Written by | Blue Hole Business Zhao Weiwei
Entering September, Lululemon China's "male content" has increased sharply.
"@good brothers, come on the court together", "@good brothers, go to a place with an altitude of 4,000 meters", "lululemon men's series", the headlines of lululemon's official official account, have been men's theme for three consecutive days.
Whether it is to recommend new men's autumn outfits through professional basketball player Jordan Clarkson, or to take 4 football enthusiasts to Western Sichuan Plateau to show off the new sports equipment, men have become lululemon's favorites.
In the second quarter of 2022 financial report, lululemon delivered an enviable report card, with revenue in China rising 30%, with a three-year compound growth rate of nearly 70%. It is particularly noteworthy that lululemon's men's business grew by 27%, higher than the 24% growth of women's business. Men's clothing, Chinese market and e-commerce businesses have become the new driving force for lululemon.
started with yoga pants. The stereotype that lululemon gives people is often a consumer brand with strong female colors. Lululemon is behind the popularity of yoga, Frisbee and other sports. The brand sense created by its expensive price and exquisite tailoring craftsmanship have successfully captured professional women who love sports.
The rise of female consciousness is the basic foundation of lululemon, and middle-class men are the greater increase in lululemon.
"Comfortable travel all-weather", "comfortable and comfortable", these are all lululemon's calls for the male market. "Blue Hole Business" surveyed dozens of male consumers and found that they were either indifferent or loved deeply. Their summary of choosing lululemon is two concise and high-frequency words: easy to wear and high premium.
These male consumers spend thousands to tens of thousands of yuan on lululemon every year, and the most direct reason for them to "get in the trap" is often the recommendation and driving of female consumers. lululemon meets the needs of men's dual consumption scenarios of work and sports, and also hits their inner desire for differentiated and upgraded consumption psychology. Since then, they have abandoned professional sports brands such as Adidashml4, Nike and Under Armour.
How can consumer brands with strong female colors conquer men's hearts? lululemon is trying to find more answers in Chinese men.
penetrates women and radiates men
If female consumers used to be the main consumer force of lululemon, they are now playing the role of male consumers "planting mowers".
Female consumers are the basic platform of lululemon. Since its establishment in 1998, Lululemon, which focuses on sports and casual style, has targeted professional women who love sports aged 25 to 34. "Super girl" was once synonymous with its main consumers. Slim-fitting and shaping yoga pants have become the favorite of female consumers, which has also brought the lululemon brand a strong feminine color.
lululemon wants to win more men's hearts. As early as 2013, lululemon began to expand his men's clothing product line, targeting the middle class aged 25 to 34. In 2018, among the SKUs of lululemon's product line, men accounted for only 28%, only half of women accounted for. The proportion of women and girls' clothing and accessories reached 72%, which also corresponded to the customer base of lululemon at that time, of which 80% of the customers were women.
Starting from 2018, the growth rate of men's clothing business began to be higher than that of women's clothing business, especially in 2021, the growth rate of men's clothing reached 61%, far higher than the 37% of women's clothing business. In 2022, the opening of a flagship store on , JD.com, which is mainly male consumers, is also considered a key move for Lululemon to expand his men's clothing business in the mainland market.
Among the consumer answers collected by "Bluehole Business" from some grass-type platforms and social platforms, many female consumers talked about how they led male consumers to "get into the pit" lululemon. It is not difficult to see that female consumers play a key decision-making role:
"My husband used to wear Zushiniao's pants to work. One day I bought him lulu pants, and he said it was too comfortable. He didn't feel this way when wearing bird pants before. He didn't exercise, and the lulu he bought was shirts and business-oriented styles.「
「I gave my boyfriend a pace After breaker series shorts, he called to continue buying this series. He did not wear sports, but casual wear. Our running shorts were very short, and lulu was not that short. "
"I bought my husband's lulu. After buying clothes for himself, I bought it for him. Why did I go shopping in other places?"
"My son bought lulu for him when he was a child in the 6th grade. He was not happy and said that only female classmates were wearing it. It was always n ike and Under Armour, this year's junior year, started wearing lulu, saying that the quality is good, my husband and I have been wearing lulu, and my husband has been wearing lulu 10 years ago. Now he is still wearing sports shorts and sportswear every day when he exercises. "
"Because my ex-girlfriend buys it every week, I naturally treat lululemon as a wardrobe, and I have spent tens of thousands of yuan so far."
affects women and then radiates male consumers, and this trend has also been confirmed in the United States.
Lululemon American insiders once revealed to the media that 40% of Lululemon's men's clothing sales come from female consumers who purchased for their life partners. "If men's clothing is to become a field of continuous growth, then the focus is to arouse men's own desire to buy."
. More importantly, lululemon verifies a key point: recommendations from family and friends have become an important part of consumer decision-making. Research by market monitoring and data analysis company Nelson also shows that the reputation recommendation effect of friends and family is far greater than that of advertising on media such as TV and magazines. It is believed that the former has 92% of consumers, while the latter is only 47%.
This trend is also very obvious on social media. The survey shows that posts of family members affect 59% of respondents, and these respondents are affected by KOLs and celebrities at only 18%, which also contradicts that lululemon rarely signs big-name sports stars, but promotes marketing through ambassadors and other waist-level opinion leaders.
So consumers establish deeper connections with brands and cultivate loyalty community models marketing is undoubtedly an effective way to bring incremental growth to lululemon.
It is more difficult to get out of the pit when entering the pit
"It is more difficult to get out of the pit when entering the pit," this is the special feature of lululemon compared to other sports brands.
If "female brands" and "high premiums" are the reasons for male consumers' difficulties, then "easy to wear" is the key to causing difficulties.
Judging from the feelings of male consumers after they "get into the pit" lululemon, "good wear" and "high premium" have become the most intuitive experience summary of this brand, and it is also the two sides of the reputation formed behind its rapid rise.
We found the answer from dozens of male consumers. They spend thousands to tens of thousands of yuan on lululemon every year. Compared with female consumers, they are more low-key and restrained and do not have too much willingness to spread lululemon products on social media. However, based on their respective consumption experience, they told us about their personal experience after consuming lululemon:
"I bought it from 2017 to now, and I spend about 10,000 yuan a year. In addition to being easy to wear, the design language is also my favorite place."
"I have to say that it is indeed easy to wear. The simplest understanding is that there is no sweat odor. Surge shorts are my favorite. Usually, T.H.E shorts are the most, and the vest is fast and "
" Actually, lululemon is really good, it is comfortable and decent to wear. It is the backbone of the mid-to-high-end outfits of programmers . I mainly wear their pants. Some time ago, a GQ article talked about the exquisite local outfits of Silicon Valley bosses, which basically have lululemon ingredients."
" In addition to jeans, I have basically changed my clothes to lulu. Comfort is the foundation of the brand. When I put on the balancer's pants, a gust of wind passes by, and you will think you are running naked. "
"Good wear" is a keyword for male consumers to consume. Compared to female consumers using lululemon's yoga pants to highlight the beauty of their figure and body, male consumers are obviously more concerned about the practicality of lululemon.Whether it is sweat absorption or non-odor, somatosensory feedback reflects lululemon's innovation in materials, design and fabrics.
Behind the easy-to-wear, the key is the product experience, and the broadening of product scenarios, meeting the needs of men's dual consumption scenarios of work and sports.
Many male consumers said that the biggest advantage of lululemon is that they can do exercise and commute to work, especially when they are at work. "In this way, the leader cannot tell that they are wearing sports pants." After get off work, "when wearing a commission pant, you can go directly to the gym to practice squats from the office."
This is also the core of lululemon's continuous emphasis on male users: comfortable travel around the clock.
. What is more noteworthy is that after entering the lululemon, male consumers gave up on professional sports brands such as Adidas and Nike, and no longer consumed for them. Originally, male consumers were the main force of traditional sports brands. In the eyes of these male consumers:
"As a deep user, since Lulu entered the country, he has never bought a single Nike and UA. Lulu firstly, it is not close to her sweat. Another style is better cut, friendly to men with belly belly, slim, and finally it is not fancy. It is basically solid color, and it will look a little more classy for men with 30+."
"I usually play tennis and exercise, and 15 years ago, they are basically nike and adidas, 10 years ago, I thought UA's quick-drying fabric was sweat-free. In 2017, the equipment was basically replaced with lulu. The fabric feels better than UA. The above is purely personal experience. The unit price of lulu is indeed high, and the company's gross profit margin is not low. "
" Casual wear is very comfortable, the color and style are easy to match without any brains. You can wear it when you work and commute. Under Armour's sports attributes are too strong, which is the difference between professional sports brands and casual sports brands."
Once you enter lulu, you are like a sea. Since then, Nike has been a passerby. The trend represented by
is also reflected in the company's financial report. In the second quarter of 2022, lululemon's growth rate was much higher than Adidas and Nike. Revenue increased by 29% year-on-year and net profit increased by 39.42% year-on-year. In the Greater China market, Adidas's revenue has declined for five consecutive quarters, and Nike has also declined for three consecutive quarters.
In July 2022, lululemon's market value once surpassed Adidas, becoming the world's second largest sportswear consumer brand, second only to Nike. Compared with similar sports brands such as Adidas, lululemon rarely offers discounts, and the average price is $30 higher. The high premium supports lululemon's profits and maintains the mid-to-high-end people's position.
This was set by Lululemon founder Chip Wilson when he was founded. At that time, the price of his product was three times that of a certain brand of dance pants. However, he believes that "I provide excellent products. When I sell them through vertical retail mode, consumers will be willing to buy in large quantities. Starbucks is also the logic."
In the Chinese market, high premium is one of the reasons why many men's consumers are discouraged. They will measure whether it is worth it or not, but more male consumers have begun to abandon traditional sports brands and choose to be conquered by lululemon, making lululemon stand out among a number of sports consumer brands.
A male consumer revealed the key: "Lululemon's pricing strategy in China is high-end sportswear. In recent years, many high-end retail categories have been doing well. The economy is in a downturn, but a large number of consumers are eager to upgrade differentiatedly."
negative reviews and ambitions
In the survey of lululemon male consumers and products, "Bluehole Commercial" also received a wave of negative reviews, mostly focusing on the product quality level. Behind these negative reviews is the fierce competition among lululemon in the Chinese market.
"As a fan of lulu for ten years, I buy a little every month, but later I find that the quality is getting worse and worse, and the shape is getting bigger and bigger."
"The quality has dropped seriously in recent years, and the fabric has also begun to thinner. I started to buy alphalete and gymshark."
"Lululemon focuses on yoga and aerobics. High-intensity exercise is not good. I have broken several pieces of it when playing basketball, but I am not patient. I feel that they will not change the fabric because of high-intensity exercise for male users."
This phenomenon has not only begun to appear. In May 2022, sportswear brand lululemon was fined 81,000 yuan for using inferior products as good products and violating the product quality law. After that, lululemon apologized on his official Weibo and removed the relevant batch of products. During 2018 and 2019, Lululemon received a fine three times for using inferior products as good products, fake products as real products, and impersonating qualified products as unqualified products, and the cumulative fine amount exceeded 140,000 yuan.
The fundamental problem exposed is that although lululemon controls the high value-added link in the industrial chain, it does not have its own factory. The production link depends on OEM factories. The brand value driven by its high premium is easily questioned by quality issues.
This also reflects the development speed of Lululemon in the Chinese market in disguise. It started to set up the Tmall flagship store in 2015, and to 2016, it established four direct stores in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, and began to enter the Chinese market in a large number. Lululemon was still a new thing for the Chinese market at that time.
When the new CEO Calvin McDonald took office in 2018, his ambitions in the Chinese market became more and more obvious. Betting on international markets such as China is part of Lululemon's three major strategies for global growth plans, and the other two are men's clothing business and e-commerce business.
As Lululemon's stock price soared, in 2020, Lululemon opened 17 new stores in China, more than any country. In 2021, China was the country with the largest number of new stores in Lululemon, with a net increase of 53 stores worldwide, of which 31 are in China. It began to actively sink and deploy second- and third-tier cities, opening its first city stores in Dalian, Hefei, Jinan and other cities.
focuses on channel-directed vertical retail, which is one of the characteristics that distinguishes lululemon from other sports brands. This is also a strategy set since its founder Chip Wilson. The advantage of its DTC (directly facing consumers) model is to control the brand and user experience. The store's square footage far exceeds that of peers in the clothing industry. The negative effect is to increase operating expenses and create pressure on inventory and employee costs.
Fortunately, the results are good at present. Lululemon is still in the early stage of rapid growth in the Chinese market. Its compound growth rate in the Chinese market in the past three years has reached 70%, and the revenue of the Chinese market increased by 30% in the second quarter of 2022.
The epidemic has created people's pursuit of health and has also driven a wave of sports and casual clothing consumption.
The ambition of lululemon today refers to 2026. At that time, the Chinese market will be its second largest market except North America, and the number of stores in China will reach 220, but what will happen in the future? Whether Lululemon's rapid growth can be maintained will take longer to test.
Whether it is peach buttocks or middle-aged men, as long as consumers who want to show themselves with a healthy attitude towards life, they will all support Lululemon to become a neutral brand dream. However, compared to caring about how high the lululemon fly, male consumers may care more about whether the lululemon is worth the price and quality.
