In recent years, China's manufacturing industry has been hit by the slowdown of global demand and the transfer of procurement centers to cheaper Southeast Asia. Factories with highly skilled labor can't get enough jobs. Suppliers and factory owners of major luxury goods companies have come up with a solution: to create their own brands.
Most of these manufacturers don't do it? Original order? , the so-called? Factory surplus? High-quality replica products, which is also the so-called controversy caused by Ma Yun, Chairman of Alibaba's Board of Directors, in a recent interview? Is a fake as good as the real thing? . However, in some cases, the products of other brands produced by China factories are very similar in appearance to those produced by them for western customers. Sometimes the origins of these brands are quite shady.
They made such changes to protect themselves. GerhardFlatz, general manager of KTC, a high-end sportswear manufacturing company in China, said? Manufacturing is shifting to other fields. In order to survive, the factory feels that it must do something that it has never done before. Doing this business will certainly bring many problems, but the factory is in a difficult situation at present. It's a hard battle, and they have nothing to lose. ?
Build your own brand
With the leather brand Tuscany? For example, the brand is produced by Sitoy in Guangdong Province, China, which also produces products for MichaelKors, Prada, Tumi and other brands. Tuscany? S claims to be from Florence in marketing, but its business model in the past five years is more like a China brand, because Time Group has almost all trademark licenses in major global fashion markets outside Europe.
Is Time Group designing Tuscany in Dongguan manufacturing base now? And has a huge retail network from Chongqing to Ningbo, with single brand stores and department store counters all over the country. The handbag itself, compared with its relatively low price, is of high quality (the price is about 150 dollars, while the equivalent designer brand bag needs at least 1500 dollars) and the typing is clear? Tuscany? s？ This brand. But some of them are similar to international brands. Like Tuscany? S's gem? Series handbags: rigid square with handle at the top, pocket flap, gold hardware details and leather and chain belt, with the shape and characteristics of MichaelKors? Bridget. Handbags are similar.
CocoMojo, a young accessory brand in Hong Kong, provides another completely different example. CocoMojo is run by WendyMak, the daughter of an important manufacturing figure in China. For many years, her family leather factory is located in the Pearl River Delta, producing products for MarcJacobs, Prada and Coach for many years. CocoMojo's handbags are mostly bright marble leather and multicolor shiny leather products, but in terms of its outline, it is different from Coach's? Eddie. The products of famous luxury brands such as lazy shoulder bags are strikingly similar. But with Tuscany? CocoMojo seems to be a small personal project of Mai Shiyun, and she is most likely to inherit her father's leather empire one day. However, if successful, it is a way for her to diversify her business and upgrade the value chain of her family business.
But despite the introduction of some? Deduction? Design, these two factory brands are essentially no different from the major high street brands in Europe. What is the latter? Buy the same paragraph at a low price? Slogan produces products similar to luxury brand series, and occasionally it is called a foul because of plagiarism. After all, both business models emphasize different interpretations of colorful spectrum, from original design, slightly modified derivative design to blatant copying of counterfeit goods.
Inspiration or direct plagiarism?
However, if similar designs come from factories or manufacturers that also contract for international brands, will western brands be unhappy because their production partners will directly threaten their business? Will they be more likely to ignore this question: these? Factory brand? Serving minority groups, they can't afford top luxury goods, usually right? Original order? Not very interested.
As long as the design of these factory brands illegally infringes the interests of factory customers, many European and American brands seem to turn a blind eye to these legitimate business operations. But many people think that luxury brand executives privately spread it to China factories and other manufacturers? Shanzhai style? The product is quite unsatisfactory.
What the brand is most worried about is that because these classic bags also constitute the brand itself, such behavior will cause brand dilution. LizFlora, editor-in-chief of JingDaily, a market research company, said that the company released its groundbreaking report "China Grey Network Market and Counterfeit Goods" (China? sOnlineGrayMarketandCounterfeits).？ Although so far, only Herm? Top brands such as S are not affected by it. On the one hand, BirkinBags can be seen everywhere on Taobao. On the other hand, we have just witnessed the auction price of real platinum bags in Hong Kong breaking the world record. ?
Other people in the industry are more sympathetic to factory brands. Some people simply regard this phenomenon as a natural and clever response to improving profit margins in a rapidly changing market.
All companies need to consider how to maintain and achieve growth in the future. JasonLeung, director of TheAlphabet, a London sales agency, said he was responsible for contacting manufacturers in Greater China. ? I met some factories in China with their own brands, mainly for the domestic market, and at the same time OEM for global luxury brands. But starting their own brands can help them control their business more strictly, [because] if they only rely on one or two luxury brands, their income will be greatly affected by the business development of these brands. ?
This uncertainty explains why many major textile and garment factories in China seem to be transforming from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to original design manufacturers (ODM). The former means that they are only responsible for producing designed products or manufacturing parts for other companies; The latter completes the whole design process internally.
White label? Enterprise growth
Some people began to play new roles? ODM role? Our factory is trying to adopt a different method from Time Group: instead of creating their own brands, they design and produce the whole series and sell them to other companies, and then these companies put their own brand labels on their products. This is a well-known and rapidly developing phenomenon in the industry, which is now called? White label? White label strategy.
At the FashionWeek exhibition, I was surprised to find that it was not a new creative designer, but a China factory with various product lines. These collections were designed by factories that used to produce clothes only for global brands. SusannaSoo, the boss of Hong Kong fashion brand S.Nine, said? In fact, I was deeply impressed by the design and high quality of the products they provided. I can understand why the factory has come to this stage, because as far as I know, they are in a very difficult situation now. ?
The main reason is the rising cost. According to the data of BostonConsultingGroup, the wage level in Chinese mainland has almost tripled in the past 65,438+00 years. Coupled with high energy consumption and logistics costs, this means that local factories in China have long lost their former attractiveness in terms of economic costs. Western and China brands have transferred their products to Bangladeshi, Indian, Indonesian and other countries. In addition, China factories have to face the overall situation of economic slowdown in China and Europe.
In order to improve product quality, some factories are trying to recruit talented designers. In Mercedes. Li Na, a fashion designer displayed at Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week, has publicly stated that a factory has found her and wants to build a brand line for her. This factory, which traditionally only produces pre-designed clothes for western high street brands, now wants to update its business model. In their conversation, the factory owner explained that they felt the pressure from the local community and (interestingly) from the government to have their own brand with original aesthetic feeling, so they became interested in Li Na.
Opportunities to improve skills and quality.
Although it is hard for you not to have a subconscious negative reaction to the so-called factory brand phenomenon, the increase in the number of self-operated brands in these factories will benefit not only the end customers, but also all parties in the industry. Counterfeiting and piracy are still big problems in China's manufacturing industry, but if the factory can get rid of the mindless design method, it may find a way out with unexpected strength.
After all, factories are in a better position than most brands. Flatz said,? This factory has very skilled workers who know how to make products cheap and beautiful. This is why KTC intends to adopt a different strategy. We are ending the cooperation with some brands and joining hands with young designers. This is the direction of the future. ?
The factory has been striving to meet the strict standards of international brands for many years, and now it can employ most young China designers with overseas education background, and has a strong marketing team, which can provide original and high-quality clothing at competitive prices.
But it is naive to think that factory brand is a powerful combination of creativity and economic benefits. Although there will be examples, in the eyes of observers, the more direct solution is for western brands and China factories to seriously examine their current working practices.
JasonLeung said that interpersonal relationships are more important in doing business in China than in the West, so if luxury brands cultivate these relationships and provide more incentives or investment opportunities, factory owners will feel less uncertain in the future. Because the root of this phenomenon is the uncertainty of the future.
If you are familiar with China people, they can wear a pair of pants with you; If the relationship is not good, they will run on you. ? Flatz of Jingri Media said? It's that simple. ?