The Winter Olympics "ignited" the ice and snow craze, and the overseas sales of domestic ski products on AliExpress soared

Data from AliExpress, Alibaba's cross-border e-commerce platform, shows that in the fourth quarter of 2021, China's overseas sales of ski products increased by more than 60% year-on-year, and its domestic ski helmets' overseas sales also increased by 15 times!

In 2021, consumers from 100 countries and regions around the world purchased Chinese snow equipment on AliExpress. Chinese brands can be found from Iceland in the north to Chile in the south.

Elena, a girl living in Moscow, excitedly shared on AliExpress how a Chinese-made ski helmet brought her unexpected surprises and a sense of security: "At first I thought the product I bought at such an affordable price would be mediocre, but after receiving the package, I found that it was of very good quality. It uses very high-tech materials and is light and sturdy when worn on the head. I will buy another such good helmet for a friend."

The positive reviews from overseas consumers are just a microcosm of the booming development of domestic brands. According to the " 2020 China Ski Industry White Paper", in the 2020-2021 snow season, the number of domestic skiers has reached 20.76 million. The development of the domestic market has driven the branding of domestic ski products, and along with it, Chinese brands have begun their journey to explore overseas markets.

Winter Olympics accelerates the development of domestic skiing brands

As the goal of “300 million people on ice and snow” is gradually realized, the situation in which ice and snow sports are dominated by foreign brands is also quietly changing.

In 2016, Liu Yushan, the founder of VECTOR, quit her job abroad and returned to her motherland. As early as when she was studying abroad, Liu Yushan was a frequent visitor to major ski resorts. After seeing the news that Beijing's bid for the 2015 Winter Olympics was successful, she began to keenly perceive the business opportunities. After returning to her hometown, Liu Yushan urged her father, who was still doing OEM for imported brands at the time , to give her some resources so that she could start a domestically designed ski clothing brand.

Liu Yushan did some calculations for her family: "The current prices of foreign ski equipment are '7,000 to 8,000 yuan for an imported ski suit, 2,000 to 3,000 yuan for a pair of goggles, and even higher prices for co-branded and limited edition models.' With the influence of the Winter Olympics, there is an incremental market for mass consumption, and in the future, there will definitely be a need for more cost-effective and price-friendly Chinese brands to join in!"

In August 2016, the VECTOR brand was founded. As the domestic ski equipment market is still in its growth stage, VECTOR chose to develop both domestically and overseas. Focusing on "young people's first ski suit", VECTOR has more professional technology content than the equipment for beginners, coupled with a friendly price, and has been welcomed by leisure ski enthusiasts around the world as soon as it was launched. On the AliExpress platform, overseas market sales have increased by more than 150% for three consecutive years.

" For new brands, going overseas is a shortcut. We are grateful to cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress. In the past, if emerging sports brands wanted to stand out, they needed a long time to settle down and slowly gain market recognition. But with cross-border e-commerce platforms, as long as the product quality is excellent, domestic products can still compete with foreign 'old brands'." Liu Yushan said.

The best time for Chinese brands to debut overseas has come

As the Winter Olympics approaches, the domestic brand COPOZZ is preparing stocks for overseas markets in advance.

Founded in 2014, Coolbreaker, whose main products are ski goggles and helmets, has been cooperating with AliExpress for many years.

A few years ago, the Cool Breaker team discovered that although domestic skiing brands are still at a relatively elementary level, most of the world's excellent ski equipment brands come from the Chinese supply chain. Take ski gloves, an important accessory in ski clothing products, for example. 80% of ski gloves in the international market come from the Jiaxiang Industrial Belt in Jining City, Shandong Province, China.

"Domestic ski equipment is in good condition except for its own brand. Only when we have our own brand can we compete with imported brands when we go overseas and have our own pricing power," said Deng Tao, general manager of Coolbreaker.

In 2021, Coolbreaker, which has the advantage of supply chain, used AliExpress to export its products to more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and won praise from consumers all over the world. The Russian market has been growing at a rate of 30% per year.

In 2019, the "Action Plan for the Development of Ice and Snow Equipment Industry (2019-2022)" jointly issued by the General Administration of Sport of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other nine departments proposed that by 2022, the annual sales revenue of China's ice and snow equipment industry will exceed 20 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%. Cultivating a group of internationally competitive companies and well-known brands is a top priority.

"The development of cross-border e-commerce infrastructure has reshaped the spatial distances of the global market. Now that the Winter Olympics is coming, this year will be the best time for domestic ski sports brands to debut overseas, " said a ski equipment merchant on AliExpress.

AliExpress

Winter Olympics

Ski equipment