Aiming At Men'S Hand-Made Shoes Market, Leeward Island Wants To Make Shoes Platform With High Cost Performance.

In China, the production and demand of men's shoes are at the forefront of the world. According to the forecast of China's report hall, the sales scale of China's men's shoes market will reach 184 billion 181 million yuan this year, and will maintain a 7% growth rate in the future.

Lee island is a brand of men's hand-made shoes. Its target customers are 25-55 year old, middle-aged and high income men. Founder Andy explains that this part of men usually plays an important role in society and family. Career development to a certain extent, such as high-end business people, urban white-collar workers and so on, has a higher demand for quality of life. Shoes are a rigid demand.

However, Andy believes that there are relatively few channels for men to choose and buy shoes in China: European famous brands are well designed and have strong texture, but often the price is very high, leading to a decrease in their performance, and European footwear is usually not suitable for Asian feet. Traditional domestic brands are at a disadvantage in design, workmanship and materials.

How to make male consumers buy shoes that are "good-looking, good quality and comfortable" at higher cost performance? This is the main problem that leeward Island wants to solve. For this reason, leeward Island mainly provides two kinds of products and services:

1, finished hand-made shoes: Lee island and upstream brand suppliers and designers docking to establish cooperation, get the source of goods, for sale. In the aspect of style selection, the main players are hand crafted shoes, which focus on design and texture, and are suitable for business, leisure and other occasions. In addition, the leeward Island independently produces and develops the middle sole of human foot arch shoes to ensure comfort. The general price of finished shoes is between several hundred yuan and 2000 yuan.

At present, the supplier matrix of Lee island includes: 10 domestic brands, and a stock turnover cycle of "purchasing orders - getting goods" for about 1 months; 3 foreign brands, the inventory turnover cycle is 90 days, compared with the domestic cost; and 2 brand designers, Lee Feng island design and docking factories for their production, sales, and complete the profit sharing. In addition, the leeward island will also dock new suppliers through orders, exhibitions and other channels.

2, custom service: leeward Island collects the special needs of guests, such as styles, colors, sizes and leather materials, and gives some customized suggestions. Shoemaking factory gives cost price, leeward Island raises price on this basis, make profit.

Custom service can be divided into two types: one is semi custom, fine-tuning is based on the fixed design model, the time is shorter, the average price is about 1000 yuan, two is the whole customization, the design, the selection and the proofing are all following the customers' needs, the labor cost is higher, and the average price is 2500 yuan left and right. Besides, leeward island will provide guidance and lifelong free nursing service to every customer.

In warehousing, leeward Island rented a small shared warehouse in Shanghai, less than 10 yuan, which is easy to pick up goods and get goods quickly. The rent is 1000 yuan / month. One of the partners of its custom service is shoe factories located in Nantong, which provide warehousing free of charge. Suppliers who cooperate with them also provide inventory, plus 5-10 yuan for each pair of shoes.

Andy explained that leeward island is now trying to build a supply chain partnership mode: relying on its grasp of market and customer needs and preferences, the order is delivered to factories and suppliers in small quantities and batches. Through profit sharing, cooperation with factories and suppliers, including sharing pressure on warehousing and meeting the needs of "innovative design", is achieved. Lightening, reducing inventory and developing to online mode are the future directions of leeward island.

Andy believes that the advantage of Lee island is "quality and low price". Compared with the big brands in the market, the current production mode of leeward Island eliminates several intermediate costs, so the price is lower: offline stores are mainly used for customer reception, location is far from the busy market, rental costs are relatively low, marketing and publicity costs are low, and after-sale services hardly cost.

However, is the target group of leeward Island really a big demand for hand-made shoes? Andy said that they can not accurately determine the authenticity of the demand, but are testing through market data and customer views, and then adjust products: for example, if more than 20% of the customers want to have a pair of fringed shoes, then the leeward island will be appropriately renewed at the next stage. And then make an assessment based on sales volume.

In June last year, the shopping mall on the Lee island was online, and its business volume and its offline experience shops accounted for 50%. At present, the turnover is about 3 million yuan a year, gross margin is about 60%, and the number of paying customers is over 1000, of which 10%-15% is foreign customers, and the growth rate of customers and revenue is about 10%/ months. The rate of withdrawal is 0%, and the customers who purchase 2 times and above account for 50%.

The Lee island was launched in October 2017 and completed in September 2018. There is no financing yet, but there are financing plans. Team founder Andy, who is a continuous entrepreneur after 90 years, has more than 5 years of Internet experience and has many years of career buying experience. At present, the supply chain of leeward island has been affected by the epidemic. However, it has gradually started to resume work: all businesses have been transferred to the online market. For the customers of customized shoes, the feet data of the "foot mud" express launched by Lee Feng island have been collected to ensure that the business is advancing. In the future, leeward island will further optimize and upgrade the supply chain, build design teams, and expand more channels for increments.