The domestic women’s shoes industry is facing severe tests. After the delisting of Palekians in 2017, the closing situation of “Volkswagen Shoe King” Daphne is also increasing.
According to Daphne International Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Daphne”, 00210.HK)
The announcement also shows that the company’s losses in the first half of 2018 will be similar to the losses in the second half of 2017. Daphne has closed nearly 3,000 stores in 3 years, and it can be seen that there are certain problems when it is in the store layout. This is also related to the labor cost of the overall shoe and clothing industry and the continuous rise in material costs. In addition, Daphne also faces problems such as aging product, unclear brand positioning, and serious inventory backlog.
It is worth noting that when shoe and clothing companies entered the e -commerce platform, Daphne seemed to ignore this trend. For Daphne before the large closing store, due to the large number of offline stores, it is still difficult to balance online and offline.
Today, in the face of the impact of new retail, Daphne has promoted the O2O business since 2017, and launched online orders such as online order stores in designated stores. This time, can Daphne, who tried to catch up with the new retail wave, can get out of the predicament?
In response to the Daphne closing shop and decline in performance, Daphne Shanghai’s operating headquarters showed that it was empty.
The cold winter of physical stores
A few days ago, Daphne issued an announcement that it would continue to adopt a closing strategy. According to the announcement, in the first half of 2018, the company’s net closure of 416 core brand sales points, of which 294 were closed in the second quarter, including 287 direct -operated stores and 7 franchise stores. Be
“In 2012, traditional women’s shoes ushered in the tide of closing stores. In 2017, Belle delisted. At present, the online and offline performance performance of women’s shoes companies is generally poor. Under the circumstances of labor costs, materials costs continue to rise, many shoes The enterprise factory building has been relocated to Myanmar, South Africa and other places with relatively low labor costs. “Ma Ming (pseudonym), who works in factories such as Qianba, Her, Aokang, Red Dragonfly and other shoe brands. “Now many channel layouts have changed, and similar competitions have gradually intensified. Daphne did not have scientific planning when the store layout, which made its overall store situation more chaotic. In the case of continuous improvement of store rental and labor costs, he had to have to have to have to increase. Guandian stop loss. “Xu Xiongjun, a well -known strategic positioning expert and founder of Jiuder Positioning Consulting Company, said at the same time.
The number of closures has increased, and the loss of Daphne’s performance will continue. The announcement shows that the company’s losses in the first half of 2018 will be similar to the losses in the second half of 2017. The data concluded that the losses in the second half of 2017 were 531 million yuan. Daphne said that losses were mainly driven by the reduction of sales.
In order to understand the actual sales of Daphne, when visiting many Daphne stores in Beijing, Daphne is currently being cleared in summer. The price of the product is from 49 to 199 yuan. Focusing on the “Daphne” brand, brands such as “Yuanyang” have not been seen. A shopping guide, who has worked for more than 10 years in Beijing Daphne (Golden Four Seasons Store), said that only four stores in Beijing are currently going to Shanghai headquarters to get goods. Four years ago, Daphne began to go downhill, and he was basically at a loss every year. In the first half of this year, he lost more than 500 million. Like a pair of sandals processed by clearance now 199 yuan, the entry price is more than 180 yuan, and it can’t make much money. In addition, the Daphne sandals used to have high heels. Now they have invited new designers. The style has gradually developed in comfort and fashion.
Several female consumers said that Daphne’s shoes are relatively old -fashioned. In recent years, they generally buy original shops in Taobao. The styles are beautiful and fashionable. The quality is okay. In addition, for physical stores, there are some brands similar to Daphne’s quality, but their styles are better than Daphne, such as Zhuo Shini, Qianba, etc. “The entire women’s shoes industry is seriously homogeneous. Daphne has unclear positioning of its own brand, the positioning segmentation between the brands is not obvious, and the management is relatively chaotic. It does Sub -brand management model. “Xu Xiongjun said. Zhu Danpeng, a researcher at the Chinese Brand Research Institute, also said that for Daphne, the most important thing is that the product does not keep up with the core needs and demands of the new generation. There is no rapid response to consumers. As a result, the brands such as Belle have fallen into the physical cold winter.
“Daphne does not do international brands and local high -end brands in the first and second -tier markets. It should be its home third, fourth -tier cities, and being online in low -end brands. The ultimate shoe brand erosion and pressure. “Cheng Weixiong, an observer of the clothing industry and the general manager of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd., said.
Observer of the clothing industry said that the overall women’s shoes industry, whether it is Belle, Saturday or Daphne, has a bad performance, indicating that the industry is undergoing cyclical downward. Traditional enterprises pay special attention to channels, but not enough attention to consumer research, product innovation, and marketing to the Internet. In the face of the backlog of inventory, low turnover and a large number of stores, companies need to adjust the product structure, store structure and marketing strategies to seek transformation. At present, the performance of corporate performance is the contest of comprehensive strength, and it is not enough to do it.
Chasing the new retail wave?
In addition to the cold winter, Daphne’s online business is also bleak. According to industry media reports, Daphne’s e -commerce revenue accounts for less than one tenth of the total revenue. In fact, among many brands, Daphne had the earliest awareness of innovation, but could not pay attention to the layout of e -commerce. In 2006, Daphne began to get involved in e -commerce. Before 2009, it was in the online test stage. In 2009, Daphne began to set up a self -operated e -commerce company “Love”. In 2010, Daphne’s shares of the Yaoxue 100 at 30 million yuan, but two years later, the Yaoxian 100 closed. In 2013, Daphne stated that it would reshape e -commerce, but it was not until 2015 that the e -commerce business was reflected in its financial report, and it still does not have a large proportion now.
“When e -commerce sweeps the entire shoe food industry, Daphne did ignore this trend.” Sun Wei, a fast marketing researcher at Tsinghua University, said that Daphne is a women’s shoes brand with offline channels. Seeing the opportunity, but chose to wait and see. When more and more consumers transfer to online shopping, the Daphne chain store is facing the dual squeeze of the shrinking traffic and rising operating costs, and eventually failed to decide in time to miss the opportunity.
Zhang Bingwu, a brand marketing expert, believes that Daphne has many stores offline, which is basically difficult to achieve relatively balanced online and offline. Earlier in the early years, the main fight on the line was the price. Daphne’s own brand positioning determines that it must ensure offline interests first, so it is difficult to pay attention to online in the early days. This led to the diversion online, Daphne did not wake up in time. When the entire market is formed, it is difficult to have a competitive advantage.
Regarding the impact of e -commerce on Daphne, Ma Ming believes that under the influence of online shopping, the rise of countless new brands. These new brands have no factories and no physical stores. After the order is placed, the foundry factory is made directly, which makes these brands update very fast. Countless new brands on the Internet have expanded consumers’ vision, and the competition between brands has become the competition of the product itself. The new brand is more fashionable, more comfortable, and the price is cheaper than Daphne. It can also meet the needs of the post -90s and post -95s after the 90s. Daphne was drowned in the Internet. In addition, there are countless overseas purchasing agents and Haitao’s share of Dadpad. According to Amazon’s “2016 Cross -border E -commerce Trends Report”, clothing and shoes are the most popular categories of Chinese consumers.
Zhu Danpeng also said that Daphne did not build his own brand in terms of e -commerce. The grasp of consumer demand is not in place. For relatively young consumers, Daphne’s price is higher than other brands, and they have more choices on the Internet.
Daphne, who ignored e -commerce, does not seem to want to miss the opportunity anymore. From early 2017, Daphne began to promote its O2O business, and designated stores to launch online order store self -service services. At the same time, it also strives to improve the customer’s online shopping experience, improve product display and descriptions, product search, customer service and after -sales service. In addition, Daphne also actively cooperated with fashion bloggers and people with fashion influence to interact with potential customers on social media.
In this regard, Madang said that new retail refers to new technologies, emerging consumer groups and new marketing methods. These measures of Daphne will improve its current situation to a certain extent. The online order store’s self -service service can solve the linkage of online and offline sales and supply chain, but it is not enough to do warehouse sharing.
“Retails are not new and old, just use technology as a tool to allow consumers to get timely services at various traffic entrances, and use the technical experience platform or traffic entrance still need to return to the product. There is no suitable product, no hot spots can change corporate dilemma, no hot spots can change corporate dilemma. . The growth of local enterprises has a new successful case. However, giving up their own inherent advantages and tossing that they are not good at being good will make it difficult to succeed in transformation and upgrading. “Cheng Weixiong said.