Why Can Skech Win The Fashion Trend?

The sports brand to be introduced today is unique. It came out 26 years ago and has been listed in the US.

But mention it, some people love to die, some people have never heard of it.

However, behind this aggressive US entry brand in the Chinese market, there is a law of success.

Its founder has seized this rule and has successfully established two big brands that rival Nike, and the spokesmen he chose also from American Jabbar, Michael Jackson, Carle Malone, and then to Asia's SISTAR, EXO, Dou Xiao, Tang Yan, Tang Yan, Yue, lohua seven sons,...

Today we will take a look at the story behind the rise of this brand and its inspiration for us.

The magic sports market has such a magic brand.

Sports brand is a magic market. There are Nike and Adidas, which have created and lead the sports brand for a long time, and also have many fashionable brands in the early stage of business.

Every change in the market trend will be an opportunity for the rise of the new sports brand. The key to the problem lies in how to seize the obscure market volatility.

China's rapid growth

It attracts the attention of many international brands.

There is no doubt that foreign brands have more advantages in the Chinese market.

In the current sports brand market, Nike and Adidas are the top two, while the four major domestic brands represented by Anta and Lining are close behind.

But in fact, there is no shortage of brands in this market, such as our today's protagonist, Cage.

As a sports brand that has been praised by some people but never heard of before, Cage has entered China for 10 years.

In June 2018, Cage released his first entry report to China.

In 2017, its retail sales amounted to 10 billion 430 million yuan, which has surpassed Lining's sales in 2017.

And when we traced back to history, we found that Skech (SKECHERS) was a listed American sports brand, which was born in 1992.

If we talk about history, Cage, who is only 26 years old, is a little earlier than UA and lululemon.

Therefore, if we compare the establishment time alone, Cage is even more night than some Jinjiang brands.

But at the same time, Cage has a very high starting point.

The starting point must be attributed to the founder of the brand and is still the Robert Greenberg of Skech CEO.

Get the first pot of gold from the wig and take the road of brand.

In his youth, Greenberg was a barber who opened a barber salon. Under his sharp commercial sense of smell, he discovered that there were huge profits in the wig industry, so he started a business of selling wigs and earned the first pot of gold in his life.

In the mid 70s, Greenberg worked many jobs, and then in 1979, he founded a roller skating rental shop which eventually grew into a company engaged in roller skating production.

But after the roller skating trend, Greenberg had to start looking for new entrepreneurial directions.

Subsequently, Greenberg obtained the authorization of the shoelace around the movie E.T. and sold it for $3 million.

(circle brother note: movies and TV series are booming now. Did they consider this business?) with the support of this start-up fund, Greenberg started his new career.

In 1982, he opened a women's clothing store in Losangeles and launched the L.A.Gear brand.

In 1984, Greenberg decided to focus on the wholesale footwear business, shutting down the unprofitable retail outlets.

At that time, many people thought that the market had no room for a new one.

The company, even a business partner, has terminated its partnership with Greenberg.

But Greenberg's business is just beginning.

Fashion opened the door, and for the first time, he was successful.

Not long after that, Greenberg and his L.A.Gear were very successful, and his success was fashionable.

After recognizing the needs of young women for fashion and aesthetics, L.A.Gear launched the first women's sports shoes in 1985. This product quickly gained market recognition with its unique fashion sense and varied colors.

A year later, L.A.Gear went public.

In 1988 and 1989, L.A.Gear grew rapidly, and its revenue grew rapidly from nearly $70 million to nearly $600 million. It has been selected as one of the best small companies in the United States for two consecutive years.

In 1990, the company reached a peak of $819 million, and the market share of the US sports brand reached 11.8%, second only to Nike and Reebok.

Although the sports brand market is the same, unlike Nike and Reebok, L.A.Gear is not technology oriented.

Its shoes are low in technology, and fashionable in the sequins and colors to get the market, so the manufacturing cost is much lower.

At lower cost, L.A.Gear will put more money into marketing and advertising.

Unlike Nike and Reebok's preference for young sports stars, L.A.Gear invited the Losangeles Lakers' retired NBA star Jabbar to represent a series of fashionable basketball shoes named "Jabbar".

In addition, L.A.Gear also invited Michael Jackson to endorse the brand with its high price of tens of millions of dollars.

Fashion once failed, and basketball was hit by another wall.

But it is not a long time. With the change of market trend, both the "Tian Gou" or "the king of pop" can not drive the growth of the company's performance. L.A.Gear began to reduce sales promotion to reduce inventory, which seriously damaged its brand image.

In 1991, although the market share was still expanding, the company had a net loss of up to 66 million 200 thousand dollars.

In 1991, L.A.Gear finally decided to enter the market of men's functional sports shoes, which was dominated by Nike and Reebok, and launched the first professional basketball shoes Catapult, and invited NBA Jazz basketball player Carle Malone to endorse.

However, this is the beginning of a series of farce.

In a televised college basketball match, a sportsman's Catapult sneakers suddenly broke down, which caused people's concern about L.A.Gear sports shoes.

What's worse, L.A.Gear's sneakers are also involved in patent disputes with Nike and Reebok.

The failure of the male sports market exacerbated the financial difficulties of the company, and L.A.Gear began to seek capital injection to solve the liquidity crisis.

In 1992, Trefoil Capital Investors and L.P won 34% of their shares for $100 million, but in a series of changes, Robert Greenberg, the founder of the company, was forced to leave the company.

Subsequently, the form of L.A.Gear went down sharply and went bankrupt in 1998.

Shortly after leaving L.A.Gear, Robert Greenberg and his son founded the Skech brand, where he opened a new business legend.

Skech stepped onto the stage to copy the former's road to success.

Cage, who was founded, distributes another brand named Doc Marten shoes.

But then there was a dispute between the two sides, and the partnership broke up.

But such setbacks did not baffle our hero.

After that, Robert Greenberg began designing men's leisure.

And in 1993 launched a "Chrome Dome" casual shoes, this shoe has been an unprecedented success.

We see that the newly established Skech has many L.A.Gear's shadow.

Like the previous L.A.Gear, Skech, who was built by Greenberg, did not emphasize the professional sports performance of shoes, but made a breakthrough in a leisure style suitable for urban life.

But unlike L.A.Gear's main fashion women's sneakers, Cage's products seem to be more clumsy, but more consistent with the trend of consumption tastes in the US market in the early 90s.

After the success of the United States, Cage began to open up in 1997.

To enter the Southeast Asian and Eastern European markets.

By the year 1998, Cage's international business had taken up 15% of its total revenue.

Also in 1998, Skech announced the formal entry into the sports shoes market and began a positive competition with Nike and Reebok.

In this year, Cage captured the exhibition area of the Atlanta World Conference Center, which was in the former Nike world, with an area of up to 54000 square feet (over 5000 square meters), showing its determination and courage to compete for the sports shoes market.

In 1999, after realizing the changes in consumer tastes, Cage quickly launched a more beautiful and fashionable shoe style called "Skechers Collection" to suit the market trend.

Unlike L.A.Gear's rapid popularity in just a few years, Cage appears to be more slow and steady.

In 1995, Cage's sales amounted to $111 million, and by 1999, when the company went public, its annual sales amounted to $425 million.

Of course, as a whole, Cage's development was still very fast. During the ten years from its establishment to 2002, Cage became a large company with annual sales of nearly $1 billion.

According to its annual data, Cage's rapid growth began in 2013.

In 2012, Cage's annual sales volume was 1 billion 567 million dollars, but in just 5 years, Skech's sales in 2017 had increased to 4 billion 181 million dollars.

In 2008, Skech officially entered China. In recent years, he also launched the sale of "panda shoes".

During the ten years in China, the total retail sales of Cage China increased by an average of 73% annually, while in 2018, the sales target of Cage China was 15 billion yuan.

Fashion opens up. What inspiration does his success bring to us?

Founded in 1992, Skech, only 26, has become a large company with billions of dollars in annual sales.

From the success and failure of L.A.Gear and to the success of Cage, the great influence of the change of market trend on the market of sports brand is fully reflected.

In the analysis of Cage's history, we can see that both the former L.A.Gear and the newly established Skech are inseparable from Greenberg's control over the market trend, which is also the foundation for his success.

In the years since its establishment, Skech has won the market with its somewhat heavy footwear products.

There is also an anecdote to prove his success: during the operation of L.A.Gear, even though the sales performance of the company is growing rapidly, Greenberg still spends a lot of time in shoe store to observe what kind of shoes people buy. After founding Cage, Greenberg's children begin to enter the management level of the company. They often squatting at the entrance of the cinema, watching people walk in and out to observe the type and style of shoes worn under their feet.

In addition, Cage extended L.A.Gear's marketing strategy and invested heavily in advertising.

At the beginning of the twenty-first Century, Cage spent more than ten million dollars a year advertising, which far exceeded the same type of sports Brand Company.

In the Chinese market, Skech's endorsement of celebrities, including SISTAR, EXO, Dou Xiao, Tang Yan, Li Yifeng and Wu Chun, and the seven children and Huang Zitao of Lok Wah, who have recently been officially announced, can also be seen in the marketing efforts of Skech in the Chinese market.

For sports brand market, every one

The changes are all the opportunities for the rise of sports brands, such as Cage, and the trend of leisure sports in recent years.

But as the article begins with, how to grasp the changes in the market trend is the key to the problem.

Greenberg spends a lot of time observing people's purchase types in real time. With the help of the developed data and information system, the current sports brands obviously need not be so clumsy to observe the market trend.

But in any case, an obvious fact is that in the current competitive sports brand market, only the person who first grasps the market trend and responds quickly can get the real opportunity to rise.