Gymboree conquest of the education and childrenswear markets in China
With the economic development in China, family spending on education and children clothing is steadily increasing. Gymboree, known as 金宝贝 (jin bao bei : golden baby) in China is an american corporation owning both retail stores of children's apparel and Play and Music centers where parents go with their children for early-learning classes.
In 2003, Gymboree saw in China a huge potential for its Play and Music centers and brought the franchise to Shanghai. In 2009, noticing that only 20 % of the chinese parents enrolled their children in education programs, it decided to target the 80 % leaving one. Not only interested in top-tier cities,Gymboree aimed at setting up centers in smaller cities (around one million inhabitants), the strategy being to reach the bourgeonning middle class.
There are no doubt that the education market is growing and that chinese parents are ready to do a lot to provide their children with the best possible education, namely because the birth control policy made children become the center of the family. But in 2003, entering the chinese market with play centers was challenging for Gymboree because Chinese parents were not familiar with the concept of children learning by playing in a funny environment, enjoying what they do and discovering what they really like. Today, with more than 200 centers, Gymboree's Play and Music centers are well established in China. The company now sees opportunities in the children's apparel and is starting from scratch a business in that area.
A French high fashion house
conquering the Chinese clothing market
Already present in Xidan's Galeries
Lafayette in Beijing, Faconnable is taking a new step in its establishment on
the Chinese market : it opened shops in Shanghai and in Chengdu. Still
unknown to the Chinese public in
comparison with luxury brands such as Dior, Armani or Burburry, the brand is
called 法康娜布 in China (fa
kang na bu, with kang meaning healthy and abundant and bu meaning clothes), a
positively-connotated name sounding as Faconnable.
The French brand is determined to
seduce Chinese consumers with its authentic French Riviera style: the
blue-and-white-striped sailor design of the shops arouses the curiosity of
Chinese people who enter the place spontaneously. Faconnable intends to
convince Chinese buyers by making them understand the connection between the
way of life of the South of France, tourist place they surely know and the the
clothes it sells. The influence of Picasso in the creation of clothes could
also seduce consumers. Faconnable aims at targeting people practising sports
such as golf, polo or yachting for such networks generate word-from-mouth and
can help the brand make it known. This establishment is challenging and if this
step proves to be successful, Faconnable will not hesitate to invest even more
in China...
The wine industry in China is
drastically soaring recent years with the rapid growth of economy. The Chinese
wine consumption market is also booming since an increasing number of people
nowadays are seeking for a life of higher quality. According to the survey by
2010, the annual growth speed of global wine industry is less than 1%, however,
the figure is 10% in China. In four years’ time, the growth rate is still
accelerating. Therefore, China has undoubtedly been the most potential wine
market in the world.
As the latest report pointed out,
the Chinese wine market consumption has been continuously increasing and it’s
already the fifth biggest market in the world, with the compound annual growth
rate of around 25%. In the meanwhile, the statistics also demonstrate a rapid
growth of wine from world to mainland China. China is a populous country of
1.33 billion, among which there are 19 million upper middle class drinkers of
imported wine. And that middle class is growing. That is to say, the current
situation is favorable for imports.
The largest market for imported
wine consumption is “on-premise”, at top end hotels, restaurants night-clubs
and bars. In these occasions, people tends to impress their guests at a dinner
banquet or to use as a gift.In order to satisfy demand of the consumers, the
retail market for imported wines is also growing. The number of foreign
countries is springing in China and they normally have a wine corner located in
middle to high-income districts. High-end domestic department stores also carry
imported wine, as do independent wine shops. At present, the market share is
divided by three groups. There are local brands with some history, newly coming
brands and joint brands in Chinese wine market. Generally speaking, foreign
brands take up the high-end market, domestic wine enterprises with some history
are dominant in middle-end market and some newly coming brands and other brands
are mainly in the low-end market.
Over the past decade, China's per
capita wine consumption has risen from 0.25 liters in 2002 to 1.31 liters in
2013. During the same period, Chinese consumers' understanding of wine has also
improved. Chinese used to consider wine consumption as a luxury, so they set
brand name and high price as the standard of good wine. But now the situation
is changing. More people can afford to buy wines but the purposes are quite
different from each other.
As for most consumers, wine
consumption is for the purpose of collection, taste and banquet respectively.
The grade and orientation of wine varies from group to group. In China, as a
symbol of fashion, wine is related to health and romance. Various data also
provide basis for peoples’ expectation on wine healthcare, showing it can
prevent cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes.
In comparison with foreign wine,
Chinese customers don’t drink diverse wine to match diverse dishes. Instead,
they like to drink up one bottle of wine and sometime open anther bottle.
Taking white wine as defective products, Chinese customers reject to drink
white wine. For many customers, only red wine is wine and white wine only
refers to Chinese local grain alcohol.
Despite the rapid development of
wine industry in China, there are tough challenges as well to meet with, like
the competitors from European countries, which are the original producers of
wines. There's a general consensus that the quality of domestic wines needs to
be improved. In today's market environment, we must compete with wines from
Europe and other countries, so the first thing we need to do is to improve our
own competitiveness. The most important is to go back to the quality from the
brand name building as before. To make better quality wine, Chinese wine
enterprises need to upgrade the industry, in grape planting, mechanization and
cost reduction.
However, instead of really
focusing hard on the taste and quality, marketing is also of significant
importance. Chinese major wine producers poured their investment and efforts
into marketing. As said by RUAN SHI LI, Senior Manager of ChangyuMozel Winery
“I think there is a certain gap between Chinese Wine industry and Wine
industry, in those major wine producers around the world. The first is in the
raw materials, the second is in the marketing.” Major change in marketing
pattern of wine enterprises is the shift from competing in the end market to
establishing and operating end market on their own. Wine marketing in China
used to be shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants and clubs. But now, wine
salon and franchised stores are the major marketing places. Thus the market has
been more optimized.
Generally speaking, the wine
market in China can be described as promising, competitive and tough as well. With
the government regulations restricting government spending on banquets, perhaps
more emphasis should be placed on personal consumption. Based on this, the
Chinese wine market will be converted into a more healthy and mature one.
