Wen 丨 e-commerce online, author 丨 Wang Yaqi, editor 丨 Si asked
On the ski slopes, a pretty boy in a fashionable ski suit has only a 50% chance of being a master.
Even the burton AK457, once admired by the party, has become no longer unusual – more and more young people love skiing, and these brands, which were once well-known in niche circles, are beginning to be known by more newcomers. "Equipment" is no longer a yardstick to judge whether the opponent is skilled, nor is it a professional label belonging to the ski god.
But you'll be sure to quickly find a "cute new group" with your like-mindedness: the one with the "little turtle" on the ass, the novice hits 100% of the way. There are also novices who are decent people who question "this turtle is hindering my handsome skiing posture", but they are often persuaded by "people who come over", "When you fall on the snow field with a big ass pier and the tail vertebrae are faintly painful, you will regret the self who hated the little turtle in the first place." "Then before the next skiing experience begins, they'll be back in the arms of the little turtle."
So it was gratifying to hear, and word of mouth spread that the "little turtle" naturally occupied the major ski resorts.
But what is a "little turtle"? Or you can also understand it as a small banana, a small polar bear, a small husky... Enter "ski hip pads, knee pads" on Taobao, and you can get a favorite style - unlike large pieces such as ski shoes and skis with strong personal style, it is a kind of ski protective gear, popularly speaking, it is a commodity that appears to protect the hips and knees. It is very special, in China, this kind of hip guard has been improved by merchants, with a more cute shape and more practical functions.
Near the Winter Olympics, skiing ushered in an outbreak, a number of factories told "e-commerce online", into November since the "little turtle" hip protection order surge, a factory located in Baoding Baigou New City revealed that the current series of goods compared with the same period last year sales tripled, another factory in Rongcheng County said that from the docking point of view, the major ski resorts on the small turtle buttocks demand is very large, the market is not saturated, last winter sold 100,000 sets of hip guards, this year's sales are estimated to increase by at least 30%.
This is a screen-brushing commodity that has captured the boom of the snow economy, and unlike snowboards and snow mirrors, there is a high technical threshold. It benefits from the wisdom of small businessmen, born in the context of the right era, will it be a good business?
01, brush screen "little turtle" buttocks
Hip pads are a commodity that has been around for a long time, but it's not as cute as it was in the first place.
It was originally designed to prevent two types of injuries: one is a low-speed fall impact injury, usually a fall butt pier hit the ground; the other is a high-speed puncture injury, mainly to avoid collisions with other people's equipment, or hit the tree caused by injuries. The former pays more attention to buffering, energy absorption, and shock prevention, mainly for novices, and the latter is actually ordinary in shockproofness, usually designed for veterans who are not very good at falling butt piers, and basically will do innovation in materials, pay attention to anti-penetration and other indicators.
On the e-commerce platform, the two are very easy to distinguish - the buttocks with turtles, bananas and other doll shapes belong to the former, the appearance is full of cuteness, and the price is basically within 100 yuan; the material with silicone sense and the hip pads made into normal pants shapes belong to the latter, and the price ranges from 100-500 yuan. "For beginners, the little turtle is the most fragrant artifact. On the one hand, it is really comfortable, and the other is to warn others that I am a novice please detour. A ski enthusiast commented, "The little turtle occasionally has the function of attracting big guys to teach." ”
Medium: Baby turtle buttocks; Right: Tight pants type hip pads
Who are the people who sell the little turtles? Last year, we reported on the merchants who do ski equipment, one is a comprehensive business, Cold Mountain Ski Equipment, Wanton Ski Equipment Library, etc. are mainly based on foreign brands; the other is the main original brand, such as Nanen, Vector, Nobaday, etc. However, unlike these professional players, most of the "little turtle" buttock protectors are cross-border businesses, mostly toy factories that make plush toys. This is no stranger to them – toy merchants are adept at developing new features for dolls, from air conditioners that can be rolled into a boogie bear doll in a roll, to now a simple improvement that can become a "little turtle" with a hip guard.
"In the beginning, there were customers who came to customize the little turtle." Yang, director of The Tantu Toy Factory in Rongcheng County, told "E-commerce Online" that the popularity of the little turtle buttocks is not very easy to consider at present, and on the Little Red Book, wearing a small turtle to take pictures seems to have become a trend that represents cuteness, and #Turtle Buttocks # contains more than 800 notes. After noticing this phenomenon, Director Yang quickly began to look for more customers, focusing on ski resorts across the country. At present, it has cooperated with more than 30 ski resorts, 3/5 of the orders come from the ski resorts, dealers on E-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Pinduoduo account for 1/5 of the orders, and the rest are 1688 and fragmentary offline orders.
"Although there are many merchants selling small turtle buttocks on the e-commerce platform, I personally feel that there are not many factories that produce this product." Director Yang revealed that from a geographical point of view, orders in the north can account for 3/5, but the growth rate of orders in the south is also obvious. "The demand for ski resorts is very large, many of them ski or take the baby, the loss of hip protection is also increasing, generally a snow season ski resort will enter 2-3 times of large goods." In terms of product styling, another factory director revealed that the small turtle is the most popular, accounting for more than half of the order, and the polar bear and banana are also suitable for the shape of human buttocks, and the small turtle ranks in the top three in sales.
02. Seasonal business from November to January
The small turtle's hip guard is out of the circle, one is because it provides a functional value of safety protection, and the other is that it has a unique emotional value.
The little turtle's hip guard is not a foreign commodity, but the creativity of Chinese merchants themselves. Although the ski economy continues to heat up, the data shows that the current per capita number of skis in China is only 1.6 times, and the probability of converting from a one-time player to a ski enthusiast is less than 1%, which is still a big gap compared with the conversion rate of 5% abroad. The influx of novices dilutes the professional player base, who need some practical entry-level goods, safety is often the first thing they think about, and the need for ski protectors is more urgent.
This demand shows the characteristics of differentiation at home and abroad. There are many consumer feedback, some professional inner hip protection, wearing will still fall very painful - this is mainly because of the difference in climatic conditions, the snow field in European countries to natural snow mostly, the snow is soft and thick, wrestling does not give people a great sense of pain, "little turtle" hip protection can play a limited role, a lack of attention will fall into the snow layer; but the domestic snow field to artificial snow, the thickness of the snow is thin, easy to freeze, more elastic and thick doll-type hip pads, knee pads can well resist the hard ice, protect the tailbone, Knee bone.
The reporter learned that although the "little turtle" buttocks look like a doll with more straps, it is still different from ordinary dolls, which does not mean that it is unprofessional. Generally speaking, its cost and price will be a little higher than that of ordinary dolls.
"First of all, the material needs to add an extra layer of waterproof film, the cost is about 10% higher; secondly, in the process, the general doll can use a flat sewing machine, but it is very thick, you need to buy a new machine, the processing cost will be 10-15% more, and the overall cost is about 15-20% higher." Although the gross profit margin will be a little more than that of ordinary dolls, it is not too high, about 10%. Director Yang said.
In other words, this is still a commodity with a large number of moves, and it also has the problem of a long time of pressing goods. For example, normal plush dolls only need to scale the size of the factory and other proportions, and each model can have enough stock quantities, but the "little turtle buttocks" is a seasonal business, and the business market mainly depends on the winter from November to January. "In order to control the inventory, we will also keep stock but not a lot. Special styles we generally order 1000 minimum, according to the order volume of 1000, the production cycle is about 10-15 days. Director Yang also revealed that it may be due to warehousing considerations, and the rhythm of ski resort replacement has now begun to become a small number of times.
Interestingly, the little turtle's hip pads were only the positioning of the protective gear from the beginning, and gradually began to extend some emotional value. Ski novices wearing "little turtle" hip pads do not mind blackening themselves at all, and posting black photos of "falling on all fours" has also become an interesting thing on the road to ski learning. Previously, actor Lin Xinxin had posted a ski photo of his "turtle shell protective body" and commented: "The big god definitely does not bring a small turtle, it is a cute new soft sister." This remark was also laughed at by fans as "hinting at their own soft cuteness" and "Lin Dog is really afraid of falling". With the heating up of the ski economy, the industry has gradually had the ridicule of "learning to ski to advance by falling on the butt pier".
03, homogeneous track
But is skiing really all about falling? With a small turtle, can you not be afraid of falling?
Professional snow friend Li Ran said that wrestling is difficult for beginners to avoid, but it is still necessary to protect yourself as much as possible during the skiing process. "You can't rely on the protective gear, you have to learn how to touch the ground, how to turn, how to collect strength, and really improve your skills." Otherwise you can't do without the little turtle, just like the swimming circle, it should be an advanced item. "As mentioned earlier, the small turtle buttocks are more to deal with the impact injury of low-speed skating, and the current rapid growth of the market is partly due to the increase in ski novices, but it is not the same magnitude as the market size of skiwear and skis.
According to the U.S. Snow Sports Industry Association, the U.S., which averaged 55 million skiers a year, had a total retail sales of $4.3 billion, or about 27.5 billion yuan, in the ski personal equipment market in 2016/17. Among them, clothing products account for the majority, accounting for 65%; equipment products account for 29%; accessories products account for only 6% - and, novices are often difficult to cultivate a real love of skiing, Ctrip theme tour platform head Zhang Yi once said that the current ski tourists 80% are beginners, more than 90% of the average 1-2 times a snow season.
Ski equipment is very well classified
Under the experiential ski economy, the biggest beneficiary of the "little turtle" buttocks is still the ski resort, after the purchase of individual consumers, if the frequency of use is not high, they will choose to sell it twice on second-hand platforms such as idle fish, but the price will often be cut in half. In contrast, the economic benefits brought by a hip guard in the ski resort are much higher, and the rental price ranges from 30-60 yuan, such as the small turtle buttock guard of Tianjin Panshan Ski Resort is 60 yuan / set / time, and the factory price on 1688 only needs about 20 yuan.
Compared with ski clothes, the consumption frequency of ski buttocks is lower, and snow friends will buy multiple ski suits because of novel styles and different color systems, but hip guards do not have such consumption potential. And because the "little turtle" buttocks protection has a low entry threshold, it also means that its core competitiveness is not strong, and homogeneous commodities are flooded. But its rise is still worth learning from - the "Little Turtle" buttocks is a product launched by merchants after combining the development stage of the ski industry and gaining insight into the differentiated needs of domestic consumers. There are many capabilities required, including industry observation, market judgment, population classification and commodity innovation.
In fact, this is also in line with the logic of market development: the head brand innovates in goods, technology and technology, and the domestic ski brands that have emerged in recent years have vectors that cut in from the perspective of women, and there are GOSKI that is moving closer to the professional direction; but under the head, small and medium-sized businesses also have their own business experience, and they can find the entry point of subdivision in the huge consumer trend, which is also the unique feature of Chinese businesses. In the highly developed environment of e-commerce, the high sensitivity to business opportunities allows them to quickly find and even create opportunities for consumption trends, which may be the most valuable business spirit.