The Continuously Depressed Arthur Plans To Let You Run In Leather Shoes

In the middle of May, the first Guanxi direct store of "Runwalk" in the "ASICS walking" series of Arthur's walking shoes was opened in Osaka, Japan.

The goods in the store are mainly men's business shoes and shallow mouth leather shoes. The price of the goods is about 30000 yen (about 1888 yuan). There are also different design models, leather materials, colors and other charging services for private customization. The price is about 42000 to 54000 yen (about 2644-3400 yuan), which takes two months. In addition, like the flagship store of Arthur's, the store also provides free 3D foot scanning services that can measure foot characteristics.

As early as 1994, with the slogan of "one step ahead of others", Arthur used his research advantages on feet and walking rules to launch the walking shoe series "ASICS walking" with two product lines, namely, "Runwalk", which focuses on business, and "Pedala", which focuses on leisure.

According to Arthur's description, "ASICS walking" is positioned as "a business casual shoe that can run". It not only uses high-quality leather fabric in the appearance design to emphasize "texture", but also adds GEL cushioning glue for running shoes in the midsole to provide better stability, comfort and cushioning, and EVA commonly used in running shoes is filled in the forefoot Cushioning material enables business people to reduce fatigue and foot burden when wearing leather shoes no matter when walking, running or standing.

According to Hiroshi Ozawa, creative director of "ASICS walking", although there are about 70 stores of "ASICS walking" in Japan at present (no growth in the past five years), this is the "Runwalk" that focuses on business leather shoes since the first flagship store was settled last July For the first time, as an independent sub brand, it opened a third direct store in a few months (the other two are in Tokyo). "Since it is not our main business, this kind of store opening speed is unique."

It may not be difficult to explain why Arthur places high hopes on the "Runwalk" that has entered the sports business shoes field for the 24th year.

2019 is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the brand of Arthur's, and Arthur's performance continues to be sluggish.

According to Arthur's key financial data in the first quarter of 2019, the company's sales volume was 98.7 billion yen, down 5.7% year on year, due to the rising cost caused by business transformation; Operating profit was 6.18 billion yen, down 27.6% year on year; The profit attributable to the parent company was 4.36 billion yen, down 17.9% year on year.

In the specific performance of each category, affected by the sharp decline in sales of running shoes, clothing and equipment, Arthur's closed some product lines with poor profitability in Japan and began to focus more on business people.

In recent years, influenced by the slogan of "healthy operation" of Japanese enterprises supporting employees' exercise in the workplace, the Japan Sports Agency has also launched the call of "commuting with sports shoes" for many times, and many company employees have realized the importance of "health" and "walking".

"When talking about Arthur, people immediately think of running shoes with overwhelming advantages. So the biggest feature of 'Runwalk' is to use the soles of Arthur's running shoes. ”Yushu Iwata of "Runwalk" product marketing department said in an interview with Forbes, "We are completely different from the main brand of Arthur in terms of sales, manufacturing and commodity development."

From 2019, "Runwalk" has also started to produce "Runwalk" women's series for female business people. "The slogan of the women's series is' 7cm high heels are not tired '. While adapting to various business scenarios, it can also match different clothes. I hope that professional women who wear high heels every day can also have a chance to' free their feet '." Yushu Iwata said.

Arthur is not the only sports brand that once thought of expanding its revenue by dabbling in the field of business leather shoes.

For example, Cole haan, a fashion trend brand founded in 1928, was acquired by Nike in 1988, and used Nike Air to improve the flexibility and resilience of shoes in its business leather shoes, with an average price of more than 2000 yuan; In 2005, Adidas acquired Reebok, a sports brand, at a price of 3.1 billion euros, and acquired its Rockport brand. Although Adidas sold the brand ten years later, it also added the soles of Adidas adiprene products to its business leather shoes; YONEX, a Japanese sports brand, also launched a series of business leather shoes a few years ago that can absorb the impact of heels, knees and ankles and reduce the burden, but so far, there are only four products in this series.

It seems that, compared with other competitors' "skimming the water", Arthur is a sports brand that plans to use "real weapons" in business leather shoes.

In terms of promotion, in order to cooperate with the opening of flagship stores and direct stores, "Runwalk" launched a try on service on Twitter, that is, to fill in an application form and apply for the activity of "free try on for one month Runwalk". After receiving the shoes, you can print a list on your personal Twitter to get the goods you want to try on.

"'If you can, you want to actually use it for a period of time before deciding whether to buy it' is the idea of many consumers when facing a new product." Ozawa said that since the promotion of the event, whether the topic popularity on social networks or the orders in stores and online are growing steadily.

Next, in order to meet the medium-term business plan of "ASICS Growth Plan (AGP) 2020", Arthur has prepared to accelerate the opening process of "Runwalk" in the next two years, and to streamline and centralize the product line of commodities and clarify their respective target layers. "For example, while ensuring comfort for young people, it also shows more design, and it also needs to expand the middle-aged and elderly customer group," he said.

Up to now, although the whole series is only sold in Japan, according to the data provided by Arthur, the annual average sales of "ASICS walking" can reach about 700000 to 800000 pairs, with a turnover of more than 12 billion yen (about 760 million yuan).

"With the decline of sales and operating profits of running shoes in the main business, the performance of walking shoes is still strong, and we also see the opportunities." Matsuhito, the general manager of Arthur, expressed confidence in this. "As a retail store of walking shoes, we want to be the first in Japan and China in terms of sales."