The source of this article: Times Finance Author: Zhou Jiabao
In the short period from April 22 to now, the two parties involved have issued a number of statements, making this storm a Rashomon with different opinions.
Image source: Visual China
On April 18, Kuaishou Xinxuan anchor "Egg Egg" sold a "YPL sunscreen cool pants" on the live broadcast room, and then was repeatedly questioned by consumers about selling fakes. On the evening of April 22, the YPL brand side issued a statement for the first time on its official Weibo account "YPL Sports Fashion Products", saying that the "YPL sunscreen cool pants" product sold in the live broadcast room was not officially authorized and did not belong to the YPL brand products, and the statement was made for Australia Health Industry Co., Ltd.
As a result, the situation began to ferment on social media.
On the evening of the same day, Xinxuan's official Weibo issued a statement in response, saying that its brand side was Harbin Aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd., and began to verify the relevant link authorization materials provided by the company. In the early morning of April 23, the YPL brand once again responded that some documents mentioned that the trademark registered by "a company in Harbin" was a self-created graphic mark, which was very different from the products sold.
On the morning of April 23, Xin Xuan's official Weibo denied selling fake goods. Xin Xuan said that this incident belonged to a trademark dispute between the brand parties, and the new trademark transferee did not recognize the authorization of a third party. At the same time, we promise to all consumers who purchase YPL products that they can contact customer service for a full refund.
However, the attitude of the YPL brand side is still tough, at noon on April 23, the YPL brand side issued a statement for the third time, saying that the company has never had any business cooperation with Harbin Aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd. proposed by Xin Xuan, and there is no trademark authorization behavior, pointing out that Xin Xuan took out the authorization letter containing the company's seal as a forgery, indicating that it will pursue legal responsibility.
In the afternoon of the same day, in response to the third statement issued by the YPL brand, Xinxuan Group responded to Times Finance, "At present, all parties are negotiating, and the results of the negotiations will give feedback." ”
On the evening of April 23, the YPL brand issued its latest statement: "The trademark licensing dispute involved in the matter of YPL pants promoted by Xinxuan Live Construction without official authorization" has been properly resolved, and the YPL brand side apologizes for the impact on relevant companies, netizens and Mr. Xin Youzhi. ”
Subsequently, Xin Xuan's official Weibo forwarded the above statement, and the "fake goods storm" also came to a temporary end.
Li Jiaqivia also brought goods, YPL what is the origin?
According to the statement of the YPL brand, the yoga pants, which are called "counterfeit", are sold for 63 yuan in the Xinxuan live broadcast room, and the number of sold is more than 100,000 pieces, and the sales amount is more than 6 million yuan.
With the participation of a brother Simba of Kuaishou, 6 million yuan of sales data is not uncommon, but some netizens said bluntly: "I didn't expect a pair of yoga pants to be able to do such a big thing." Many people have also begun to wonder, what is the origin of this YPL brand called Simba?
According to YPL China's official website, YPL is a functional sports brand from Australia, serving hundreds of millions of female consumers with the concept of "Marks Your Body" to help women solve all body anxieties. The main products include slimming pants, beautiful bust vests, sunscreen jackets, sports hats and so on. Among them, pants items such as "puppy pants", "peach hip pants" and "AI pants" are the most popular among consumers.
In Australia, the sales channels of YPL brands are mostly offline mass supermarkets and drugstores. Times Finance inquired that a YPL body-shaping pants slim Legging on the official website of the Australian chain pharmacy Chemist Warehouse was priced at 34.99 Australian dollars, about 165 yuan.
In China, YPL brands rely heavily on online grass planting and live streaming channels, which can be said to be a star live broadcast cooperative harvester.
Times Finance and Economics learned that there are about 5,000 brand content notes containing YPL on the Little Red Book, and words such as "popular around the world", "popular in Australia" and "one by one" can be seen everywhere. According to the investment page of the YPL official website, the super anchor Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi have all listed YPL products in the live broadcast room, and at the same time cooperated with Hu Ge, Zhu Yilong, Wang Jiaer, Mao Xiaotong, Zhao Lusi, Twins, Zhang Junning, Fan Weiqi, Liu Tao, Jing Tian, Luo Yonghao and other stars. In terms of offline channels, YPL has been stationed in Sam's Club, and the star single puppy pants are sold in stores at a price of 89 yuan.
Image source: @YPL Tide Sports Sina Weibo
According to the official website data, in 2018, the annual sales volume of YPL exceeded 8 million yuan, with annual sales of 380 million yuan, of which the sales of puppy pants exceeded 5 million; in 2019, the annual sales of YPL single products exceeded 10 million, with annual sales of 450 million yuan; in 2020, YPL's annual sales reached 600 million yuan (60% in China), of which the sales of Singles' Day alone exceeded 15 million.
Image source: YPL China official website
The hot sales of YPL are a manifestation of the rise of the women's fitness wear track. Looking at the world, Lululemon tried to compete with traditional sportswear giants Adidas and Nike with a pair of yoga pants, becoming a "new giant" rushing out of the subdivision track. The price of a pair of yoga pants is often thousands of yuan, which discourages many consumers, and YPL opens up the low-end consumer market at a more affordable price.
According to the women's sports and fitness data released by iResearch in 2020, yoga is the second largest sport in China after running, accounting for 68%. In 2020, the market size of yoga products in China reached 18.7 billion yuan.
Tmall's hottest products sell only 300 pieces a month, and consumers complain that "wearing a hole once"
Times Finance found that in addition to the official sales platform and some celebrity live broadcasts, the YPL brand also appeared in the market such as group buying, purchasing on behalf of multiple sales channels, and the sales price also ranged from tens of yuan to 100 yuan, the price system was chaotic, and it was difficult to distinguish between true and false. This has also led to the fact that despite the brand's high-profile marketing campaigns, not many consumers really pay attention to the brand.
The tmall international YPL overseas flagship store has only 60,500 fans, which is far from the well-known sports brand. At present, the store comprehensive experience in Samsung and a half, the basic information of the store shows that its location is Guangzhou, Guangdong, the company name is YPL AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, of which the highest sales in the store is a puppy yoga pants priced at 175 yuan, but the monthly sales are only 300 pieces. This also reflects from the side that the traffic of live broadcasting has not really precipitated to the brand.
From the product point of view, YPL China's official website shows that the brand products "focus on women's sportswear, from the perspective of human physiology, the collection of LYCRA FITSENSE technology, Italian seamless weaving process, German microcapsule fat burning technology, Israel NILIT far infrared fiber, intelligent light rod logo and other technologies, so that female consumers wear comfortable and natural, maximize the rate of sports fat burning, reorganize free fat and excess meat, to create a golden waist-to-hip ratio." ”
A senior supply chain person in the apparel industry explained to Times Finance that these technologies are the fabric technologies of some large manufacturers, look at the text introduction, its brand is to integrate some relatively good large suppliers, put into their own products, but wear can not improve the fat burning rate, recombinant free fat and excess meat, the effect is difficult to define.
"If you can really use these big-name scientific and technological achievements to the product side as the promotional page says, it is better, but it is more difficult for the consumer side to judge." And the cost price of this type of fabric is more expensive than that of domestic and Taiwanese fabrics with the same function. The above-mentioned person told Times Finance.
However, at present, many consumers have begun to question the quality of the YPL brand. On the social platform, some netizens complained, "Follow the wind and sea to buy a piece, when practicing squats, the crotch directly broke a big hole." I don't know if I can burn fat, but I died on the spot. Similar reviews are not uncommon on social platforms, and consumers say that the goods bought in The Via live broadcast room will be broken once they are worn.
As early as 2018, the YPL brand was also questioned by some consumers because of excessive marketing traces. A perennial consumer living in Australia once posted that he was very disgusted by the brand's overwhelming soft text publicity, saying that the gimmick of "popularity in Australia" was actually "popular in the Australian Chinese purchasing circle", and he suspected that this was an "export to domestic sales" company.
All indications are that YPL wants to further open up the Chinese market is not an easy task. Lolita, MAIA ACTIVE, Particle Mania, and Jiaoma, which are similarly positioned and focus on the same segment of Chinese local women's yoga clothing brands, are also rapidly seizing the market.
This may have put YPL under pressure. On the official website of YPL China, the information of "Shanda Investment Promotion" is scrolled in the position of the conspicuous head map on the home page, and the scope of investment is also very wide, including "channels at all levels, offline supermarkets, and retail platform agents". On the site's news page, 5 "old stories" from 2018 and 2019 were republished to the page in November 2021.