Sporting Goods Go Into The Rural Market With White Hands.

"The king is better than the others." a big brand is not born as an international superstar.

Specifically to the sporting goods industry, Adidas and Nike are also growing in one step, from the local frontline cities to the township market, and then end the rapid growth of the local market and start overseas operations.

So will China succeed in replying to the successful experience of that year?

Does China's sports brand also rely on others?

Is the sporting goods industry a good time to go to the countryside?

    进入农村市场，长尾理论的新实践

Since 2001, the sporting goods industry has maintained an annual growth rate of over 30%.

This fully demonstrates the high growth of the Chinese market, which is based on the completion of the marketing channel from the second line to the profit saturation, and then to the three line cities in the past two years.

Regarding this, John, Larson chairman of the World Sporting Goods Federation, said: "at any level, the local market will inevitably turn to the next market after the double saturation of demand and profit. Therefore, the rural market needs to be further explored by sports enterprises in theory."

He also believes that "sports goods enterprises in today's first tier cities have basically no growth."

According to foreign experience, orderly and benign entry into the rural market will bring about 20% to 30% growth rate for manufacturing enterprises each year.

This is good news for small brands. "

As far as China's sporting goods industry is concerned, the development of the rural market is no longer just a good card, because the sports market has been in need of the "grass roots" movement element in the past two years.

But now it seems that only three domestic brands such as double star will put the main force in the rural market.

In fact, whether entering the rural market or not is actually not related to brand power. Especially for enterprises that are good at scale economy strategy, the sooner they enter the rural market, the greater the chance to maintain fast growth. The four or five tier market will be able to form a ladder oriented product structure and differentiated brand competitiveness for the future.

Therefore, domestic brands should never abandon the rural market.

The growth of any international sports brand relies on a strong domestic market, relying on the "long tail" part of the consumer to achieve sales profits.

This has been recognized by the Chinese household electrical appliance industry, fast moving consumer goods industry and IT industry, and the countryside is becoming the support point for their next profit growth.

    上山下乡，绝非易事

Of course, going to the mountains and going to the countryside is not so easy.

Generally speaking, the distribution of sales profits in the sporting goods industry is generally: 15% of the manufacturers, 15% of the agents at the regional level, 10% of the two agents, 10% of the regional agents, 10% of the county agents, 5% of the town wholesalers, 5% of the rural retail outlets.

For businesses, after the "last ditch" exploitation of the rural market, the profit is the least, which is the reason why investors are deterred.

It is also because of this kind of problem that Adidas and other international top brands are just waiting and testing stage, and have not really started large-scale action.

"For international brands like Adidas, we are not only in the center of big cities, but also in the county-level cities, which are competing with their competitors and competing with many local brands.

However, whether or not we need to enter the four or five tier market is often determined by the marketing strategy of the enterprises at different stages. It is also necessary for enterprises to have the support of hardware and software, such as personnel, funds and distribution channels that extend to the rural areas.

Adidas Asia Pacific Marketing Director Marx Dole said.

When the international brand is not yet coveted, if the local brand can enter the rural market, it will undoubtedly be excavating the new "profit pool".

Only because the payment ability of consumer groups in rural market is relatively insufficient, a special pricing system must be established.

In my opinion, the era of unified retail price of global sporting goods stores is necessary. What is the price of the rural market, which is lower than that of the one or two or three line city stores?

"If a pair of 500 yuan shoes are sold for 300 yuan in the rural market, there will still be very few buyers. If the manufacturers do not earn the money, if they sell 150 yuan, the consumers in the three tier cities will go to the" shopping spree ", which will form a new form of fleeing.

Xu Yang, director of Anta brand, said: "this is why we have been reluctant to move."

Small profits and difficult pricing are all obvious difficulties for sports goods enterprises to enter the rural market, but this is not the root cause of the difficulty in starting the rural sporting goods market.

Wu Rongzhao, executive director of Hongxing Erke, the biggest sports shoes manufacturer in Quanzhou, Fujian, believes that the fundamental reason lies in the use of sporting goods in China, and more on the consumption level of the necessities of life. In sports shoes, for example, the concept of exclusive shoes can not be popularized in the rural market. Any sports product is not a commodity that rural consumers can not buy.

Therefore, this is caused by the imbalance between market supply and demand.

    双星模式开启农村“差异化”营销

At the level of rural marketing, it has a long say in the double star company, which is intensive and intensive in the village market. The sales of over 60% of its sports products come from the four or five level market.

Double star has built more than 4000 chain stores in the four or five level market of the country. Managers and salesmen are basically farmers.

Double stars also occupy large wholesale markets all over the country, and enter major supermarkets and shopping malls around the country to build up a marketing network with wholesale markets, chain stores and shop outlets.

In addition, some parts of the region are trying to carry out channel reform and establish a new business format - "Double Star Supermarket", which has entered the urban and rural joint market and the rural market with the marketing mode of supermarket, and quickly seized the four or five tier market, which has opened up more channels for the sale of sports products such as double star shoes, clothing, boxes, bags, sports equipment and so on.

Wang Hai, President of Binxing group, insists that "more than 60% of the performance comes from rural areas, which is far from enough. The rural market of the more than 900 million population will be the decisive battle for China's sporting goods industry in the future."

It can be said that the two stars first completed the "going up the mountain and going to the countryside", and will establish a model for the labor-intensive sports brand latecomers.

Of course, the double star in the process of opening up the rural market is not without trouble. Ma Shengli, deputy general manager of the double star company, has poured bitter water: "circulation factor always restricts the pace of expanding the rural market share.

At present, the limitations of the ability of rural individual businesses to purchase and store management are difficult to meet the needs of fast circulation and deep penetration of new products.

In addition, the shortage of rural commercial outlets also limits the purchasing power of rural consumers to a certain extent.

In fact, there is a great difference between rural marketing and city marketing, whether for manufacturers, channels or retailers.

The first is to promote differences in communication.

In cities, dealers always hope that manufacturers can invest a lot of marketing expenses, such as using TV, portals, mainstream newspapers and other powerful media to conduct a full range of bombing.

But in the four or five level rural market, if we follow such a marketing way, it may not work. In the rural areas where information pmission is not diversified, consumers still rely mainly on word of mouth to pass the brand and consume by the opinion leaders.

Next is the difference between terminal management of retailers.

From the display and placement of products to the standardization of salesmen's product interpretation, the terminal management requirements of the city will always be higher than that of the rural market, because the most direct way for urban product operators to enhance terminal sales is to strengthen the standardization and professional management system of retail outlets.

However, unlike the rural market, sales management is more focused on kinship: converting the selling point of the product into a more understandable language, or paying attention to the publicity that products can bring to consumers, such as making full use of the needs of rural consumers, promoting effective on-site promotion, etc.

Finally, there are some differences in the management of distributors.

In contrast, enterprises often give rural dealers greater freedom to play their space. For example, Hongxing Erke only stipulates that shops can not be less than 100 square meters in the administrative divisions below the county seat and the county seat, but they can be more flexible in layout.

In fact, entering the rural market requires manufacturers to cooperate with the entire marketing chain. It is not enough to give distributors distribution rights only, but also to give them the right to decide on the promotion of the terminal, and the direct appointment of the personnel to assist the marketing, such as popularizing the common sense of sports goods for the consumers in the rural market, establishing the brand awareness of sporting goods consumption, and actively cooperate with the after-sale work of the terminal.

Therefore, the marketing chain established by the enterprise for the rural market should be: Marketing (manufacturer) - distribution (dealer agent) - promotion (terminal) - assist sales (rural consumers).

As Xuan Zang learned, the road to Lingshan is a difficult road, and it is also a necessary road. Sports goods enter the countryside as well.