Focus On The Market: How Long Is The Era Of High Gross Profit For Down Products

Every time the temperature drops suddenly, down jacket is bound to rush to hot search.

In the past years, there was a long queue, and a canadian goose with a price of more than 10000 yuan overturned. This year, due to the return problem, the topic of "happy to mention" was hot. Down jacket from Chinese brand orolay, with its fashionable and waterproof characteristics, has set off a whirlwind in the United States. Not only is it out of stock on Amazon. Com, but New York's fashion guru and magazine editor are all in one. Bosden, another Chinese brand, has stepped into the "old brand counter attack", "domestic high-end representative" and "fashion transformation", and has become another "favorite" under the national tide.

Netizens self-made "down jacket disdain chain" spread on the Internet.

But they can't really define the down jacket Market. Down jackets with thousands and tens of thousands of yuan are still the consumption Carnival of a small number of people. You know, In China, the penetration rate of down jacket is only 13% Although the streets in winter are full of puffy down coats, taking off the inner lining of the coats may be the brand beyond the public opinion's sight.

Duck, xuezhongfei, Yalu, ailei, qianrengang... These traditional mass brands seem to be "tears of the times" in the public opinion field, but in the real down jacket Market, they still hold up half the sky.

　　 The era tears of down jacket

If the time goes back to the 1970s, it is the beginning of the domestic down jacket Market.

This kind of coat, which was born in the United States in the 1930s, was completely out of fashion at the beginning. It was only because of the development of quilting technology that down could be filled into the coat, and the down jacket which could be lighter and thinner than the cotton padded jacket and wool coat was created, which opened a new door to the world of warmth.

The earliest down jacket manufacturers in China can be traced back to 1972. In that year, Jiangxi Gongqing down factory, the predecessor of duck down jacket, showed up at the Canton Fair with 750 pieces of "duck duck" brand down vests, all of which were bought by Canadian manufacturers. After the "first shot of down jacket in China", 70% of feathers in Guangdong, Shanghai and other places were sent to Gongqing down and down factories for processing in the 1980s. Since then, the production of down products has formed an industry in China.

It was also in 1972 that the sewing group of Guangming knitting factory, the predecessor of Yalu down jacket, was born in a village handmade workshop. Also in Jiangsu Province, the sewing group, also supported by eight tailors, gave birth to the later bosden. Looking back on the development process of down garment enterprises in China, it is almost the same as all textile industries that they have gone through from state-owned textile factories to private enterprises and then embarked on the road of branding.

Driving a car in line to buy down jackets has become a unique scene of that era. Ducks and ducks "sell 100000 down jackets a day", which has not been broken until now.

To a large extent, down jacket has become a symbol of the substantial improvement of living standards. People finally do not have to put on heavy military coat and uniform cotton padded jacket in winter. Colorful down jacket gives more relaxed and comfortable feeling.

With the development of market economy, down jacket has really opened the brand process. In 1992, Dongfang down factory changed its name to "qianrengang". In 1997, Ailey was born in Lishui. In 1999, xuezhongfei brand was born. Including duck, Yalu, bosden and other traditional down jacket brands, but also in the wave of marketization in the 1990s to achieve brand privatization transformation and upgrading.

Many of the memories of the 80s and 90s children's down jackets started from this stage. Duck and Ailey once occupied the popular mind of urban girls. After 2000, the local down jacket brand entered the golden age, bosden is one of the best. Through horizontal expansion, bosden has established a brand matrix including xuezhongfei, KangBo, Bingjie, Shuangyu and Shangyu, taking nearly 40% of the domestic market share.

This also means that there are not many opportunities left for other brands, especially with the rise of fast fashion brands such as Zara and UNIQLO, as well as the rise of various fashion brands, the down jacket Market has been constantly segmented. Duck, Yalu, Ailey and qianrengang have gradually disappeared from the mainstream line of sight, so that they have entered the domestic market with Canadian geese, The share of those traditional down jacket brands has dropped again and again, which has become the tears of the times.

　　 Freshmen in the studio

The tears of the era lost their voice for a period of time are now active again, and the biggest driving force behind this comes from the live broadcasting room.

This summer, duck's snow mountain live room went out of the circle. The anchor, dressed in brand down jacket, explained hard on the cold snow mountain. The audience watched the live broadcast scene in the hot summer weather. Such contrast and performance in the live room made many netizens sigh that it was "the ceiling of the goods yard". According to the data, since the first live broadcast on August 16, a total of 16 live shows were broadcast, and the total sales volume on August 30 and 31 was 827000 yuan.

At the same time, xuezhongfei also achieved the second place in the category of women's clothing on the fast hand live broadcasting platform. In one month's time, the account number of fans reached 90000. In the opinion of the person in charge of the live broadcast of xuezhongfei, different series of down jackets have different regional customer groups, and each platform has its own style: The platform with many users in southern China is suitable for selling light and thin items; The extremely cold series down jacket is thicker, which is more suitable to be sold on the platform with more users in the north.

In the choice of live broadcast content and goods, although xuezhongfei mainly sells men's clothes, she also chooses female anchor, which undoubtedly takes into account the important factors of women as consumer decision-makers; In terms of product positioning, the prices of products with relatively high customer price have been reduced. In addition, the low price has attracted users. For example, the down jacket with the original price of 699 yuan is only sold for 399 yuan in the live room.

After watching several live studios of similar brands, "e-commerce online" found that "low-cost second kill" has almost become their traffic code, and the price of medium and long down jackets can even reach 199 yuan.

(on the left is Yalu official flag live broadcasting room, on the right is ailei official flag live broadcasting room)

For these old brands, finding new outlets in the live broadcasting room may have hit two points:

　　 First, as a down jacket with seasonal, functional and fashionable features, the anchor can create a more suitable sales field for down jacket by using the function of live broadcast and explanation in ice and snow;

　　 Second, the pricing space of down jacket is very large, ranging from 10000 yuan to several hundred yuan, which gives the live room more flexible price rights and interests, and the limited time seconds will be more attractive.

The new opportunities brought by live broadcasting for old brands are actually the migration of the entire down jacket brand to the online profile. In an interview, the person in charge of duck e-commerce mentioned that the proportion of online sales has reached 60%, and most of the transactions are realized in tmall.

The person in charge mentioned that although a snow mountain live broadcast has brought about a circle breaking effect, the greater significance lies in adding powder, and the actual pulling effect on sales is not strong. Live broadcast on the content platform and live broadcast on the e-commerce platform mean two directions. The former may be able to find more accurate people, but the latter is a bigger business.

　　 Don't be the next bosden

Who will be the next bosden? It seems to be a new proposition after the old brands are renewed.

Judging from the movements of ducks, ducks and Yalu flying in the snow, they will not make the next bosden. One is that it is not easy to be bosden, and the other is that it is not necessary.

According to the financial report in the first half of this year, bosden achieved revenue of 5.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%. The growth mainly comes from down jacket business and high-end strategy. Rui Jinsong, President of bosden brand division, said that in terms of price promotion, it will continue to go up in the future, which should reach more than 2000 yuan. At present, the main price of bosden has reached 1500-1800 yuan.

However, it is not easy to get the word "high-end". Bosden once danced on the tip of a knife. From 2013 to 2017, the cost of bosden kept rising due to the strategy of branding, four seasons and internationalization, and the net profit of bosden decreased continuously in the past four years. In 2016, its share price even fell to HK $0.14.

When fashion week, celebrity endorsements, and Antarctic scientific research team, these pronouns began to be bound with bosden, which brought high marketing costs. Bosden financial report data shows that the distribution expenditure including advertising and publicity expenses, depreciation of right of use assets and other contents in 2020 / 2021 fiscal year is about 4.807 billion yuan, an increase of 12.4% year-on-year. On the other hand, the biggest effect of high-end is to increase the high premium and gross profit rate. Bosden's gross profit rate has reached 58.6% in 2021. The 61.9% gross profit margin of Canadian geese in fiscal year 2020 is only one step away.

However, the contrast is that from the online sales situation, the style with the largest number of buyers is still around 1000 yuan, and the number of people paying for down jacket with more than 2000 yuan is very few. According to the financial report data of Northeast Securities, 72% of bosden's retail outlets are located in the third tier cities and below.

For duck, xuezhongfei, Yalu, ailei, whether it is worth investing a lot of effort to copy bosden's way is a big question. Down jacket is seasonal and difficult to wash. In addition, due to its durable property and style limitation caused by the demand for warmth, it is still low-frequency consumer goods. If you want to expand SKU and take the four seasons route, the inventory crisis we are facing can not be ignored.

Duck e-commerce director said duck hopes to continue to strengthen its brand mind and continue to plough in the down jacket line. "High quality and cost performance" is its important direction to stabilize the basic price of 600-800; Through the design and marketing to reach younger people, the former brand 30-45 years old consumer group accounted for more than 90%, now 25-30 years old consumer group has increased to 18%.

It is positioned as a young and cost-effective xuezhongfei. From the perspective of product classification, it will highlight the series of IP co branding and top-notch goods in the market, which will better fit the preferences of young consumers. Moreover, it will expand from down jacket to bottoming T-shirt and jeans casual pants that can be worn in all seasons.

Different from bosden's "high-end" brand, it is easier for us to see their "younger" strategy in these old brands. From cheaper prices to more diversified IP co branded designs, they all point to younger people.

For example, in 2018, Ailey also took part in the popularity of Paris fashion week, but there was no more voice in this regard. On the contrary, this year, the government announced Guan Xiaotong as its spokesperson, again tying the label of youth.

　　 Opportunity to roll out

From offline heavy channel to heavy online operation, it seems that the old down jacket brand has found a self consistent position in a more cost-effective space. But at present, it is limited to the sales mode

1. Broaden the sales radius, seize the focus of the live broadcast room, so as to have the opportunity to be seen;

2. Consumption will always be divided. You can't afford to buy high-end down jacket. As long as it is cheap enough and can be marketed, there will be opportunities.

It's just that it's hard to say if they're stable and if they can find the lost market, the answer is still floating in the air. In the cost-effective market, there are UNIQLO and other competitors that can not be ignored. The production and marketing mode of domestic down jacket is still factory + OEM Pinghu, Jiaxing, undertakes 80% of the production and processing of domestic down products. The industrial belt connected by e-commerce also means the rebirth of factory goods. Orolay is a very representative factory brand in overseas fire. Relying on a variety of famous imitations and attractive prices, orolay has achieved the top sales of Amazon down jacket in a few years. To some extent, like sheen, one of the success factors of orolay lies in the ultra fast response of the supply chain.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, orolay, who claimed not to be a domestic market, began to move on from foreign trade to domestic sales. "E-commerce online" found that orolay had opened a tmall store with commodity prices below 1000 yuan.

For the old brands, such competitors will only be more and more in the future. When businesses open the e-commerce battlefield, it is bound to increase the flow cost on high-speed lines. Down jacket brands need more refined management, thinking about how to directly connect with consumers, how to take traffic from the public domain, and become the core assets of their own private domain.

And this year's market situation has become more special, the overall price rise trend of raw materials, down raw materials have not been spared. An industry source told e-commerce online that, At the beginning of last year, the price of down was 130000 / T, but now the price of down is nearly 400000 / T 。 In the case of doubling the cost, it is a problem for the brand to continue to maintain the "cost performance".

(photo from down gold net)

How high is the profit of a down jacket? A person in the industry calculated the cost of 300g down is about 120 yuan, and the cost of accessories, processing and design will not exceed 340 yuan, so the cost of good down jacket is about 500 yuan. When it comes to retail terminals, factory stores generally sell for 600 or 700 yuan, and those with a little bit of brand name sell for about 1000 yuan. If there is a brand premium or designer cooperation, it can sell for two or three thousand yuan.

The high gross profit of down jacket has become the industry consensus. Some people in the industry have said frankly that only relying on down products can support 1 / 3 or even half of the sales volume of a brand. Therefore, more and more clothing brands have launched corresponding down jacket items. Even ape counseling has to cross-border to do down jacket. Maybe it is just the rich ore behind that that.

The rise of Guochao is an opportunity for the rise of many domestic brands, especially in sports outdoor brands. Bosden is not the only one in the down jacket Market who can share the cake. Duck and duck signed a contract with "China and China" not long ago, trying to find a breakthrough point in marketing. Xuezhongfei has also expanded the design concept to "meta universe". Besides bosden, this cost-effective market is about to start a new market reform.