Vans, Which Combines Sports And Fashion, Expands The Chinese Market And Carries The Banner Of Wei Fu Group'S Sports Brand Sales.

In 2018, when the sports brand

Once again, when the Olympic skateboard official certification was introduced to China, the organizers encountered some trouble. The competition originally scheduled for the Whampoa shipyard in Shanghai was held in Suzhou for the reason of entering the Expo.

A year ago, in 2017, when the world finals of the Vans Park Series (Park) professional park skating (VPS) came to China for the first time, the weather was not good. The rain in the city of the Games delayed the event for several hours.

However, the twists and turns of the two years' experience did not extinguish the enthusiasm of Vans to put the event in China.

Cao Wei, general manager of China, told reporters:

It was our most heavyweight competition. The finals were put in China for second years in a row.

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VPS2018 world finals Champion (middle), runner up (right) and second runner up (left)

No surprise, and all the extensions

Like the sports trend brand, Vans regards China as the most important overseas market outside the United States.

In 2008, the parent group will acquire four years of Vans brand to China.

By this year, Vans has been in China for ten years.

Vans, which was born in 1966, came to China later than any other sports brand. However, the accumulation of sports and trend in the past did not bring too many cognitive obstacles to the brand.

The predecessor of Vans was the The Van Doren rubber factory founded by Paul Van Doren in Costa Mesa, California, USA in 1966.

California's sunshine, beaches, highways and mountains cultivate a large number of outdoor sports enthusiasts, which means extreme sports are an important part of the Vans brand. Skateboards, surfing, BMX and skiing products are Vans's specialties. Among them, Sk8-hi, Authentic, Old Skool and other skateboard shoes represent series, so that Vans has the "originator of skateboard shoes".

Extreme sports and street culture are inherently temperamental, and Vans has been popular with young people since its birth.

Recently, a survey conducted by Piper Jaffray, a US investment bank, shows that Vans has become the fastest growing sport brand among young people in the United States in the past year.

In China, Vans is obviously unable to focus its business on skateboard shoes.

Although skateboarding has entered the official Olympic Games in Tokyo, the popularity of skateboarding in China is very limited, with few participants. Skateboarding culture still needs a long period of cultivation in China. And Nike, Adidas, CONVERSE and other niche sports brands also have corresponding skateboarding series.

Vans also acknowledges that in China, professional skateboards and surfing products generate only about 10% of the total brand revenue.

Other brands can grab Vans's business, but Vans is not very good at crossing the boundaries to other sports areas.

In 1980s, Vans tried basketball shoes, running shoes and hip-hop shoes, but consumers did not buy them. The cost was too high, which led directly to the bankruptcy of the brand applications.

Now, the idea of Vans expansion has not been put into more sports, but has focused on creating its own "lifestyle" brand image, focusing on the growth of people - more people, younger people.

"As long as we like extreme sports, we like street culture, music and art, young people who are willing to express themselves, are our consumers."

In Cao Wei's statement, it seems that all young people can be the target consumers of Vans.

In China, Vans is also an atypical sports brand.

Although Nike and Adidas are often adjacent to shop, Vans's products and store design reveal the integration of sports and fashion.

Vans, which is hardly seen in the gym or playground, always appears in the Star Street pads, which adorn the daily life of young people.

All sorts of dazzling joint names, consumer freedom

The appearance of services and the pricing of relatively mid-range products make Vans products popular among young people in the second tier cities and even more in the market.

Fashion bloggers describe Vans's products as "catching up and affordable."

To what extent does Vans fire in China? On the platform such as knowing and watercress, the topic most discussed on Vans is "how to identify Vans authenticity".

Without celebrity spokesmen, its sponsors are also from sports such as skateboarding and surfing, which do not hurt the popularity of Vans products.

In recent quarters, Vans has lifted the banner of the growth of the parent company's group: in the first two quarters of fiscal year 2019, the growth of Vans brand sales revenue was 26% and 35% respectively, which were higher than the overall growth of the sports brand of Wei Fu, while the outdoor brands The North Face and Timberland of the group grew by a single digit and a negative number respectively.

Vans's global sales increased from US $360 million to US $3 billion in 2004, and Vans predicts that by 2023, global sales of brands will exceed US $5 billion.

Vans did not announce the performance of the Chinese market alone, but it listed China's performance separately from the results of the regional growth. The group's organic growth in the first half of fiscal year 2019 (as of September 2018) increased by 20% in China, more than any other region.

According to Vans, the brand has maintained two digit sales growth in almost every quarter in China.

However, in order to gain more market share in China, Vans may need to make some changes as well as brand positioning.

One of the principles of Vans is not to sign celebrity endorser. Compared with other sports brands, almost all the popular artists in China have been carved up.

Unwillingness to borrow star resources may make the brand lose a direct channel to communicate with a large number of potential consumers.

Compared with the hot market in China, Vans has a low profile in self promotion.

Vans may need more attempts to figure out a clear brand image for more consumers and to tell California's extreme sports culture to Chinese consumers.

In addition, Vans has little or no publicity in the direct business, digitalization, electronic business platform building and store upgrading of sports brands.

In its earnings report, the group often stressed the importance of developing overseas markets and direct business. Vans is the largest in China.

How to implement this task remains to be seen in the future.