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writing | Yang Xiaohe
Source: Tech Planet
"Archaeopteryx's ether blue is too difficult to buy, and it is suitable for daily wear or skiing!"
Consumer Zhao Hui sighed in the social circle that "Double 11" was in the rush to buy rush jackets, but many classic and popular models were out of stock in online Tmall and JD flagship stores, or there was no mainstream size
In fact, it is not only Archaeopteryx, but also the "fishing, Moutai and Archaeopteryx" that men are obsessed with, and the "lululemon, Raf Lauren and Archaeopteryx" that women consumers like. These sports and leisure brands known as the "Three Treasures of Middle Age" have started to increase their sales, and it is common to find a difficult situation.
According to data from JD, 10 minutes before the "Double 11" special sports event this year, the turnover of running shoes increased by 146% year on year, the turnover of sports down jacket increased by 120% year on year, and the turnover of yoga equipment increased by more than 150% year on year.
The hot sale of such goods has a lot to do with the change of the shopping concept of the current middle class consumer groups. In the past two years, hiking, camping, skiing, fishing and other outdoor activities have become popular, and these outdoor brands have also become popular. "If you like outdoor wear Archaeopteryx, and if you like fitness wear lulumen", high-end professional equipment has become a popular trend.
The comfort, convenience and other characteristics of these brands also make them occupy a place in urban leisure. But in the urban leisure scene, Zhao Hui said that it is actually more a symbol of identity and circle culture. Middle aged people also wear Archaeopteryx in the office, which is different from that of young farmers who wear jackets. It shows that you have money and leisure.
Enterprises are also interested in the external attributes of the brand, and the market price is also rising. Not long ago, an executive of Anta Group announced at the public event in August that its outdoor sports brand Archaeopteryx would comprehensively benchmark Hermes in business strategy.
"Archaeopteryx also needs to distribute goods for sale". Although the statement made by this executive was finally confirmed not to represent the official policy of the group, it was also believed by netizens that the price of coats in thousands of models was very extravagant.
Now, young people wear flat clothes, and the "Three Treasures of Middle Age" are moving towards the high-end line, "harvesting" wealthy and leisure middle-class consumers?
How did the "Three Treasures of Middle Age" become popular?
Archaeopteryx is a Canadian first-line outdoor brand founded in 1989, and it has been nearly two years since it came close to the trend circle.
At the closing ceremony of men's clothing in autumn and winter 2020, the creative design master Virgil appeared in an ALPHA SV. Later, in the OFF WHITE women's clothing in autumn and winter 2020, supermodel GIGI and Bella appeared in a mix of archaeopteryx tops and OEW dresses. These two events enabled Archaeopteryx to successfully enter the trend circle.
However, it was in a popular online video abroad in 2021 that consumers became popular. In this video, the outstanding effect of foreign online celebrities showering in the clothes of Archaeopteryx, and dropping clothes without touching, has triggered many users to follow and shoot. It is not wet, but it is breathable, fast and comfortable. Foreign young people begin to pursue the brand of Archaeopteryx.
After the popularity abroad, Archaeopteryx enters the domestic market as a high-end brand. On the eve of the National Day holiday in 2022, when the first Archaeopteryx flagship store opened in Wangfujing, Beijing, people queued up to see their heads but not their tails. The fifth floor of Beijing SKP Mall has also occupied a gold store position after it was adjusted to a high-end sports brand area this year.
He Rui, a Beijing hiker, told Tech that there were many people wearing Archaeopteryx in their hiking community. Young people in the hiking community can only afford to wear Kaile Stone, but many middle-aged people wear Archaeopteryx.
After each hike, the community will have a dinner at the foot of the mountain, and everyone will talk about equipment. "Soft shell/hard shell topics can still be talked about, but when you enter a brand, it's hard for you to get in touch with it." He Rui told Tech Planet that at this time, high-end brands like Archaeopteryx have the right to speak.
However, He Rui said that there are not many opportunities for communication, because these middle-aged people basically gather at a table. They can drink white wine, sing songs and speak loudly. But their young people can't drink liquor, and they are not as open as they are playing.
Does equipment create a chain of contempt? He Rui doesn't think so, but the circle culture is different. Whether you are a beginner/intermediate or a heavy fan is not only determined by the difficulty of the route, but also by the level of these equipment.
The same is true in the fitness circle. Li Meng in Nanjing is a yoga enthusiast. Wearing lululemon's figure pants is the sign of entering the circle.
In the past two years, Keep live broadcast and Tiao Yin fitness are very popular. Everyone pursues to wear a lululemon to show their physical beauty. "I also like to shoot yoga recruitment and videos, and share my voice and circle of friends", Li Meng said, wearing these brands of fitness pants can not only protect muscles, but also convey professional image.
This brand also has many series to choose from. If you want to wear the Install launched in 2021, you can choose Wunder Train, which is more sweaty. This series can dry faster; If you like yoga and running, you should choose fast and free. This NuluX fabric has better support for your thighs.
When you understand these details, you are already in the circle. With more and more people entering the circle, Archaeopteryx, lululemon and other brands are also popular in the streets, and transferred to the field of outdoor sports and urban leisure.
Whether Archaeopteryx, Lululemon, or Lavlauren, they are popular among middle-aged people. Another important feature is that these goods are low-key enough in the crowd, but when you look closely at the clothes logo, it is conspicuous enough. "When you start with Archaeopteryx, you will find that the north is really a bit poor", the video blogger Ke Kexiong joked.
It is the change of market environment and consumption cognition that has made these brands well recognized among middle-aged people with the most consumption ability. With the widespread recognition of consumers, the prices of these brands are also rising.
Who makes these brands unaffordable?
At the fifth floor of Beijing high-end shopping mall SKP, an important upgrade will be ushered in by the end of 2021, and Arc'teryx Archaeopteryx and other high-end sports brands will start to settle here.
In this shopping mall with luxury brands and annual sales of 17.7 billion yuan, every commodity is expensive. The same is true in SKP's Archaeopteryx store, where a jacket costs 6500 yuan and a city leisure down jacket costs 25000 yuan. Some customers want to buy ALPHA SV series, but none of the popular colors are available. The price and availability of goods are all in line with other luxury goods such as DIOR and CHANEL.
Photo caption: Archaeopteryx Store of Beijing SKP Mall. (Photographed by Tech Planet) It is reported that SKP has held store celebration activities recently, and superimposed the "Double 11" shopping festival, which is undoubtedly a good time to sell. However, the "proud" Archaeopteryx brand only allows the low configuration version to participate in activities, and the high configuration version does not participate in store celebration activities, which is exactly the measure taken by Archaeopteryx to maintain its high-end positioning. But this also made many "bird fans" express "regret". However, some of these fans can't beat some old fans. Someone shared a trick on how to buy the high-end version at a discount.
This simple trick is to place an order on the official website first, then ask the sales phone of SKP in Xi'an to say something about it and ask it to distribute goods to other places. In this way, Beijing SKP's Archaeopteryx store will transfer goods nearby, and because Xi'an SKP's Archaeopteryx store has a high configuration version to participate in the event, so Beijing can only use the high configuration version to distribute goods at a discount to you. "I bought a Kadin at a discount of 85%, which is really fragrant". I couldn't help sharing it when I bought a high matching version of "bird flour" wheat.
Although the high configuration version with a discount of 85% is not cheap, consumers still flock to it. Financial report data shows that on October 17, Anta Sports released its financial report for the third quarter of 2022. The retail amount of "other brand products" where Archaeopteryx belongs has increased by 40% - 45% compared with the same period of 2021.
In fact, Archaeopteryx can achieve higher growth. After all, in terms of current factory capacity, the capacity of mass production is very strong. However, Archaeopteryx insists on sewing zippers and folding surfaces manually. Just like LV and Chanel, they claim that handmade bags can maintain high prices after production is limited for this reason.
Under various measures, many netizens also found that the price of Archaeopteryx was rising. For example, the original cotton half sleeve T-shirt in the flagship store was 600 yuan, occasionally discounted 400 yuan, but now it is directly priced at 800 yuan.
However, in fact, the growth of overseas Archaeopteryx and other brands is not so high. Recently, there was a news that "Ralph Lauren was fined 60000 for selling 25 unqualified women's clothes". The cause of the incident was that the party concerned purchased the "Ralph Lauren" brand women's knitted pullover at the price of 198 yuan per piece and sold it at five times the purchase price of 1090 yuan.
This also makes people realize that overseas shopping is cheaper. In fact, the price of Archaeopteryx overseas shopping is twice that of domestic shopping, and the postage is only a few tens of yuan. The cost performance ratio is still better than that of domestic shopping. Many "bird fans" choose to go shopping on "Black Friday" and other promotional festivals.
Many young people like Li Meng also choose Pingdi products. I bought goods from other brands on the e-commerce platform. "Lululemon is really comfortable, but it is not much different from these factory goods, but the price is much different."
Enterprises reap high-end brand dividends
Facing the middle-aged people's preference for high-end brands, and the emerging mountain clothing consumption trend. These sports brand enterprises are grasping the market dividend, and Anta is a typical example. And Anta's ability to be the first to realize this principle among Guochao brands has something to do with its own experience.
In 2009, Anta purchased the trademark management rights of FILA in China at a price of no more than 600 million Hong Kong dollars. The unexpected success of this event opened the way for Anta to invest in foreign brands.
The success of FILA stems from Anta's positioning of FILA as "luxury". Taking Beijing SKP Shopping Mall as an example, there is a FILA store between two Archaeopteryx stores. The store is redecorated in red style, which makes entering the store like entering a castle.
In addition, Anta allows FILA to maintain an independent operating system and helps FILA to open stores in major malls. FILA seized the demand of the domestic middle class for comfortable and good-looking products and activated its domestic market.
However, Anta Group cannot rest easy. After the main brand Anta nearly "lies flat", FILA has now entered a stage of slowing growth. In the first half of 2022, FILA's revenue was 10.777 billion yuan, down 0.5% year on year.
However, FILA's growth in the past few years is still phenomenal. Anta followed suit. In December 2018, Anta announced the acquisition of Amer Sports, which is the parent company of Archaeopteryx. In China, Anta also positioned itself as a high-end brand to build Archaeopteryx according to the idea of building FILA.
During the "National Day" holiday, in addition to the opening of the first offline experience store in Asia in Wangfu Central, Beijing, Archaeopteryx also plans to quickly open stores in many second tier cities such as Hefei. The same is true for lululemon, which ranks China as the most important growth market.
According to an interview with Huang Shanyan, senior vice president of Lululemon in China, the latter said that by the end of fiscal year 2021, Lululemon had 71 stores in mainland China, and it was expected that by fiscal year 2026, Lululemon would have 220 stores.
Behind the crazy opening of stores is Lululemon's plan to develop mainland China into its second largest market in the world, and realize the goal of achieving revenue of 12.5 billion dollars by 2026.
Consumer brands represented by "Middle aged Sanbao" have formulated radical development plans, which is closely related to the rapid development of the domestic consumer market. From the past consumption of several hundred yuan per capita for shopping to the current consumption of more than 10000 yuan per platform, domestic consumption capacity has grown rapidly.
In addition to Anta, more Guochao brands need to participate in the market dividend of these brands.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
