Not All Chinese Brands are Succeeding: Famous Shoe Brand DAPHNE 4B RMB in Debt
We’ve talked a lot about Guochao, or the rise of domestic brands, and while many Chinese brands have become extremely successful, there are many other Chinese brands that are falling behind because they failed to please the young generation and adapt their branding and marketing strategies for the current environment. Women’s shoe brand DAPHNE is one of them.
DAPHNE is a Taiwanese shoe brand founded in 1990. When DAPHNE was at its peak, it covered 20% of the female footwear market in Mainland China. Girls saved a month’s wages to buy a pair of DAPHNE’s shoes. The brand worked with an at-that-time very popular girl group SHE, and many other top celebrities including Gao Yuanyuan (高圆圆), Liu Ruoying (刘若英) and Liu Shishi (刘诗诗). It was the dream shoe brand for most post-80s girls’ during their youth.
But now, for most consumers, the brand feels very dated. However, a recent financial statement brought the brand back to the spotlight. It revealed that the brand is 4 billion RMB in debt, and it announced that it will no longer have offline retail.
Here are some of reasons that lead to the brand’s downfall:
COVID 19:
Brands that relied heavily on offline retail suffered greatly during the lockdown period and many never recovered. Footwear was especially impacted since people weren’t going out and didn’t need new shoes.
Poor brand image:
DAPHNE used to be positioned as middle-to-high end. But constant sales and discounts erased this brand image. Young people won’t bother to enter a DAPHNE store in shopping malls nowadays as it’s seen as a cheap, outdated brand.
Slow to launch new products:
From developing to shipping to every store, DAPHNE takes half a year to a year. In contrast, fast fashion brand ZARA only takes 60 days. This extremely long development period makes DAPHNE’s products look out of date.
Wrong platform:
DAPHNE started working with ecommerce platforms in 2006, which was the right time to enter. The brand worked with Tmall, Jing Dong and Vipshop(唯品会) at that time. But since 2010, DAPHNE switched to another ecommerce platform called “耀点100”. And as a result, it cut collaborations with those three platforms we just mentioned. The reason you may never hear of “耀点100” is that, the platform shut down in 2012. It caused massive losses for DAPHNE.
The Road to Recovery?
Now DAPHNE is back on Tmall. It’s store has 4.8M followers and it has started running livestreams to generate attention. It also experimenting with some of Tmall’s new services, for example, sending shoes to customers for them to try on and then pay if they keep them. It is too soon to know if DAPHNE will be able to make a comeback, but at least the brand is taking action and attempting to change.
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