With a price tag of over 1,000, can this brand be successful in selling high-end down jackets on Douyin e-commerce?

This article mainly discusses the destination of expensive down jackets in the Chinese market. Taking Gaofan’s self-broadcast on Douyin as an example, it summarizes the pain points and opportunities of high-end domestic down jackets and provides experience for other brands. It is suitable for people who have brand promotion needs.

"A down jacket I like costs as much as a month's salary of mine. Should I change jobs or buy another piece of clothing?" Xiao Ke is not the only one facing this situation. Down jackets that cost thousands of dollars put a lot of pressure on ordinary office workers. They are just buying a coat to keep warm, not a luxury item, but they need to pay in installments. Is it because they earn too little, or have the prices of down jackets been hyped up?

This picture is drawn by AI, creative by Entertainment Capital Cha Cha

The prices of popular brands on the market now, such as Bosideng, Gaofan, and YaYa, basically range from a few hundred to a few thousand yuan, and there are even high-end models that cost tens of thousands of yuan.

Compared with previously popular international down jacket brands such as Canada Goose and Moncler, which have prices exceeding 10,000 yuan, domestic down jackets are more confident in expanding into high-end markets.

The first to be affected is Bosideng, which currently has a "domestic high-price monopoly". The average price of Bosideng's down jackets is over 1,000 yuan, and many down jackets are priced over 3,000 yuan. Even the Dengfeng 2.0 series of down jackets launched by Bosideng last year cost over 10,000 yuan.

In addition, some new domestic brands of down jackets are directly positioned as high-end down jackets. For example, the Gaofan down jackets sold in Zhang Baizhi's live broadcast room previously had a customer unit price of more than four digits; even Yuanfudao has sensed the traffic code of high-end down jackets and launched a cross-border down jacket brand designed for business people - SKYPEOPLE (Sky People), whose most expensive down jacket is priced at 7,200 yuan, which is basically the same as Arc'teryx.

On one hand, expensive down jackets are hotly sold and new models are released, while on the other hand, the price is comparable to wages. What is the attitude of the public towards expensive down jackets? Are people complaining while buying them, or are the merchants just selling at a high price but not in demand?

After four turns, Gaofan anchored on Douyin

"The body surface temperature rises by 2.5 degrees in 5 seconds. Only Gaofan has down jackets that can maintain a constant temperature of 38 degrees." This scene comes from Gaofan's never-ending Douyin live broadcast room (24-hour live broadcast).

During the Double Eleven and Double Twelve promotions, Gaofan also teamed up with top anchors such as Luo Yonghao and Cecilia Cheung to increase its presence. Gaofan's black and gold down jacket with added black technology became the TOP1 on the Douyin new product list.

Source: TikTok screenshot

Gaofan’s founder Wu Kunming has opened up the high-end path for the brand on Douyin through his never-ending live broadcast room with super heads and his own live broadcast.

So far, 95% of the brand's sales are from the Black Gold series with a unit price of 1,000 yuan. The reason why Gaofan has been so popular on Douyin is inseparable from the four transformations of its founder.

Wu Kunming, who has been engaged in down jacket dealership for many years, has achieved more and more success. He was unwilling to continue to be the agent of other brands, so he founded his own brand "Gaofan" in 2004. With many years of experience as an offline dealer, Wu Kunming has already mastered how to sell down jackets, but encountered shortcomings in the supply chain.

Due to the lack of a stable supply chain, Gaofan was unable to take on orders brought by the early connections. Many orders could not be completed within the specified time, and in the end, they had no choice but to pay a high penalty.

After that, Wu Kunming, who was heavily in debt, regrouped and re-searched the market positioning of Gaofan. In order to attract more customers, he began to "concede" on price, shifting the original high-end strategy of Gaofan, which was priced between 1,700 and 2,500 yuan, downward to sell products to more consumers of different levels.

After opening up new sales channels, Wu Kunming expanded to 700+ offline stores at its peak, successfully achieving a second turnaround.

Gaofan started to invest heavily in e-commerce in 2011. In people's inherent perception, e-commerce means low prices, so he positioned his products between 299 and 799. After seeing the returns, Wu Kunming started his third turn. He closed all offline stores and started to go all in on e-commerce.

However, under the impact of the epidemic, Gao Fan was forced to look for an opportunity for a fourth turn. This time, Wu Kunming set his sights on live streaming.

He first tried it on Kuaishou, and he and Kuaishou anchor Super Dan created a legend of sales exceeding 100 million yuan in a single live broadcast. Seeing the new opportunities of the live broadcast platform, Wu Kunming was amazed at the changes of the times. He said: "It took Gaofan e-commerce 7 years to reach 100 million yuan a day. I didn't expect that within less than 7 months of live broadcast, a live broadcaster could also reach 100 million yuan a day."

In order to better achieve brand upgrading and avoid the current situation where "family anchors" such as Simba of Kuaishou dominate, Gaofan finally chose to deeply cultivate the high-end brand route on Douyin.

Source: TikTok screenshot

Wu Kunming regards the operation of Douyin as a "top priority project". He personally leads the team to participate in every link before, during and after the live broadcast - from the interview of the anchor to the live broadcast language, product selection, and even the subsequent customer service and after-sales.

After a few months, Wu Kunming's biggest realization is: "To make Douyin, you need to fight hard, not rely on various so-called skills."

Based on the previous perception of low prices on Douyin, most new brands basically sell discount products after entering the platform, but Wu Kunming did not do so. He believes that selling at low prices cannot retain customers and does not conform to the brand positioning of Gaofan.

In November this year, the black and gold down jacket matching short video of Gaofan and Douyin’s top internet celebrity Piyou went viral on the Internet. The same down jacket was sold out in Gaofan’s official store. For several days in a row, Piyou’s fans came to Gaofan’s official live broadcast room to ask: “When will Piyou’s black and gold goose down jacket be available?”

With the warm-up of top live broadcasts and various expert reviews, Gaofan brand's own live broadcast room has taken over the long-tail traffic, and currently 70% of its performance comes from self-broadcasting.

Wu Kunming introduced to Douyin TMT that Douyin is still in its bonus period. An investment of 100,000 can generate sales of about 1 million, and the platform has great potential.

"Douyin has 120 million senior middle-class users, which perfectly matches the first target customer group of Goffan offline. The second core user group of Goffan is sophisticated mothers. Goffan locks in its target customers by converting fans of influencers. For example, the spokesperson Cecilia Cheung and the cooperating Douyin super head anchor Luo Yonghao, most of the fans of these accounts are middle-class sophisticated mothers."

Wu Kunming also said that in the future Gaofan will focus on Douyin, and combine with Tmall and Vipshop platforms to carry out omni-channel brand upgrades, and make the brand further high-end by cooperating with foreign designers and buyer stores.

2. Can you seize the market by being a substitute for international brands?

A few years ago, the popularity of high-end down jacket brands such as Canada Goose and Moncler in China not only started a high-end down jacket consumption trend among consumers, but also educated the market on which technical indicators should be considered to judge the quality of a down jacket.

Terms such as filling volume, fluffiness, and lifetime free cleaning and care are beginning to form purchasing considerations in the minds of consumers.

For example, fill power refers to the volume of down in its natural form per ounce. The fill power of down jackets is generally between 550-900. The higher the fill power of down jackets of the same quality, the more air it can store and the better the quality.

In terms of sales channels, Bosideng wins with its offline store SKUs; the new high-end down jacket brand Skyman has not yet started on Douyin, and YaYa's high-end GOOSE series has just started. This means that there is still a glimmer of opportunity in the high-end down jacket market on Douyin, and it also strengthens Goff's determination to enter the high-end market.

Source: TikTok screenshot

Gaofan has basically eliminated the offline store model and now focuses on online business. In terms of cost, it has a strong cost-effectiveness advantage, saving the rent and operating costs of offline stores, and focusing more on factory production.

For example, in addition to the basic technical indicators such as filling volume and fluffiness, Gaofan has also launched a unique design with suspenders. The main purpose is to free your hands and launch down jackets that can be carried on the body, which are deeply loved by mothers and other groups.

In addition, this year is Double 11, and when all down jacket brands launched big promotions, Gaofan did the opposite, raising product prices nationwide and notifying that it would reduce sales starting October 20, which completely stimulated consumers' purchasing desire.

3. Pain points and opportunities for high-end domestic down jackets

Domestic down jackets are all moving towards high-end products. This is based on a simple judgment: there cannot be only one Bosideng in the field of domestic high-end down jackets. For government leaders and senior executives of state-owned enterprises, wearing Canada Goose or Moncler is obviously too ostentatious, but it is also impossible for them to all wear Bosideng.

Looking at Bosideng's strategic transformation in recent years, starting from 2017, Bosideng focused on the mid-to-high-end down jacket market between 1,000 and 5,000 yuan, and then successively cooperated with a number of well-known designers and invited celebrities such as Yang Mi, Xiao Zhan, Yi Yang Qianxi, and Gu Ailing to endorse the brand, and the brand awareness has been rising.

In addition to investing huge amounts of marketing expenses, Bosideng also launched designer models and appeared on the New York Fashion Week. The once popular national brand has transformed itself into a fashion trendsetter.

According to the financial report, in the six months ending September 2021, Bosideng's distribution expenses, including advertising and promotion expenses, increased by 33.5% year-on-year to 1.6 billion yuan.

This also means that consumers are not only buying the functionality of the down jacket, but also have to pay for the high premium of the brand.

However, after investing a lot of marketing expenses, the marginal effect brought by Bosideng is decreasing. In addition, most of Bosideng's offline stores are concentrated in third-tier cities with lower consumption levels, which also hinders the brand's overall high-end business model.

This gives various new domestic brands the opportunity to catch up.

Source: TikTok screenshot

Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, once publicly stated that, taking Bosideng as an example, high-end is an inevitable trend for the development of domestic down jacket companies, but the current situation is not optimistic. In his opinion, foreign high-end down jackets pay more attention to brand stories and history in the promotion process. People don’t care how much black technology Canada Goose has, but are more interested in the company’s history.

If you don't have a brand story or historical heritage, but still want to sell your product for several thousand dollars, then you need to do a good job in design, fabrics, craftsmanship, functionality, as well as lifetime free repair and cleaning services.

It can be said that product upgrading is the first step for down jacket brands to move towards high-end status.

At present, not to mention that the history of new down jacket brands is relatively short, many high-end domestic down jackets have more or less product warranty issues. For example, the warranty period of most down jackets is 7 days, and there are also various quality control issues, which is not conducive to the creation of high-end brands.

Under the wave of consumption upgrading, consumers are no longer satisfied with pursuing indicators such as down content, fluffiness, and cleanliness of down jackets, but are increasingly paying attention to functionality, sense of technology, and fashion style.

In terms of segmented categories, there is currently a Sky People brand in China that specifically targets business people. There is no transition from low price to high price, and it directly hits the high-end gap in the industry.

The brand was launched in September this year, positioned for "China's new generation of professionals" and focusing on urban life scenes. It now has more than 20 SKUs, including down jackets, down scarves, down bucket hats, down jackets and other categories. The price range of down jackets is 3200-7200.

In addition, it is also a high-end opportunity for the expensive down jacket category designed specifically for the elderly.

A study by CITIC Securities shows that there is still at least 20% incremental market growth in the Chinese down jacket market in the future. Compared with the 30%-70% down jacket penetration rate in Europe and the United States, the penetration rate in the Chinese market is only 10%.

This means that the Chinese down jacket market is still in its bonus period, and the industry structure, including high-end down jackets, is still subject to great uncertainty. As for domestic brands like Gaofan, whether they can use emerging platform opportunities such as Douyin e-commerce to promote product upgrades and explore future opportunities for many brands through the story of one brand, it will take time to further test.