“Although the Winter Olympics is over, the popularization and dissemination of ice and snow sports knowledge has a profound impact on the Chinese people and will also boost the future development of ice and snow equipment industry.” On February 19, after the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, ye Xiao, head of a domestic ice and snow equipment enterprise, told the first financial reporter.
Compared with the popularity of swimming, table tennis, badminton and other sports in the summer Olympic Games, the ice and snow sports in the Winter Olympic Games still belonged to the “minority” circle sports in China in the past. With the influence of the Beijing Winter Olympics in recent years, ice and snow sports have gradually popularized in China, domestic ice and snow equipment enterprises continue to increase, and this market has been gradually opened.
After the Winter Olympics, ye Xiao’s ice and snow equipment products in tmall flagship store continued to be popular, which showed her the subsequent explosive advantages of this market track. However, the current localized ice and snow equipment enterprises still have bottlenecks to be broken through.
boost
“Since February this year, a few days before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, the overall sales volume has continued to grow, basically tripled compared with that before the Spring Festival. The daily average sales volume of some new brand equipment products can basically reach more than 50000 pieces.” Ye Xiao introduced.
Ye Xiao is the founder of a domestic ice and snow sports equipment brand enterprise. In the past, she was a market investor and a senior ski lover. In these years of skiing, ye Xiao found that when she chose ski clothes, the options were very low, and she could not buy equipment brands that were suitable for her and matched her personal style. “Most of the ski clothes of foreign brands were pure in color and looked rather monotonous.”
Therefore, it has become Ye Xiao’s goal to create a fashionable ski suit and other ice and snow equipment brand. At present, ye Xiao’s products mainly focus on a number of series, including urban trend style ski clothes with a price of about 1000 yuan to 2500 yuan, and the integration of daily and beautiful trends.
Many senior skiing enthusiasts told reporters that subject to the popularity of China’s ice and snow sports venues and projects, ice and snow enthusiasts buy ski clothes, helmets, ski shoes and other equipment. Most of them prepare all the equipment “from head to foot” in advance. Few say they go to the ski resort to buy equipment, and at most change some additional parts and other small equipment.
It is precisely because of this consumption feature and the attribute of the scene that many sales channels of ski equipment mostly choose online Internet e-commerce platforms.
In November 2021, ye Xiao chose to launch the ski equipment brand on tmall and other e-commerce platforms. With the approaching of the Winter Olympic Games, the company’s product sales continued to be hot. “Since last November, the sales volume has doubled every month.”
Ye Xiao said that according to the normal characteristics of the ice and snow industry, the annual skiing season is from October of that year to march of the next year. Basically, many places get warmer after March, so skiing can not be carried out. Therefore, the basic sales of many skiing products and equipment will gradually decline from February to March every year.
“According to the normal year, in fact, everyone is at home with their families during the Spring Festival. Everyone purchases ski equipment before the festival. The overall sales of ski equipment enterprises will not be particularly high.” Ye Xiao said that the holding of the Winter Olympics has a positive pull on the ski brand equipment.
Nanen, a domestic ski brand, has also experienced a busy “Winter Olympic season”. According to the official statistics of Alibaba, the sales of nan’en tmall flagship store more than doubled year-on-year, and became the “champion” of tmall skiing industry in February. “Our ski suits, helmets and goggles have maintained a high growth.” Geng Shaofeng, founder of Nanen, told reporters.
Today’s sales explosion is unthinkable for brand enterprises such as Geng Shaofeng and ye Xiao. “At the beginning of 2013, how small was skiing? From December to the Spring Festival, we can almost close.” Geng Shaofeng smiled. At that time, the ski resort was mainly in the north, and the snow season lasted for about three months. Consumers mainly took “early taste” tourism. Ski brands have only a few international professional brands.
In 2013, Geng Shaofeng founded the ski clothing brand nan’en on Taobao. In 2014, when Beijing became the city of double Olympics, ice and snow sports moved from minority to mass, and the industry developed vigorously. In 2022, some events of the Winter Olympics are being held in Zhangjiakou, Geng Shaofeng’s hometown.
For nearly ten years, nan’en has gone offline from Taobao and tmall, and has realized multi platform operation online. “The sales of our brand in tmall account for 70% of the company’s e-commerce sales, and has become the main position of operation.” Geng Shaofeng said.
In 2015, Beijing won the right to host the 24th Winter Olympic Games. The sales of tmall skiing category rose in response, ushering in the first wave of peak, “Nanen’s sales surged, and the most obvious change is the obvious increase of consumers from the south.”
As an e-commerce platform, tmall also takes advantage of the trend to attract more ski equipment enterprises. Alibaba said that in 2017, tmall began to pay attention to the ice and snow industry and held the first ice and snow festival. Alibaba became a global partner of the Olympic Games. Subsequently, the International Olympic Organizing Committee opened the world’s first official Olympic flagship store on tmall.
Data from Alibaba shows that the number of brands in tmall ski market continues to grow. In the past two years, 88 ski brands from outside China have settled in tmall, including international professional brands such as mackage, Bogner, fusalp, fact and x-bionic. “Tmall has become the front station for new international brands to land in China, and many outdoor sports brands including peakperformance are also discussing cooperation.”
According to the above data, in 2021, nearly 100 fashion brands such as Prada sold ski sports equipment, including clothing, helmets and skis, in tmall luxury products. “Traditional sports brands also began to layout ski categories, such as Anta and Li Ning, competing for new ski products on tmall.”
“At present, the platform has formed a healthy and diversified brand ecology. Tmall’s service to the brand is not limited to sales, but gradually extends to the upstream and downstream of the industry.” In an interview with reporters, Wang Xiaoyuan, a junior in tmall skiing industry, said that in 2021, more than 100 luxury brands launched new skiing products in tmall, and overseas professional brands such as fact and hellyhansen entered the Chinese market through tmall.
change
A person in charge of an ice and snow equipment enterprise said that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games has benefited China’s tourism industry for ten years, the national fitness has made China’s sports consumption flourish, and a number of domestic sports brands have risen one after another. It is expected that the 2022 Winter Olympic Games will be the starting point of the “golden decade” of China’s ice and snow economy. Entrepreneurs of domestic small and medium-sized ice and snow equipment brands led by Geng Shaofeng have finally welcomed more ski customers.
Geng Shaofeng, founder of Nanen, tried skiing for the first time in his life in the winter of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. “There are very few places where ski supplies can be bought. Many people go to the ski resort in jeans and coats.” He said that there were relatively few domestic brand equipment enterprises at that time.
\u3000\u3000 “In the past, a large part of the ski equipment market in the Chinese market was occupied by some overseas brands. There are very few local national ski equipment brands in China, and most of the founders of many ice and snow equipment enterprises are ice and snow lovers, or their families and partners. They have a supply chain system related to ice and snow equipment. Based on such resources, some people To get involved in this field.
”Ye Xiao said that compared with some major overseas ice and snow equipment enterprises, Chinese brands are relatively few and backward. No large Chinese local brands have been born, whether they are making sector fixtures, shoes, clothes, helmets, etc.
Ski industry insiders told reporters that this is mainly affected by China’s natural environmental conditions and the layout of ski facilities. In the past, China’s ice and snow sports group was a small number of circle personnel, and the number of skiers was relatively small. “The main reason is that this sport has high requirements for participants. First, we should have money and buy a lot of professional equipment; second, we should have more holidays for exercise. These factors lead to very few people participating in this sport in China.”
China’s ice and snow sports, especially snowboarding, are “on fire” and popular among young people. Probably after 2018, because snowboarding has strong style attributes, many young people carry out this sport because it looks cool.
Ye Xiao said that after snowboarding, China’s per capita income and consumption level have continued to rise in recent years, making more people willing to ski. After years of market cultivation, especially some real estate companies such as rongchuang are building urban ski resorts, which allows more people to participate in skiing.
“Before our company was founded, we went to the indoor ski resort.” Xiao Lin, a company employee working in an enterprise in Guangzhou, told reporters that the main reason is that everyone feels fresh, and skiing is no longer a small circle sport in the past. Everyone can have time to participate.
After the “double reduction” in the education industry, ice and snow sports have become the focus of parents to cultivate their children’s interest. Adolescent skiing and female skiing are becoming the most active areas of new brand entrepreneurship.
Ye Xiao said that after this year’s Winter Olympics, the spread of skiers and events has also driven many people to return to become deep skiers who have first “tasted” skiing or have skiing experience.
This gives Geng Shaofeng and others more market opportunities. “Compared with the beginning of entrepreneurship, the team size has been expanded 10 times. The Spring Festival peak season is not closed, and new products are also available regularly in summer.” Geng Shaofeng said that nan’en has expanded from the Early Ski peripheral accessories products to the whole line of ski equipment products. According to tmall’s consumption insight, the brand is currently positioned as a younger, fashionable and functional ski equipment.
Wu Bin, vice chairman of Beijing Ski Association, said in an interview that the ski industry is currently in a period of rapid growth, which will last for about 10 to 15 years, and then reach a mature stage.
In the “post Winter Olympics” era, ice and snow sports will enter a new stage of development. Wang Xiaoyuan believes that 300 million people on ice and snow means a huge market imagination space, but the competition will become increasingly fierce. It is very important for brand operation to understand consumers better and meet new needs faster.
bottleneck
In the view of many insiders, at present, China’s local ski equipment enterprises are still relatively small, the hardware supply chain is not very mature, and there is a lack of large enterprises at the head. And compared with foreign brands, there is still a gap in the manufacturing and innovation of domestic ice and snow equipment, which is a bottleneck that is difficult to solve in the short term.
The reporter found that at present, the key words such as “ski equipment” are searched on major e-commerce platforms, and most of them are ski clothes and other brands, which are more concentrated and rampant.
Ye Xiao said that there are many domestic ski equipment enterprises, but they are not strong enough and lack head enterprises. Taking ski clothes as an example, I think the most direct problem now is the problem of talents. “In fact, in the ice and snow track, there is a great lack of professional talents who understand ski sports and industry.”
Ye Xiao believes that the brand of ski clothes is similar to consumer products. In the end, what is competitive is the brand enterprise’s understanding of the market and users, that is, how to promote the products to users. These all need professionals who understand the logic of consumer goods and the market to operate. “Moreover, the cultivation of non professionals is also very important and needs more time to polish.”
At present, the market share of China’s snow and ice products is still firmly controlled by major overseas brands. A person in charge of a ski equipment enterprise who did not want to be named told reporters that China’s snow and ice ski equipment industry group still copied European and American enterprises, such as ski clothes, to do large color block splicing, “But this is not very suitable for Chinese people. Chinese consumers still need to make their design more Chinese culture and characteristics, have their own ‘tonality’, and meet strong functionality, which needs to be polished in products.”
Different from the national skiing in Norway and other countries, “China is more willing to define ice and snow sports as a kind of” social sports “, which must have a personal style, that is, the personality attributes of showing off and self demonstration, which means that the product needs to have a certain sense of design in addition to functionality.” The person in charge of the above-mentioned enterprise, who declined to be named, said.
Compared with the traditional sportswear industry, in addition to ski clothes, ski equipment also has sub categories such as skis, snow goggles, helmets, snowshoes and ski poles. The technical threshold and production difficulty are not low. The reporter found that at present, the supply chain of ski clothes in China is relatively mature, while the supply chain of hardware is lack of system.
The above insiders said that for the brand, the ability of R & D and innovation and the ability of supply chain planning are very important for the sustainable and healthy operation of the brand. “Products are king. Next, our focus will be on the design and development of new products.” Geng Shaofeng said.
“This is also the direction of tmall’s efforts.” Wang Xiaoyuan said. At present, tmall is trying to cooperate with businesses with supply chain capability, open the capability of TMIC (tmall new product innovation center) and go deep into the supply chain for new product innovation. For ski clothing brands, tmall will also try to integrate the flexible manufacturing capacity of rhinoceros smart manufacturing.
