A pair of yoga pants supports a valuation of 30 billion, and the men's version of lululemon is popular among middle-class men

Lululemon's brand positioning is high-end, fashionable and professional. It is committed to providing customers with beautiful, comfortable and powerful products. The men's version of lululemon targets middle-class men. This article describes the relevant content and I hope it will be helpful to you.

Recently, Vuori opened its first store in China in Shanghai Jing'an Kerry Center, which is the brand's first offline store in Asia. What's a little special is that this is also the place where lululemon opened its first stores in China. It seems to be following in the footsteps of lululemon again, as it is frequently compared with lululemon.

This is not the first time Vuori has tried its hand in the Chinese market. On the eve of Double Eleven last year, Vuori set up an official flagship store on Tmall and named it "Feioli", but the momentum of its entry was not great at the time.

Many Chinese users are not familiar with this brand, but in the US market, Vuori has really captured a group of middle-class men.

In 2015, Vuori went against the trend and entered the market with men's yoga wear, and gradually expanded to categories such as training, running, and surfing. In the past eight years, Vuori has developed rapidly. Relying on a pair of yoga pants, in 2021, Vuori received a US$400 million investment from SoftBank Vision Fund II, a fund under SoftBank, with a valuation of US$4 billion (approximately RMB 29.2 billion). In the same year, the brand announced a 100-store plan. Official website data shows that the brand currently operates about 40 stores worldwide.

According to its 100-store plan, Vuori will initially expand into seven countries including Europe, Australia, and Canada, and set up an innovation center in China to gradually expand the number of offline physical stores.

Many industry insiders have also raised questions: Can Vuori, which focuses on the "he economy", create a craze like lululemon?

1. Vuori enters the yoga wear market by targeting middle-class men

"I have worn lululemon, Ua, Gymshark, Nike, etc., and Vuori is the one I am most satisfied with over the years. I have stocked up on it many times." Li Di, who settled in Canada, told the New Consumption Think Tank.

As a senior outdoor sports enthusiast, outdoor and functional clothing are indispensable in Li Di's life. A suitable pair of yoga pants can keep him dry and breathable after high-intensity exercise. In his opinion, if we pull back a few years, there were not many yoga pants for men on the market.

In 1998, the first yoga pants specifically for yoga were produced. The well-cut and beautiful yoga pants have attracted many urban white-collar workers. Girls can wear them to exercise in yoga studios or to dominate nightclubs after work. In the past decade, the existing yoga brands on the market have mainly focused on women, while the men's yoga market has been blank.

Seeing the opportunity in the blank market, Joe Kudla from Southern California came up with an idea: Why not start a brand that specializes in yoga equipment that suits men's exercise habits?

Kudela was a model for Dolce & Gabbana and had a certain understanding of the clothing industry. In 2015, after raising $300,000 in start-up capital, Kudela founded Vuori. In the same year, the company launched its first men's clothing series, which is suitable for sports and perspiration, and can also meet the needs of daily wear.

Vuori's main target group is middle-class men aged 30-40. On the basis of providing yoga clothing, Vuori has studied men's preferences and needs and developed many functional products.

For example, Vuori's Kore Shorts are a pair of sports shorts that combine comfort, durability and design. Not only can they easily adapt to a variety of sports such as yoga, beach, running, and gym, they also have lining, a thoughtful detail for men. For men who don't want to spend time on their outfit, this is undoubtedly a more worry-free and labor-saving choice.

With its differentiated positioning and strong product strength, Vuori began to expand from California and gradually became well-known in the US market. Two years after its establishment, Vuori began to achieve positive profits.

From the perspective of channel positioning, Vuori mainly cooperated with high-end department store retailers and fitness chains in the early days. It is understood that Vuori's products are now sold in more than 700 professional retail stores.

During the epidemic period, offline consumption channels were impacted and many brands complained bitterly, but Vuori, on the contrary, had the opportunity to "break out of the circle".

After the outbreak, Vuori, which used to focus on offline sales, shifted its focus to e-commerce and social media channels. The brand launched real-time fitness classes at 8 a.m. every day. Different fitness coaches or yoga teachers appeared online on time to bring 30 to 60-minute classes to consumers. This innovation led to a surge in Vuori's fans and a surge in sales.

Data shows that at the end of 2020, the company's revenue had grown to nearly three times that of 2019. In 2021, SoftBank's $400 million "blood transfusion" further boosted Vuori's valuation. Compared with 2019, the brand's valuation has increased 20 times in two years.

Vuori has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the good business of selling yoga pants. Now, it is trying to take another step forward: "conquer" more Chinese men.

2. Vuori, crossing the river by feeling lululemon

From the very beginning, Vuori has been closely tied to the lululemon brand.

A careful study and comparison of the two brands revealed that they have certain similarities. In the Chinese market, Vuori is also trying to "cross the river" by feeling its way into lululemon.

1. Position high customer unit price, segment the market, and convey brand concept and story through effective brand strategy

The price of lululemon's yoga pants is around 800-1000 yuan. The brand's main target consumer group is the new middle-class women, who are not very sensitive to price, but have extremely high requirements for product quality. Therefore, lululemon has worked hard on product quality and design to solve the problems of "transparency" and "camel hoof" that existed in previous yoga pants. At the same time, it has also added "scheming" designs such as trouser legs, thumb holes, and invisible pockets. Lululemon often invites elite groups as brand ambassadors to convey the value of its products to users and spread its voice.

Vuori is like a "gender-reversed version" of lululemon, dedicated to satisfying the lifestyle of middle-class men.

Vuori's T-shirts are generally priced between 400 and 800 yuan, and trousers are generally priced between 600 and 1,000 yuan. In brand promotion, Vuori also tends to cooperate with influential people. During the epidemic, Vuori conducted a series of interviews, inviting guests such as NBA Brooklyn Nets head coach Steven Nash and American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz to obtain a group of consumers with consistent user portraits.

2. Accurate fan base wins the hearts of the middle class

In the Chinese market, lululemon, which focuses on women's yoga wear, has been attached with multiple social labels. On social platforms, many female stars, fitness bloggers, and fashion bloggers share daily photos with lululemon. Just like Nike turned basketball into a symbol of street culture, lululemon has also turned fitness and yoga into an element of urban culture, describing a new lifestyle for middle-class women.

When a brand finds its own field and takes the lead in occupying the minds of users, it can easily become synonymous with this field.

Vuori's products are closely aligned with the needs of middle-class men, and are designed based on the male aesthetic perspective. While maintaining a casual and simple style, they also increase product functionality to facilitate the daily wear of mature men. In Vuori's stores, users can find trousers, polo shirts, and a variety of casual clothing, fully meeting the needs of middle-class men in various scenarios.

3. Build your own brand community and brand culture through social marketing

Lululemon fully empowers each store through community operations. Each store can interact with users in the store with the help of its own brand ambassadors, product educators, etc. For example, each store will hold a community event every week to enhance the connection between the brand and users.

Similarly, Vuori has opened a corresponding community on the social platform, and continuously increased user stickiness by building a place for daily learning, sharing and discussion. The brand will occasionally hold community activities such as yoga classes and cycling classes to maintain connections with users.

In addition, Facebook is also a major channel for Vuori to quickly increase its reputation and popularity. The yoga circle is different from other circles. They have a word-of-mouth spreading logic of fitness influencers-ordinary users or fitness coaches-ordinary users. Vuori, who has insight into this communication path, vertically promotes products to the yoga circle to create a word-of-mouth effect.

Lululemon also incorporates yoga instructors, fitness experts and consumers into its system. When the company first started, the Lululemon store was a design studio during the day and a yoga gym at night. Yoga instructors could become "store ambassadors" and meet new friends and potential customers in the store to develop business and get discounts or free products. In return, they offer free yoga classes on behalf of the brand in the store, and the social circle established by each "store ambassador" will soon develop a large number of Lululemon fans.

It can be said that behind every pair of yoga pants from lululemon and Vuori, there are hundreds or even thousands of professional KOLs (key opinion leaders) who promote them to the greatest extent possible, which directly activates the brand’s sales and also brings about a high repurchase rate.

3. “Lululemon is a trendsetter, but Vuori still needs to be itself”

As a brand that has just entered the Chinese market, Vuori has not yet formed sufficient brand awareness and reputation. As to whether it can replicate the lululemon myth, it remains to be seen.

Although Vuori has been trying to "cross the river" with lululemon, the markets they face are fundamentally different.

The popularity of lululemon is largely related to the promotion and sharing of female consumers. Although the he-economy is on the rise, men's desire to share is not strong. Even if they come across a good-looking product, they will only repurchase it silently, but rarely actively share it on social platforms.

If Vuori only relies on sharing by target consumers, it will be difficult for it to spread quickly and widely in China. In China, if it still focuses on "male" as its main label, Vuori's growth space will be slightly limited.

Vuori, perhaps, has a solution to this problem.

The New Consumption Think Tank found that judging from brand marketing, new product launches and store opening frequency, Vuori has shifted its development goals from the yoga market to the broader trillion-dollar sportswear market.

Compared with the yoga market, the sportswear market does have greater room for development. But the new problem is that the competition in China's sportswear market is extremely fierce. International brands such as Adidas and Nike have a huge influence, local brands such as Xtep, Anta, and Li Ning have a good reputation, and some new niche sports brands are also trying to squeeze out the remaining sportswear market.

The fabrics and designs of sportswear products are constantly updated. If Vuori wants to maintain its brand uniqueness while covering more consumer groups, it will have to withstand the pressure and adjust and innovate its brand.

At the same time, more and more sports brands are entering the men's yoga wear market.

For example, in addition to the well-known women's yoga apparel, lululemon has also developed a number of men's yoga products such as yoga pants, yoga shorts, and yoga tops; domestic brands such as Li Ning and Anta are all trying hard to find new growth points in yoga pants.

This was once Vuori's advantageous track. Although it has certain first-mover advantages, it is still unknown whether Vuori can stand out in the Chinese market where many brands are chasing and squeezing it.

If Vuori wants to grab a share of the Chinese market and get more target consumers to pay for it, it depends on whether its description of the refined life of the middle class is solid enough.

Author: Lele, Editor: Zhu Tian

Source: New Consumption Think Tank