Self Created Brand Of Chengdu Women'S Shoes&Nbsp; Open Up Domestic Market

Zhang Lina, 30, drives her own Porsche , calmly facing the strange eyes of the roadside young people. It's no wonder that a young woman driving such a dazzling sports car always arouses various conjectures. They didn't know that what was sitting in the car was a self-made female boss - she and her husband Lin Yuchun founded the Chengdu women's shoes brand "Amiqi" five years ago, and now it is sold in more than ten provinces and cities across the country. The husband and wife have accumulated more than ten million yuan of wealth.

After a series of setbacks such as the financial crisis and the stagnation of exports to Russia, the women's shoes industry in Chengdu is thinking about a new way of transformation. The profit model of simply OEM for others is declining day by day. Self created brands and opening up domestic market have brought rich returns to some shoe enterprises. Since the establishment of the factory in 2005, "Amiqi" company has always insisted on building its own women's shoes brand and exploring the domestic market. With the expansion of the "Amiqi" brand, more than 10 enterprises in Guangzhou and Chengdu have been sticking their brands to it. Also, "Camado" and other products have issued OEM orders Chengdu enterprises 。

From trade to production

The annual output value of "mom and pop stores" is more than 100 million yuan

"Channel is the king", this sentence can't be more suitable for the business of Lin Yuchun and Zhang Lina. It is precisely because of its solid sales channels that "Amichi" has rapidly developed to today's scale.

In the early 1990s, a large number of shoemaking and processing plants gathered in today's Hongpailou area. Lin Yuchun, a Fujian man who does wholesale business of women's shoes in the northern market, is in trouble because of an accident in the purchase process. Seeing that the women's shoes in the surrounding stores from Chengdu were selling well, he began to have the idea of becoming a blogger in Chengdu. Finally, with more than 3000 yuan, Lin Yuchun bought a station ticket to catch the train from Beijing to Chengdu, where he stayed for more than 40 hours.

Just arrived in Chengdu, Lin Yuchun ran into difficulties everywhere. After a lot of hard work, Lin Yuchun finally chose a well-known shoe factory as the regional agent in Tuqiao. During this period, he first met Zhang Lina, who was then an accountant in the shoe factory. Then they met again in the training class of Sichuan University for economics and management, and they finally got married because of women's shoes.

In 1999, they decided to start a business together after graduating from school. Starting from trade, they began to establish fixed sales channels to sell Chengdu shoes to all parts of the country. With the gradual expansion and consolidation of channels, in 2005, Lin Yuchun and Zhang Lina had set up sales points in many cities across the country. As business grew, the couple began to plan to build their own factory. Because they have a huge channel advantage, they are not worried about selling their shoes. In this way, "Emily" was born.

"Amy Qi" is positioned at the middle and high end Women's Shoes And began to capture the market outside Chengdu, especially the northern market. In just a few years, "Amiqi" has opened many branches in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Jinan, Xi'an and other places, and developed a large number of agents. The agents in Beijing alone have more than 600 stores. Zhang Lina's goal is to let "Amy Qi" enter all first tier cities in the country, which has been completed by 40%.

With the gradual expansion of business, "Amichi" has developed two factories and three R&D centers, with an annual output value of more than 100 million yuan. The huge domestic market has provided a broad sales space for "Amy Qi", and the brand reputation of "Amy Qi" women's shoes is getting better and better.

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Foreign trade blocked

Domestic sales bring big market

While "Amiqi" is growing rapidly, Chengdu shoes are also entering the foreign trade market on a large scale. Chengdu women's shoes regard Russia as the main trade distribution center, and expand to Eastern European countries. On the other hand, many shoe enterprises in Chengdu have entered the European and American markets through a large number of labeling for foreign brands. A pair of shoes that Mrs. Obama wore on her husband's inauguration day were produced by Chengdu Epeland Shoes Co., Ltd. This anecdote was disclosed by the media, and it was a good story.

Since 2008, the global financial crisis has hit, and the overseas trade orders of Chengdu women's shoes have declined sharply. Some small and medium-sized enterprises relying on foreign trade orders have been greatly impacted and have closed down. In June 2009, the Russian side closed the Cherkizovsky market (container market), the largest Chinese market in Moscow, for reasons such as cracking down on "gray customs clearance", and announced the centralized destruction of Chinese "smuggled" goods worth up to 2 billion dollars, including 1 billion dollars of goods detained by Wenzhou businessmen alone. In this storm, tens of millions of shoes were seized by Chengdu shoe enterprises, several of which suffered losses of tens of millions, with the heaviest being more than 100 million yuan.

The difficulty of Russian market and the reduction of foreign trade orders have made a number of shoe factories enter the "severe cold period". However, the domestic market is another world. The domestic sales of "Amiqi" are smooth. In 2006, "Amy Qi" began to try to put advertisements on CCTV-7. Next, many large shopping malls can see the "Amichi" women's shoes. The most expensive women's shoes can be sold for four or five thousand yuan a pair. Zhang Lina explained why she insisted on the domestic market: "I am used to doing things well one by one, and I have no intention of doing foreign trade for the time being. I will do domestic business first.".

Her opinion was confirmed by Liu Ying, the assistant to the chairman of the board of directors of another well-known shoe company "Camado". Liu Ying said that in recent years, Chinese products have encountered various obstacles in the foreign trade market, such as technical barriers and anti-dumping. In turn, the domestic demand market is so large.

After many years of moving to the whole country, this year, "Amy Qi" turned around and returned to the Chengdu market. More than a month ago, "Amy Qi" opened its first direct sales store in Chengdu in Moore Parkson. It will enter Wangfujing in August and Ito Yokado in December. Since its entry into the market, "Amichi" has sold more than 1000 pairs in Parkson Mall, with a sales volume of more than 200000 yuan, and entered the top ten sales volume in the shoe industry of the mall.

Within the industry, "Camado" is the only "shoe king" enterprise in western China, and its share in the domestic market has also increased at an annual rate of 25% - 30% in recent years. Liu Ying said that after the financial crisis, Chengdu's shoe enterprises were exploring ways of transformation, and paid more and more attention to the domestic market

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Helping others to be tagged becomes "tagged"

Chengdu shoes seek the way of brand

For a long time, Chengdu shoe enterprises were mainly engaged in OEM of domestic and foreign brands, especially Wenzhou shoe brands. However, the benefits of OEM are far less than those of brand owners. Zhang Lina said that in general, if the OEM can allocate 10% of the gross profit of a pair of shoes, it is already in a very good condition. At the same time, the fate of small manufacturers is in the hands of big brand enterprises. Once there is a lack of orders, small manufacturers at the bottom of the industrial chain will face huge market risks.

It is by seeing this layer that Zhang Lina and her husband have firmly established the road of developing their own brands since the establishment of the factory. Since 2006, "Amy Qi"'s own production capacity has not been able to meet the market demand, and Zhang Lina has started to look for OEM manufacturers in Guangzhou and local. As the brand is famous, many shoe factories are competing for their OEM production. Up to now, more than 10 factories have been producing women's shoes for "Amy Qi", with an annual output of nearly one million pairs, and more than 1000 workers have been employed.

"Since Chengdu is known as the capital of women's shoes in China, there must be three or five enterprises with their own brands that can win, and then more small enterprises can make profits by issuing OEM orders." Liu Ying said that building their own shoes brand is the only way to become a big enterprise. Now, "Camado" also has many OEM factories in Guangzhou. "To find a manufacturing enterprise that meets the standards, we only need to output process management and do a good job in quality control to complete production".

Liu Ying said that the ultimate goal of "Camado" is an enterprise like "Nike": there is no production link, only responsible for the output of brands and output management. "It's a long road, but we must go."

Zhang Lina is also ambitious. She and her husband have bought dozens of acres of land in Chongzhou, invested more than 10 million yuan to build a new factory, and plan to introduce French production lines. Chengdu shoe enterprises represented by them are relying on their own brands to usher in a leap forward era.