BELLE International Lay Down Its Strength To Fight Daphne

According to Hongkong Ming Pao reported that at the end of February this year, BELLE (1880) launched its first low-end brand 15MINS, which specializes in mainland wage earners with a monthly income of about 3000 yuan. BELLE management revealed yesterday that it will open 100 public shoe stores this year, which means BELLE finally put down its position to face up to the "shoe king" Daphne (0210) in the mass market.

In February 28th, 15MINS launched its trial operation in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing. Its unit price is about 200 yuan, slightly lower than Daphne. BELLE chief executive Sheng Bai Jiao said yesterday at the performance meeting that the mass market prospect is extremely broad, and the development speed will exceed other markets in the next two years. BELLE will invest heavily in this new business. It will open about 100 new stores this year. The executive directors will be responsible for the business.

　 Unit price is 200 yuan, slightly lower than Daphne.

Daphne's performance last year showed that the average price of its products was only 206 yuan, while the gross margin reached 61%, which was not 69% from that of BELLE last year. Daphne launched the low price brand "ShoeBox" launched in 2004, with the annual sales of over $1 billion 700 million. In the fourth quarter of last year, Daphne's same store sales grew by 26%, leading 8.2% of BELLE. Sheng Bai Jiao said yesterday that BELLE's growth target for the same store this year is the median digit to the highest figure.

　 High end market saturation attack parity should solve supply chain

In the eyes of the high-end market gradually saturated, BELLE finally created its own low price brand. Sheng Bai Jiao yesterday answered the three major doubts about BELLE's attack on the mass market. Sheng Pai Chu first stressed that BELLE has no experience in the mass market mode of franchised stores (street shops), and later points to the fact that the store mode requires additional deposit but no receivables, so it will not occupy too much working capital.

For the third doubt, the market is also the most concerned supply chain problem. Sheng Bai Jiao acknowledges that BELLE's factories are not suitable for middle and low grade products, but means that there are many manufacturers of women's shoes in the mainland. Most of them are export oriented, and have no quick response capability, which is different from the domestic supply chain required by BELLE. Therefore, the supply chain is still a key problem to be solved. Analysts pointed out that the market responded positively to Sheng Bai Jiao, and BELLE's stock price rose 5% yesterday.

In addition, XTEP (1368) chairman Ding Shuibo (micro-blog) said yesterday that the industry's inventory backlog and price cut competition were deteriorating. In 2012, the company adjusted the year. It has voluntarily reduced the amount of autumn orders to the number of units per annualized year, and reduced the number of new stores throughout the year.