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With each, not even a year, but a day, the competition becomes stronger and stronger. Giant companies are emerging, biting off a big piece of the pie from cream-filled customers.
Small competitors appear, who also pinch off a piece of the market with a dessert spoon.
In order not to lose this race, there are over 5000+ ways of marketing.
But if you plan to go for a long time and steadily, then it's time for you to deal not only with chips, but also with more long-term tasks. Namely, think about how to create a brand from your company.
If you think that the word “brand” means the process of creating a logo or, then you are mistaken.
Everything is much more global than it seems. Also, if you think that a brand is pathos and great amount money for, I hasten to disappoint you.
Often this is wrong famous companies who aggressively promote their brand to the masses.
In fact, much more is hidden under the word brand: the company's values, its recognition among consumers, etc.
This is all part of why a customer decides to buy from you.
And, as I already said, if you plan to do business "in debt", then without creating your own brand you can't go anywhere. Although at the beginning of my marketing journey, I thought very differently.
Do I need it?
Let's go right away. If you do not want to create your own brand, then either the market will force you to do it, or it will throw you out of its orbit.
Naturally, you can earn little money from sales without a brand. This also has a place.
But if you look at the big players, you won't find a single one among them that works without it.
You already have a company, a name, and maybe even a logo. If you have been working for a long time, then there is a corporate identity, and maybe even.
Offhand, we can say that you have an established brand. Well, let's check not by eye, but by science.
Right now, please answer the questions below to evaluate which of us gets candy for being right in our thoughts:
- Does your company have a mission? What?
- Do you know your clients? Who are they? How do they feel about your company?
- What are the benefits of your product and company?
- What impression should your customers have of you?
Stop! This raises the question: “Why is the mission, values, customers, benefits, and also the impression mentioned in the brand evaluation?”.
All questions are philosophical, without specifics, it's true. Because the very concept of “brand” in the world is often misinterpreted.
For most entrepreneurs, this is just a logo and a slogan that is advertised everywhere. But in fact it is much broader.
Brand- these are associations, ideas, fantasies: and even emotions that arise in the mind of the consumer when you mention your company.
In fact, this is an abstraction that pops up in the head, which is precisely created due to the logo, colors, slogans and other things.
We will discuss what it takes to develop a company brand in the next chapter. Still, the article should be with clear instructions, and not sketchy knowledge.
But before that, I want to warn you. Creating a company brand is only a small part of a big task called branding.
Branding is the work of creating and “promoting” a brand to create and associate in the minds of consumers.
If you manage to do everything according to Feng Shui, then the result will make you the king of the copper mountain. The risk will be justified by the list of advantages that you will receive by going through this voluminous work. Here is some of them:
- Correct perception of your company;
- Increased awareness among competitors;
- Reduction of drawdowns during the crisis;
- Growth in the number of loyal customers;
- Increased employee loyalty.
All this leads not to mythical benefits, but to quite measurable ones, which will be reflected in the company's personal account.
Therefore, the process of creation must begin now, although no, it should have started yesterday. And there is only one reason for this.
The road is a lifetime
Bad news. Branding implies a rather long sequence of actions for the development of the company.
No one knows exactly what it takes to create a strong brand for the ages. This work has blurred boundaries. The only thing we know is that it happens in 5 directions:
- Brand positioning. This is where the brand is born. What place will he occupy and where will the company go. Remember the famous Steve Jobs and his Apple.
If it’s easier for you, you can divide the brand into: product, place, price and promotion. This is if it's really rude.
But what to do?
It is important to understand the specific creation algorithm, the sequence of steps and actions that will bring you closer to a strong brand.
We have considered the directions that generally describe the situation. Now let's look at each one under a microscope.
And we will define 11 steps (all books are reduced to them), each of which is responsible for one of the previously studied areas.
big idea
What the brand is created for and what image of the company will be promoted with its help.
It can also be called the key message that you will convey to your customers in all your communications.
In our case, it is "only A complex approach(marketing, sales and personnel) will lead the company to stable and predictable sales.”
Example 1: The footwear company "Geox" broadcasts the idea of healthy footwear. In addition to the fact that it is made of high quality materials, it is made taking into account the physiological characteristics of a person.
And in this struggle, a properly created brand becomes a pretty good help and weapon, which, albeit in the long term, will still ensure the company's growth and consumer loyalty.
Patriotic fashion industry is in disgrace. People like to talk about it, hold round tables, discuss it, but in reality, little happens. There is even a myth that it is uninteresting and unprofitable to do this. We would like to dispel this myth: doing this is not only interesting and profitable, but you can do it without prejudice to your own sense of style and taste.
The fashion industry is production, press and shops. Production is both design, fabric manufacturing and tailoring, and the production of accessories. Without the press, the industry cannot exist either, because people need to know about you. And without shops, too, because sales are the main thing.
Every company has a concept. We used to think it was a stupid thing, but then we realized what it was for. It is necessary that each employee understands what he is doing and why. So we sat down and wrote what our Oh, my brand is about and what we want to do. And we want to make in Russia a brand of inexpensive knitwear that in all respects corresponds to the level of a stable European brand. And focus not only on Russian market, but to make it recognizable and sold throughout the global fashion community.
You need to understand if there is a niche for you in the market. In Russia, on the one hand, there is a lot of luxury, and on the other hand, there are a huge number of retail chains where you rarely find something interesting. And there is a void between them. Of course have good brands unbanal and at the same time inexpensive designer clothes that each of us can buy. But these brands are not so many that they form some kind of trend. We realized that there is a hole in the market, and we may well begin to fill it.
It is very important to have blind faith in yourself. Because in addition to some objective aspects of business and work, there is magic when everything seems to grow together by itself. But the business component is also very important, nothing will work without calculation. What we sew will have to be sold in such a way that we can then re-sew and, perhaps, even earn money.
Suppose we want to launch a clothing brand by September. We have three months, in which, having nothing but a certain amount of funds, we may well be in time. The time plan is divided into stages of work. Each stage, in turn, step by step process on the way to finished things.
For starters, we just surfed the internet and collected pictures that we liked. We clearly understood that we wanted to make inexpensive good knitwear. There is American Apparel, there is H&M, there are a lot of other things, but we don’t have such a brand of our own. After collecting a lot of pictures, we decided what we want to do things. We had several categories of things: T-shirts, T-shirts, long sleeves, turtlenecks and hoodies.
Models must be decided by June 6th. Until June 11 - draw sketches. At the same time, you need to search for a constructor who will do all this for you, because you don’t know how to design. The designer is a professional, and he will eventually understand what you want. The design process, if the collection is small and things are more or less similar (for example, 10 simple dresses), takes a month. The designer can be hired on the side, or you can take on the staff.
In parallel, you need to look for fabric and accessories. There is nowhere to buy fabric in Russia. And good fittings too - so that it was cheap. We have stores, we have warehouses, but what is sold there is expensive and not best quality. Therefore, we order fabric in the Baltic States, which in the end is cheaper than buying it here. Finding all this is not difficult if you have Google and Yandex. You find a supplier, he sends you samples, and you, having already walked around the shops and warehouses with us, understand what you want. You can buy a T-shirt, send it to them and say: I want this fabric, these properties, this composition. You also need to keep customs in mind. In winter, the fabric went to us for two and a half months. But if you do everything correctly, find a good intermediary, it will not be long. It's better not to do it yourself.
In parallel, we need to look for production. We do not have high-tech production in our country, but there are heaps of opportunities to sew a T-shirt from linen. In St. Petersburg, this is not worth doing - it's expensive. But this can be done in the Leningrad region, where a seamstress earns not 20,000 rubles, but 10,000 rubles, and the cost of a thing is very low. Production can also be found on the Internet. Now you are ready to send the developed patterns to production.
At this time, work with the press begins. Even though you still don’t know exactly what the sleeves and collars of the T-shirt will be, you should already understand exactly who your audio audience is and in which magazines you want to see materials about yourself. It must be borne in mind that an issue is rented out on average in a month, and if you want to get into a print publication, then you need to send a press release about two months in advance, to which journalists would pay attention, and shooting so that they understand what they are offered write. During this month, you should already clearly understand what kind of fabric you have, you take 10 meters of this fabric, sew patterns you have developed from it and take them off. You get beautiful pictures things before you actually have those things. And in two months, while the magazines are being typeset, you already have something to send them and what to tell them.
Press release. The main problem with most press releases is that instead of specific information, journalists have to read in what a beautiful flying image you will walk around the city. And the journalist has 50 such messages in his mailbox, so he opens them and immediately closes them. Write as it is: you represent such and such a brand, it is interesting because of this and that. You should pay attention, because it is beautiful and at the same time cheap. Or no one has done this before. You can find the addresses of journalists if you go to the kiosk and buy the magazines that interest you. Write a separate letter to each journalist. Wrote en masse - received en masse the answer "no". And most importantly: a good press release costs as much as a bad one, and good shooting costs the same as a bad one. We must bear this in mind.
When things are ready, they must be sent to the store. To do this, you need to add your markup to the cost of things. This is called added value. Here, for example, is a dress: if you add 100% to its cost and another 100% is added to it in the store, it will cost 1,500 rubles. But your dress is so cool that it will sell for 3,000 rubles. So you can add more. Added value does not have a clear coefficient. But on initial stage you need to add more, because along the way you will still have a lot of errors, jambs, delays, and all this will cost money. And while you have a small turnover, these mistakes need to be insured.
Use the internet. Do not think about the show, it will not bring you any result, since we do not have an industry. But if you make a beautiful site, the effect will be much greater.
Come up with special projects. Often printed edition it is not interesting to publish news about which 150 comments were written on Look At Me two months ago. Therefore, you can come up with all sorts of interesting things - for example, a limited collection, which you don’t tell anyone about, except for the editors of printed publications.
Use all free features. Publication is a sales tool. When the brand Oh, my posh! , they wrote a whole page about her in Afisha, and everyone came to us and asked: “How much did you pay?” You will not believe, but such a thing as payment for publication, for good magazine does not exist. Beautiful video and photographs can also be taken for free, and there is nothing shameful in this.
Help the store. For the store you are a partner, he is interested in selling you, making money on you. Therefore, print out the price list, prepare beautiful lookbooks, it will cost you 5,000 rubles, but it will be a tool that will help you sell better. A lookbook is a banal thing, well photographed on a white background, where articles, composition, colors and sizes are signed.
Think about where you will move next. If you spent your money on the initial project, then you can then find an investor who will allow you to reach new stage. You will already have something to go with him.
How to solve the problem of personnel shortage, work on the principle of small print runs and go to the regions, Elena Fimina told in an interview with Kontur.Zhurnal.
Idea
My sister and I have been working in the fashion industry for over 10 years. In 2002, a store of the Spanish brand Mango was opened in Chelyabinsk. There was nothing like it in the city back then. On a competitive basis, we got a job at Mango as sales consultants and gradually grew to a managerial level. During this time, we understood how a fashion business is built, how clothing collections are created and promoted, we figured out the intricacies of merchandising, showroom work and factors affecting successful sales. Since my sister worked specifically with the Spaniards, she learned all the nuances of fashion promotion.
I started making clothes more than five years ago. At first it was a hobby, although I studied individually with high-level specialists in the field of clothing production, studied the technology and subtleties of design and modeling. Gradually, the process dragged me on, and when my sister gave birth to two children, they became a source of inspiration for more serious works and collections.
One day, my sister and I came up with the idea to create a children's clothing brand. FiFi. We started with a starting amount of 100,000 rubles, but the experience in the industry that we managed to gain helped us a lot. The first collection was sewn at home, using homemade seamstresses.
In fact, we immediately determined who our client is: these are progressive mothers different ages who understand fashion, know the trends, love to dress their children stylishly and tastefully.
Investments
Participation in the SKB Kontur competition "" is our first attempt to attract investment for business development. Our video was seen by an investor and offered financial assistance. At that time, we refused, because we were not satisfied with the conditions, and decided to develop on our own.
At the regional level, we participated in the federal program “You Are an Entrepreneur”. Our project was also interested, but we realized that it would be difficult to get financial support, since this program is more educational.
Now we have applied for participation in the Made in Chelyabinsk contest and we are waiting for the organizers to contact us.
Production details and complexity
The production of clothes is a very long and painstaking process. It all starts with the emergence of an idea, we determine what exactly we want to do. Then sketches are drawn, at the next stage materials are purchased. Next, designers work - they develop patterns. During the construction of the model, many changes are made and something is necessarily rejected. But that's not all.
Seeing the result, we begin to discuss how we can present and present the finished collection. We choose a location, invite photographers and create a photo shoot with child models.
It is very difficult to organize a production process in Russia. One of the most acute problems that we have encountered is a shortage of personnel: there are neither competent designers nor seamstresses in the country.
Of course, there are specialists who are 50-60 years old, but they are no longer in the ranks, and it is almost impossible to find young professionals. You have to spend a lot of time and effort on training, and efficiency suffers from this.
AT clothing industry The speed at which work is performed plays an important role. For example, to launch a children's dress into mass tailoring, you need to calculate how much time it takes to tailor one model - in minutes and seconds. Thus, it is calculated how many hours and days the entire batch will be sent off. And people of the old school just can't work fast. But we connect them to another work - designing, because they competently make patterns and think over sketches, taking into account the fabrics that are available to us.
Solving the problem of personnel shortage, we involved specialists from the department of light industry of the South Ural state university. We invited the best of them to work with us, and now they advise us and also train our employees. Currently, the company employs seven seamstresses.
Another issue is fabrics. Production in Russia is barely working, factories are fulfilling some incomprehensible orders on old equipment - they have a very hard time, people work for a penny. But even those factories that are still functioning do not always produce what we need. For example, in Yekaterinburg, there is a wool-producing plant. Tyumen produced similar fabrics, but, unfortunately, the factory closed recently. We buy something in Russia, but basically, of course, we bring everything from abroad, more often from Italy. As long as the euro exchange rate was more or less stable, there were no problems with purchases. Now the situation has changed - we have become more careful in choosing fabrics: when drawing up estimates, we have to calculate how affordable things will be for the consumer, although, of course, we would like to buy more original and expensive fabrics.
The principle of small runs
We produce small collections - ten models each. The collection is built on the principle of a capsule, where each item complements the other. Thus, we increase our turnover, because people like to buy things in sets. At the same time, we have models that we sew constantly. As a rule, this is a festive assortment, basic models, the so-called "commercial".
When the collection comes out, in the process we can supplement it if we see that the demand for things is good. Elegant dresses remain a bestseller - they are in demand all season.
During its existence, the FiFi brand has gained its admirers. We are working to expand their circle. But we do not fight for our client - he finds us himself.
In Chelyabinsk, during production, we have a showroom where our customers can come and try on things. Two months ago, the FiFi brand entered the Moscow market: a new store "Children's shelf" was opened in the capital, where our models are presented among the things of Russian designers.
In order to promote the brand, we are actively working with the social networks Instagram, VKontakte, and also developing our virtual store on the Fair of Masters website. From experience, I can say that social networks are in many ways more effective than stores, because they cover more potential consumers— people see our products from different parts of the country and even the world. We receive orders not only from Russia, but also from abroad.
In the next five years, we plan to launch a franchise business to increase the number of outlets for our product. We plan to make clothes at the production site in Chelyabinsk and negotiate with regional stores to represent our brand. Such stores will place orders for certain models from the catalog before the season and receive the necessary volumes of products.
Nelli Nedre, a Petersburger, dreamed of working as a designer since childhood. While studying at the institute, she realized that she was not interested in inventing expensive extravagant clothes that no one could wear in everyday life. After working as a designer for a streetwear brand, a year ago she decided to create her own company and began producing laconic items in discreet colors that fit into world fashion trends. Now Nelly's clothes are sold in ten stores, and the company's monthly turnover exceeds half a million rubles.
work experience
Nelly Nedre
Brand founder
At the age of seven, I announced to my grandmother that when I grew up, I would become a designer. Then she gave me a suitcase with felt-tip pens, and since then, like an obsessed, I began to invent and draw various outfits. After graduating from school, without hesitation, she entered the faculty of fashion design. Education at the institute became a real school of life for me: they kicked me out every six months, they said that I would be a bad designer, that I would never succeed. At the same time, from the third year I began to make full-fledged collections, participated and won with them in international competitions. I experimented with shapes, tried different fabrics, searched for my own style. By my fifth year, I was a fully formed designer. The teachers at the institute demanded that we show our potential by making the most of our imagination, but I quickly outgrew this approach to clothing. I realized that I don’t want to make things that no one wears, even if they look interesting.
The practice that I went through with various designers helped me a lot to understand this. Before graduation, I managed to work in an atelier, a luxury brand, a streetwear brand, and even supervised production in China. In general, I probed all the soil that is possible. In my senior year, I was offered a job by the owner of the St. Petersburg streetwear brand Trailhead. The experience in his company was invaluable. This is a serious brand with a wide range of goods, the founder of which has been working with clothes for twenty years and is well versed in the market - he knows what the Russian consumer is ready to buy. It doesn't do anything fancy, it only works with basic shapes and colors. I started as one of the designers of his brand, and he could say: “Nelli, what are you drawing! Who needs this pink button on the side, I won’t sell it to anyone!”
The company had an experimental workshop in which we made samples, sent them to stores and, if we understood that they were going well, we launched a large production in China. I was able to try a lot of things within the framework of Trailhead: I developed the line women's clothing, which was almost never done before me, organized shooting for lookbooks and an online store. At some point, it became clear: I already know absolutely everything that is needed to open my own business.
Own business
I decided to leave Trailhead, and at that moment my friend, designer Asya Malbershtein, offered me to rent a twelve-meter room for a workshop. She has been pushing me to create her brand for a long time, and I thought that this room was a good sign. All my money, about 100 thousand rubles, I spent on sewing machine and the purchase of fabrics for the first collection. Three months later, I realized that this was not enough, and took out a loan of 300,000.
With this money, I hired three people, bought additional equipment. I registered the brand name, it cost about 60 thousand rubles. They dissuaded me, they believed that this was an unnecessary expense, but for me this measure of protection was very important. I also made a website, registered an individual entrepreneur, received permission to trade. A year later, when I had five people on staff, I rented a 63-square-meter space, which now houses the production itself, the showroom, and the office.
Now I have a manager, three seamstresses, a constructor and a designer on my staff. For me, this is the golden time of the company, because so far it is not difficult to maintain a friendly working atmosphere, and each employee clearly understands what and when he should do. When there are more than fifteen people in the company, it will be very difficult to maintain the old trusting relationship with all employees. You will have to get used to communication in the "boss - subordinate" format. All typical problems I managed to rehearse with the brand back in Trailhead, so I was ready for stressful situations. True, I had to develop an additional degree of rigidity in myself, without which the boss cannot be.
Work with shops
It is important to understand that I did not start from scratch. In addition to experience, I have good connections with shops: we were friends with some of the owners, we collaborated with someone before. Therefore, I knew exactly where I would sell my first collection.
The first time I sold 50 things a month. Now, on average, we sell about 400 items per month for half a million rubles. We cooperate with ten stores scattered throughout the cities of Russia, the largest of them is Moscow - Trends Brands in Tsvetnoy. Now, I am sure, the number of stores promoting Russian designers will only increase.
I did not plan to open my own offline store: there was simply no space. However, it turned out that people, having bought our clothes in other stores, began to visit the site and write to us directly. So I opened a showroom, and now it sells as much as all the other outlets. Our online store brings us another 100 thousand a month. This is beneficial for us, because we supply clothes to other stores with a fifty percent discount, and we can sell them at the regular retail price.
Cheating in stores is very different: in St. Petersburg it is somewhere around 100%, that is, a store buys a thing from us for 1,500 rubles, and sells it for 3,000. In Moscow, cheating can reach 250%.
The cost of production also depends on how much time and effort the seamstress spends on this thing. If we, for example, made an experimental model of a dress, I ask the seamstress how difficult it was for her to work with him and how long it took her. If it was difficult and slow, I exclude this model from the collection. I determine the price based on the fact that I need to pay my employees a normal salary and develop the brand. I would like to please customers by setting the minimum price, but I do not agree to work at zero, my work costs money.
Create a collection
The system of work in a large and local brand is largely different. The giants of the industry are trying to predict trends for several years ahead. They have special people who travel the world and collect information about trends in all possible areas: from art to new technologies. They also take into account the economic background. When you immediately produce thousands of pieces of clothing at a factory in China, you take a big risk, you have to be meticulous, save on threads and buttons. Since we are still a small brand, we do not adhere to a clear seasonality and prepare small capsule collections four to five times a year. It takes me about two months to create a collection.
I always start by looking at 60 of my favorite clothing websites and blogs for inspiration, figuring out what's hot right now. I'm putting together my own moodboard, which can include works of art, and excerpts from films, and photos of a friend, and music. Six months before the official release, new collections are posted on the Style.com website, I notice the details that most often appear in all brands. Having prepared the base for inspiration, I close myself in the apartment for several days and draw. According to my drawings, the designer makes trial patterns, then we sew the first samples, measure them, and refine them. When the collection is ready, we photograph it for the lookbook, send it to stores and wait for a reaction. A collection can have, for example, nine models in four colors. It is not necessary that each of these 36 items will be produced in more than one copy.
Choice of things
Buyers of stores usually know their customers well and understand what they will be ready to buy from them. Some take mostly basic classic things, while others, on the contrary, choose more extravagant models. First, they order a trial batch, then, focusing on demand, they buy something extra. We do not have a warehouse where we store things, because we always sew a certain amount for a specific order.
Gradually, we realized which models go best, so we singled out a separate Gills Classic line. These are things that are in constant demand, regardless of the season. If you look closely, all global brands have their own base of models, which they reproduce year after year. Chanel jacket, classic Carhartt sweatshirt, pumps. These are proven things to which you can add a pocket or change the fabric, but in fact they are always the same. Adidas' best-selling model is the classic black 3-Stripes tracksuit. Brands always make money on the simplest, most basic things. The same goes for color: black and gray always go with a bang, especially in Russia. My brand is also based on versatile pieces and a monochrome palette. Of the fabrics, I chose the footer for work, because that's what I feel best.
I have a principle: I will never do just a beautiful thing that I can’t make money on. When I come up with a beautiful and simple model, I look at whether it falls into trends, calculate the cost of its production and calculate how much it will be sold in stores. If I understand that no one will buy it for such a price, I immediately cease to like it and I refuse it.
Photo: Yasya Vogelhardt
The sharp drop in the purchasing power of the population in 2014 led the Russians to the need to revise their priorities - the final cost of the goods becomes the cornerstone, which, with the proper quality of products, should be as low as possible. People are beginning to make purchases more thoughtfully, objectively assess the price / quality ratio of different products within a product group and make a choice in favor of the most profitable purchases. The added value of the brand name in the FMCG segment is coming to naught. Networks are forced to reduce the margin, losing profits. How to keep profit and stay afloat? You will learn about this in the material of the commercial director of the Vneshtorg Group of Companies Anton Viktorovich Paremsky.
Three major market trends retail over the past 5 years are:
- Empowering the Buyer
- Consolidation of the B2C market
- Increasing competition among suppliers leading to lower margins
One of the main ways to restore the margin and get away from direct price comparison in an environment where all the prices of all sellers were freely available, and those who are able to offer the best price occupied the winning positions is to introduce private labels (PL) of retail chains and direct manufacturers of products in the main commodity groups. The larger and more dynamic Food and FMCG markets were the first to pick up the trend. Then she came to DIY market and household appliances.
It became obvious that holder trademark(TM) - an extra link in the commodity chain. It can be eliminated by working with the manufacturer directly or by starting your own production. Chains are starting to start their own TM and form an assortment and price offer. And this trend will develop: chains will launch more TMs, and the share of private label sales will grow. At the same time, the number of TM will increase insignificantly, but the sales volumes will grow very significantly - at least 5-6 times.
Not inferior in quality to goods of the middle price segment from TM holders, goods under private label traditionally belong to the lower price segment. This is because the goods of this category are placed directly at the factories, the trademarks of the chains, having no capitalization, do not increase the cost of the goods.
Creation of private label in the DIY segment
Trade in goods technically complex groups allows you to earn more through higher margins. It is the DIY segment that is the most profitable in this regard, but also the most difficult.
The process of creating private labels for technically complex goods involves a number of risks for chains:
- weak dynamics of switching consumer preferences due to the high importance of brands in this group of goods
- low inventory turnover
- additional costs for providing after-sales service of goods and maintaining a warehouse of spare parts
- the minimum number of supplies for regional chains leads to the need to provide a stock for six months in advance (bringing 10-12 sku can cost the chain 100-150,000 dollars)
These risks fall on the networks, creating additional costs. Because of this, the attractiveness of this product group is significantly reduced. Even regional leaders see independent creation of private labels as unprofitable. Therefore, it is more rational to outsource the process to companies specializing in this. Their specialists are usually experts in their fields and know the market well.
It should also be borne in mind that most of these companies are limited to ensuring the supply of goods directly from factories in China. But milestone full-fledged competent work on the creation of private labels should be the development of an assortment matrix in accordance with the current situation on the market and the level of competition, the results of research on sales statistics and the wishes of partners. Each input matrix must be designed for a specific client, suit him and be strictly personalized.
Client search
There are not so many DIY networks, you can type in any search engine "TOP 10 DIY networks" - and the key is in your pocket. Another thing is how to start working with them, how to convince them to outsource this process. For us, first of all, the reputation and rich experience of each of the members of our team works. The total payroll fund for specialists involved in different stages of private label creation is 1.5-2 million per month. It is clear that it would not be expedient for every company to maintain such a team in the state.
Manufacturer search and matrix formation
The territory of Russia is huge and divided into regions and macro-regions, and the Russian tool market is highly segmented and has features depending on the geographical location. In this regard, different brands prevail in different areas. Quite common is the situation when local dealers set the direction for the development of the entire product group in a particular region.
When working with a client key factors are both a general vision of the market and the situation in a particular area. In order to make the search for a manufacturer as effective as possible, it is necessary to analyze the goods of the client and his competitors, and only after marketing analysis form a matrix, under which a specific manufacturer will be selected. Usually the choice is made based on the client's requests, taking into account three key factors:
- The situation in the region
- The policy of the network itself
- General Market Trends
The number of manufacturers in China is huge, but finite. 95% of them are located in Southeast Asian countries, we know absolutely everything. Since one of the important parameters is the quality of the product and its scope (household, semi-professional, professional), the circle possible manufacturers narrows. As a rule, there is a certain assortment that can be offered to a particular partner. The final decision is made based on a combination of price factors and appearance rulers.
The composition of the matrix is determined by three factors:
- Budget
- Network specialization
- Competitive environment
The basis of almost any matrix is the position of category A (screwdriver, puncher, jigsaw), but the saturation of each category, additional product groups determine the parameters listed above.
Marketing
When promoting Chinese manufacturers in Russia, most often the main component of the marketing strategy comes from the manufacturer himself, since he has a clear idea in which niche he works. There are eight different tool segments on the market, however, there is not a single line that would work in all segments at the same time. Usually the widest range covers about three or four segments.
- focus on quality and supplier marketing budgets
- develop its own strategy for each segment, since the strategy aimed at promoting a home tool will differ from the strategy for promoting a professional tool
- guide marketing strategies targeting - give preference to SMM channels
If the work is carried out with a ready-made brand of a Chinese manufacturer, then the main message is set by the manufacturer. Your task is to adapt it to the Russian consumer. If a brand is developed from scratch, then a unique identity is formed for each region. For example, partners from Karelia and Petrozavodsk prefer Scandinavian, European themes, while clients from Central Russia and the Urals gravitate towards Russian names, often referring to the Soviet past, such as TechMash.
When creating private labels by order retail chains the marketing component lies with the customer. It is important to take into account that private labels are, as a rule, a low budget segment, where the main trump card is the price.
Participation in production processes
Production control is one of the top quality priorities. Tool production must be controlled absolutely at all stages. Ideally, if possible, for these purposes it is worth creating a headquarters of professionals right in China. Depending on the size of the project, control can be carried out up to ensuring the development of a unique design for a particular client. At the initial stages, external elements are developed: naming, branding, corporate identity and packaging, or a ready-made solution with maximum branding is offered. In the future, quality control is carried out at each stage.
Distribution
Most often, STM is developed for a specific retail network, which places the product on its shelves and is subsequently responsible for the sale of the goods. This process should also be controlled - to give recommendations that are guaranteed to ensure high sales. Product placement in prominent places, training and motivation of sellers have a significant impact on the success of the brand.
STM on a turnkey basis
The main task of Vneshtorg Group of Companies is the creation of private labels for large networks and Internet sites focused on cooperation with distribution channels.
Vneshtorg Group of Companies provides its clients with the service of creating private labels on a turnkey basis in the DIY segment, specifically in the “power tool” category. The service includes the following elements:
- Development of a matrix and selection of a manufacturer. Consolidation of orders from factories to get the best price
- Marketing component: naming, history and legend, corporate identity, market positioning
- Control production processes and transportation of goods to the partner's warehouse
"Vneshtorg" is distinguished by an individual approach to each client. We select manufacturers - leaders in their segments in terms of quality - and bring their products to the Russian market. And most importantly, we provide services for the development and promotion of private labels.
We believe that the client should focus only directly on the sale, so we also take care of such issues as the development and printing of BTL materials, training of salespeople, and after-sales service.