Lechong announced the search for brand transfer, shoe vertical electric business again add coolness

Absrtact: April 9 News, insisted that four years of footwear electric goods licensing Lok Shi recently announced the search for brand transfer, to the original cold shoes vertical electric business add a chill. Lechong CEO Jiang to billion power network, the search for brand transfer, not meet the funding gap

April 9 News, insisted that four years of footwear electric goods licensing Lok Shi has announced the search for brand transfer, to the original cold shoes vertical electric business and then add a chill. Lechong Shi CEO Jiang to billion power network, the search for brand transfer, not meet the funding gap, but the Internet brand road encounter difficult to break free of the dilemma.

It is understood that 2007~2009 three years, the domestic has been born a good music buy, Pat shoes nets, Lok Amoy nets, West Street nets and other footwear vertical electric quotient, including Lechong. This time coincided with the American Footwear Electric Business Zappos fame, many domestic electric dealers competed to imitate, but the result is unsatisfactory. Good buy start category expansion, West Street Network transformation Distributor, Lechong and Amoy began to brew own brand. After 4 years of branding attempts, Lechong has come to the crossroads of life and death choices.

Lechong, CEO of Jiang, has made the following reviews and reflections on the road of Lechong's brand:

The reason to seek a brand transfer is not a financial one at first. Frankly speaking, our first round of investment is now, we can persist for 1-2 years, but even if we hold on, there is no hope of breakthrough at present. Whether from its own positioning, or the electrical business environment, our team is difficult to break through the existing dilemma.

As an IT person for nearly 20 years, I do not have any traditional industry background, but also do not know how to do shoes, with the enthusiasm of e-commerce and good prospects for the judgement, August 2008 founded the Lechong brand, at first we want to go is the electric business channel and its own brand combination of road, but soon changed the train of thought, 09 years began to abandon the channel mode, the exclusive brand. This transformation has allowed Lechong's limited initial investment to stick to the present, and if it continues to do so, it may well be over already.

At first, we gave Lechong "quality, leisure, comfort" positioning, but now think, these standards are not the basic human physiological needs and footwear brand must have the necessary elements? The positioning is too extensive, so it is difficult to occupy people's hearts. Footwear electric business is already a Red Sea competition market, to stand out, besides satisfying the basic needs of consumers, but also to meet the consumer in the spirit, psychological aspects of some small needs. And the position of Le Shi, just stay on the most basic level, not enough to form the difference, this is the biggest puzzle we face, but also the fundamental problem that our team can not solve.

Step back, even if positioning for "comfortable", if you can achieve the ultimate, there may be success, such as Denmark's Ecco, is able to "comfort" to the ultimate brand. This requires enterprises, whether from product design, raw materials to buy or footwear technology, should be "comfortable" as a measure of standards. Zappos success, to a large extent, it is willing to do at the cost of logistics to create the ultimate service experience. Although we have a certain reputation in quality over the years, but the feeling of "comfortable" has not been deeply rooted.

On the other hand, for brands, simply by price competition is very painful, but also unsustainable things. The brand is definitely not by advertising, or by the low price raised.

Lechong is itself positioned in high-quality leather casual shoes, the product itself hard cost is not low. On the one hand, in order to ensure high quality, we must be willing to spend money on materials and production processes, on the other hand, our volume and supply chain management capacity is limited, will also cause some of the high cost. According to our pricing principle, the normal sales price of the main products in the 300~400 yuan, winter boots between the 400~550 yuan.

If the normal price sales, regardless of the platform buckle point, we can guarantee that there are 50% of Maori space-this gross margin should be to support an electric goods card without loss of basic requirements. So for quite a long time, we have been very cautious in terms of price, products are rarely discounted, and rarely participate in various large-scale promotional activities on various platforms.

But in the face of the price war and the electric business environment, coupled with the brand's core competitiveness, we can only compromise on the market reality, in the price to make concessions: new products on the shelves to give 70 percent-80 percent discount, but also actively apply to participate in various platforms discount promotional activities. But time will prove that sales growth in exchange for lower prices is a short-term comfort.

The traditional brand of invading electric dealers is a heavy blow to us. Many electric businessmen scoff at the traditional brand is the old hat, do not understand internet marketing. But after the traditional enterprises have fully entered the electric business, we are traditional brands may spend three months on the e-commerce of that point, and the Internet brand spent three years to reach the design, manufacture, supply chain management, brand marketing and other aspects of the ability of the fur, which is precisely the key to the formation of brand core competitiveness.

So compared to network brands, traditional brands have more stamina. In the case of the cat, the traditional brands do not get involved in the electric business, a better shoe network brand can be kept in the top three of the cat sales. And once the Camel, Belle, O ' Connell and other traditional brands into the cat, before doing a good network shoes brand even the top five can not enter.

For the past four years, we have been making various adjustments to Lechong. Including the sales channel aspect from the comprehensive do addition again to the comprehensive do subtraction. Since the advent of the open tide of the third party platform, Lechong has almost entered all the third party open platforms. After six months, we have to do subtraction, the sales of bad shops have closed. Why not sell well on some platforms? First, the platform users and our product matching degree is not high, the second is the platform flow exaggerated. Electrical business In this industry, we all know that few in the truth, especially when the investment, all blew themselves to heaven, a firefight to know is a dud. Now, in addition to the official website, we only keep the days of cats, Jingdong, V, Mobile mall several shops.

A friend said, Lechong is in trouble because both to do their own and third party platform, the front pull too long. If only do the cat, will live very happy. I disagree with this statement. 2011 years ago, do brand official website is the general trend, 2011 years in the beginning of the cold winter, the official website has been developed very well, do not need to do too much input. On the contrary, because we have official website, only the conditions and 2011 the emergence of Tencent, 360, Thunderbolt and other open platform cooperation drainage-if only the cat shop, they will not for your shop diversion. And these open platform CPS cooperation mode, greatly reduce our hard and wide input cost.

Besides, now even the cat is no longer an easy job. Many of the brands that had been doing a good job a year or two ago in the days of the cat have either vanished or been silenced, which has already been a good illustration of the problem. Today's cat, in addition to some of the big sellers live some moisture, most businesses are in the flow cost of the surge and distress. Not to make money is needless to say, even if the money is poor. I know a seller who sells nearly million pairs of shoes a year, but less than 2 yuan for each pair of shoes.

So for the brand business, the way out and hope must not be pinned on the platform, the fundamental way to return to the essence of the product, enhance the brand's core competitiveness.

Wordy so much, are some personal feelings, said not necessarily right, for everyone to discuss the reference. Lechong since March 31 issued a brand transfer notice, more than 200 people have contacted me. Including traditional factories, traditional brands, and even other industries such as electronic products enterprises. But I still hope to find a traditional business to take over, and must be related to shoes. Lechong is the most people when only 36 people, adhere to the present is not easy, I hope this brand can continue.