The situation of the domestic footwear industry is severe. The safety shoe company creates a brand for development.

The increase in people’s awareness of safety has prompted industrial companies to pay more and more attention to the issue of safe operations in production. According to European regulations, employers must provide employees with safety protection to ensure that employees work in a safe environment, and safety shoes are an important part of them. Safety shoes are high-tech and high-value-added footwear products. The production process requires high requirements for raw materials, auxiliary materials, chemical materials, and mechanical equipment. At present, many domestic shoe-making enterprises with a certain scale and grade have turned their sights on Safety shoes This market was previously occupied by developed countries.

After 20 years of rapid development, China's footwear industry is experiencing the most severe period of hardship. “Internationally, trade protection measures such as anti-dumping are frequent and international economic and trade conditions are deteriorating. Domestic and enterprises are facing RMB appreciation, rising labor costs, and rising raw material prices. The superposition of these factors makes China’s footwear industry breathless. Come,” said Xu Yong, vice president of the China Light Industry Federation.

Many domestic safety shoe companies have already felt the pain. Dongguan Huajian Group is the world's largest manufacturer of medium-to-high-end leather women's shoes. The world’s top 50 mid-to-high-end women's shoes have 15 brands of women's shoes. Under the severe situation, this shoe boss did not feel relieved. According to Huajian Footwear's export of a pair of ordinary shoes equivalent to US dollars, from 2006 to 2008, raw and auxiliary materials rose from US$10.05 to US$10.85, labor costs rose from US$2.23 to US$3.3, and utilities and transportation costs rose from US$0.18. By 0.23 U.S. dollars, although the total cost of office supplies, etc., was reduced by 0.32 U.S. dollars, the unit price for export gradually increased from 15 U.S. dollars to 16.2 U.S. dollars, but the gross profit of the company on a pair of shoes still dropped from 1.1 U.S. dollars to 0.7 U.S. dollars.

Many domestic safety shoe companies face the dilemma of falling profits and reduced orders. At the same time, however, it is even less optimistic that deep-level problems and conflicts in the industrial structure also affect and restrict the development of domestic shoe enterprises. The production enterprises are small and the industry has excess production capacity; export growth is mainly based on quantity, and the overall profit rate is low; the export market is too concentrated and can easily cause trade frictions; the domestic market is not standardized and the marketing methods are backward, etc. Upgraded pass.

New technologies and new materials help companies win the market

The changing safety footwear market is infiltrating the young labor force. These younger employees had only known to wear Nike and Reeboks shoes during their growth period. “When it enters the labor force and is asked to put on steel-clad boots, it will choose more sports shoes with steel baotou or sneakers with steel baotou rather than the old-fashioned 6-inch work boots.” Mark Morgan, director of footwear design at Wolverine in Rockford, Anju, said.

In fact, safety shoe suppliers say that younger, more populist buyers are promoting the importance of well-known brands in the market. More familiar brands, such as Cat, Harley-Davidson, and Skechers, are emerging in the work shoe market and use their brand recognition to help win a large group of young customers who are influenced by peer preferences or strongly influenced by lifestyle.

Thanks to the use of new technologies and materials, the safety shoes produced are much lighter than in the past. Sebes of Lehigh said that in many cases the weight of shoes has dropped by about 50%. Although it is often thought that work shoes are heavier due to the use of steel heads, he points out that the steel heads weigh only 1/8 oz. He said that the reason for the lighter boots is the change in the insole and the outsole. The use of synthetic materials in various types of shock-absorbing shoe inner soles and midsole materials and outsoles, and the use of more mesh materials and other lighter materials on the shoe uppers are more comfortable for shoes and lighter in weight. To the effect.

While more traditional safety shoes may have advantages in terms of durability, newer footwear also has its own advantages. "The old style work boots need to be worn for a long time and they are comfortable to wear," said Morgan. "And now, when you buy work boots, you're extremely comfortable when you wear them, and you don't need a long break-in." With increasingly fierce competition, the traditional industry market has become saturated. Product prices are also increasingly transparent. Manufacturers under the pressure of market competition, in pursuit of production profits, many times the use of human experience in the production quality process monitoring, and artificially neglected in the process of production quality testing requirements of the machine, resulting in a lot of people can not judge the quality of human experience Test items are often unqualified during testing, such as the adhesion test between the shoe upper and the sole and the adhesion test between the composite bottom layers, which are prone to fake stickers or dead glue. Quality stability and compliance are often not guaranteed.

Not only that, most of the manufacturers purchase materials, they are accustomed to relocate the collocations of sellers, resulting in the purchase of collocation materials often have congenital quality defects, resulting in unsatisfactory test results. In addition, when some manufacturers purchase materials, in order to reduce production costs, it is often preferred to purchase new materials or alternative materials, artificially neglect the stability and quality factors, resulting in fluctuating test results, such as the use of new PU leather upper instead of leather uppers , The adhesion test between shoe uppers and shoe soles is often unqualified. In such an unfavorable situation, shoe enterprises should achieve dual upgrades of management and technology, and design high-quality, more value-added safety shoes.

In the sales process, there are certain problems between the safety shoe company and the consumers. This also involves the problems of good faith and the interests. How to balance the contradiction between the two sides and achieve a win-win outcome, which requires companies to timely feedback and processing of product quality issues and consumer opinions. Solve the problems found in a timely manner. At the same time continue to improve product quality and meet consumer demand. To build a good brand image requires not only stable product quality and advanced production technology, but also good after-sales service is essential. The bargaining power and influence of a successful brand for a company's products are often unmatched by any tangible assets. Creating a brand, nurturing a brand, and strengthening technology research and development are the main means for safety shoe companies to compete in the next round of market competition.