Ba&Sh Is Catching Up With Sandro And Maje. It'S Better To Run Faster Than Late.

Paris has always been praised as the fashion capital of the world, and the French style of walking on the streets of Paris has made many women consumers yearn for it. In recent years, the French style has been on the rise in domestic fever. In July this year, the topic of "lazy French dressing" was put on the micro-blog hot search list. In the social media such as bean sauce and Zhi you, you can often see the hot French card and French brand.
Many girls who love French style will not be strangers to a book called "fashion classics of Paris women". The author of this book is In s de la Fressange, a former French model who used to be the first exclusive model in the history of Chanel. It has been a representative figure of Paris's elegant style in the past decades. In her book, she not only shares the secrets of Paris women's beauty and beauty, but also introduces many French brands that are most worth buying. Among them, Ba&Sh, Maje and Sandro are known as three brands that French women will never miss. She commented: "Maje is Rock-Chic, Sandro is good at city Urban (Glam), while Ba&Sh advocates simple French elegance and casual entertainment (Easy Chic)."
Compared with Sandro and Maje, which have entered the Chinese market early, Ba&Sh has not yet won wide popularity among Chinese consumers.
The brand name of Ba&Sh is taken from the names of the two founders -- Barbara Boccara and Sharon Krief. They are a pair of intimate childhood playmates. In 2003, the brand was created to balance the fashion sense and practicality of the costumes and create a comfortable and casual French style. It can not only go to the workplace, but also be suitable for leisure occasions, which is in line with the multiple identities of contemporary women.
In 2016, Sandro and Maje's SMCP group were purchased by Shandong Ruyi group of China for 1 billion 300 million euros, and quickly entered the major shopping malls and electronic business platforms in China, opening up the domestic consumer market and becoming the representative brand of French women's clothing in the hearts of the Chinese people.
Ba&Sh's strategy for entering China is slightly behind. In 2017, it established offices in Hongkong, China, and opened 3 stores. In July 2017, it officially entered the mainland China market, opened the first store in mainland China in Rui o department store in Shanghai, and added the first store in Beijing in Beijing in September.
But coming early is not as good as coming opportunely.
As a strong competitor of Ba&Sh, in recent ten years, Shandong Ruyi technology group, which owns Maje, Sandro, Claudie Pierlot and many French luxury brands, is known for its large number of overseas fashion and luxury brands, once known as the future "China LVMH", but now Shandong's Ruyi is facing a serious debt crisis. According to the announcement recently issued by Dagong international credit rating Co., Ltd., Shandong Ruyi Technology Group Co., Ltd. is facing a lot of financial risks. In addition to the debt paying pressure of 14 billion 984 million yuan short-term interest bearing debt, the 345 million US dollar "Prime Bloom 7.5% B2019" bond issued by Shengmao Holdings limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the group, is also due to be paid in December 19, 2019. However, the group failed to provide sufficient funds and debt repayment arrangements to cover the principal and interest.
The hidden dangers of Shandong's Ruyi management strategy are being fermented, which has created a good opportunity for Ba&Sh to seize the strategic plan of the Chinese market.
Looking back over the past two years, the pace of Ba&Sh's march into China has grown rapidly and rapidly, and 13 entities have been opened up in the Chinese mainland market, and 8 and 3 stores have opened in Hongkong and Macao respectively.
"China will be the next fast developing market after Europe. Ba&Sh will open 30-40 offline stores in China in the next 3 years," Ba&Sh global CEO Pierre-Arnaud Grenade told BoF.
At present, Ba&Sh accounts for 10% to 15% of the world's turnover in the Chinese market, and the brand plan has increased this figure to 33% in 3-4 years.
Grenade believes that China should be regarded as a city group, and the consumption situation of every city is different. He also said that China is a highly concentrated consumer market. China's top four cities occupy 20% of the market share, and more than 50% of luxury consumers are concentrated in 15 cities.
In addition to the rapid layout of offline stores, another major development plan of Ba&Sh is to vigorously develop digital marketing and e-commerce sales channels. Grenade told BoF that according to the survey, more than 90% of Chinese are turning to online shopping mode, which is the highest online shopping conversion ratio in the world. Besides, China's booming social media and a well established e-commerce platform such as Tmall provide a first-class sales and shopping experience for both brands and consumers.
"Pure online consumption accounts for 10% of China's luxury consumption, while Ba&Sh's digital channel sales have increased to less than 15% in the past three years, and we firmly believe that the online sales channel will facilitate the development of the brand," Grenade said. But he also acknowledges that the competition in the electricity supplier industry is fierce and customer acquisition costs are soaring.
He believes that the prosperity of the electricity supplier market does not mean that offline retailing is dying out. He quoted Farfetch CEO Jose Neves as saying: "online sales of luxury goods will reach up to 25% to 35% of total sales, so at the end of the year, about 2/3 of sales will remain online."
Faced with the difficulties and challenges in the real market, the strategy adopted by Ba&Sh is to build a hybrid marketing mode with online, offline and two hands, so that e-commerce channels and offline retail stores can nurture each other and promote the development of all channels.
From 2015 to 2019, the proportion of Ba&Sh's online channel sales increased from 2% to 17%-18%, and the growth rate was remarkable. At the same time, for offline sales channels, Ba&Sh was paying more and more attention to the retail experience and store service quality provided by consumers in the operation of physical stores.
At present, one of the brand's most concerned development goals is how to further enhance the reputation of overseas markets in China. Compared with Sandro and Maje, which have established a distinctive image and reputation in the minds of Chinese consumers, how Ba&Sh can make more consumers understand the uniqueness of brand style and distinguish them from other competitors is very important.
In order to get more consumers' attention, Ba&Sh plans to develop various types of products, expand the price range, and introduce more accessories in the Chinese market, including handbags, shoes, glasses and so on, so that the sales of accessories will reach 30% of the total sales. Ba&Sh hopes that in this way, more young consumers with lower purchasing power will have access to brands and establish popularity and reputation in more diverse consumer groups.
Grenade told BoF that the brand attaches great importance to the development of overseas markets, especially in the Greater China region and the US market. It plans to have balanced business development globally within 3-4 years.
In retrospect, the global expansion of Ba&Sh began in 2015. In February of that year, L Capital, a luxury luxury group LVMH group's private equity fund, acquired Ba&Sh 50% shares and invested more than $40 million for it, which provided sufficient financial support for the international expansion of the brand. In addition, LVMH's professional marketing system and business network enable the brand to grow rapidly and reach consumers and partners around the world. Grenade said that in the past four years, brand turnover and orders have doubled four times, and the turnover in 2019 is expected to reach US $210 million.
For the long-term development of brands, it is particularly important to keep pace with the times and improve strategic planning with the times. In the past, Ba&Sh adopted the two dollar combination mode of "retail + luxury", and now the brand has turned the strategy into a mixed marketing mode of "retail + direct to consumer + luxury", paying more attention to the core values and lifestyle of the brand through the way of facing consumers.
Last year, when Ba&Sh opened a new store in the mainland, it made a very interesting attempt to find KOL in Paris, so that they could make different shapes with the same single product. What is the real French style? Perhaps this kind of dress belief which is confident, straightforward, unlimited and free is the best interpretation of French style.