Behind The Sky High Price Fashion Shoes: Brand Owners Are Behind The Scenes

In the "Jianghu" of sneakers, Xiao Jun (a pseudonym) has a special identity as a player of shoes frying.

In 2017, he hired 20 people to queue up to buy a new AJ (Air Jordan) shoe, and thus embarked on the road of "frying shoes". In two years, he earned nearly 300000 yuan.

When a reporter from the Beijing News asked him whether he earned more from "retail investors", Xiao Jun smiled and said nothing. However, he revealed that he had seen the flowing water of a certain dealer, and the monthly income was several hundred thousand.

AJ's popularity is just a microcosm of the sneaker market becoming a "Vanity Fair". Behind the sky high priced sneakers, the brands are also behind the scenes. Over the years, Nike, Adidas and other brands have stimulated the prosperity of the sneaker market through limited quantity, lottery and other means, and also made the entire sneaker market crazy.

The road to advancement

Players who are hard to "transform" shoes earn nearly 300000 yuan in two years

Now the market is beginning to catch on with the saying: "Middle aged people are investing in stocks, while young people are investing in shoes."

Xiao Jun's first experience of shoe snatching dates back to ten years ago. At that time, he was still a student. At 7 o'clock in the morning, I began to queue in a shopping mall in Beijing. At this time, many people had lined up outside the store.

"At about four or five o'clock in the morning, there was a queue of people." Before Xiaojun stepped into the game, he "struggled" to grab shoes. "It was really difficult to grab shoes. The winning rate was pitifully low, which was like a lottery. If you didn't grab shoes in an organized way, it would be difficult to grab them. But there was no place to buy shoes at that time, so everyone could only rush to the store. Those shoes have been laminated again, and I'm sorry to try the number. The user experience is very poor. "

Since then, Xiaojun began to buy shoes from shoe dealers, but it was difficult to guarantee the authenticity of the shoes because of the high premium rate.

The success rate of shoe snatching in the primary market is low, and he is unwilling to spend a lot of money on shoes in the secondary market. By coincidence, Xiao Jun became a "retail investor".

"Shoes grabbing is a first come, first served activity. For example, a few years ago, people grabbing Adidas' Yeezy needed to make an appointment. After the appointment was successful, they received the official information, and then they could really obtain the qualification to buy shoes in the physical store. At that time, I mentioned several pairs of shoes. In addition to keeping them for myself, several other pairs of shoes with the original price of 1899 yuan were sold at a higher price of 700 yuan in the WeChat friends circle. ”Xiaojun, who had tasted the benefits, gradually found his way through "expert advice" and began to hire people to queue up to buy shoes.

In 2017, Xiao Jun hired 20 people to queue up to buy a new AJ shoe, and then embarked on the road of "frying shoes". During the two years as a part-time "retail investor", he earned nearly 300000 yuan.

In the circle of shoe frying, there are two types of players. One is retail investors who grab shoes through official channels and sell them in the market to earn interest margins; The other is the dealer who controls the market price by sweeping a lot of goods and raising the price.

Xiao Jun thinks he is a "retail investor". He told reporters that the sneaker circle itself is an ecosystem composed of buying and selling, and almost everyone plays the dual role of buyer and seller. For retail investors, they began to sell shoes to "fight for war" because they liked sneakers, but they could not afford them because they were too expensive. They bought more pairs at one time and sold them again, forming an unconscious "sharing economy". "

Jun claimed to have seen the whole process of the shoe market from a "bear market" to a "bull market": at the beginning, the shoe market was relatively small, even in the eyes of many Chinese people, it was not on the table, and people still liked suits. At that time, although there was also such a simple worship of football shoes, such as the Warrior white ball shoes of the parents' generation, "the market was very 'bear'." He said, for example, that at that time, a pair of LeBron signature shoes with a price of 1480 yuan were sold at a discount.

The division took place in 2004. This year, basketball star Jordan came to China with his red and black shoes to promote his own brand of shoes, Air Jordan. Since then, celebrity endorsements, fashion brand co branding and other elements have sprung up, and sneakers have begun to enter the vision of the Chinese people. In the past 15 years, according to the sales data disclosed by Hupu, the Air Jordan 1 has 815 colors, with monthly sales of more than 60000 pairs. In April this year alone, the sales of the Air Jordan 1 low black red toe shoes have exceeded 20000 pairs. On the e-commerce platform, the price of black, green and orange patent leather of the Air Jordan 1 has reached 29849 yuan.

When talking about the "business model" of frying shoes, Xiao Jun told the Beijing News that the trendy brand business is a fan business. Coconut shoes were sold for 1899 yuan at that time, but through the star effect and fan economy, they were even promoted to 20000 yuan. It is very common that the market price is 30% higher than the selling price, and some are even several times of the original price. Among them, the price of 350V2 white spot horse coconut sold by Adidas in 2017 was less than 2000 yuan, and within a week of its listing, the price quickly soared to more than 10000 yuan. Nike's FF WHITE x Nike Blazer Mid Rainbow color matching shoes sold for only 899 yuan, but the price on Taobao was as high as 8000 yuan.

Play in the "shoe market"

Online and offline instant sales are popular, "shoes are like stocks"

The fanatical consumption demand has given birth to the secondary market. For players who want to buy shoes, this has become a business, not just about shoes.

The reporter interviewed a number of fashion shoe enthusiasts around and found that each person's mobile phone will basically be installed with at least two or three apps and dozens of apps to buy sneakers. The players who scramble shoes are online and offline.

Online shopping is for robots. Just input the corresponding function, and you can grab shoes at the corresponding time point. "Whether it's IOS or Android, you have to break out of prison first. The software function is fast robbery, and of course there is also a problem of probability. 100 numbers can be grabbed at the same time. ”Jun told reporters. In contrast, offline is a crowd tactic. "Last November, a dealer hired 50 people and lined up almost a whole day to buy 21 pairs of shoes. According to the sales price of 1299 yuan and the market price of 5600 yuan at that time, a pair of shoes earned more than 4000 yuan."

Jun revealed that there is another way to get goods with a "hard background", that is to know the store manager or management personnel to get goods directly.

"There is also a primary market and a secondary market in the sneaker circle. Fans have a strong demand for buying, selling and collecting sneakers, and the secondary market for reselling sneakers came into being. At the same time, the investment value of sneakers is growing day by day, and has gradually derived a 'shoe market' with the same financial and investment functions as the stock market." Xiao Jun said.

This point was recognized by Liu Shanshan, another player of shoe frying. Liu Shanshan started to stir fry shoes two years ago, and has earned nearly 200000 yuan as a part-time job. In his eyes, there is no difference between investing in shoes and investing in stocks. They both buy at a high price and sell at a low price. Shoes selling at 1200 yuan will be bought at a higher price if they are popular, and will be sold when the price is appropriate.

But at the same time, like the stock market, the shoe market also has risks. Liu Shanshan said that players of shoes speculation mainly measure whether a shoe is worth speculation through their own value judgment system. Generally speaking, it depends on which star wears it, whether it is co branded, good-looking and easy to match clothes. "If you don't judge well, you can only compensate. After all, there is no clear standard in the industry for how much each pair of shoes costs."

Over the years, Xiao Jun has devoted himself to digging "demon shoes". "Shoes speculators are like stocks speculators. They should learn to dig for gold and find 'demon stocks', which greatly tests their vision. This requires that they can judge the market situation and have channels to purchase goods. They also need to be accurate in the time of shipment. Generally, they need to stock up for a period of time, and only sell when the quantity of goods is consumed to a small extent."

Xiaojun sometimes misreads. "Before, the AJ1 black gray shadow exploded. At that time, the market forecast was 4000 yuan, and the pre-sale was 3000 yuan. I hired more than ten people to grab shoes. As a result, off white The Ten was very popular in the same period, which led to the fact that the price of Shadow has not risen. Now the price is more than 2000 yuan. I can only sell at a reduced price. "

　 Behind the scenes

Adidas star blessing, Nike limited production gimmicks

Behind the sky high priced sneakers, the brand businesses that smell the business opportunities are behind the scenes.

An insider told the Beijing News reporter that the price of a pair of sneakers, which sold for less than 2000 yuan, would be raised to nearly 10000 yuan. Stars with goods were the key, while the relationship between supply and demand, namely hunger marketing, was fundamental. The real reason for the popularity of sneakers lies in the sense of scarcity that sneaker brands can create.

"If you want to buy a limited edition lipstick, you can buy it on behalf of others or on Taobao, but the sneaker brand only sells a specific style in a specific channel. Due to the lack of product channels, there is a long lottery queue after the release of new shoes, which makes it almost impossible for sneaker players to buy their favorite sneakers at the original price in the primary market." said the insider.

"Every time new shoes are sold, the brand will deliberately emphasize the shipment volume. Once the market news shows that the quantity of goods is low, the pre-sale price in the early stage can be several times higher than the original price. Generally speaking, the shipment volume below six figures is relatively scarce. The selling price of the brand's popular sneakers has been maintained at about 1000 yuan, there is obvious premium space. And 'fried shoes' can create a scene of prosperity in the shoe market, which is beneficial to brand value building. ”Jun said that, taking Yeezy Boost 350 Moonrock as an example, the global limit was 9000 pairs when it was first launched, and the Chinese official channel only got 81 pairs of seats.

According to the data of StockX, an American sports shoes e-commerce platform, Nike's AJ brand accounted for 44% of the sales in the secondary market of sports shoes in 2018, Nike brand (except AJ) accounted for 26%, Adidas brand accounted for 24%, and other brands accounted for only 6%. In 2018, AJ ONE, Adidas Yeezy and AJ THREE, the top three in terms of sales volume, enjoyed a premium of 99%, 30% and 31% respectively.

Data shows that Nike, especially AJ series, occupies an absolute dominant position in the secondary market. However, Adidas is also looking for opportunities to turn around at any time. In 2013, Kanye West, a rapper with nearly 25 million fans on social media Twitter, went to Adidas at a price of 10 million dollars. At the 2016 financial report meeting, Adidas said that on March 17, 2016, Adidas sold 400000 pairs of adidas NMD sneakers worldwide, while the sales of the Air Jordan 11 in December 2015 were only 1 million pairs.

In fact, Kanye's coconut shoes are well versed in marketing. For Adidas, Kanye West is both a spokesman and a designer. Its products are generally limited edition, and can be sold quickly after speculation. The Boost 350, once priced at $200, sold out one hour after its release. Katy Lubin, director of communication of fashion search platform Lyst, commented: "Kanye West is a master of social media hype. He used his personality and the exclusive mode of hunger marketing to create a cult brand (small but fanatical)."

However, the "overlord" of the fashion shoe market and Nike's AJ are also making topics. The AJ1 "No Resale" launched recently is another successful marketing case of Nike. "It is one of Nike's most common methods to make profits by making the topic of products hot through these limited models and then starting to increase the sales volume by changing colors," said Xiao Jun.

In addition to quantity limitation, region limitation is also a common marketing method of Nike. Since the sales volume is not very large, and only in the designated regions, the regional limited sales seem more difficult.

In addition, the reporter noticed that the star carrying goods is also the marketing focus of the sneaker company. According to the Star Consumption Influence Report released by Alibaba in October last year, from July to September last year alone, more than 400 million people searched for "same star" on Taobao, with an average of more than 4.5 million people searching every day. Among them, the popularity of coconut shoes, in addition to the limited quantity, can not be underestimated the effect of Kanye and his wife Kim Kardashian as stars. Kim Kardashian often wears new products on the street. Kanye also recruited some social media opinion leaders and celebrities. Like Kardashian, she wore her new products and was captured by the media, and then released these contents to social media.