来源 | 赢商网（ID：winshang）
Author | Cao Xiaoqing
Image Source | Balabala
Sunscreen clothing has become a spring and summer Internet celebrity item.
In the past two years, sunscreen clothing has created a new subdivision track. According to iResearch, the market size of sunscreen clothing is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4% from 2021 to 2026. In addition, Qifei observation data also disclosed that on the Douyin platform alone, the GMV of the sunscreen clothing market in 2023 will reach 3.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 217%.
Under this growth rate, sunscreen clothing has gradually changed from outdoor scenes to daily life scenes, and there are more than 630,000 notes with "sunscreen clothing wearing" as the keyword on the Xiaohongshu platform.
Among them, children's sunscreen clothing is also popular in the market. According to data from Vipshop, a special sale e-commerce company, since mid-March, the sales of children's sunscreen clothing have increased by 124% year-on-year; Balabala's official data also shows that since its sunscreen clothing was launched in March, 40W pieces have been sold across the territory.
However, the market for children's sunscreen clothing is not mature: on the one hand, consumers have a lower sensitivity to the sunscreen of children's sunscreen clothing than adult sunscreen clothing; On the one hand, the number of children's sunscreen clothing in the market has increased, and the products are varied.
At a time when the "cake" of children's sunscreen clothing is expanding, as a leader in the children's clothing industry, how does Balabala define children's sunscreen clothing? Will its sun protection strategy be a new plus for the brand?
"The most knowledgeable about growth" Balabala
Objectively speaking, Balabala has a natural advantage in the children's sunscreen clothing track, and it is the children's fashion brand that knows how to grow the most.
Because, for more than 20 years, Balabala has witnessed decades of changes in China's children's clothing industry, and is a "textbook" brand in the history of China's children's clothing development.
According to the three stages of business development mentioned by Edward DeBono in the book "Beyond Competition", Balabala in the early days of the brand's establishment, like a group of children's clothing brands that emerged at that time, mainly focused on product design and quality, and the direct experience was its brand concept of "childhood is not the same", advocating "paying attention to the difference of clothing".
As time went on, the Chinese children's clothing market matured, and Balabala came to what Edward de Bono called the competitive value stage. During this period, the differentiation of Balabala became more tangible and concrete, and the stores were able to expand rapidly at this time.
According to public information, in 2010, Balabala had nearly 3,000 stores across the country; The prospectus of its parent company, Semir Apparel, before its official listing in 2011, also showed that Balabala had become the No. 1 brand of children's clothing in China with a market share of 1.1%.
Starting in 2023, Balabala will consciously enter the comprehensive value stage mentioned in "Beyond the Competition". Since then, Balabala has paid more attention to the emotional value needs of users. This change is also due to the fact that China's children's clothing consumer market has begun to enter the stage of humanism.
According to the "2024 Global Children's Wear Market Insight Report", parents at this stage begin to cultivate their children's taste and style awareness from an early age, and some parents will create a unique and magical wearing experience for their children.
Moreover, today's children's clothing market is gradually developing in the direction of diversification and segmentation. It can be seen that at the same time, Balabala also focused on the five core categories of dresses, pants, T-shirts, down jackets, and shoes. For example, according to the differences of different market segments and target customer groups, Balabala mainly promotes down jackets in winter, and focuses on bala T in summer with IP economy as the starting point......
At this stage, on the basis of more than 40 million members, Balabala continues to analyze and optimize the category structure and continue to explore the children's personality expression. As a result, it can be seen that Balabala launched sun-protective clothing this year.
And this category has quickly become a new category plus for Balabala:
- On the one hand, reflected in the data, Balabala's official data disclosed that its sunscreen clothing series has sold 40W since its launch;
- On the other hand, it is a new definition of children's sunscreen, different from other brands, the brand requires product power at the same time, more emphasis and advocacy of scientific sunscreen, Balabala believes that "children's sunscreen clothing ≠ adult sunscreen mini version".
It is worth noting that Balabala does not follow the traditional children's clothing thinking routine in this category, blindly outputting a certain concept, but starting from the online, empowering the offline, and creating "good-looking, fun, and easy to wear" children's sunscreen clothing with products as the core.
Think outside the box
Do all-round sunscreen for children
In fact, sun-protective clothing has been around 2007. Since the inspiration comes from skin trench coats/outdoor jackets, the first batch of sunscreen clothing is more outdoor, not too related to "fashion", and the audience is relatively niche.
In recent years, the establishment of sunscreen awareness and the enrichment of sunscreen scenes have led to an increase in demand for sunscreen clothing. According to data from CIC Consulting, the market size of the mainland sunscreen apparel industry is expected to reach 95.8 billion yuan in 2026.
At the same time, children's sunscreen is also quickly gaining popularity. According to the Xiaohongshu platform, there are more than 70,000 notes related to children's sunscreen clothing, and more than 140,000 children's sunscreen clothing products.
However, under the high heat of the market, the number of consumer complaints is not small, "Now there are all kinds of sunscreen clothing, and the probability of stepping on thunder is too great." Xiaoling (pseudonym), a post-90s mother, said, "There will be some discrepancies between the fabric written on the product introduction page and what you see on the actual sign when you buy it, and after washing it several times, the sunscreen effect seems to be reduced." ”
As a result, Winshang.com counted the top 30 products in sales of children's sunscreen clothing on the Taobao Tmall platform, and split the evaluation keywords of these products, and concluded that the core points of consumers' attention are: fabric, body feeling, appearance, sunscreen effect, and style.
The main factor that forms the incomplete match between popularity and reputation in the market is that the current children's sunscreen clothing is still in a "melee": there are classic children's outdoor brands that launch sunscreen clothing; There are also fast fashion brands such as Uniqlo entering the game; There are also some cutting-edge brands that mainly promote sunscreen clothing...... However, more often than not, the market is flooded with a large number of sunscreen white labels, with "big brand substitution" as the keyword, appearing on Taobao and Tmall platforms.
For mature brands, "children's sunscreen" is the choice of the brand's perfect category, rather than the core item; For cutting-edge brands, although "children's sunscreen clothing" is a core category, it is relatively weak in terms of breathability, style size, fabric quality, etc. And these are also the focus of consumer care.
In the product evaluation statistics of Winshang.com, consumers pay more attention to the breathability and fabric material of the product for children's sunscreen, and also have a certain understanding of the sunscreen effect, but the inaccurate style and size have become the main factor for their counterattack on the product's reputation.
"I have bought many brands of sunscreen clothing, but my children often can't wear them, and they will take them off when they are uncomfortable when it is hot." Xiao Ling also said the same, "So, I don't have high requirements for sun-protective clothing now, as long as the child doesn't get sunburned." ”
This is completely different from the adult rash clothing market.
Behind the "children can't wear it", it is still affected by factors such as the product fabric is too stuffy and the style is relatively unsightly. Under these demands, Balabala believes that children's sunscreen clothing is not just a sunscreen clothing, but a "children's sunscreen system".
Therefore, Balabala jumped out of the conventional thinking, found inspiration in layering, and regarded outerwear, underwear, short-sleeved/long-sleeved and other categories as an overall sunscreen combination, and carried out all-round sun protection.
Specifically, Balabala's children's sunscreen concept is "the coolness of underwear + sunscreen of outerwear", and the herbal tea T series is based on the unique Cold Fit cooling technology, extracting tea essence, blending cooling mica, innovatively combining herbal tea, minerals and fabrics, the maximum skin touch temperature of the product drops by 5 degrees, and the continuous cooling can be as high as 40 minutes.
At the same time, Balabala proposed a new sunscreen technology this year, creating the first brand heat shielding technology and applying it to sunscreen products. "Heat shading", literally interpreting it is to resist the spread of heat and give people a cool feeling; In fact, this technology is indeed the case, through black technology, the fabric is used to block the heat transfer to the surface of the human body, and the fabric also has the functions of anti-ultraviolet and anti-infrared heat. Taking summer colorful sunscreen clothing as an example, the product not only has a UPF of 50+, but also a maximum heat coverage rate of >50%, and a maximum heat coverage of more than 6°C. (Under the same style, according to the different colors, the heat shielding performance test will be slightly different, and the test value is a phantom purple product.) ）
Left: Schematic diagram of heat shielding performance test (drawn according to the national standard) Right: Heat shielding rate test report of Balabala children's sunscreen clothing fabric
Heat coverage test report of balabala children's sunscreen clothing fabric
The market has also proven Balabala's excellent performance in children's sun-protective clothing. Balabala's children's sunscreen clothing has won many awards such as the MUSE Design Gold Award, the Boiling Quality Award, the Boiling "Sunscreen Benchmark Award", and the Boiling "Durability Benchmark Award". Moreover, once Balabala's sunscreen clothing was listed, it became the TOP3 of the "Children's Sunscreen Clothing Praise List" on the Tmall platform, and ranked first in the keyword penetration rate of "Balabala Children's Sunscreen Clothing" on the Xiaohongshu platform.
Moreover, Balabala's efforts have also achieved gratifying results at the 19th China Commercial Real Estate Festival, and won the "Industry Leading Brand of the Year" award.
Jack Trout, a famous marketing strategist who wrote "Positioning", "Category Strategy" and "Business War", once said, "The essence of business competition is not to be based on high quality