How Can We Catch The Business Opportunity After 95?

In recent days, many people's circle of friends is being cleaned up by a piece of news: "the shoe business has exploded."

At the end of the past 7 months, GOAT, the global head office platform for sneakers and trend trading, announced its entry into the Chinese market in Shanghai. In the first half of this year, China's local fashion shoe online sales platform "poison" and nice received a new round of financing.

According to the prediction of sports brand giants and the international tide shoe trading platform, China's market is growing rapidly and will replace the United States as the world's largest market for footwear.

The consequent "materialization" of the second-hand shoe market is bringing opportunities to domestic shopping centers.

Will the sneaker culture usher in the third outbreak in China?

The shoe culture is a byproduct of hip-hop culture, which originated in New York in 70s.

Hip-hop dress is free and loose and combines many sportswear design elements. Fashionable and comfortable sneakers have become the symbol of hip-hop culture. With hip-hop culture gradually getting rid of the stereotype of poor culture and being widely accepted by whites, the sneaker culture has also entered the public view.

1985, Nike used the celebrity effect for the first time, named AIR JORDAN series sneakers with Michael Jordan, and made the "banned events" of NBA shoes in NBA by ingenious marketing means. It created a lot of topics for Michael Jordan and AJ series, and finally aroused people's concern and pursuit of the sports shoes.

The second outbreak of sneaker culture is in Japan.

As a country with a high degree of acceptance of European and American culture, Japan appeared many sports shoe enthusiasts in the late 80s. With the popularity of the legendary basketball cartoon "SLAM DUNK" in Japan in 1990, the culture of sneakers is also sought after in Japan.

Meanwhile, with the help of the trend publications such as "smart" and "COOLtrans" founded by artists such as Teng Yuan Hao, Japan began to develop an endogenous sneaker culture, making it a unique cultural symbol from foreign products.

According to the prediction of sports brand giants and the international tide shoe trading platform, China's market is growing rapidly and will replace the United States as the world's largest market for footwear.

It can be predicted that after the United States and Japan, the culture of sneakers will usher in the third outbreak in China.

Second hand footwear market is taking off

The success of the AJ series has made Nike aware that the sneakers have changed from consumer products to a very popular cultural symbol for young people. Therefore, Nike began to provide limited supply of sports shoes products, create its scarcity, and endow the sports shoes with the value of collection, thus giving birth to a huge two level market for sports shoes.

The two level market of sports shoes has gone through the following development stages.

In 90s, the second-hand shoe trade was carried out on a large scale on eBay.

At the beginning of twenty-first Century, online trading brand stores, offline second-hand shoe boutiques and online social networking platforms shared the second-hand shoe market in the United States.

The online second-hand shoe trading brand originated from eBay, such as Flight Club, set up offline stores, as a middleman to connect buyers and sellers, to provide real estate service for shoes, to make up for the lack of credibility in online shoes transactions, and to charge a commission price of 20% for profit.

There are fewer secondary shoe stores originating under the line, and stores are developing at a slower pace. More successful examples, such as Extra Butter boutique, have only opened two stores since its establishment in 2007, and have provided footwear for casual footwear enthusiasts.

Over the same period, the online social networking platform, led by Facebook, has become another main channel for second-hand shoe trading.

The upper reaches of the second-hand shoe market are branding parties. Nike, Adidas, Converse and other giants monopolize the supply of second-hand shoes. The middle market of the second hand footwear market is mainly made up of second-hand shoes trading APP, second-hand shoes wholesale shops and boutiques under the line. These sales channels are directly directed towards downstream fans.

At present, the market of second hand footwear shows a large scale and fragmented channels worldwide.

Take the United States as an example, the size of the second-hand shoe market is up to tens of billions of dollars. Besides the StockX, GOAT, Flight Club, StadiumGoods, Extra Butter boutique and other second-hand shoes trading platform, there are also a large number of individual sellers in the social platform, second-hand shoe market and sports shoes exhibition.

After 95, "explode" the development of China's second-hand shoe.

In the economic period, people's material needs are greatly guaranteed, and the demand for enjoyment and entertainment will increase. China has experienced economic development in the past 40 years. At this stage, people's demand for entertainment is rising.

In the past two years, China's "hip-hop", "new Chinese rap", "this is dunks" and other domestic variety shows have become an outlet for people's entertainment needs. The popularity of these programs has also led to the spread of sneakers culture.

At present, the number of domestic shoe trading platforms such as poison, nice, cargo identification and so on, the volume of users is rising rapidly, ranging from 300~800 million, bytes beating to tens of millions of investment in tiger flapping, and Tencent's renewal of NBA exclusive broadcast rights, and other events, it also indicates the growth potential of sports in the future, and the potential impetus to the market of sports shoes.

Domestic shoe consumers are mainly Z generation (who are born between 1995~2010).

Z generation grew up in the period of China's rapid economic development and soaring Internet industry. Its unique personality, distinctive social role and diversified information access channels affect their consumption decisions.

The abundance of material life makes them more concerned about spiritual and cultural life and has a higher sense of self. When making purchase decisions, 95 are less influenced by external factors, and more willing to think independently, paying more attention to the cognitive and emotional value of product transmission, rather than functional value.

Sneakers in hip-hop culture are "different" and are an expression of rebellion, which is in line with the 95 personality. The current culture of shoes has diversified channels of communication, which affect consumers after 95, and many trading platforms have formed a multi touch connection with them.

Consumer groups, consumer demand, market environment continues to climb, the global head platform stationed - all of which may indicate that the domestic secondary shoe tide is coming.

Opportunities for physical businesses: the lower reaches of the sneakers business line

As early as 2005, there were some second-hand shoe trading shops under the eBay steering line in the United States. At that time, the main driving force for retailers to move under the line was to make use of the real service to make up for the lack of credibility in eBay transactions and to satisfy consumers' demand for genuine second-hand shoes.

At present, the online platform has the ability to provide real service, so it is not the main reason for its reputation to go down.

The demand for offline community operation and the trend of electronic business entities may be the driving force for the transfer of second-hand shoes.

The commercialization of e-commerce is a worldwide business trend. There are Amazon, Showfields and other e-commerce platforms or brand entity stores abroad. New retail stores such as Tmall, vip.com, NetEase and other electronic business platforms are emerging one after another.

Over the past 5 years, some of the online consignment APP has been concentrated. StockX and GOAT have already planned to set up a physical store to provide efficient footwear trading platforms for the tide footwear enthusiasts in the region to form a highly viscous and fashionable culture community.

Therefore, it is self-evident that the emergence of the sneaker culture brings the circle operation opportunities to shopping centers.

There are at least three opportunities for domestic shopping centers.

Predictably, there are at least three opportunities for domestic shopping centers to be excavated under the line of second-hand shoes.

1., seize the opportunity of online platform materialization, and accurately touch young customers.

The advantage of online shoe selling platform is that the big data technology can bring accurate capture to target customers' consumption behavior and accurate touches in marketing. Through online data interpretation of consumption accurately, online platform can accurately match customer needs in online offline scenarios, and increase consumption conversion rate.

In addition, the online platform is good at using big data tools and social media to achieve precise touch while forming fission spread of consumers, and constantly bringing young customers to the entity business.

2. introduce the second-hand store which originated from offline, and acquire highly loyal consumer through mature mode.

The retailers who originated from offline are hard to form the long tail effect of the electronic commerce platform, and the types of tide shoes are relatively few. These retailers usually choose to dig deep in a niche, accumulate high viscosity fans, form a strong cultural identity community, and transform these highly loyal members into private brand consumers.

For the shopping center, the second hand shoe retailer, which originated from the offline market, has a mature operation mode, and has created a highly loyal basketball enthusiasts community with its own brand. The introduction of mature offline mode reduces the operational risk of shopping centers, and can create differential competitive advantages.

Take Mita Sneakers in Tokyo's Ueno area as an example. It focuses on retro footwear. Besides traditional shoes, it also includes Diadora, LeCoq and other niche brands. It has gradually developed a retro quality positioning because of deep ploughing in the vertical field of antique shoes. Nike, New Balance, Reebook and other major brands have jointly sold products with Mita Sneakers.

3., through the sports shoes exhibition, the shopping center detonating traffic volume and obtaining economic benefits in a short time.

Besides the online and offline retailers, there is another important marketing channel for shoe market.

The influential shoe show can bring together a wide range of individual sellers, bringing together tidal shoes scattered in social networking channels and not easy to enter the consumer's perspective, triggering large-scale participation of wave fans.

Sneaker Con, launched in 2009 in the US, is the biggest event in the world. In 2019, Sneaker Con landed at the West Bank Art Center in Shanghai. It gathered 45 brands of large numbers of individuals from home and abroad, and displayed and sold second-hand sports shoes. Tickets for 200 yuan were sold out in a few minutes, attracting 20 thousand participants in 3 days.

The sub culture exhibition is the marketing trend of the shopping center at present. Creating the immersive wandering experience and diversion for consumers is the two main purpose of the sub culture exhibition, and the main function of the shoe show is diversion. Shorter shoes, usually 2~3 days, are more "flash" than other common subculture exhibitions. They can gather fans of tide shoes and detonate traffic in a short time. Besides, the audience is very clear and stable. Therefore, the second-hand shoe show has a high long-term value.

Besides, shoe exhibitions can also bring direct economic benefits to shopping centers. At present, the introduction of international famous IP exhibition centers by shopping centers is more expensive, and the introduction of domestic original IP will result in homogenization. For shoe show, sellers all over the world can provide a steady stream of second-hand footwear products to avoid the risk of content homogenization, and bring more direct benefits with their trading attributes.