Image source: Figureworm Creative
On February 20, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics officially came to an end.
The 16-day schedule, 9 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze, a total of 15 medals, China ranked in the top three of the medal table for the first time, creating a new history.
The Winter Olympics is not only a field for athletes to shine, but also a catalyst for domestic ice and snow equipment manufacturing enterprises.
As the only sportswear brand among the official partners of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Anta hugged the thighs of the event and frequently searched for hot searches. In the capital market, anta sports revenue is comparable to Moutai, according to the double stock price calculation, the ten-year stock price is more than 100 times.
When the major well-known brands rely on the Winter Olympics to obtain a double surge in traffic and sales, what changes have taken place in the ice and snow equipment manufacturing factories that rely on exports hidden behind the scenes? How will those brands that have successfully gone abroad position themselves in the rich mine of the ice and snow economy?
01 The ice and snow industry that is moving in response
Undertaking the opportunity of the Winter Olympics, the domestic ice and snow equipment industry has responded to the call.
The veteran ice and snow domestic black dragon ice knife has re-entered the overseas market after 10 years, and the company has received orders from Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries. Founded in the 1950s and 1960s, the skate shoe brand ushered in its long-lost second spring with the Winter Olympics.
Coincidentally, with 2015 (Beijing's successful bid for the Olympic Games) as the watershed, the demand for ice and snow sports has increased year by year, which has shown signs of a rise in domestic ice and snow manufacturers, and has created a highlight moment in the ski market.
Internally, the effect of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" has fully emerged, and the demand for various equipment orders has blown up, bringing fire to a number of new domestic brands.
According to enterprise investigation data, as of November 2021, there were nearly 6,700 ski-related enterprises in China, and 936 were registered in 2019, 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.
Ski apparel brand cutting into the female market Vactor, with the help of flexible supply chain rapidly rising, the establishment of 3 years to break through 30 million, with the "white and thin" product characteristics to capture a lot of hearts, brand consumers 85% are women; originated in the original brand GOSKI, which originated in Xueyou Social, gradually moving closer to the professional direction, with the help of millions of APP users, in February 2021 got 20 million financing, its snow chain brand Lengshan has 27 direct stores in the country, Annual sales of 100,000 singles.
Similarly, well-known brands such as ANTA and Li Ning have also frequently amplified their moves and continuously enriched their product lines. In 2016, ANTA acquired the operating rights of Desante in China (excluding Hong Kong, China and Macau, China), targeting the high-end market, and as of the end of 2019, it had nearly 150 offline stores. In addition, head outdoor brands such as Pathfinder and Bosideng also involve ski equipment. At the end of 2021, Bosideng signed an agreement with the German ski brand KGaA (BOGNER Bogner) to introduce and jointly operate brands such as Bongner in China as a joint venture.
Externally, thanks to the advantages of China's supply chain, domestic equipment manufacturers have supported the huge demand overseas.
The number of domestic ski goods merchants on AliExpress has increased by nearly 50% in the past year. In the past year, consumers in 100 countries and regions around the world have purchased Chinese ski equipment on AliExpress. From Iceland in the north to Chile in the south, there are Chinese ice and snow industry brands.
Factories in the front line have also eaten the dividends of the ice and snow economy.
Wang Yi, who has been engaged in the sales and production of ski gloves for many years, told Hugo cross-border that during the snow season (the end of November to the beginning of March), the factory shipped about 100,000 pairs a month. And in recent years, the overall revenue of enterprises has maintained an increase of about 20%, and most of the cooperation is Amazon, AliExpress and other cross-border platform brand sellers, the seller's product price on the platform is usually 3-4 times the ex-factory price, and the overall profit is still considerable.
"Due to the expansion of business, the company is currently preparing to build a factory in Hunan, batch orders will be produced and sold in Hunan, and the factory in Guangzhou mainly takes some urgent orders." Wang Yi added.
As an important exporter of ski gloves in the world, there is not only a factory-type seller like Wang Yi who fights alone, but also a huge industrial cluster.
Jiaxiang County, located in Jining, Shandong Province, is an important domestic glove export industry belt, the county's ski glove exports account for nearly 80% of the country, the annual output of gloves more than 6 million dozen, annual sales of 1.5 billion yuan, with thousands of glove products production and processing capacity and more than 60 patented products.
From the perspective of the entire ski industry chain, not limited to ski gloves, ski clothes, ski tools and other products for sub-classification purposes are also made in China. It is reported that the world's high-end high-end high-tech rubber waterproof painted fabric outdoor ski wear is basically produced in China; The snow goggles produced in China occupy more than 80% of the global market, in addition, the origin of snowboard snow boots is basically all located in China.
02 "Take both ends" Chinese factory
Some of the ski equipment coming down from the assembly line is crowned with the name of the Chinese brand, and the other part is continuously delivered to foreign professional ski brands.
Take Burton, an old American ice and snow equipment brand, for example, the brand has said in a public interview that by 2018, most of its skis are made in China, while some of the more high-end product lines are produced in Austria. This is also found from the official website, the data shows that Burton's snowshoe production factory is located in Chenzhou, Hunan, the departmental snowboard factory is located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and the fixture factory connecting snowshoes and snowboards is located in Shenzhen, Guangdong.
When Su Yiming's stunning appearance at the Winter Olympics climaxed on social media, Burton earned enough eyeballs in front of the stage. During the Winter Olympics, the brand became the ski equipment brand with the highest comprehensive index of Douyin, and the traffic and sales of Burton's Tmall flagship store both soared. At present, the online price of Burton's popular products skis is mostly in the range of 3000-6000 yuan, and the overall sales volume of the brand accounts for 30%-40% of the entire Chinese ski equipment market. In the Little Red Book, many ski lovers' first snowboards came from Burton.
And this is not just an isolated case, Oakley, Giro and other internationally renowned snow mirror brands have production lines in China.
Ski brands with patented technology with intellectual property rights take advantage of China's strong supply chain and low labor costs to further improve product profits. According to industry insiders, the gross profit margin of brand skis and ski clothes is about 40%-50%, and the gross profit margin of helmets and snow mirrors is as high as 70%-80%, which is much higher than other consumer goods.
Photo / The global ski market is still dominated by European and American countries, of which the Alpine countries are the most mature Source: IRSMTI
Overall, the global ski equipment market has long been occupied by foreign professional ski brands, coupled with the low popularity of domestic skiing in the past, the overall market is small, the related infrastructure facilities are not perfect, and most factories are exporting, always with some "involuntari" meaning.
Xu is not satisfied with the status quo, in addition to the goal of longer-term transformation and upgrading. At this stage, many Chinese factories subject to brands have also begun to explore the possibility of more sales in order to obtain more substantial revenue.
Wang Yi told Hugo cross-border that due to the high degree of overlap between ski accessories and some outdoor consumer goods, many export factories in the industry have extended their products to outdoor sports such as cycling, rock climbing, and orienteering through cross-industry.
For example, factories that make snow suits produce cycling clothes, and manufacturers that make ski helmets engage in motorcycle helmet production. Wang Yi revealed that in addition to ski gloves in his factory, motorcycle gloves are also an important category, and compared with ski products with seasonal restrictions, the characteristics of such cycling products "evergreen in all seasons" make its sales radiation area wider and no longer limited to latitude.
The growing outdoor sports market is giving Chinese factories new growth points. According to statista, the global outdoor sports market will reach $236.34 billion in 2025. In recent years, the high attention of global consumers to "health" and "exercise" has made outdoor sporting goods explode on major cross-border platforms, and the demand for goods in various categories has grown rapidly.
In this regard, industry insiders admit that skiing alone, an extension of the vertical market, is no longer enough to feed Chinese factories that rely on single products to win.
The reason for this is twofold. First, from the perspective of market volume, the global ski market has stopped growing for a long time. According to the Global Ski Market International Ski and Mountain Tourism Industry Report (IRSMTI), there has been almost no new ski resort in traditional skiing countries over the past decade. Second, as global temperatures rise, ski resorts around the world are experiencing shorter seasons and increasingly unpredictable snowfall, and the future is even more uncertain.
Although in the past 10 years, the number of skiers worldwide has stabilized at 400 million per year. But behind the stability is the result of the slow decline of the traditional ski market and the growth of the emerging ski market offsetting each other.
03 The domestic market of "Clash of the Gods"
Different from the traditional ski market in the twilight period, riding on the east wind of the Winter Olympics, China's ice and snow industry has entered the fast lane, and the huge demand has supported the trillion market space, which is becoming one of the most potential emerging markets in the world.
According to the "2021 China Ice and Snow Industry Development Research Report", from 2015 to 2020, the total scale of the mainland ice and snow industry will increase from 270 billion yuan to 600 billion yuan. The "2016-2025 Ice and Snow Sports Development Plan" requires that by 2025, the total scale of the mainland ice and snow industry will reach 1,000 billion yuan, and skiing will become a new hot spot for domestic winter tourism consumption.
Consumer brands have always been extremely sensitive to market trends, and some domestic brands that have successfully gone overseas have also turned the bow of the ship and actively participated in the domestic market after seeing the rapid growth of China's ice and snow market.
On December 6 last year, OutlookMaster, which opened the European and American markets with ski goggles and set a record for the highest annual sales of more than 400,000 pairs of ski goggles online, announced its return to the domestic market.
As one of the earliest domestic brands to go overseas, OutlookMaster's product line, founded in 2015, covers sub-categories such as ski goggles, ski helmets, pulpboards, and electric skateboards. With a high cost performance, many products have been listed on Amazon's Best Seller list and received excellent user ratings with an average of 4.7/5 points.
In addition to online access to Amazon, OutdoorMaster has also built its own brand independent station, the data shows that the official website members have exceeded one million, while offline stationed in the main U.S. ski resorts a total of more than 50 stores, covering more than 10% of the U.S. market ski users.
Photo: OutdoorMaster brand official website
The continuous improvement of the brand's overseas voice has allowed OutwardMaster to expand its business to Europe, Japan and other regions and countries. To date, ski and snowboard helmets have been sold more than 500,000 times worldwide and more than 1 million pairs of ski goggles.
In this Beijing Winter Olympics, OutdoorMaster has become the official supplier of the American ski team, and has cooperated with more than ten professional skiers to continuously create momentum for its brand through marketing activities, trying to achieve both domestic and foreign blossoms.
Compared with the stride forward of brand owners, factory sellers also have their own anxieties when they turn to the domestic market.
When asked whether to open up the domestic market, Wang Yi replied: "Now the domestic ski equipment market volume is very impressive, the prospects are also very good, we are not without considering the domestic market. However, domestic consumers are usually extremely sensitive to price, and the fact is that the ex-factory price of our products is already the price on the domestic e-commerce platform. And the retail side has a retail side of the game, in this regard, we from the factory, the innate gene is insufficient. ”
At the same time, with the continuous influx of foreign professional brands focusing on skiing, domestic competition has become increasingly fierce.
As early as 2019, the American high-end professional ski brand Spyder announced its entry into the Chinese market; in 2020, norwegian ski sports brand Helly Hansen also officially entered the Chinese market. In 2021, the German high-end ski brand Bogner and the Austrian ski sports brand Head have landed the first direct-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. Some international ski brands have also leveraged the domestic market through "marriage" with local brands, and Chinese consumers are more willing to pay for their brands.
I have to admit that although the 7-year Winter Olympics course has given domestic brands more exposure, it has not brought much status improvement in essence. Because the domestic ice and snow industry as a whole is still in the cultivation period, the industrial base is weak, and the domestic equipment is generally in the middle and low end, there is still a big gap compared with the mature ice and snow consumption brands abroad, which is far from enough to change the market pattern. With the "invasion" of foreign brands, in the future, under the market pattern of "god scuffle", large and small small and medium-sized brands will also face a new round of impact, and the industry reshuffle will intensify.
Obviously, when the highlight of the Winter Olympics is absent, domestic ice and snow equipment manufacturers want to "long-term peace and stability", and the obstacle is long.
(Wang Yi is a pseudonym in the text)
Material reference:
1. "Ice and Snow Equipment Rising up on the momentum (Towards the Winter Olympics and Revitalizing the Ice and Snow Economy)"
2. "In the production of ski equipment, "Made in China" is an absolute gold medal"
3. "7 Adults only ski once a year, how does Burton make a big market?" 》
4. "The Winter Olympics ignite consumption, is China's ski industry chain ready?" 》
5. "Ski resorts blow up the "equipment fever", how much does it cost to go from snow goggles to snowshoes? 》
6. "Stepping on the outlet of the Winter Olympics, overseas brand OutdoorMaster wants to expand the domestic market"