Electricity and shop electricity.lululemon, known as a middle-class killer, has its sights on Chinese men's wallets.
Next to lululemon on the first floor of the Yitigang shopping mall in Beijing, a new store has opened. As soon as the curtain was lifted, lululemon** quietly launched.
For a long time, lululemon was regarded as a harvester for middle-class women, and now, opening next to ** seems to mean that lululemon's intention to harvest men has landed.
As a member of lululemon consumers, Cui Dabao passed by and sighed: "lululemon is out of **? ”
Cui Dabao, who has been practicing Pilates for 4 years, usually pays more attention to yoga clothes, "lululemon is already a higher category of yoga clothing, from the perspective of wearing experience, it is really good, but a pair of close-fitting yoga pants can cost thousands of yuan, whether it can be worth back the 'ticket price', it is a matter of opinion." ”
After lululemon opened**, she has purchased a thousand-dollar ** shirt for her partner, "The overall quality is good, wear one."
Two or three years is not a problem, but to be honest, the most common shirt brand in my family is UNIQLO. ”
When lululemon** entered the Chinese market, the brand seems to have forgotten one thing, the main group of shopping is still women. This is like a scene in the live broadcast room of Li Jiaqi, the first brother with goods - whenever male products and clothing appear in the live broadcast room, the comments are always "he is not worthy".
In the context of female-dominated consumption, in the market environment of weak consumption, lululemon can rely on ** and become the wardrobe of Chinese men, there is still a question mark to be drawn.
01 lululemon, can you harvest Chinese men? In February this year, the sports lifestyle brand lululemon unveiled its Spring/Summer 2024 footwear collection in New York, including a variety of athleisure shoes and running shoes, and officially launched its first men's shoe collection.
lululemon's entry into the ** field is not a day or two.
In fact, as early as 2013, lululemon realized the importance of ** and tried to break out in this new field.
Since its establishment, lululemon has mainly sold women's clothing, and the main direction is yoga and other clothing categories. Unlike other brands, lululemon is built in circles and positioning.
First of all, create a kind of "personality".
The main consumer portraits of lululemon in the early days were white, female, and middle-class in the early days. It is through ** screening, as well as a good marketing strategy, that lululemon has risen rapidly in just a few years, and has formed a unique cultural symbol - wealthy, independent, middle-class women who pursue a healthy life.
Second, shape a circle.
On the basis of positioning, lululemon has formed a core shopping circle - first-line white-collar and gold-collar people, including both interests and target circles. They have athletic needs, pay attention to fashion and aesthetics, and most of them have no financial freedom, but they like the refinement of petty bourgeois life.
In the end, from a clothing brand to a lifestyle choice.
There is a long-proven truth in the retail industry: whoever gets a middle-class woman wins the world.
This spell has worked in the Chinese market as well. On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year of the Dragon, there was a queue of dozens of meters outside the lululemon store in Hong Kong's Citygate Famous Store Warehouse, the largest outlet in Hong Kong, and almost all of them were girls who came here to shop.
The popularity of "Three Treasures for Middle-class Girls" has also become logical, Ralph Lauren, lululemon, and Archaeopteryx not only meet the needs of girls for quality life, but also are more cost-effective than luxury goods, which are also easy to accept, especially the "Three Treasures of the Middle Class" in the discount store, which makes girls love it.
Through this positioning, lululemon has experienced a splash of wealth on middle-class women, but its clothing scene still has a limit - the gym.
In order to shape the second growth curve, lululemon has set its sights on middle-class men.
02Can China carry the future of lululemon?
lululemon entered the Chinese market as early as 2016, opening its first store in Shanghai Jing An Kerry Center, and the speed of opening stores has increased significantly in recent years. According to the official website, lululemon has opened 148 directly-operated stores in China, of which as many as 30 are new stores in 2023.
This figure is in line with lululemon's expansion plans for 2023, with brand chief financial officer Meghan Frank previously saying that lululemon expects to add a net 45 to 50 new stores in 2023, including 30 to 35 new stores in international markets, most of which are planned to open in China.
Not long ago, lululemon opened its first independent store in China and the first independent store in the Asia-Pacific region at INDIGO, Beijing.
Node financial reporters visited INDIGO on the spot, although it is known as the first independent store in the Asia-Pacific region, but the area is not large, in comparison, the area of the first store a few meters away is larger. From the perspective of clothing, the store currently mainly sells outerwear, tops, down jackets and slippers and other ** categories, and the products are basically the same as the official website.
lululemon's ** business, is it easy to do?
If lululemon regards ** as the second growth curve, then behind the opening of the first independent store in Beijing in the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese mainland is regarded as the market with the most growth potential.
It is reported that lululemon plans to achieve a revenue target of $12.5 billion in 2026. In addition, Chinese mainland is expected to become lululemon's second largest market in the world by fiscal 2026.
Calvin McDonald, CEO of lululemon, noted that the launch of the men's footwear line in the first quarter of 2024 is an important moment for lululemon, "Building brand recognition and attention in the male market remains our top priority. ”
From focusing on women's sportswear to today's multi-gender, multi-category, lululemon clearly has bigger ambitions to achieve. Under the goal of the five-year growth plan, China is a market that lululemon needs to rely on and tap into its growth potential.
03 How hard is it to become a Chinese man's wardrobe? In November 2023, it will also open the first ** pop-up space in Chinese mainland in Shanghai Hongqiao Tiandi. The opening of an independent ** store at the beginning of this year is also a key step for the ** business in the Chinese market. A series of actions in the past year can be seen that lululemon is accelerating its layout in the male market.
Behind the increase**, lululemon needs to face a very potential market, but also a very competitive market.
In recent years, the yoga clothing track has exploded. Lululemon a waist-cinching sportswear was launched not long ago, and a large number of brands in the market followed up, in addition to good quality, these brands are more "cost-effective".
From a brand point of view, in recent years, more and more first-line brands are also adding yoga clothing. For example, in 2019, Nike launched its first yoga series products; In 2021, Li Ning reintegrated the women's sports product line and extended the original products to the categories of leggings and sports bras in the popular sports yoga; Last year, Anta acquired Maia Active, a homegrown yoga wear brand.
The fiercer competition has made lululemon urgently need to find a second growth curve.
However, it is not easy to become a Chinese man's wardrobe.
As Cui Dabao said, most of the Chinese men's wardrobes are purchased by Chinese women. According to the data of the Double 11 consumption list released by Tmall, in the ranking of spending power, the consumption of male consumers has finally surpassed that of pet dogs.
To a certain extent, this shows that the consumption power of Chinese men is not strong, and in the direction of consumption, the top three male consumers are road bikes, e-sports products and jackets.
lululemon's selling price is not low, although the main direction is the middle class, but in recent years, the main middle class of large factory employees layoffs, market environment fluctuations, A-share wealth creation effect weakened, all make men's spending power more conservative.
And those who can easily afford lululemon** can also choose the more high-end Arc'teryx.
In the third quarter of fiscal 2023, lululemon** achieved 15% growth, slightly slower than the 19% growth rate of ** business and the 29% growth rate of accessories business. Calvin McDonald admits that lululemon** is still less well-known globally, while "men are likely to become more conservative when it comes to clothing purchases when there is some uncertainty in the macro environment".
This all means that it is still questionable whether lululemon can continue to achieve high growth in the ** footwear and apparel market.
At the request of the interviewee, Cui Dabao is a pseudonym).