How Can The Brand Of Sports Shoes Cope With The New Predicament?

Beijing time November 7th.

Published in the third quarter of 2018 (up to September 30, 2018) earnings report shows that its North American market development is still good, but the growth rate is not as good as the previous few quarters.

There are also Nike and Puma.

In the past two to three years, the major sports brand giants launched new sports shoes, which triggered a buying boom based on the star effect. From now on, this trend is declining. Other fast fashion brands and luxury brands have entered the sports and leisure market, and have achieved good results. These factors have made sports brand giants cope with fatigue. At present, sports brands want to return to the market of specialized and high technology running shoes to cope with the new predicament.

Star brought goods mode appeared aesthetic fatigue

Adidas's third quarter earnings report showed that excluding the exchange rate factor (the same below), the company's third quarter sales increased by 8% to 5 billion 873 million euros.

In terms of category, clothing and footwear gained two digit growth.

But at the same time, Adidas's sales in the Asia Pacific and North American markets have been sluggish.

In addition to achieving 7% growth in Russia / CIS countries, Latin America has not increased and Western European markets have declined by 1%.

Adidas acknowledged in its earnings report that the company has been slow to respond to the market changes in Western Europe. It relies too much on the Originals series footwear that has made an important contribution to Europe's annual growth rate of 15% over the past 3 years. It has not been concerned about the decline in the popularity of the retro style footwear StanSmith series and Superstar series.

On the day of the earnings announcement, Adidas's stock price fell 3.6% by 198.6 euros.

There is also the same situation.

Although the performance is still growing, Puma CEO Bjorn Gore said that the sports shoes boom will decline.

In October 25th, Puma released its third quarter earnings report in 2018. Its earnings show that from July 1, 2018 to September 30th, Puma's global sales increased by 14% to 1 billion 240 million euros, and net profit increased 24.7% to 77 million 500 thousand euros.

Gross profit margin rose 1.2 percentage points to 49.6% again.

But the growth rate of sales and net profit is slowing down, and Europe's growth rate has dropped to 8%, which has reached 18.6% and 10.5% respectively in the first quarter and the two quarter.

In terms of category, Puma's once eye-catching footwear business has slowed down significantly this year, the growth rate has dropped from 26.3% in the first quarter to 18.4% in the two quarter, and then to the latest number of units 6.1%.

Bjorn Goulden believes that product trends and consumer demand are changing faster and bigger, and the new trend is more characteristic and more eye-catching sneakers design. "If you go into the store now, you will see more naked eye technology, thicker and more conspicuous colors."

He said.

In recent two months, the sports retail industry report released by NPD group, a well-known market research firm, also showed that sales of sports shoes in the US market experienced a decline in August and September compared to the same period last year.

Among them, the market in August was relatively deserted, while in September it was the decline period of the big brands, sporting goods giant Nike and Adidas, Nike's Jordan brand and CONVERSE, all of which experienced a negative sales growth in September.

Sports fashion, sports trend, sports and leisure are the fields of sports brand in recent years. Whether Nike Adidas, Anta group's FILA or Puma, all contribute to it.

Among them, Puma signed Rihanna, Kardashian family member Kelly Jenna and American Idol Selena Gomez, relying on the investment in women's sports and lifestyle, led the trend of the female market, and became one of the big winners in sports fashion.

Pumacreepers and other series of shoes are Puma's brand leaders.

In 2017, Puma shoes accounted for the largest share of total revenue, reaching 47.7%.

Nike has also been unwilling to lag behind in the sports shoes market.

According to press reports, Nike launched NikeReact in early 2018 to compete with Adidas's Star Technology Boost.

Boost technology has increased Adidas's share of the North American sports shoes market from 6.3% in 2016 to 11.3% in 2017.

In 2017, Adidas packed 40 pairs of exquisite shoes with Boost technology to sell at the price of $7000, and sold out in five minutes.

At present, a person who conducts a limited sports shoes paction at the tiger community forum says to the China Commercial Daily reporter that at present, Adidas's Yeezy series shoes with Boost technology have decreased compared with the previous prices. The original pair of shoes can be fry to 5000 yuan to 7000 yuan. Now only a few of the more demanding yards and matching colors can be fried to about 4000 yuan.

Although the Yeezy series shoes are relatively comfortable to wear, the related marketing is also well done, but the price of 7000 yuan is really shocking.

As the popularity of StanSmith and Superstar series sports shoes gradually decreases, the Yeezy series shoes are no longer popular. The major sports brand giants really need to create new topics to catch young consumers.

There is a lot of competition in the sports and leisure market.

According to a new report released by GrandViewResearch, the US Market Research Institute, by 2025, the global market for sports shoes is expected to exceed US $95 billion (about 659 billion 290 million yuan).

From basketball shoes, racing shoes to weekends, wind and leisure.

Sports shoes have become an important fashion and luxury product. High tech or unique sneakers stand out in the market. Those who launch "special edition" and "super limited money" sports brands tend to become the focus of social media topics for a while.

The market for sports shoes has been expanding rapidly, and there are quite a lot of entries. All parties want to have a share. Apart from the traditional sports brand, they also include luxury brands and fast fashion brands.

Recently, in the field of sports shoes, the active luxury brand, parisher, has launched the TripleS daddy shoes, which has become a trendy product and appears under the feet of all kinds of celebrities and entertainment stars.

The popularity of old shoes was first triggered by sports brand products. For example, Nike's NikeAirMonarchIV and high-end brands took the opportunity to win the sport brand.

Prada has recently launched a fluorescent neon sport shoe PradaCloudbust. The brand also specially invited three new photographers to record the story between the Cloudbust series shoes and the city's young people in three cities in Fukuoka, Shanghai and London.

In addition, the French classic luxury brand LouisVuitton and the Japanese trend Godfather Teng Yuan Hao launched the street brand FragmentDesign launched the joint series.

In the view of Adidas group CEO Kasper Rothd, there is only one side force that can really influence the giant of sports shoes and clothing industry.

The high-end and luxury brands are a very micro part of the market. Taking Gucci and Versace as an example, their share in the sports shoes market is objectively very small and can not produce too much threat.

He believes that the difference between sports brand and high-end brand product is mainly whether the product can combine functional and aesthetic.

But the high-end brand sneakers may be more avant-garde and more artistic in design, but what they lack is the technological attributes of sports brand devoted every year.

Technology can help sports brands stay ahead of the competition with high-end brand sneakers, but in Roth's view, the threat from fast fashion brands is exactly what sports brands really need to think about and face.

"Now the market environment is changed by the fast fashion brand represented by Zara, and their product cycle is shorter."

Our own supply chain may one day be contended by fast fashion brands, so Adidas has pushed ahead with its own speed projects and launched faster and faster products.

Zara, Topshop and UNIQLO fast fashion brands have launched their own sports shoes and clothing series. UNIQLO is playing a big role in sports events and star sponsorship. This year, tennis superstar Federer has just taken Nike's own spokesperson.

Although the sports products of fast fashion brands are still not able to compete with professional sports brands in terms of functionality, their shorter product cycle, faster new speed and affordable prices have attracted many consumers, and their consumers directly overlap with sporting goods.

Under this pressure, Adidas CEO Rothd even suggested that Adidas should become the first fast sports brand.

By 2020, Adidas plans to sell 50% of its sales revenue from products that are rapidly designed and manufactured. The design and production of products should be based on the demand of the market in the current season to accelerate the upgrading and circulation of products.

Return to science and technology, running shoes or new trend

Returning to the market of professional sports shoes and developing high technology materials and running shoes may be one of the strategies adopted by foreign sports brands.

Beginning in June, Puma announced the signing of the 2018 NBA draft top two Andre Germany Eden, Marvin Bagley III, as well as rookie Michael Porter and Zail Smith.

In football, Puma signed Lukaku, Suarez and Silva and added Manchester City on the basis of cooperation with Arsenal, Dortmund, AC Milan and other old football clubs.

Puma's business expenses increased by 10% in the first three quarters, mainly due to the strengthening of marketing activities.

Such a layout is a manifestation of Puma's ambition and a means to deal with market changes.

However, once the sports and leisure fades have come true, there will be more ways to deal with it. This is also worthy of reference from other sports brands that are not strong enough to resist downside risks while growing at a high speed.

In addition, the use of high-tech materials is also a key direction of development, for example, 3D printing technology and sustainable environmental protection materials are the direction of Adidas's efforts.

In an interview with CNBC, Rothd made special mention of these two areas. He said that the products concerned were more and more popular and believed that this trend would continue.

According to the reporter, "ParleyfortheOcean" is an environmental protection plan promoted by Adidas. The goal is to bring senior talents from all over the world to participate in the recovery and utilization of marine garbage.

According to PWC's "Millennium generation and Z generation comparison observation report" released in October 16th, about 37% of people are willing to spend more money on those "responsible" sustainable environmentally friendly products.

This year, Adidas announced that it would use all environmental protection materials before 2024.

In the 3D printing technology competition of major sports brands, Adidas also ran very close.

In April last year, Adidas launched the first commercial 3D print sports shoes Futurecraft4D, the first production capacity of 5000 pairs, in January this year it ran out.

Some of them get several times the original price of auction on the sports shoe auction website StockX.

By the end of this year, Adidas will also launch 100 thousand pairs of 3D print shoes.

James Kearns, vice president of Adidas brand strategy, said that in the next few years, Adidas will also increase its output to millions of pairs.