Chinese footwear giant Li Ning, is taking the run shoe battle directly to Nike’s doorstep. The Chinese company is launching its latest lightweight run shoe in the US.
Named ‘the Fremont’, after Portland’s Fremont Bridge, the branding is close to Nike’s heart.
Global apparel and run shoe giant Nike Inc is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, part of the Portland metropolitan area.
The Fremont will be available for purchase for US$85 at the Li Ning store in Portland as well as Fit Right NW stores in Portland and Vancouver, according to a report in The Oregonian.
"I would call our marketing approach ‘fine-tuned’ and ‘targeted,’" said Paul Curran, Business Development Manager for Li Ning Sports USA.
It is understood that future Li Ning models will carry names of other bridges in Portland, or those in the company’s native China.
When it comes to US consumers, Li Ning is a virtual unknown. The company’s North American headquarters has 28 staff. This is somewhat behind the almost 7,000 staffers at Nike’s campus near Beaverton.
However, the Chinese manufacturer has big aspirations and strong credentials, alongside resources to draw upon.
Li Ning Company Limited is one of the leading sports brand enterprises in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), possessing brand marketing, research and development, design, manufacturing, distribution and retail capabilities.
The group’s products mainly include footwear, apparel, accessories and equipment for sport and leisure under its own LI-NING brand.
Although, it is worth noting that the group ‘adopts a multi-brand business development strategy.’ Li Ning also distributes sports products under its Z-DO brand via the hypermarket channel. It manufactures, markets, distributes and sells outdoor sports products under the French brand AIGLE.
It works in the table tennis and sports equipment category via the Double Happiness brand. It sells professional badminton equipment under the Kason brand. Li Ning also sells licensed products under the Italian sports fashion brand Lotto in the PRC.
Li Ning recently concluded its LI-NING Brand Products Trade Fair for the first quarter of its 2011 financial year. In this trade fair, for the first time, the company held separate fairs for the distributors from the northern, eastern and southern regions of China.
This was intended to better accommodate the preferences and needs of local distributors and consumers, and hence further enhance order efficiency.
From the Trade Fair, total order value, based on tagged retail prices, increased by 12% year on year. For footwear products, the average retail price increased by over 7%, while volume increased by more than 5%. The average retail price of apparel products increased by over 11%, while order volume increased by about 1%.
"The results of this Trade Fair were in line with the management’s projections," Mr Zhang Zhiyong, Chief Executive Officer of Li Ning, said. "Nevertheless, challenges remain in the sporting goods industry in the near term with intensifying competition and lingering discrepancy between sell-in and sell-through, prompting aggressive discounting at the retail level.
“Our independent [Chinese] distributors are under certain pressure in this environment. In response to these circumstances, the group will plough more efforts in the provision of strategic guidance to distributors, including training sessions on new products and on retail capabilities."
Facing up to the challenges posed by its domestic market in China, it will be interesting to see how Li Ning now tackles the competitive dynamics of the US running shoe market.
