1. Industry overview

With the progress of the Internet and industrial technology, the development of the fashion product design industry has shown the following trend: consumer goods pay more attention to the competitive advantages given by the design empowerment, and the acceptance of the value creation in the design segment of each industry segment has increased; The fashion trend of “fast fashion” requires fashion product designers to have the ability of mass merchandising design to meet all kinds of consumers; Excellent fashion product design is not equal to best-selling products. The connection between fashion product design and industrial production links ensures the landing of design results is an important link to improve the efficiency of the entire industrial chain.

2. Overview of footwear industry and footwear design industry chain

As daily necessities, footwear industry as a whole has a huge scale and maintained stable growth; From the perspective of the industrial chain, China’s shoe industry is gradually moving from pure OEM to the industrial chain link and operation mode of self-developed design and self-owned brand, with an obvious trend of industrial upgrading.

(1) As a daily necessity, shoes have a huge market space

According to the data of the Analysis Report on the Operation Status and Development Prospects of China’s Footwear Design Industry from 2020 to 2026 released by Intelligent Research Consulting, as a daily consumer product, the footwear consumption market is huge. From the perspective of footwear market size, the global footwear market size reached US $381.206 billion in 2018, with a year-on-year increase of 4.34%; It is expected that the global footwear market size will grow steadily at a compound growth rate of 4.16% on average from 2019 to 2021, and the global footwear market size is expected to reach US $430.865 billion by 2021. From the perspective of segmentation, the size of the global women’s shoes market accounts for about 50% of the global shoes market, which is the largest market segment; The growth rate of children’s shoes is higher than that of men’s shoes market, with huge potential.
From the perspective of the internal change trend of the industry ecology, benefiting from the growing demand of the mass consumers for fashion shoes, the global footwear market is taking on a new competitive pattern: the rapid development of online retailers at the sales level provides consumers with more convenient and efficient channels to purchase shoes, greatly reducing the time cost and transaction cost of shoes purchase, and accelerating the circulation speed of shoes from production to sales; At the demand level, the diversified demands of different income and age levels for the function and design of shoes promote the rapid development of the shoe market. The development trend of footwear industry in recent years is as follows:

1) Middle-end and mass brands have a high share in the footwear market
The footwear industry is a highly market-oriented and free competition industry, with a low entry threshold. The participating enterprises present a fragmented market competition pattern. Considering the target group, brand positioning, product price and marketing channel, the footwear market can be divided into three market levels: luxury high-end, mid-end and mass. The luxury high-end brand market is mainly occupied by well-known brands in Europe and the United States. It has prominent brand image, high price, wide product line, and meets consumer brand consumption needs. The brand representatives include Gucci, PRADA, etc. Due to the high price of luxury high-end brands, the consumer segments they face are small, and the market space is generally not as good as Midrange and mass market.

The mid-tier market is mainly dominated by mid-tier brands, with large market capacity and considerable potential in the future. The market participants at this level are mainly brand merchants positioned at the middle end of the market. Their fashion and comfort are the core competitive elements of the brand. The brand competition of enterprises mainly focuses on R&D and design technology, supply chain management, channel construction management, marketing strategy and other aspects. In the trend of “fast fashion”, “fashion, multiple styles, small amount” has gradually become a new trend for mid-end shoe enterprises to seize the market, and design ability has increasingly become an important influencing factor. The representatives of mid-end brands include CCC, LadyStork, Deichmann, Belle, Saturday, KISSCAT, etc., which is one of the main development fields of shoe brands in recent years.

The mass market enterprises present a diversified competition pattern, facing the largest population base and huge market capacity. The mass market consumers mainly focus on the actual use value, appearance, comfort, cost performance, etc. of the products, and are highly sensitive to the price and weaken the attention to the brand. Because consumers are highly sensitive to price and comfort, and mass market goods are both comfortable and economical. In recent years, with the upgrading of consumption, the pursuit of design and fashion is also increasing. Due to the large consumer base, diversified consumer preferences also pose a challenge to the design diversity of footwear enterprises. At the same time, the fine control of the cost system and the improvement of the scale of labor efficiency have become one of the most important factors in the competition of mass market enterprises.

2) “Fast fashion” trend accelerates the iteration of footwear market
With the acceleration of the pace of modern life, the pursuit of fashion and health has become a social phenomenon and consumer culture. The pursuit of fashion and health is the mainstream trend of shoe consumption upgrading. In addition to the traditional basic functions of shoes, shoe enterprises pay more attention to the fashion elements and the functionality of shoe products in order to fit the characteristics of shoe consumption upgrading in the product design, process and other links.

“Fast fashion” has become a significant style trend in the footwear industry, which has the characteristics of fast turnover, high value-added, high effective supply, low inventory and so on. “Fashion, multiple styles and a small amount” has gradually become a new business trend for footwear enterprises to seize the market, which requires enterprises to have a strong ability to respond quickly to the market. For example, ZARA, the representative of fast fashion, only needs two weeks from shoe and clothing style design to retail terminal sales. For brand companies, the rapid launch of products can not only ensure the maximization of corporate profits, but also ensure the uniqueness of products, thus reducing the possibility of being copied by competitors. The “fast fashion” development trend of the footwear industry requires more new footwear design styles in the same cycle, and on the other hand, the design efficiency and the landing efficiency of design results should be improved, which puts forward higher requirements for footwear design.

3) In terms of segments, women’s shoes market has the largest scale, more demand for styles and higher consumption frequency; The demand for children’s shoes is considerable and growing rapidly
In terms of women’s shoes market, the size of women’s shoes market accounts for about 50% of the global footwear market. The female population base and the relatively high consumption characteristics of women’s shoes have led to the huge scale of the global women’s shoes market, which has maintained a steady growth trend, and is one of the important market segments to promote the growth of the global footwear industry. According to the calculation that the size of women’s shoes market accounts for 50% of the global total shoe market size, the size of the global women’s shoes market in 2018 will reach US $190.603 billion, and it will reach US $215.333 billion in 2021. Women’s shoes consumption and purchase behavior is more susceptible to the impact of the beauty, quality, fashion, etc. of the shoes themselves. The stickiness of a single style is low, the style demand is large, and the market space is large. In terms of children’s shoes market, the number of children aged 15 or under in China was 250 million in 2018, and the consumption demand of children’s shoes market was huge; On the other hand, benefiting from the comprehensive opening of the country’s two-child policy in 2015 and the attention and demand of people on the quality of children’s clothing, the long-term benefit of the children’s shoes market has led to the rapid development of the industry, and the capacity of the children’s shoes market continues to expand. The consumption of children’s shoes in China shows a steady growth trend, and the per capita consumption level of children’s shoes continues to improve.