There is a passage circulating on the Internet that says that if you want to quickly and accurately bruise the other party on the court, as long as you say in his ear that your sneakers are fake, you can kill people in an instant.
Although the passage is false, the reality reflected is true.
That is, in the sneaker industry and even the sneaker industry, everyone attaches importance to shoes, and in this era of "looking at people first looking at shoes", the derived shoe contempt chain ---- wear adie Nike, look down on wearing Li Ning Anta, wear Li Ning Anta, and look down on wearing Xtep 361.
Today, it is no longer important to despise or despise, what matters is the current situation of these domestic sports brands.
Another example is Li Ning's stunning return after going out to plate a circle of gold, opening the trend of domestic product revival; there is also such as 361 degrees, failing to get out of a suitable path in the big wave of sand panning, and slowly fading out of sight. But once, it was also a brand that many people were familiar with, once shoulder to shoulder with Anta and Li Ning, and was one of the four major domestic sports brands.
However, in recent years, 361 degrees has not only been gradually overtaken by Xtep, but also often referred to as the "laggard" by the outside world.
So, how did 361 degrees get lost in "self-help" over the years? How did it step by step become a third- or fourth-tier low-end brand?
Touch quality, discover the future, welcome to 100,000 brand stories of "361 Degrees"
June 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the listing of 361 Hong Kong stocks, but the atmosphere is not very harmonious. In the past year, compared with ANTA, Li Ning and Xtep, 361 degrees have faced difficulties such as sluggish performance, stock price slashing, and brand upgrading, and have become one of the "left behind" in the lineup of the four major domestic sports brands.
According to the financial report, as of February 26, 2021, the market value of 361 degrees was HK$3.68 billion, which was 1/100 ANTA (HK$321.696 billion), 3/100 Li Ning (HK$108.527 billion) and 1/3 Xtep (HK$9.424 billion).
It has fallen behind completely.
At its peak, 361 Degrees had more than 8,000 stores nationwide, making it the third largest sports brand in the country after Li Ning Anta.
The predecessor of 361 degrees is a small factory called "Huafeng Shoe Factory".
The founder is Jinjiang Chendai, Born in 1940, Ding Jiantong.
Speaking of Jinjiang Chendai Town, many people know that it is a "shoe capital", the shoe industry is developed, and many shoe and clothing sports brands have been born, such as "Anta", "Xtep", "361 degrees", "Jordan", etc., and their bosses are basically surnamed Ding, and their ancestors are descendants of Arabs.
More than 20 years ago, Jinjiang Chendai was not yet a well-known shoe capital in the country, but a notoriously poor place. Like most local farmers, Ding Jiantong supported his family by farming, catching fish and helping people carry stones.
Because of his poverty, his four children basically did not study, and all of them went to a nearby shoe factory to apprentice at a young age.
In 1979, when the curtain of reform and opening up opened, Ding Jiantong was almost 40 years old at this time, earlier than the "thirty and standing" period, but there was almost nothing.
However, Ding Jiantong, who had the blood of the Arab ancestors doing business well in his veins, was uneasy in his heart.
Especially when he saw that many people in the surrounding villages opened a small shoe-making workshop.
Ding Jiantong thought to himself, his four children have learned their craft in the shoe factory, and together they can't open a shoe factory?
In Jinjiang at that time, the raw and auxiliary materials and supporting tools of the footwear industry were very full and complete, and it was not difficult to open a shoe-making workshop.
So in 1981, Ding Jiantong cobbled together 2,000 yuan to buy tools and raw materials, plus himself and four children, and a small family workshop for shoemaking was established.
Due to the limitations of the family workshop, at first, they could only produce 5 pairs of leather shoes a day, but gradually increased to 10 pairs. At that time, when everything was scarce, Ding Jiantong rode a bicycle to the surrounding areas, a pair of shoes could sell for 20 yuan, and the output value of 10 pairs of shoes was more than 200 yuan a day.
When selling shoes outside, Ding Jiantong always pays attention to the shoes worn on the feet of pedestrians on the street, often following the heels of others, walking for two kilometers, and when he comes back at night, he can draw the shoe samples and do the same the next day.
In those years, Ding Jiantong painted thousands of shoe drawings as shoe samples. Relying on these self-painted shoe samples, coupled with a little creativity, the shoes produced by "Huafeng Shoe Factory" are always sold without worry, and Ding Jiantong earned the first bucket of gold.
Around 1985, Chinese mainland became popular "tourist shoes", Ding Jiantong seized this opportunity and entered a complete set of tourist shoe production equipment into Taiwan's shoe machine merchants.
Due to the good market in the northeast at that time, this "tourist shoe" brought huge profits to Ding Jiantong.
With the increasing improvement of people's living standards, everyone began to pay attention to fitness sports, and by the end of the eighties Chinese keen to wear sneakers, and foreign major sports brands such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc. have entered the mainland, but although these shoes are novel and of high quality, they are still too expensive compared to the Chinese of that era.
Ding Jiantong, who saw the gap in the market, in 1989, once again decisively turned to the production of sneakers.
In 1990, the sports brand of the same name founded by "Prince of Gymnastics" Li Ning came out and became a hit with its sponsorship of the Chinese delegation at the Asian Games.
Perhaps inspired by "Li Ning", Ding Jiantong also has a hazy brand awareness, he saw the American Buick car "bullet" trademark pattern on TV felt very good, ran to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau to ask the domestic has not registered this trademark, so he registered three "bullet" trademark patterns, in 1994 established Buick (Fujian) Shoes Co., Ltd.
Later, after GM entered the Chinese market, it was found that China actually had a gram sneaker, and the two sides fought for several years.
In 2000, in order to improve the product grade and begin to transform into a brand operation, Buick invited the Chinese national badminton team headed by Li Yongbo as the image spokesperson of the Buick brand.
With the champion image effect of Li Yongbo and a group of world champion disciples, the popularity of Buick sneakers has increased rapidly in China, and from 2001 to 2003, Buick sneakers have ranked among the top three in Sales of Chinese sneakers for four consecutive years.
At this time, the lawsuit between Buick sneakers and GM in the United States also had results, and Ding Jiantong officially renamed the Buick sneakers to 361 degrees under the mediation of the government.
Its sales did not decline due to the name change, but increased by nearly 60% over the previous year.
Since then, the enthusiasm of the domestic sports goods industry has risen year after year, until 2008, 361 degrees hitched a ride on the Beijing Olympic Games, which ushered in a golden period of development.
In 2009, 361 degrees rang the listing bell on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the third Jinjiang shoe company to go to Hong Kong after Anta and Xtep, and opened the road of expansion, quickly opening stores across the country, a large number of goods, and a large amount of investment in advertising and marketing.
At that time, the sports goods industry was in a blind expansion stage, major brands adopted the wholesale model (sold to distributors), and the brand side did not directly contact the consumer market, misjudging the industry and consumers, which triggered the inventory crisis in the industry in 2012.
This year, domestic sports brands have suffered a cold winter, including Li Ning, ANTA, 361 degrees, etc., the company's performance has fallen sharply, homogenized products and limited domestic market, making many brands difficult to operate, the inner volume is serious, and many sports brands are also folded here.
According to statistics, in the first half of 2012 alone, the total inventory of 42 listed garment companies such as Li Ning, ANTA, 361 degrees, and Xtep was as high as 48.3 billion yuan.
In order to adjust as soon as possible, in addition to destocking through discounts and other means, "wholesale to retail" has also become the direction of the company's efforts in the industry.
At that time, ANTA increased the order guidance for dealers, ordering from the original 4 times a year to 6 times a year, and even implemented a single-store order mode to improve inventory problems.
In contrast, 361 degrees is still an order meeting 4 times a year, and many factory stores have set up price reduction promotions, which invisibly reduces the brand image. But fortunately, the children's clothing field of the previous layout performed well, and 361 degrees was a safe crossing.
In 2017, it also surpassed Xtep with a revenue of 5.158 billion yuan, becoming one of the top three chinese sports brands.
However, although it has become the top three in the industry, the gap between 361 degrees and Anta and Li Ning is getting farther and farther.
In recent years, ANTA has successively acquired high-end brands such as FILA and DESCENTE to enhance its own brand image, and has done a good job in strategy and rhythm, making itself successful among the leaders of domestic sports brands.
"Li Ning" focused on brand image improvement, spent a lot of money to invite international designers to work, and single-handedly created the sub-brand of "China Li Ning", opening a new era of "national tide" and tens of billions of markets.
In contrast, 361 degrees, there is no innovation in brand design, no pace with young people, and it is disliked to wear "bargain".
Therefore, in order to reshape the brand and get rid of the earthy taste, 361 degrees began to spend a lot of money on marketing. Not only sponsored the national swimming team and Sun Yang, but also invited a vote of fashion stars to endorse it.
In addition, 361 Degrees has also adopted the marketing strategy of the competition for a long time, and 361 Degrees has appeared as an official sponsor in international events such as the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Unfortunately, these marketing, placed on the current layout of third- and fourth-tier cities, 361 degrees, the crowd positioning is biased, and has not produced any substantial benefits.
Moreover, today's young people buy a pair of sneakers and a sportswear, the first consideration is no longer which conference the brand sponsors, but whether the brand's own product content has impressed me.
Therefore, these marketing at 361 degrees are all hit cotton, and there is no effect.
Marketing did not do right, 361 degrees also missed dividends in e-commerce.
In fact, as early as 2014, 361 degrees set its sights on the e-commerce market, looking forward to accelerating the rush with the help of online traffic entrances. However, in the goods sold online, 361 degrees are all tail goods and offline slow-selling products.
Maybe the person in charge of 361 degrees of e-commerce thinks that I can both clear inventory and sell goods.
But customers are not fools, in the long run, it is equivalent to blocking the entrance to online traffic, some young people who like online shopping, when they think of 361 degrees, they associate it with tail goods, and over time, resulting in a decline in user reputation.
Later, 361 degrees, which realized the problem of e-commerce, also spent a lot of money to make up for it, but the follow-up exposed the problem of poor management of the e-commerce platform and repeated complaints from customers. Today, the number of fans in the 361-degree Tmall flagship store is also far lower than that of Li Ning Anta, and the product description, service attitude, and logistics are also lower than the average level of the same industry.
However, compared with the tepid domestic market, 361 degrees of performance in the international arena is quite remarkable.
Earlier, with the help of the Rio Olympic Games, more than 600 sales outlets were opened in Brazil in 2016.
As of the end of 2019, 361 degrees has 1549, 225 and 827 sales outlets in Brazil, the United States and Europe, respectively. In 2019, 361 Degrees International business increased by 41.4% year-on-year, making it the Group's fastest growing business.
Moreover, 361 degree international line products, with a high reputation in the United States, Brazil and other markets, often in the same frame with Nike, Adi, ASICS and other first-line brands, becoming a frequent visitor in the recommended lists of major sports media.
At a time when everything can be co-branded, 361 Degrees also launched co-branded products with Gundam, Crossfire, Pepsi and Minions in 2019, and also signed the famous basketball player Aaron. Gordon and Kolan Baike. Macan hopes to become more fashionable and attract younger consumers.
Looking at domestic sports brands, most of them have developed in the road of OEM and imitation, and the impressions of "soil" and "low" have been running through its development.
So much so that in 2018, there was also news that Ali engineers were rejected for wearing Xtep blind dates.
However, in recent years, the rise of domestic sports brands is also obvious to all, domestic products, national tide is becoming a new generation of popular fashion, China's Li Ning is the best example.
In front of Zhuyu, we are also looking forward to the 361 degrees that fall behind, which can sweep away the decline and bring everyone a new and amazing domestic brand.