Where Is China'S "Secret"?

According to CNN, in November 22nd, Stuart Burgdoerfer, the chief financial officer and vice president of L Brands, the secret parent company of Vitoria, the world famous underwear brand, confirmed in a conference call that this year's secret show will be cancelled. The 24 year old show has become a memory.

According to L Brands's earnings report, the third quarter's offline and online businesses are declining, which is 8% lower than that of store sales, while online sales are down 6% compared with the same period last year. The total sales in the third quarter decreased by 7.6% over the same period last year. Not only is it facing the problem of declining willingness to buy consumers in the US, it also faces an awkward situation after being transferred to China, so it has to slow down the pace of development in China.

On the other side of the ocean, China is also experiencing problems with local underwear enterprises: the urban beauty, known as the "mainland underwear first stock", has fallen by 79.7% over the same period this year.

Is the women's underwear market, known as the "last piece of cake" in the clothing market, beginning to feel cold?

In fact, it is not.

The underwear history of modern women has been developing for hundreds of years, but the development time in China is only thirty years. According to the statistics of Euromonitor, the retail sales of women's underwear market in China in 2018 was about 161 billion 300 million yuan, up by 7.2% over the same period last year. According to its prediction, by 2022, the market of women's underwear market in China will reach 197 billion 300 million yuan.

There is still huge room for growth in China's women's underwear market.

In contrast to the declining performance of old companies such as urban beauty, the emergence of a new group of women's lingerie brands represented by NEIWAI (internal and external).

It was only 7 years since it was established inside and outside, but it has maintained 5 times of high-speed growth for three consecutive years. In 2017, its sales volume reached 150 million yuan. In 2019, it completed the 150 million yuan C round of financing from Qiming venture capital company, with a post investment value of over 1 billion.

Why?

Before answering this question, we need to take a look at the history of women's underwear.

Women's demand for underwear has gone through a long period. The beauty of men has always been on the high chest and slender waist, so the whale bone waist bra has been born 100 years ago, but there is endless constraint. In order to meet the aesthetic needs of men, women have to endure the almost irreversible pressure from their waist breasts.

In the 90s of last century, the cup shaped bra was swept from the United States to China. Chinese women began to "be beautiful", and the thickened and gathered bra became a hot pursuit in China. The first batch of local underwear brands were established at this time, and their products were mostly concentrated on these underwear.

Entering the twenty-first Century, under the sexy offensive of overseas brand marketing represented by Wei Mei, more fashionable and sexy underwear gradually replaced the heavy mold bra in the hearts of women.

Today, with the improvement of women's educational level and economic ability and the gradual awakening of their self-consciousness, the choice of underwear has been replaced by "women who are pleased with themselves" for "women to please themselves" - a more comfortable steel ring underwear has risen in the market.

According to CBNData's research data, the bra market without steel ring has seen an explosive growth in 2017, and the market size has increased by nearly 50%.

This gives new brands a fertile ground for growth.

The inside and outside is born at this time. Comfort, no steel ring, and simple design, this series of characteristics deeply captured the appeal of today's female consumers for underwear.

Another Spanish fashion lingerie brand, oysho, is also brilliant.

As the advanced version of "no steel ring underwear", Bralette emerged in the market in 2016, and the first burst node in 2017, and maintained a 172% high growth rate in 2018.

Apart from the lack of steel rings, Bralette has also made super thin pads or no chest pads. Compared with traditional underwear, it looks more fashionable and can be worn outside. Its main consumer groups are also 90 and 95, and the number of consumers has increased exponentially after 95.

Oysho is ahead of the list of sales in this field.

After 90 and 95, it has become the main force of consumption. This group has more demand for personalization and comfort, and has created waves in the underwear market.

These emerging brands are catching up with development opportunities.

Taking the inside and outside as an example, apart from doing a thorough job of consumer demand and making a clearer positioning of the brand, it is also worthy of reference to other brands in marketing and sales mode.

A successful brand should be removed from labels, and can be identified by color or shape. Highly recognizable style, unified values and emotional transmission, coupled with the control of details such as packaging, and so on, to maximize the characteristics of the product.

The "2018 China's original design, entrepreneurship and consumption report" released by the first financial data center jointly released by Taobao shows that customers' consumption price on original design products is more than 4 times that of the total commodity consumption, which means they are more willing to pay for original design products.

Inside and outside, we have caught the mentality of consumers appropriately, and have done a lot of work in "design" and "artistic creativity".

In 2018, he organized an immersion art sense with the Sleep No More Dance Troupe. He chose the model Rhododendron, who chose the advanced but with a little alienation, as the spokesperson, and then worked with the chief Tan Yuanyuan of the San Francisco ballet earlier this year, as well as the new director's talented woman.

Every step inside and outside is closely related to the brand values that they want to convey. Its marketing is not only the marketing of products, but also the marketing of the whole brand.

Due to the advent of the Internet era, the impact and opportunities of the electricity supplier for the entire underwear industry coexist.

Online shopping is more convenient, but the experience brought by offline can not be replaced. Inside and outside at this time, we chose the way of combining online and offline. As an e-commerce brand, after reaching a certain scale on the Internet, they switched online and opened stores, and the location of stores was mainly concentrated in the main shopping plaza of a second tier city. The online and offline member departments were fully prepared for the new retail efficiency optimization and user operation.

It is undoubtedly useful to choose this road, and the rate of internal and external re purchase has reached 40%, which is two times higher than that of the industry.

On the contrary, urban beauty and other old lingerie enterprises are not sensitive to the change of consumer demand and unclear brand positioning has become the biggest burden hindering their upward growth.

However, the urban beauty is also seeking a way out. This year, the city beauty ended its cooperation with Lin Chiling, and signed the 95 later floret Guan Xiaotong as its new spokesperson. Whether this measure can produce the effect on the brand younger still needs market and time to test.

Emerging brands are gradually dividing the market share of the original head enterprises, but this is not a bad thing. The growth of emerging power is injecting more vitality into the industry, and consumers can find more suitable products from more choices.

In the future, there will be another underwear brand which is comparable to the once beautiful scenery. We will wait and see.