Vitoria'S Secret And Tortuous Journey To China

Vitoria's secret into China's international brand twists and turns

As an underwear brand, it is universally acknowledged that the annual underwear show is one of the most important events in the fashion industry. However, unlike other fashion brands, the development of Wei's development in China is always stumbling.

On the eve of the Spring Festival of 2014, a new shop was quietly opened in the upgraded Shanghai city of Mei Luo. The sign of "Victoria's Secret" was hung on the door.

In the public comment, many people's first reaction is surprise. This brand that has been bought many times has finally entered China.

However, when people enter the shop excitedly, they find that everything is completely different from what they imagined.

Although pink and black are used as the main colors, the overall store design is not a dazzling sensation, and even a cheap film frame from IKEA nearby.

But the price of almost everything in the shop is 3 to 5 times the price of the brand in North America. An underwear priced at around 50 dollars is priced at over 2000 yuan in this shop, and 480 yuan for a pair of underwear.

"Compared to the price of foreign countries, the words" people are stupid and money come faster "in their minds immediately.

What's more farce is that Tammy Roberts Myers, a spokeswoman for Limited Brands, a secret parent company in Vitoria, said in an email statement that the store in China does not come from the official authorization of the brand, and he has repeatedly stressed that there are no official authorized stores in Hongkong except Vitoria.

But if you choose Google at random, you will see that in the past few years, Vitoria's secret stores have opened in Beijing's Yintai square, Shenzhen and even Taiyuan's high-end shopping centers. Some of the store's opening ceremony also invited stars and models to help, and there were also many media reports.

These stores were opened by a franchisee named Shanghai's wheat investment management company, and the head of the division told the first financial weekly that they are the general agent of Vitoria's Secret in China.

In fact, the secret between Vitoria and wheat has been fought for 2 years.

This is a

The tortuous story of entering the Chinese market.

The reason is that in 2006, the secret of Vitoria encountered operational difficulties, with a total backlog of US $150 million.

To clean up the inventory, they authorized the US AFB company to sell in 90 countries, including China.

In 2007, a boss of hardware came to Shanghai in Jinan county through personal relations.

In the name of the company, a number of products valued at $5 million were successfully obtained from AFB, which is also secretly licensed by Vitoria.

Due to the lack of retail experience in Kam Tin, they first sold these underwear to department stores in the two or three tier cities, and soon they could not manage them. Until 2012, when they were taken over by the wheat company, the international brand was able to open a decent store in the high-grade business circles of Shanghai and Beijing.

The company has owned many overseas fashion brands in China, including Ash.

According to Ning Ning, director of marketing department of wheat division, AFB and Jintian have no specific time limit for sale rights contracts.

But this unauthorized act of setting up shop by hand has attracted the attention of Vitoria's secrets, and the two sides have filed a lawsuit.

According to the judgment of the first instance of the second intermediate people's Court of Shanghai in April 2013, Jintian was sentenced to unfair competition, but it did not constitute a right to exclusive use of registered trademarks.

"We have put in so many goods. I can't think of any other way to sell them except shop."

Ren Ningning said.

In the near future, Max will re prosecute the secret of Vitoria and defend himself.

"Dealers are divided into two situations: if they are authorized or not, if they are not authorized to publicize themselves as franchisees or distributors, they are false propaganda, which is too common in China.

However, we can see that there are some problems in the management of Vitoria's secret channels.

You Yunting, an intellectual property lawyer of Shanghai Da Bang law firm, told the first financial weekly.

Of course, ordinary consumers can't see the complicated entanglement of ownership behind a store.

People just think this is very different from the secret of Vitoria in impression.

In fact, from the moment that Limited Brands signed the sales order of $5 million in 2007 with Kam Tin, the secret of Vitoria in China has been out of control of the US headquarters.

For Vitoria's secret, this is undoubtedly a major mistake in decision-making.

The success of the brand largely owes to its unique marketing strategy.

Since 2000, France has made fashion shows for luxury goods such as Dior and Michael Kors.

Alexandre De Betak began to design a massive Party style fashion show for the underwear brand every year. It has both the hot supermodel and the most popular singer of the year, which is comparable to a variety show with a huge crowd.

Since 2001, this annual show has been broadcast live on the US TV channel ABC, and now it has become one of the most watched programs in the United States.

The show has not only made many models popular, but also made Vitoria's secret a dream, fashion and sexy trademark.

As the brand describes on the website, it provides women with a lifestyle that is sexy, meaningful and Sexy sophisticated (and forever young).

More appealing than fashion shows is its approachable prices and frequent discounts.

In the market positioning, Vitoria's Secret always adheres to the middle class women.

It has a large selection of underwear products, and is divided into nearly 10 series according to style and function. The price ranges from $20 to $75.

In order to nurture young consumers, it launched a cheaper and lovable PINK series for college girls. Students can even offer discounts when they check out.

If customers use exclusive membership cards, they can always get various discounts and gifts.

This product strategy allows Vitoria's secrets to have thousands of stores in the North American market, which are located in various shopping centers.

Whenever Christmas breaks season, many female customers in downtown streets carry huge pink Vitoria's Secret shopping bags.

In 2012, Vitoria's secret sales exceeded $6 billion and its operating profit amounted to $1 billion.

On the basis of underwear, the secret of Vitoria has also developed make-up, skin care products and accessories.

And other derivatives.

However, the success of the North American market has made the company never interested in the international market.

At its board meeting in 2000, its management announced that in addition to the fact that the United States did not go anywhere, it decided to open a store in Canada in 2010, and then opened 3 Direct stores in the UK, only 2 years later it began to expand in other international markets by means of distributors.

But it decided to empower underwear and derivatives entirely to distributors.

In addition to the Middle East market, no dealer now has the authorization of underwear products.

For example, luxury goods agent Valiram Group currently sells cosmetics and accessories in some stores in Malaysia and Hongkong, China, as well as some discount underwear products.

This is a disappointment for consumers in the Asian region, after all, underwear is the core product of Vitoria's secret.

In 2013, Khalid Rouissi, executive director of Valiram Group in Hongkong and Macao, said in an interview that this is due to the size of underwear.

"The size of Chinese women and American women is different. It is not appropriate to sell underwear products from the US market to Asia directly."

Rouissi said.

However, on Taobao, people's enthusiasm for the secret purchase of Vitoria makes this reason somewhat far fetched.

And the company has acquired underwear products that are extremely scarce outside the North American market. They believe that even if the price is fixed, some people will buy it, not to spend too much time on store design and marketing.

They opened up almost immediately, hoping to use this golden signboard as early as possible to make profits.

In addition to the city of beauty, according to Ren Ningning, in 2014, Chongqing, Changsha, Chengdu, Wuhan, Xiamen and other places will have franchisees to open Vitoria's secret store.

The biggest demand for the franchisees in these areas is not their experience in the fashion brand operation, but rather the shops in the city's first tier business circle that can get more than 300 square meters, so many franchisees come from the real estate industry.

In addition, within a certain area, they can also choose to store stores anywhere.

This ultimately leads to uneven experience in these franchised stores.

In addition to the price which is totally beyond the reasonable scope, China's stores can not get the latest and best products because of the restriction of goods supply, and the display standards are not uniform.

Many franchisees even wear the banner of Vitoria under the banner of the car show and night club to dress the model.

Walking show.

By contrast, Vitoria's secret store opened by Valiram Group in Hongkong is much better.

Like the shops in the United States, the design of 4 stores in Hongkong came from the hand of designer Edwin Hofmann. Each store was placed with Victoria's Secret giant angel wings, and 298 yuan and 5 discount pants were popular.

As Limited Brands group gradually realized the importance of the Chinese market, they began to take remedial measures in the past two years.

According to the spokesman, the company is expected to open the first Vitoria's first secret cosmetics and accessories store in Vitoria, in addition to legal means to solve the issue of authorization.

The secret of Vitoria does need to take action before more and more franchisees make the situation uncontrollable, and redress its reputation and image in China.