Xtep Three Steps: Beyond Wisdom in Manufacturing

The last part of the growth gene will win

The natural resources here are poor. "There can only be planted sweet potatoes in the fields and there are stones in the mountains." The locals sailed to the sea and the overseas diaspora made money, sending back capital, information, orders, and the changing "seeds."

Due to the fact that there are abundant human resources here, people are more likely to have nothing to do and only find fights everywhere, so they have the slogan of “Dazhai in Agricultural Studies, Everyone Learns Chen Yin” that enjoys national reputation. The concept of clan is deeply rooted in people's minds. When the Arabs went to this oriental port in order to pursue wealth, they left a blue business tradition and left behind a group of people named Chen Ding.

Marine civilization has spawned a hard-working gene. "You can make money, I can!" Even the phrase "Love will fight to win" is the origin of this motto of innumerable dealer envelopes.

So when a new era came to the fore, the time and place and the people needed for the "China Sports Shoes Capital" were satisfied, and the endless commercial power finally emerged.

June 3, 2008, Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong. Ding Shuibo, the president of Xtep, was completely drunk when surrounded by such entertainers as Nicholas Tse, Pan Yubai and Jolin Tsai. The 38-year-old Jinjiang man finally brought the company to the Stock Exchange. During the celebration party, the spotlight flashed, and the congratulations from elites from all walks of life were fascinating. Chen Shui-bian, Jinjiang, Hong Kong and Ding Shuibo took an iconic step, and this step he spent 20 years.

Going backwards for seven months, Ding Shuibo’s Xtep International entered the listing guidance period. After answering the questions of thousands of investors, and the tens of thousands of kilometers of global roadshows, Xtep successfully listed in Hong Kong on the eve of the global financial turmoil and raised about 2.1 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Going back seven years further, Xtep has just created a brand. The stealth champion of this foreign trade market did indeed give it more than 3,000 brothers of the same city a "feeling of flying in general" during the seven years in the country. In 2001, the output value of Xtep was only over 90 million yuan. In 2002, Xtep's annual output value quickly exceeded 200 million, which has doubled. By 2008, this figure had become 3 billion yuan.

What is called Leading, a company that has only set up a brand for only seven years, started in a criss-cross of a large number of sporting goods brands, and Xtep is not only ahead in speed, but is stepping out of the blank area of ​​fashion sports and then spurring out of it. gene.

What is called one step ahead and step by step. This singer loves to sing "Love will win," and the Fujian merchant, with his introverted personality and strong family concept, does not have the gas of many big entrepreneurs, but he is holding a cash flow of 2.1 billion Hong Kong dollars in the turmoil of the economic crisis.

Ding Shuibo's chariot in his heart started in the bamboo shed on the edge of the Wu River 20 years ago. That year, he took out 500 yuan that he had accumulated as an apprentice; that year, he cut trees from the nearby hills and made himself the first shoe-making workbench...

Wuhe started and worked hard for the world

In 1987, in the town of Huimin, named Chen Yan, in Jinjiang, Fujian, Ding Shuibo told his father Ding Jinchao that he would withdraw from school.

Like all business leaders who have been born in grassroots, Ding Shuibo's reason for dropping out of school is very simple. He hopes to help the family to live a better life. At this time, the reform of Jinjiang was booming, and it was also called “the cradle of the country's three largest private economy” with Zhejiang Wenzhou and Fujian Shishi. Almost overnight, many farmers who had planted rice in the fields a few days ago left their fields and turned into township entrepreneurs wearing suits and ties.

Ding Shuibo has two younger sisters and one younger brother. The father drove the village to drive for years. The hardships of life made Ding Shuibo take the responsibility of the eldest son. At the age of eight, a man barefooted up the street selling fritters, and at the age of nine, he carried a heavy ice bucket and sold his popsicles under the hot sun. It is conceivable that a thin child with a big ice bucket screaming in the fields would look like it, but Ding Shuibo's popsicles are always sold much more than others.

The reason is that Ding Shuibo will enter a lot of goods at a time. No one who meets the farmers on the ground will bring money. Others who sell ice rinks will often turn their heads and walk away. The 9-year-old Ding Shuipo's mouth is sweet. He will say that your uncle will get it first and then give money the next day!

Recalling this bitter day, Ding Jinchao’s eyes were a little damp. But he is not proud to say that the water wave planted the idea of ​​business at that time. This may be followed by special pursuit of "customers, employees, enterprises win-win" entrepreneurial spirit.

By 1987, Ding Shuibo had just finished 17 and was just 17 years old.

He was keenly aware of the changes around him. Those business cells that had been suppressed for so long were like elves that were released. If a business is done well, people in the same village will tend to imitate it, and then, like mercury, they will flock to the national market. At this time, Ding Jinchao also changed from a tractor driver to a small business owner of a coffee shop. Like many coffee brands that followed the name of “Nestle”, Ding Jinchao’s coffee name was “Magpie”.

Ding Shuibo told his father that he was going to study leather shoes. This "luxury goods" that had only appeared on the back of the hometown of overseas Chinese has made the ten-mile and eight-township bustle. For Chen Yan who used to wear shoes, shoes are the closest to their wealth.

Just starting to learn to do shoes, if you are not careful, the awl will plunge deeply into your fingers and the blood will burst out. The young Ding Shuibo can only continue to do it with tears. Less than half a year, he touched all the shoemaking process clearly. Others make shoes in pairs and Ding Shuibo first uses seven or eight shoes to smash the shoes into semi-finished products, and then completes them in pairs. Because of the limited number of shoe lasts in the workshop, he always did more than others in the day.

At 100 yuan, when Ding Shuibo delivered his first month’s earned money to his father’s hand, a greater ambition had already begun in his heart. "Other people can engage in shoe factories. Why can't I do it!" In 1987, Ding Shuibo used the 500 yuan he had saved to build a Sanxing company with two brothers.

In the same period, Ding Shuibo’s classmate Ding Zhizhong could not hold back any longer. He was away from Ding Shuibo and across the river. He and his father and brother started their workshop together. Twenty years later, the company named Anta and Xtep were jokingly referred to as China's footwear industry's “Eastern Xixi Poison,” and ranked the top three in terms of sporting goods in China.

At the same time, Ding Shuibo’s more classmates or neighbors have also entered the footwear industry. In 2008, about 38.8 square kilometers of land in Chenye actually accommodated more than 3,000 shoe companies and supporting enterprises. Every year this town produces 700 million pairs of shoes for the world. After Chen Hao shoes entered the brand's war, Xtep and its more than 40 city-owned sports shoe companies were even more occupied with each advertisement space of the sports channel. CCTV5 was dubbed "Chen Yu Channel".

The first "crown" in life

Three bosses and two employees knocked and beaten in the bamboo shed erected in front of the house, and over 300 pairs of walking shoes were produced day and night. However, in the era of information obliteration, a group of rural entrepreneurs who started out from the grass roots did not have the advantage of purchasing raw materials, had no large-scale production conditions, and did not even have basic sales channels. Why should they occupy the market?

Ding Shuibo's only advantage is that he has nothing and the desire to change that he inspires.

A Chengdu businessman gave him a chance. The other party promised to take the shoes to the local lotus pond wholesale market. "As for the order payment, we can't get it now."

Opportunity is like a trap. Ding Shuibo has resolutely sent his shoes in the past. The "brilliant" performance of selling popsicles in childhood made Ding Shuibo deeply aware of the role of honesty in business. This has also played a key role in the special market move in the future.

Shoes sold very well in Chengdu. The reason is that the proximity to Taiwan’s geographical advantages has made the Jinjiang shoes styles very trendy. “Acquiring doctrine” is the most effective winning weapon for Chinese manufacturing in its infancy. A month later, the Chengdu businessman paid for the purchase price and the shoes, leaving only a few hundred yuan for living expenses. Their demand was only one - become Ding Shuibo's long-term partner in sales, and asked him to immediately do hundreds of pairs of shoes made in the past.

The Chengdu market's Chopper (blog) gave a small test, so Ding Shuibo's chariot in the heart could no longer stop. Ding Shuibo told reporters that he was determined to be the biggest shoe company in Jinjiang in the second year of his establishment, and the first crown he had received in 20 years was the "export king."

In the late 1980s, with the traditional advantages of overseas Chinese homes, Jinjiang began to appear sporadic foreign trade. By the 1990s, the “Inferior Fathers” had become the most active people in the country. “Sanxing” is the first shoe company to do foreign trade in Jinjiang, and the first pair of shoes was sold to Russia. Ding gradually discovered that in addition to his own shoes can be exchanged for the ruble, actually can also exchange fur coats, steel cement, and even in exchange for an aircraft! It was just that the Chongqing businessman who was directly called to bring the plane back home had just sold his "Sanxing" shoes.

Strictly speaking, Ding Shuibo dug his first pot of gold through foreign trade, and its subsequent conquest became even more unstoppable. In 6 years, the market territory has gradually expanded from Russia to more than 40 countries around the world.

Ding Shuibo's operating tactics now seem a bit simple: Take orders through the exhibition or overseas fellowships, and once you have determined the target market, you will be desperate to win it! For example, in the “War of the Americas” in 1995, Ding Shuibo, who had just arrived, simply grabbed orders from Chinese Taiwanese and South Korean shoe companies through lower prices and faster changing styles. From the first two-thousand-thousand pairs to the highest peak of one or two hundred containers a year (one container means more than 10,000 pairs of shoes), Ding Shuibo became a hero of the Jinjiang region.

In 1999, "Sanxing" became China's biggest-selling and most famous shoe champion in overseas markets. It has companies in the United States, Chile, Spain and other parts of the world. At the same time, there are 45 factories in the entire Jinjiang area to help Ding Shuibo. "Sanxing" has become the first taxpayer in Jinjiang shoe enterprises for six consecutive years.

Chen Yun in the early spring, the sky was clear. The title of “Exported King” has given Ding Shuibo a good mood, but he does not know that history is playing a joke about time with this diligent Jinjiang person.

The third chapter of the world beyond the wisdom

Today's shoe war has long been away from the dark era of winning sales, branding is a strong guarantee of high profits. In the face of such world brands as Nike and Adidas, and fellow brothers Anta, 361 Degrees, Philharmonic, Delhui, and King Lake, Ding Shuibo has lost time.

Analyze the time track from the formal creation of the brand in 2001 to the listing in Hong Kong in 2008. The start of the curve of Xtep has shown amazing and beyond wisdom. From 2001, the output value was only over 90 million yuan. By 2008, it had become the first brand in China's fashion sports, with sales exceeding 3 billion yuan. Regarding Xtep’s transcendence, we still have many links that are difficult to mention one by one, such as product quality breakthroughs, and changes in design concepts. However, surpassing equals attacking, constructing equal defense, and offensive and defensive conduct are the normal status of the enterprise. It is precisely because of the continued deepening of the issue of a section of a business enterprise that Xtep has exhibited an amazing speed of running.