"Putian Shoes" has a collective trademark, can you buy it?
"Do you know Putian shoes?" When asked this question, the young people interviewed gave different answers.Some people say, high imitation shoes; some people say, cheap and good quality; some people say: "It doesn't open glue, I know, I bought fake shoes." This is a short video called "Putian Shoes, Come True" in the lens.This video was produced and released by the Putian Famous Brand Management Company in Fujian Province.In March this year, the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" was approved and successfully registered by the State Intellectual Property Office.
On May 20, Putian Footwear Industry issued the "Putian Shoes" collective trademark management measures.Li Yaming, an "old shoe man" who has been in the Putian shoe industry for more than 30 years, is more optimistic about the development prospects of the "Putian shoes" collective trademark.Starting from the problem that the capital chain of some brands in Putian was broken due to the huge inventory, which eventually led to the premature death of the brand, he said that the registration of the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" is an excellent opportunity for all shoe companies in Putian to create their own brands. Build a stage", enterprises come to "sing opera", reflecting the cooperation between government and enterprises.He thinks this is like a Yonghui supermarket of the future shoe industry, "If this becomes bigger, in the future, you can buy shoes of various brands in Putian as long as you walk into the brand store of 'Putian Shoes', which greatly reduces the number of manufacturers in Putian. pressure on the sales side."
"Putian shoes" came from OEM
The shoe industry is one of the three traditional industries in Putian City. There are more than 4,200 production enterprises and more than 500,000 employees.In 2021, the city's shoe output will be 1.39 billion pairs, accounting for one-tenth of the national market, with an output value of 110.65 billion yuan.
The history of the shoe industry in Putian can be traced back to the early 1950s.At that time, Putian established a local state-run shoe leather factory to provide domestic shoe products with low prices and high quality.In the early days of reform and opening up, overseas shoe brand OEM orders transferred from Taiwan across the strait poured into Fuzhou, Putian, Quanzhou and other places in Fujian, including well-known brands such as Nike and Adidas.Due to its innate advantages in technology and equipment, Putian Shoe Tannery Factory has become the main force of processing in the current era.
Li Yaming, who used to be a senior executive in the Putian shoe leather factory, recalls the glory of the year, but still can't hide the pride on his face.Li Yaming said that in the early 1990s, he worked in the Putian shoe leather factory. The factory did OEM for those famous overseas brands, with an annual output of 5 million to 6 million pairs, with an output value of more than 300 million yuan.
Among the orders that Li Yaming has handled, Wal-Mart has the largest order volume, which is about two or three million pairs per year."Customers have a series of assessments for processing manufacturers, and there are not many state-owned and private enterprises that can achieve the production capacity of Putian Shoe Leather Factory." Li Yaming said.
Lin Minshu, a professor at the School of Economics of Xiamen University, mentioned in the article "Industry Undertaking, Aggregation and Diffusion in the Process of Regional Economic Development - Based on an Empirical Analysis of the Development of Fujian's Footwear Industry" that in 1986, the total output value of Putian's shoe leather industry was 10,986 10,000 yuan, corresponding to the province's total output value of 150.68 million yuan.Putian's shoe leather exports accounted for 34.7% of Fujian's total shoe leather exports that year.Due to its good industrial foundation, foreign-funded shoe-making enterprises generally choose to invest in Putian during the national "Eighth Five-Year Plan" period.With the intensified market competition at home and abroad, after entering the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" period, the Fujian shoe leather market began to transform, and the shoe-making enterprises headed by Quanzhou Jinjiang shifted from export processing to domestic market development.Since then, domestic independent brands such as Anta and Xtep among Jinjiang shoe companies have been born one after another.
Li Yaming said that Putian's shoe companies made a lot of money in OEM processing. Putian's advantages in OEM processing were obviously greater than those of the same industry in Jinjiang. However, it lags behind Jinjiang in the time node of opening up the domestic market.
"Timing is very important." Li Yaming believes that once missed, the opportunity will be lost.Later, some of his colleagues jumped to shoe companies in Jinjiang.At that time, the salary of state-owned enterprises was generally lower than the market salary in the same industry. Li Yaming also resigned from the shoe leather factory and founded Shuangdi Shoes Co., Ltd.The company first focused on OEM, and later tried to make its own brand - Wal-Mart.
From 2010 to 2013, Li Yaming had to stop the Wal-Mart brand business and turn to OEM."It's still a matter of the capital chain." He said that for domestic sales and branding, inventory problems are inevitable.Taking winter boots and summer sports sandals as examples, he explained that these two categories are generally less on the market than spring and autumn shoe categories.Because the winter and summer seasons are short, if the company produces too many products, it will hoard goods, and the funds cannot be recovered in the current season, and there will be problems in the production in the next quarter.Li Yaming saw that some companies went bankrupt due to financial problems, so he had to reluctantly give up love and stop the brand. He realized that "only if you survive first, will you have the opportunity to become a brand."
There is no easy way to create a brand
"Creating an independent brand is harder than cultivating 100 children," said Cai Jinhui, founder of Putian-based Water Shoes.
In Cai Jinhui's impression, in the years when he started his business and established the brand, he either watched production in the factory or negotiated business with customers.But in the end, his son returned from studying abroad and became his right-hand man in managing his business at home, but the brand he had worked so hard to create was hit hard.
In 1993, Cai Jinhui, together with his relatives and friends, invested 3.6 million yuan to establish Putian Huafeng Shoes Co., Ltd., and initially started the OEM business like many Putian shoe companies.Later, he found that although the orders continued, the profits were getting less and less, so he had the idea of starting his own brand.
In 2001, the company officially launched the "Wote" brand.Cai Jinhui explained that because they initially developed and produced basketball shoes for internationally renowned brands, the company's own brand was positioned in basketball shoes.
"That year our company participated in the China Sporting Goods Expo and brought 15 pairs of professional basketball shoes samples to the exhibition, which attracted the attention of dealers, and they asked to join." Cai Jinhui said that after the exhibition, 46 dealers took the initiative to request to come to the factory visit.Distributors placed large orders after seeing Water's R&D level, production equipment and sneaker products."In the first quarter, about 150,000 pairs of basketball shoes were ordered, and the response was good after they were put on the market. The function and quality were recognized by consumers in the market, and the number doubled every year thereafter."
In 2010, Water, a leading enterprise in Putian City, began planning to go public, but failed three years later."We were borrowed by the bank at that time, which caused serious tension in the capital chain." Cai Jinhui recalled that the operation of the Water brand was forced to suspend, and its Huafeng factory was also suspended.
In 2013, Cai Jinhui recruited his son Cai Yuhang, who was planning to continue his graduate studies abroad, to return to China.The first thing Cai Yuhang, 23, did when he returned home was to enter the factory to learn the whole process of shoe production.It took Cai Yuhang about a month to master this knowledge from knowing the material, understanding the printing plate, making the sample to the final molding.After that, he began to assist his father in communicating with foreign customers, and established stores on major e-commerce platforms to sell the goods in stock.
Cai Yuhang said that after the "post-Olympic era", many domestic sports brands have a large backlog of inventory.In addition, the advent of the e-commerce era has also caused some offline agents to encounter operational difficulties."Because the agent's funds could not be recovered in time, our company could not pay the material supplier in time."
During that time, Cai's father and son were busy recovering the arrears from the agents, while trying to bring in funds to restart the foreign trade production business of the Huafeng factory, trying to find old overseas customers."Most of the customers have their own new and regular cooperative factories, and it is actually difficult to re-establish cooperation with them." Cai Yuhang said that they contacted one by one at that time, and at most, they found more than 30 companies to talk to each month. Cooperation, and finally found some customers, and the company gradually recovered. "Currently, our annual sales volume for domestic and export sales is about 1.5 million pairs."
Brand Concept of "Second Generation of Shoes"
Yu Guomin, chairman of Putian Lingwu Jiusi Shoes Co., Ltd., believes that the name "Putian shoes" brings its own traffic.If you Google the English translation of Putian shoes, you can see hundreds of thousands of entries, he said.How to start this brand and make good use of traffic is a question that Putian shoe industry should think about.
Tsai Billito, the next-generation head of Yongsheng Shoes, is currently in charge of the company's operational sales business.He regards making his own brand as a "system work".He said that many people's intuitive impression of the brand is the brand's logo, which actually includes the product's outer packaging, the design of the product itself, the value of the brand, the brand story and other internal and external contents.
Cai Billito went overseas to study when he was in high school.During the university, he went to the overseas warehouse of Yongsheng Shoes in the United States to study related business every summer.After graduating in 2018, Cai Bituo returned to China to participate in the management of the family business."Our company is making shoes in a relatively segmented field." Cai Bituo introduced that Yongsheng Footwear has its own brand of Yibaida hiking shoes, and also takes on behalf of processing orders to make chef shoes, nurse shoes, and diabetic rehabilitation shoes. Other niche footwear.He said that mountaineering outdoor shoes are mainly exported overseas, and they are promoted on the overseas Douyin platform through short videos. Currently, the number of fans exceeds 190,000.
When it comes to overseas operations, Cai Billito and his partners believe that it is mainly about "information poor" and showing Chinese characteristics.They found that many overseas people did not understand the development of China's industrial chain but were very interested, and they would present this content on the Douyin platform.In addition, China's long-standing traditional culture and the national tide elements developed in the past two years also have a certain amount of traffic in overseas markets.
Yongsheng Shoes is the first batch of enterprises to apply for joining the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes".Cai Bituo believes that although it is very hard and tiring to do business, the development of a country must be supported by industry.He said that in the future, the industry must be integrated with the Internet, and at the same time, it must incubate its own brand culture.
In Cai Yuhang's view, the first thing to do in order to build a brand is to strengthen the product itself.They are preparing to resume cooperation with academic research institutions in the near future and expand the original design team."Walter itself has a brand foundation. When it comes to Walter basketball shoes, some post-80s and post-90s may still have impressions." Cai Yuhang said, "We used to cooperate with Hupu to hold the Sky Ball China Streetball event which was very popular. Hot. In the future, we plan to further strengthen the brand through the combination of online and offline methods such as public welfare co-branding, experience stores, and entering the community.”
Create a brand and increase anti-counterfeiting efforts
In the Putian Sports Center, there are two offline flagship stores that have been authorized by the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes".Walking into the store, you can see that the shoes of these independent brands authorized by the collective trademark carry two brand marks: one is their own brand, and the other is the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes".This dual branding element is also reflected in the shoe box packaging.The main body of the shoe box is the trademark design of the independent brand owner, and the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" can be seen on the side of the shoe box.
Chen Junjie, deputy director of the Putian Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Putian shoe industry has transformed into its own brand because the profit of the local shoe factory in the processing of big-name shoe companies has been declining year by year, and a shoe factory alone has created a brand independently, with domestic and foreign brands. Shoe brand competition is not easy.
It has production technology and capacity, but lacks a competitive brand, which is the bottleneck for Putian footwear industry to further expand.Chen Junjie said that we hope that through the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes", we can unite local shoe companies that are willing to create their own brands, and form a "1+N" model to make a way in the market.
At present, the authorization, promotion and channel expansion of the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" are mainly responsible for the operation and management of Putian Famous Brand Management Company.Lin Yong, the legal representative of the company, believes that when the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" has enough popularity, it can be transformed into the sales ability of the enterprise and reduce the marketing cost of the enterprise.
After visiting a number of local shoe companies, Lin Yong and his team members found that due to the lack of professional talents in design and marketing, companies using collective trademarks are eager to get support in this regard, "We have specially built brand marketing and product development for shoe companies. The design team hopes to make up for the shortcomings of some small and medium-sized enterprises in these two aspects and help them take the first step in brand creation." Lin Yong said.
At present, a total of 16 Putian shoe companies have obtained the authorization of collective trademarks.At this stage, in order to attract more shoe companies to join, the authorization of the collective trademark of "Putian Shoes" will lower the entry threshold under the premise of unchanged quality control standards.As long as they have their own brands and their products meet the group standards of "Putian Shoes" or national and industry standards, legal Putian shoe companies can authorize the use of the "Putian Shoes" collective trademark.Cai Yuhang believes that collective trademarks will help local shoe companies to be more standardized and fairer in terms of brand management and application conditions.
In order to protect the manufacturers who take the initiative to transform and create brands, the local market supervision department has also stepped up its crackdown on fake shoe producers and operators.According to Yang Min, head of the Trademark Division of the Putian Market Supervision Bureau, the minimum fine starts from more than 30,000 yuan, and even a pair of fake shoes will be fined more than 30,000 yuan.If the turnover is less than 50,000 yuan, a fine of less than 250,000 yuan can be imposed, and those with a turnover of more than 50,000 yuan will be fined five times as much.Those suspected of committing a crime will also be transferred to judicial organs for criminal responsibility.Yang Min believes that the underlying reason for counterfeiting shoes is that it is too difficult to create a brand by yourself. "Regulatory crackdown is only a means. There are still many people in Putian who rely on the shoe industry to live. If you want to crack down, you must also give an outlet to guide them. ".
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Tian Hongwei and Chen Qiang Source: China Youth Daily
【Editor: Cheng Chunyu】
