Driven by the Beijing Winter Olympics, China's ski industry has entered the fast lane, and the consumption of ski equipment has continued to heat up, attracting many brands to accelerate their layout. In the competitive landscape of domestic and foreign brands "scuffle", domestic brands are temporarily inferior to foreign brands, behind this, what is the gap between domestic ski equipment brands and foreign brands, and where is the future growth space?
Ski equipment consumption is hot
Near New Year's Day 2022, Bai Kuan (pseudonym), a snowboarding "enthusiast" who has been at Chongli Ski Resort for more than a month, is willing to return to Beijing. This is the eighth snow season of Bai Kuan's contact skiing, and this year he has bought a new nitro ski for about 4400 yuan.
Although Bai Kuan calls himself an "atypical ski consumer", according to the Beijing News Shell financial reporter estimates, Bai Kuan's existing set of ski equipment expenditure is more than 20,000 yuan. In addition, Bai Kuan also told the Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter that according to the frequency of updating the equipment once every two to three years, the expenditure on each update of the equipment is more than 15,000 yuan. Even so, in Bai Kuan's view, compared with real ski enthusiasts, his investment in skiing is nothing at all. Among the ski enthusiasts he knew, there were not many people who changed several snowboards in a snow season.
Visitors can experience speed and excitement on the ski slopes. Figure /IC PHOTO
In addition to Bai Kuan, Chu Feng (pseudonym), who has just entered the ski circle, is still a novice and is also considering starting to equip. According to the "2021 Ski Circle Layer Study" report released by Yien, about 53.6% of users are likely to buy products with ski elements. According to Jingdong platform data, last year's double eleven ski category self-operated orders increased by 23 times year-on-year; Tmall platform data shows that in 2021 double eleven, ski product sales increased by 120% year-on-year, women's ski clothing, parent-child ski products sold well. The Beijing News shell financial reporter searched on the Xiaohongshu platform and found that the notes of netizens on ski equipment were shared as 30,000+, and the content mainly involved the sharing of ski equipment, snowboard equipment raiders, ski clothing purchase strategies, etc. of novice Xiaobai and enthusiasts.
The price is not cheap, entry-level equipment from 3000 yuan
From head to toe, ski enthusiasts generally need ski clothing, quick-drying clothes, ski socks, gloves and other clothing accessories, safety equipment such as snow goggles, helmets, protective gear, and large pieces of equipment such as snowboards, fixers, and snowshoes. There are more equipment to configure and more options. At present, the brands available on the market include low-cost brands such as Decathlon, professional sports brands Archaeopteryx, Desant, etc., professional ski sports brands phenix, rossugnol, burton, salomon, nitro, bogner, as well as luxury brands LV, Dior, Burberry, as well as domestic sports brands and even cutting-edge brands Nanen, vector, goski and so on.
The price of ski equipment.
From the price of the e-commerce platform, in the ski equipment, the price of quick-drying clothes, ski socks, gloves, protective gear, etc. is cheaper, ranging from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan, but starting from snow mirrors, helmets, snow suits, snowboards, the price is from 100 yuan, 100 yuan is the normal price, tens of thousands of yuan of snowboards, snowsuits, snowshoes are not uncommon. According to the burton Tmall flagship store, the price of adult ski suits is between 1698 yuan and 6498 yuan, and the price of adult snowboards is 3498 yuan to 6098 yuan. But on the Taobao platform, a limited edition snowboard of Burton has a price of nearly 40,000 yuan, and the AK series of ski clothes is priced at nearly 20,000 yuan. Bai Kuan told the Beijing News Shell financial reporter that in recent years, Burton's AK series of ski suits has been a mess. According to reports, a pink AK snowboard suit originally priced at 3,000 yuan to 4,000 yuan was once speculated to tens of thousands of yuan.
"Most of the experiential skiers start by renting equipment, and the general ski package includes the cost of renting equipment, but in fact, buying equipment is not as expensive as imagined," Bai Kuan said. Although beginners can buy a full set of ski equipment from Decathlon at a relatively low price, the Beijing News Shell financial reporter estimates that it will cost 3,000 yuan to purchase a set of entry-level equipment in Decathlon. Bai Kuan said that Decathlon is indeed cheap, but for skiers, most of them will not choose Decathlon after normal contact with skiing.
ski. Figure /IC PHOTO
Bai Kuan told the Beijing News Shell financial reporter that in the field of skiing, the equipment corresponding to different ways of playing is different. The snowboards used in the Beijing ski resort are very different from the snowboards used in the "wild snow" in Xinjiang. In addition, different snowboards and snowshoes, fixers are also different, they must be adapted to each other, if the replacement snowshoes and fixers do not match, you need to buy equipment.
International professional ski sports brand "influx"
The popularity of ski equipment has led to a rapid growth in market size. According to the "2021-2027 China Ski Equipment Industry Market Development Model and Strategic Consulting Research Report" released by Zhiyan Consulting, the market size of China's ski equipment industry in 2014 was 3.22 billion yuan, and by 2020, this figure has increased to 12.69 billion yuan, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 25%.
Against this backdrop, many new players have entered the game. According to enterprise investigation data, as of November 2021, there are nearly 6,700 ski-related enterprises in China, and the number of registrations in 2019 reached 936, an increase of 8% year-on-year. From January to November 2021, a total of 1206 related enterprises were added, an increase of 61% year-on-year. Tmall New Life research found that ice and snow consumption has become an opportunity for new domestic brands to overtake in curves, and the number of new ski-related brands on Tmall will increase by 2 times year-on-year in 2021, and new brands will rise rapidly. Among them, vector, an original skiwear brand from a foundry, was established in 2016 and has stood out in recent years, once squeezing into the "Top Ten Generation Z Favorite Ice and Snow Brands List" with the domestic cutting-edge ski brand Nan'en. Backed by the 16-year-old Cold Mountain Group, Goski launched goski originals, a national tide snowboard brand, in November last year.
Sports brands such as ANTA and Li Ning have also been wrong. In addition to the Shangxin ski series, ANTA also acquired the operating rights of Desante in China (excluding Hong Kong, China and Macau) in 2016, and acquired Amalfon Sports in 2018, which owns the Swedish ski brand Peak Performance. In addition, Sanfu Outdoor, Pathfinder, and Bosideng also competed to enter the game, and Bosideng signed an agreement with the German ski brand Bogner at the end of 2021 to introduce and jointly operate brands such as bogner in China in the form of a joint venture.
At the same time, foreign brands that have focused on skiing for decades have also poured into the Chinese market. Burton, an American snowboarding brand that entered the Chinese market in 2002, with the rapid development of infrastructure construction in China's ski market, began to invest heavily in 2019, and has opened stores in Beijing and Shanghai. In November 2019, the American high-end professional ski brand Spyder announced its entry into the Chinese market; in October 2020, the Norwegian ski sports brand Helly Hansen entered the Chinese market; from November to December 2021, the German high-end ski brand Bogner and the Austrian ski sports brand Head landed their first directly operated stores in Beijing. Tmall data shows that more than 50 international brand agents and offline brands have been invited to settle in, and many new products have been launched.
In addition, international luxury brands are also targeting the Chinese ski market. According to the Tmall platform, in 2021, nearly 100 fashion brands, including Prada, will sell ski sports equipment on Tmall luxury products, including clothing, helmets, snowboards, etc. It is worth noting that the capital market has also seen this blue ocean market. In April 2020, Hillhouse Capital established a joint venture with the American snowboard brand Burton, and Aoxue Culture, which was established in 2014, completed two financings in 2021 after launching two ski brands, "Zero Summer" and "Nobaday".
In the view of Yang Dajun, the initiator of sustainable fashion China SFC, foreign brands have entered the Chinese ice and snow market, mainly because they have taken a fancy to the Beijing Winter Olympics, an important promotion platform. From the perspective of the global ski sports market, China's ice and snow market has a lot of room for development in the future, which is also a point that many international brands value.
Foreign brands occupy the consumer layer of high-end products, and cutting-edge brands still need time and technology investment
At present, the domestic ski equipment consumer market is in the "scuffle" of domestic and foreign brands, in Bai Kuan's view, although the discussion and attention to domestic brands in the ski circle have increased in recent years, the choice of high-end products is still dominated by foreign brands.
Yien research report once pointed out that China's ski market is mainly experience-oriented skiers, most of the online high-sales ski brands are domestic brands, the unit price of commodity customers is moderate, and the sales of goods within 500 yuan are the best. This is related to the habit of consumers who prefer to buy basic ski accessories online and "hardcore" equipment offline. However, the Beijing News shell financial reporter noted that in the vector Tmall flagship store, the highest price of ski clothes is 1358 yuan, and the highest price of snowshoes is 1069 yuan, which is only the starting price in the same category of burton products.
Domestic consumers currently have a high degree of recognition and demand for imported high-end ski equipment, which may also be the basis for foreign brands to pour into the Chinese market. The "White Paper on China's Ski Industry" released by mob research institute pointed out that China's ski equipment market has long been occupied by foreign brands, and domestic brands are still in the early stage of development. China's ski equipment enterprises have long been based on OEM and agents, and there are problems such as low profits in the production process and limited development of their own brands.
Ski boots. Figure /IC PHOTO
Bai Kuan said that the ski equipment independent brand has gradually developed in the past two years, and many domestic ski equipment companies have followed the rhythm of foreign brands to make a little money. Yang Dajun believes that the professional ski equipment market has a high entry threshold, such as ski wear, and many domestic companies have the advantages of ski clothing fabric technology and anti-freeze and cold protection technology. Bai Kuan also pointed out that the high cost of fabrics has also become one of the constraints for many domestic ski equipment companies to enter the high-end market. "High-end products, do not succeed once, the company may directly go out of business, but starting from the low end, try two or three years are wrong, may be the fourth year can get up." As long as it can get up, the enterprise has the possibility of survival and growth. ”
Based on the high-end and niche market of ski sports, Yang Dajun said that he was not optimistic about the development of domestic professional ski sports brands. Skiing is a niche branch of outdoor sports, and the development of enterprises specializing in outdoor sports will not be very good, such as the north face, Colombia and other internationally renowned outdoor sports brands, in fact, they are also taking the route of daily life or outdoor activities, rather than the professional equipment route. Many outdoor sports brands that were born and developed well abroad have also expanded the field of urban sports in order to survive after entering the Chinese market. In addition, the niche, professional and high-end characteristics of the ski equipment market require patience, technology and staying power to do this market, and it is not realistic to break out in a short period of time and obtain huge benefits in the market, unless it is a life sports or non-professional sports products, this direction is also the future growth space of domestic professional ski equipment enterprises that Yang Dajun is optimistic about.
Yang Dajun also pointed out that driven by the Beijing Winter Olympics, more and more groups of professional sports such as skiing are being promoted, especially with the rise of young ski groups, in the next decade, the group will grow and develop, and skiing is changing from a niche trend to a popular trend, which will be a market that any brand cannot ignore.
As a ski enthusiast, Bai Kuan is more optimistic about the domestic cutting-edge ski equipment brand. He believes that the domestic cutting-edge ski equipment brand has just begun to do, the team, technology, production line, distribution channels, etc. need to be slowly established, the brand culture also needs to be slowly precipitated, and high-end fabrics need to be developed at expense, which takes time.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Wang Zhenzhen
Edited by Li Zheng Proofreader Liu Jun
Photo Beijing News reporter Ni Ping Drafting, IC PHOTO