Interface News Reporter | Huang Shan
Interface News Editor | Lou Wanqin
The latest content in Sun Hefang's Xiaohongshu is a video recording a commercial for a milk powder brand in the third trimester. The shoot later appeared on the advertising page of the fashion magazine Vogue. Also in 2023, she also shot a campaign for skincare brand Clarins. Sun He Fang can often be seen on many occasions such as fashion week runways and fashion publication events.
But Sun is not just an opinion leader in fashion or lifestyle — on Xiaohongshu and Weibo, Sun has attracted more than 500,000 followers.
Her most important role is that of the founder and designer of HEFANG Jewelry.
Sun Hefang, founder and designer of HEFANG Jewelry
From a graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London to a jewelry brand owner with a 2,300-square-meter sea-view office in Zhuhai, Guangdong, Sun He Fang spent 13 years.
In September 2023, HEFANG Jewelry Headquarters officially moved into a Grade A office building in Zhuhai. Sun He Fang said in an interview with Interface News about the relocation that maybe one day someone will share "a day of working in HEFANG jewelry" on social media such as Xiaohongshu.
He Fang Sun has put a lot of effort into shaping his personal brand and corporate image, and his experience working in a fashion magazine seems to have given him a stronger sensitivity to content marketing.
Founded in 2012, HEFANG jewelry is a local light luxury jewelry brand that has developed quite brightly in recent years, its products emphasize original design and fashion style matching, and the price of jewelry accessories is more than 1,000 yuan, benchmarking Swaroski Swarovski, Pandora Pandora, APM Monaco and other well-known international light luxury jewelry brands.
Up to now, HEFANG Jewelry has opened nearly 60 brand stores in first-tier and second-tier core cities in China, mainly located in high-end business districts such as Beijing SKP, Shanghai Port Hui Hang Lung, International Trade IAPM, Chengdu IFS and so on. Sun Hefang's goal is to increase the number of brand stores to 70 by the end of 2023.
Regarding the annual revenue of HEFANG jewelry, Sun He Fang did not disclose the specific figure, but she initially said that there were "several hundred million", and then limited the scope: "less than 500 million." ”
HEFANG jewelry snowflake collection
HEFANG jewelry resort collection
In contrast to Pandora, a Danish luxury brand well known to young Chinese consumers, Pandora's China revenue was about 2.13 billion yuan in 2019, which will drop to about 750 million yuan in 2022, and these revenues come from Pandora's 240 stores in China and digital channels.
The light luxury market has been visible to the naked eye in the past three years. Consumer spending habits have changed, and when consumption becomes more cautious, light luxury brands are the first to be affected.
During this period, many first-tier shopping malls carried out a major reshuffle of the settled merchant portfolio, and some light luxury brands withdrew due to poor store performance, including Swarovski, Pandora and other light luxury brands closed their stores. These foreign luxury brands are struggling to optimize their store portfolios in the Chinese market, and the hidden dangers of overexpansion have been exposed after the epidemic.
Some emerging light luxury jewelry brands have opened stores against the trend, and HEFANG jewelry is one of them. Sun He told Interface News frankly, "Their reduction of stores is an opportunity for us to expand. ”
From 2018 to the first half of 2023, HEFANG Jewelry opened a total of 55 brand stores in important business districts in many parts of the country, most of which opened during the three-year epidemic, including heavy luxury shopping malls such as Chengdu IFS and Beijing China World Mall.
"It sounds like we've been growing for the last three years, but in fact, we planned to have 70 stores in 2022." Sun He Fang said.
HEFANG jewelry brand store
From only online direct stores to complete offline cloth stores in 21 provinces, HEFANG Jewelry took four years. Prior to this, HEFANG Jewelry first opened e-commerce direct stores on Tmall and JD.com for two years. To some extent, this experience saved Sun He Fang and his team some trial and error costs of opening a store. Sun He Fang recalled that it was precisely because of the accumulation of a lot of user data on e-commerce and the clearer customer portrait that the brand decided to open physical stores from 2018.
Opening a physical store means a huge cost investment. In addition to renovations and rent, there are expenses such as store staff salaries and training costs, and it often takes several years to grow from a new store to a full-fledged store that makes money. This places great demands on the cash flow of the brand.
In the fashion and luxury market, the rapid expansion of brands depends on two paths: one is to invest in large groups with strong financial resources, rely on their rich channel resources to expand rapidly, and value medium and long-term financial returns; The other is through fundraising for hematopoiesis, followed by rapid expansion. Brands that rely on the latter path may be able to achieve independence after a certain stage of development, and at the same time increase valuation after forming a certain scale, and investors obtain benefits after exiting at one stage, which is theoretically a win-win situation.
BUT HEFANG JEWELRY GOES DOWN NEITHER OF THESE PATHS. With nearly 60 stores in four years, HEFANG Jewelry has never raised a single amount of money from the capital market. "What I want at the moment will be self-sufficient for the time being." Sun Hefang told Interface News, "We don't actually mind financing, we just need a good timing and reason." It's just that there is no strong need for financing at the moment. ”
Sun He Fang is by no means self-made, and she does not hide this. Sun Hefang is a native of Zhuhai, Guangdong, and his family is engaged in jewelry processing and foreign trade export business. The accumulation of more than 30 years of family business has subtly influenced Sun Hefang's entrepreneurial choice. Sun mentioned that when she was eleven or twelve, she decided to study jewelry design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, "This option was learned from my mother's British guest." ”
HEFANG jewelry white iris sugar cube ring earrings, full of stars ring
Back in 2009, Sun He Fang completed his studies at Central Saint Martins and plans to return to China. At this time, she was more than two years away from founding the HEFANG jewelry brand. Looking back now, the development of this jewelry brand coincided with the rise of new local consumer power.
That year, the most famous luxury brand in the local market was Austrian crystal brand Swarovski, while Pandora had just entered China through regional agents, six years before APM Monaco opened its first brand store in China.
At that time, the Chinese jewelry market was far from mature, but intergenerational consumption differences had already emerged. Exactly what was the difference between fashion accessories and jewelry was not clear to consumers at the time. But when the older group still loves to buy gold jewelry to preserve its value, the younger generation's pursuit of personalized accessories has sprouted. Foreign light luxury jewelry brands let them see fresh, different designs, buying them to catch up with fashion, but not stretched.
The battle for light luxury jewelry brands had not yet entered the white heat at that time, but Sun He Fang had already seen a gap in the market. "After I returned to China, I found that there are relatively few silver jewelry or K gold jewelry with a sense of design in the Chinese market, and there are no light luxury brands with a sense of design." Sun He Fang recalled.
Sun He Fang believes that domestic consumers must also have the need for personalized expression, and stylized jewelry designer brands will have a place. This judgment is not all intuitive, Sun He Fang feels that the years of professional study in London and the niche light luxury accessories brands all over Europe have already sampled in her mind, she knows what heights jewelry designer brands can achieve, and can even look "especially like those exhibition-level big jewels." ”
"And such a product was not available in China at that time." Sun He Fang recalled.
The opportunity to start a business is already in front of you. Moreover, Sun Hefang had a complete jewelry manufacturing supply chain from the beginning to help her realize her dream of building a brand.
This is a luxury for some recent jewelry or fashion designers. Young designer brands should learn the rules of the industrial chain as soon as possible and build a stable supply chain, which is a matter of survival. Supply chain linked costs are ultimately implemented in product quality and pricing. Creativity is not lacking for fledgling designers, but suppliers willing to support their development are a scarce resource.
Talking here, Sun He Fang lengthened the pronunciation of each word, and frankly had an independent supply chain "too! Close! Key! Finish! "This means that the brand has loose account dates, stable quality control, rapid response to changes in demand and inventory, etc., which has won many small designers on the starting line.
In the first three or four years of the brand's existence, HEFANG jewelry mainly relied on the boutiques for distribution. This is the stage when designers open up their popularity in the fashion circle, Sun He Fang has to face a large number of experienced buyers in the fashion week showroom, and the establishment of brand image largely depends on the popularity of the design work in the buyer's store. This is also the process of testing Sun Hefang's creativity as a designer and its market acceptance, which is not much commercial return.
THE FIRST SERIES DESIGNED BY SUN HEFANG WAS THE SNOWFLAKE COLLECTION, WHICH WAS MADE OF 925 SILVER AND CUBIC ZIRCONIA AS THE MAIN MATERIAL. "Since our brand was born at Christmas, in the early days we did some snowflake collections related to the Christmas theme, which became our first collection."
This series has continued all the way to this day and has become one of Sun Hefang's most representative designs to this day. Sun He Fang recalled to Interface News, "Later, every autumn and winter we would wear the snowflake series, which also became a super symbol for us. Today, there are nearly 50 SKUs on sale in the HEFANG Jewelry Light Snowflake series, including rings, stud earrings, necklaces, bracelets and other items, and the price ranges from a single beizure earrings of 790 yuan to a ribbon first snow collar of 4990 yuan.
HEFANG Jewelry recently launched a new collection of tableware
HEFANG jewelry wedding collection
In ten years, Sun He Fang led the team to launch more than 70 collections and designed more than 1,000 works. So far, consumers can see a total of 25 HEFANG jewelry collections through public sales channels, including a small number of brand endorser co-branded models, as well as individual IP co-branded collections, most of which are original design works in-house.
Pieces such as the rose garden crown launched in the 2023 wedding collection have actually achieved Sun Hefang's original intention of establishing the brand to a certain extent: to use non-precious gold, precious jade and other materials to create light luxury jewelry that shines like high jewelry.
There are many works, and there is also an iconic collection, but Sun He Fang feels, "UNTIL NOW, THE POPULARITY OF HEFANG JEWELRY IS NOT HIGH." "Although it started with the snowflake series, the height of snowflake imagery is limited by autumn and winter, which is not conducive to publicity and promotion at other times. Therefore, it is urgent for the brand to play other symbolic series works.
She feels that she has a strong sense of crisis, and the troughs experienced by some mature light luxury brands in recent years are vividly remembered. "We're also worried that if we don't run well, or if the product launch isn't reasonable, we're going downhill one day."
In September 2023, HEFANG Jewelry Headquarters Office officially moved into a Grade A office building in Zhuhai with an office area of 2,300 square meters
Each stage has issues to worry about at each stage. "What are the big event plans for the brand in 2023?" It's a cheesy question to ask the founder of a brand.
Sun talked about plans to move into a new headquarters building by the end of the year. But as soon as the conversation turned, she raised a new problem of opening a jewelry company in Zhuhai: the talent resources are not as rich as in Shanghai.
"I am not particularly difficult to recruit jewelry design people, more sales, brand, marketing, e-commerce and other operation departments have relatively few talents, and need to spend higher costs to recruit people in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen."