The Price Of "Made In Korea" Made In China Can Be Doubled By 7 Times.

If we regard Korea as a brand, its added value must not be underestimated in fashion industry at least.

In June 19th, the Korean media Yonhap reported a news about the Korean designer's brand tampering with the label of product origin, which was investigated by the Korean customs.

According to relevant reports, a senior designer brand in South Korea, which has not been disclosed, will buy "made in China" garments imported from China in the wholesale market of Han Guodong gate or imported from China. It will be forged into a Korean made dress with "Made in Korea (Korean made)" logo through the scissors and changing bid, and will eventually be sold under the banner of designer brand.

Specifically, the brand involved the sale of T-shirts priced at 10 thousand won (59 yuan) from the east gate wholesale market, priced at 60 thousand to 70 thousand won (about 354 yuan to 413 yuan), and then sold in Korean high-end department stores; and a coat imported from China for a price of 270 thousand won (about 1592 yuan) was marked by the price of 1 million 300 thousand won (about 7667 yuan).

According to the data released by the Korea customs, the brand sold 6946 products imported from China from June 2017 to March 2019, which were labeled "made in Korea", involving a sum of 700 million won (about 4 million yuan). At present, the relevant suspects have been arrested and will be fined 44 million won (about 260 thousand yuan).

It is worth mentioning that in the fashion industry, the OEM is not a new thing. China has been the first generation site for many European, American and Japanese brands since 1980s. It is in the past 20 years that "Made in China (made in China)" is known to the world with its brand tag and exported to all parts of the world.

The reason why the above news is of great concern is that the relevant brands deliberately erase the "Made in China" imprint. Instead of making use of the "Made in Korea" label, it makes it really "reasonable" to earn more money.

Under normal circumstances, regular OEM products imported and exported according to law will not erase the origin information. And the brand strengthens its "Made in Korea" characteristics, which can bring several benefits to it: first, it is exempt from paying import duties; secondly, it can make use of the high labor cost represented by "Made in Korea" to rationalize its high pricing; and more importantly, it can further improve the product's value by borrowing the premium of the national brand that may be brought by "Made in Korea".

In fact, from 1960s to 1980s, Korea also relied on the vigorous development of the labor intensive industries such as textiles and leather processing, to achieve rapid economic growth and create the miracle of "the four Asian dragons". At that time, "Made in Korea (made in Korea)" is not fundamentally different from those made in China these years.

Only when entering the 1990s, with the development of economy and the increase of per capita wage level, South Korea's development of labor-intensive industries no longer had the international competitive advantage, so it chose to spanfer the low skilled and heavy labor industries such as garment manufacturers to foreign countries, and focused on the development of high value-added industries in China.

This is why, if we replace the labels made in China with those made in Korea, we can get more room to float on the price tag. Whether domestic consumers or foreign consumers can understand the high cost of labor, the same quality of goods can be priced correspondingly.

Korea's design, culture and creativity related industries have been booming since 1990s. For example, the first generation of Korean Korean icons with Asian or even global influence can be traced back to the active H.O.T in the late 1990s. For example, Samsung Group launched the "design revolution" within the enterprise in 1996, and constantly expanded the number of professional design staff.

After 2000, the Korean government issued a series of policies to support the development of cultural and entertainment undertakings. These policies have directly contributed to the surge of domestic design professionals in the Republic of Korea, and constantly strengthened the talent pool of literary and creative talents, and the cultural products including Korean hallmark, music, film and television works have been more widely spread around the world, so that the Korean fashion and design works are promoted, and the strong output of the overall aesthetic concept is promoted. The most typical example is that the popularity of the Korean drama "you from the stars" in the whole Asia has directly led to the so-called "star you" clothing and shoes, lipstick, foundation liquid and other products in Asia and even worldwide.

A direct result of these efforts is that perhaps in many industries, such as in the fashion industry, consumers may still not be able to name too many Korean brands. But when it comes to the two word "Korea", consumers will think that these brands can represent cutting-edge fashion and can represent a trend.

This is consistent with the national brand index report released in 2014 by the global brand research and consultancy company "Futurebrand" in five years. The report showed that Korea ranked third in all Asian countries, lagging behind Japan and Singapore.

In the future ranking of the list, South Korea's national brand value is projected to rank among the world's top three in the five year cycle of 2019.

From this perspective, it is not difficult to understand why a brand wants to change a birth identity for the product.