this year, Lining children first held a children's clothing ordering meeting. Lining, wearing a red Wade's T-shirt, arranged a relaxed party for the participants' distributors.

"Chairman of the whole family is involved, very hey, live a little, healthy, everyone dance fitness dance," Lining, general manager of children's clothing business division Hu Nan told reporters.

Lining himself attaches importance to children's clothing. It can be seen that he often holds company meetings in the children's business department.

"The important growth point of the company in the next few years," this is his position on children's clothing business.

Foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses

The "four big" entry into the field of children's wear inevitably faces an old problem: how to compete with international brands?

The children's clothing series of Adidas and Nike entered the Chinese market in 2001 and 2002 respectively.

As early as 2012, "good kid" has become the largest agent in Nike's global children's category.

The children and mother child products production and marketing company also has Adidas, Puma and Skech.

Last year, Adidas opened the first children's shop in Shanghai with "good boy".

"International brands must be leading the market and bigger and bigger, especially in super tier cities. Children are almost always wearing international brands. Money is not a problem.

But in the two or three tier market, we have a great opportunity to stare at the market level, "Hu said.

In the children's market, shop coverage is still closely related to sales volume.

Anta can take the lead in children's wear field and benefit from its strong channel capability.

In the key Road Sports Consulting Co., Ltd. CEO Zhang Qing, "China has one or two or three line cities, the impact of Nike and Adidas is not as big as we imagined to cover the Greater China region. When the local brand is landing, whether it is channel coverage or ground promotion, there is still quite a lot of communication with local consumers."

For children who need to have a shoe size for half a year, the international brand often has more than 500 yuan of sports shoes, and the domestic brand is a more economical choice.

Cost performance is often the reason why domestic brands attract young parents most.

The functional requirements of sports children's clothing are lower than that of adult products.

Children's sports scenes are relatively vague, and many primary functional products can meet everyday needs.

In the field of adults, brands always take the latest research results as the selling point of products, and such marketing methods seldom appear in the field of children.

Comfortable, convenient, conducive to the development of feet, to meet the basic sports needs, this is the majority of parents demand for children's sports shoes.

From a more long-term strategic perspective, the rapid growth of children's clothing market has attracted the attention of the "four big", and we hope to build a new generation of consumers' cognition of brand.

"If a child wears 361 degrees from an early age, he will wear 361 degrees when he grows up."

361 degree Media Communication Director and President affairs assistant Liu Wenting told reporters.

"I wouldn't wear it myself, but I might buy it for my kids," which is the idea of many new generation parents.

Zhang Qing believes that most of the 00 consumers will not label the national brand because their growth is the process of China's rise.

"It's hard for me to change adults, but children are different. They don't have so many stereotypes.

If children's brands connect with consumers from childhood, will there be more opportunities in the future?

Motor gene

On the day before "61" children's day this year, Anta children held a "hard luck meeting" in Wukesong, Beijing. This is the first time that the brand has communicated with consumers face to face for the first time in nearly ten years.

The campaign ruled that parents could not enter the stadium. Lin Xianghua explained that he did not want this activity to be a traditional parent-child party, and wanted to convey more professional sports signals.

"Sport is something that can be said and passed, which is more meaningful than wearing a good dress."

Lin Xianghua said, "we hope to enjoy the professional experience of children through the concept of sports beyond products."

In the field of children's clothing with a scale of 150 billion yuan, the sports gene is becoming the foothold of the "four major" brand and the non sports adult clothing extension brand.

At present, the highest brand of children's clothing in the domestic market is Baral Barbara, which is the middle - end price of Semir clothing, with 5 billion 1 million yuan in revenue in 2016, up 26.52% from the same period.

HM, Gap, uniqo and other fast selling brand children's clothing line also has a strong competitiveness.

In the emerging market of children's sports, sports brand is based on the multi-year accumulation of the main brand, and it can win the recognition of consumers by brand advantage.

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The accumulation of the "four big" sports products is also an advantage of the brand of casual children's clothing.

In terms of functionality, sports children's clothing is more demanding than ordinary children's clothing: for example, the protection of shoes is strong, which is good for children's development. It is better not to use shoelaces to facilitate children to wear them off. The body clothing should have better air permeability and sweat effect, and the tapes of the down coats must be cut short to ensure safety when used.

In fact, before launching the brand of self-made children's clothing, the Li Ning Co had already tested the water.

In 2005, Lining reached a partnership with Parker lane, a children's clothing company.

"At the beginning, we didn't have the experience of children's wear. Parker was a professional child dress. He had his own channel and product development system, so he chose to cooperate with them."

Hu Nan recalls.

After 7 years of cooperation, Lining authorized the brand to Tianjin wide Kitty products limited. The contract between the two sides ended by the end of this year.

Since last year, Lining has been gradually resuming the business of children's clothing.

At present, the Lining authorized party has more than 500 Lining children's clothing stores, the annual revenue is about 200 million yuan.

Lining has only 10 children's wear stores.

After this year's test, Lining will officially operate the children's clothing business from 2018, and will resume the stores to 800 after next year.

Hu Nan said frankly, unlike the establishment of a business unit or subsidiary company, authorized cooperation means that the brand has limited control over the business.

"Brand Company's resources are not available, such as technology development and channels, not based on Lining's big brands," he said. "The company also feels that their performance has a certain gap with the Fujian brand, so they have to take it back to do it themselves."

Lining and Wade have been playing basketball shoes for 6 generations, and several of their boys' leisure suits have been branded as "Wade".

After becoming a NBA China partner, Anta joined the "Anta NBA" joint brand series in children's products, and the children's clothing Thompson's costume was also popular.

Sun Yang, the spokesman for the 361 degree, made an advertisement for 361 degree children's wear.

"The group's resources to sub brands, equipped with Sun Yang, to help promote children's clothing, resources integration well, the sound volume to do, there is a chance to fight."

361 degree brand business management center general manager Wang Lei told reporters.

Concentrated fire

Although 80% of the sports children's clothing market belongs to the sports products of leisure style, competition in the field of subdivision is inevitable.

In the remaining 20% professional sports market, the "four big" have begun to compete for the subdivision they are good at.

How to choose categories is determined by market volume.

Similar to adults, running and basketball are the most popular sports among children.

On Anta children's Tmall flagship store, a pair of running shoes with a price of 119 yuan was sold as more than 90 thousand pairs of sales, and the basketball shoes priced 179 yuan also sold more than 30 thousand pairs.

361 degree is also very similar, running shoes and basketball shoes are the best selling products.

National policy has also greatly affected the choice of brands. Football is the most significant representative.

In the field of campus football, the earliest layout is XTEP.

Since 2010, XTEP has sponsored the Zhejiang primary and secondary school campus Football League for six consecutive years.

After the launch of "campus football", XTEP increased its investment.

Last year, XTEP sponsored the Guangzhou primary and secondary school football league, and then signed Shevchenko and launched its first soccer product in retail stores.

XTEP long-term layout of campus football resources.

Anta launched its children's Soccer Series in the fourth quarter of 2015.

In addition to responding to national policies, football is more suitable for children's sports, which is appropriate for opening the children's sports market.

"In terms of sports type, football is also competitive and group activity, which brings more fun to children than running. It is much more meaningful than basketball," Lin Xianghua said. "Basketball must be more than 10 years old, and football can be played at 5 or 6 years old."

Cooperation with large products is also an important consideration when choosing brands.

Lining has CBA, Wade and other advantageous resources in basketball, basketball training clothes and basketball shoes are the hot products of Lining Tmall flagship store.

"Basketball is the market demand, we still have CBA, Wade series is also very good, with the big suit category, he sells good children's clothing to follow up," Hu Nan said.

Running is also true of XTEP.

Running shoes are representative products of XTEP children.

Since 2014, XTEP children have sponsored paternity running projects of international marathons in many cities such as Hangzhou, Yangzhou and Zhengzhou.

XTEP children closed a large number of stores last year.

The age of sports children's clothing is also more and more subdivided.

In the children's wear market, most brands divide the consumers into 0-2 year olds, 3-6 year olds and 7-14 year olds according to their age.

At present, apart from the 0-2 year old baby product launched by Anta, several other brands remain blank at this age.

Lining's launch of LINING YOUNG this year may be a new signal.

In the future, the brand will cover the original LINING KIDS, which is targeted at children aged 3-6.

This is because some shopping arcade channels generally divide children's areas into children and big children. This division is more targeted at Lining's coverage of target groups of all ages.

Just started

Although local sports brands began to layout children's clothing business as early as ten years ago, the market has just started.

With the rapid development of the market, domestic brands have experienced rapid expansion of channels, unclear brand positioning, limited product development capabilities and other difficulties. Children's clothing business is still likely to repeat the same mistakes.

"It seems that children's clothing is naturally a big product, but it's quite different. It needs to be cautious," Zhang Qing said. "The road that big goods go through, children will walk through it again."

Last year, XTEP's children's clothing business went through a big shock.

According to people familiar with the matter, in the past, XTEP had 9 direct children's clothing companies and the rest were franchisees, but headquarters had limited ability to control dealers.

XTEP has set up 3 large areas throughout the country, and has shut down shops with poor performance since last year.

According to the company's earnings report, XTEP children's products will be closer to XTEP's adult sports life products in the future. Materials procurement and production will be matched with adult products, thereby reducing costs and production time.

There was a corresponding adjustment in the number of child sales outlets for 361 years, although it was reduced from 2350 in 2015 to 2000 in 2016, but 17.5% is still a big reduction.

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The children's clothing business has become an important growth point for the group.

In the light of past lessons, in the layout of Lining, children's clothing business is undertaking a heavy task -- testing new business models.

10 years ago, we pursued the scale of business in a wholesale way. This is going to be a problem, "Hu Nan, who was in charge of Lining's marketing, had a deep understanding of the malpractice of this extensive selling method.

Therefore, Lining turned to retail and product cost-effective driving sales, the pursuit of single shop profit, product gross margin, even the past sales department also changed its name to the retail operation Department.

The smaller children's clothing business has become the best test field for this change. "Big goods are also adjusting the retail mode, but the ship is too big to turn around. Many remaining problems have to be solved in the past.

Children's clothing is not burdened, it is easy to set up new models and adjust quickly, "Hu said.

For children's clothing that is still in the testing and testing stage, Lining has not set too high an index, but rather "steady".

We must earn money, and good sales can not be made without money. I will not do shop subsidies or customer subsidies, "Hu added.

But Zhang Qing thinks, "children's leisure brands are difficult to form personalized differences, and there has never been a big brand. There are 2 or 30 brands that reach a certain scale.

But sports brands are not the same. Children's sports will have 2 or 3 leading brands.

But the biggest trouble with domestic brands is those tough old rivals.

Beijing office workers said Yuan Yuan had bought 6 pairs of Nike's "Caterpillar" shoes before the son of grade five in primary school.

"My son only wears Nike, Adidas, and the rest do not wear," Yuan Yuan frankly said, the product itself is a major factor, but the brand is the son's choice starting point, "these two brands have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people."

In the view of Zhang Qing, the local brands are too cautious at the moment and need a bit of adventure. "If we do more practices rooted in the Chinese consumer market and keep improving in the products, at least in the next ten years, local brands will not lag behind."

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.