The game between Adidas and Nike and channel agents is going on in secret. After Nike canceled the agency rights of several provincial distributors, Adidas is brewing a series of "power-limiting campaigns", but it is directly facing the national distributors such as Belle.
Informed sources told reporters that several large sporting goods dealers, including Belle, sat at the negotiating table with Adidas. Dealers want to get rid of inventory pressure, including selling inventory products at a discount. However, from the perspective of stabilizing brand prices, Adidas does not recognize the above-mentioned behavior of dealers. The contradiction between Adidas and dealers is escalating.
Previously, many dealers still had a large inventory because they overestimated the operating situation of the Olympic Games. The new ordering cycle is coming again, and many dealers have no cash to pay for it.
Dealer inventory is difficult to digest
As a partner of the Beijing Olympic Games, Adidas announced during the Olympic Games that it surpassed its old rival Nike's 2 1% with a market share of 22% and became the first brand in China's sporting goods market.
Its recently released 2008 performance report shows that Adidas' sales in all regions except North America have achieved double-digit growth, and its sales in Asia have increased by 20%, among which the strong sales growth in China has become the main driving force.
Behind its dazzling financial data, it is accompanied by escalating contradictions with domestic distributors. Because in 2008, Adidas did not choose to be a global sponsor, but became a sponsor of the Beijing Olympic Games. Before April 2009, all products with the logo of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games were declared expired.
In the past, many dealers overestimated the Olympic market, so they got the goods before the Olympics. However, the Olympic Games did not bring the expected outbreak of the sporting goods industry, resulting in a serious inventory of dealers, and the inventory of many dealers has not been digested so far.
"Adidas and Nike are both futures systems, ordering half a year in advance and paying on delivery." An Adidas dealer in Hunan told reporters that because the goods were not purchased according to the actual market demand, many dealers' overstocked goods piled up in the warehouse, which led to the occupation of funds.
In order to clear the inventory, dealers all over the world are trying to find ways to promote sales at low prices. But this is not allowed by Adidas-excessive discounts will damage the brand and consumers will not be willing to buy regular-priced goods in the future.
In the new sales year, the dealers whose funds have been occupied have to continue to purchase goods, and the purchase quantity cannot be reduced too much compared with the previous year, otherwise the dealer qualification will be adjusted, and the policy of taking goods will be adjusted accordingly from grade A to grade B or from grade B to grade C. "This is greater than the income," said the dealer.
Not only Adidas, but also in the sporting goods industry, many dealers also represent several brands such as Adidas, Nike and Li Ning. And all brands are more or less under pressure. However, due to Adidas' sponsorship of the Beijing Olympic Games, its situation seems to be more severe than that of its competitors.
On the one hand, it is a brand that strongly defends its price, brand and supply policy, and on the other hand, it is a dealer with inventory burden. This deadlock, which has not been resolved since the Olympic Games, has been puzzling the sports giants.
Brand communication and channel negotiation ability
The reporter learned that at present, several major domestic sporting goods dealers are negotiating with Adidas, hoping to reduce the receiving volume this year. Adidas, on the other hand, said that it may take back part of the agency rights of some dealers, even including part of the distribution rights of Belle, its largest distributor.
An Adidas dealer told reporters that from the perspective of Adidas, I definitely hope that the company's performance in China will grow steadily. However, many of its achievements last year were due to dealers overestimating the Olympic market and paying more than the actual demand. In 2009, these dealers will definitely reduce the quantity of goods they take again, which may lead to "very ugly" performance of Adidas this year. This also forced Adidas to put pressure on dealers frequently.
The reporter once called Lei, marketing director of Belle Shoes. After hearing the reporter's purpose, she said it was not convenient to express her opinions, and said that the reporter could learn more about the needs of small and medium-sized dealers.
The relevant person in charge of Adidas Marketing Department told the reporter that there are indeed some inventory problems in the market at present, and Adidas is also actively communicating with dealers to seek solutions. So far, all the communication between Adidas and the dealers is benign and effective.
Ge Xing, a senior clothing consultant of AMT Consulting Company, said that the current deadlock just reflects the role exchange between distributors and brands in the domestic sporting goods industry at the negotiating table. In the early years, Nike and Adidas, two super giants, forced agents to compete with each other and expand rapidly through manipulation.
Among them, Belle raised a lot of cash by listing in Hong Kong, and in recent years, it acquired integrated channels in China, and quickly took the top spot in domestic footwear channels. Baoyuan relies on Taiwan Province Baocheng Group, the world's largest sports shoes manufacturer, to expand its territory. In addition, it is organized by regional distributors such as Shenzhen Longhao, Shenyang Peng Da and Sichuan Jin Lang, and the domestic channels are divided into three parts.
Especially Belle and Baoyuan, their ability to control channels has been strengthened again and again. "A few years ago, Adi and Nike were strong, and now the bargaining power of channels such as Belle is dominant in the negotiations-if the channels are United because of the same interests." Ge Xing said that in 2006, Belle's sales of Nike alone were said to have reached 1/4 of the brand's total sales in China.
An industry expert who didn't want to be named said that through this negotiation with several major distributors, Adidas and Nike must have a clearer understanding of the disadvantages after the channel became bigger. They don't want to see the channel finally controlled by two or several dealers, but hope that there can be full competition among dealers.
Therefore, how to weaken the dependence on several large dealers and develop more small and medium-sized sales channels will be the most concerned issue for these two sporting goods giants recently.
Small message: Adidas
German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas is a member company of Adidas AG. Adidas, named after its founder Adolf Dassler, began to produce footwear products in Olacher, Hertzog, near Nuremberg in 1920. 1949 August 18 was registered under the name of Adidas. Adidas clothing and sports shoes design can usually see three parallel stripes, which can also be seen on its logo. Three stripes are the characteristics of Adidas.
Adidas was originally founded by two brothers. After parting ways, Adolf's brother Rudolf Dassler opened his arch-rival sports brand Puma.
1948, Mr. Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas, used the first three letters of his first name Adi and his last name (Dassler) to synthesize "Adidas" as a commodity brand and applied for registration; The following year, the third-line trademark of Adidas came out.
Irdeto's main competitors are Puma and Nike. In August 2005, Aidida announced the acquisition of Reebok, one of its competitors, for $3.8 billion. The acquisition will help to increase its market share in North America and enhance its position in the competition with Nike in this field.
At present, Adidas ranks second only to Nike in the market share of sporting goods. The slogan on Adidas trademark is: Impossible is everything.