Solving Puzzles "Fried Shoes": From Minority Feelings To Capital Carnival

"I am a biscuit, I am a young man who made a mistake". In October 14th, an apology was heated in Chengdu shoes circle. A small famous 97 shoe salesman broke up the capital chain and owed tens of millions of loans because of his "fried shoes". After 3 months of disappearance, he issued the apology announcement. Just two days later, the central bank Shanghai Branch issued a financial bulletin entitled "guarding against the financial risks of frying shoes". It pointed out some problems that should be avoided in the "fried shoes" trade. Recently, a number of "fried shoes" cheated incidents appeared in the recent market, which made the chaos of the private trading market rising in recent years, such as "fried shoes" and "fried boxes". How did these small emotional mapping products enter into the mass consumption vision and how it evolved into a feast of capital?

Popular trend, flourishing "ism"

In April 12, 2019, in Shenzhen, Vientiane welcomed a brand of sports shoes. A few hours ago, in the drizzle, hundreds of fans had already lined up outside the gate, which seemed to be expected by the staff. The doorway was obviously ready for the first day - all for a "AJ" shoe. In fact, not only is AJ, CONVERSE, ghosts, tiger, Vans, NB and other brands of tide shoes also stand out in recent years. By virtue of their unique design and brand concept, they become the "essential" tide shoes for many young people.

Tide shoes are only a microcosm of the tide brand market. In recent years, the emergence of tide cards is not only a product of the centralization and release of all kinds of sub culture and minority doctrine, but also in turn strengthens the awareness of the circle.

For spiritual expression, it usually needs to be attached to the carrier. For example, a piece of work reflects the attitude of the creator to life, so that it can be effectively propagate, and then reach an empathy with the audience. Then, for the endless subculture and minority feelings, Huailai is no exception.

In the shoes circle, every kind of "tide shoes" has its own symbolic meaning and sub cultural groups: for example, AJ, which symbolizes "smart" and "miracle", is the expression carrier of NBA's competitive spirit represented by Jordan; and the brand "Supreme", representing the street hip-hop culture, advocates "breaking principles and showing cool self", so wearing a pair of "Supreme" casual shoes has become an expression of self expression.

In the world of technology geeks, breaking the rules and transforming the world may be the highest belief of every geek. Therefore, driven by belief, geeks use the encryption algorithm and consensus mechanism to create centralization bitcoin and Wright currency. The characteristics of these digital currencies are the concentrated reflection of these geeks' own value orientation.

Similarly, in the two dimensional world, "tide play" has become the most popular empathy carrier. Whether it is Molly hidden in the blind box, or the joint design of the traditional IP Ali and Luo Xiaohei, it will burst the circle of two lovers. In fast-paced life, these playful, creative and creative playmates provide perfect emotional mapping for fans: when you are in a good mood, they seem to be happy for you too; when you are suffering, they are the best listeners. It represents the emotional appeal of "company", "loyalty" and "follow sex" and the culture of "home culture".

Therefore, the core of "tide card" is not only the cool carriers that are "materialized", but also the "common spirit" shown in the process of various sub cultures and the rise of "minority doctrine". However, what is worth thinking is, what is the "tide circle" that represents the "minority doctrine", and what is the breakthrough of the boundary of the circle and the vision of mass consumption?

From the minority to the public: why is the tide broken?

The most direct manifestation of minority interest "breaking circle" is that the mass market is gradually spending on it.

For example, Vans and Supreme, which are popular among street lovers, have become popular brands for teenagers in their thirties. If anyone doesn't have a Supreme dress, it seems to be out of touch with fashion.

For example, POP MART, once famous for only two yuan, has now set off a nationwide "blind box" wind. Whatever the need, people who want to adopt Molly are covered by groups from children to uncle. According to official statistics, the average price of 59 yuan Chao Molly, in the past three years, the average annual sales volume of 4 million. According to the relevant data, the tide market is just beginning, and the global market is expected to be 100 billion US dollars.

From the small to the public, from the circle game to the phenomenal consumption, the "tide" culture, with its strong impact, broke the circle and captured a wider mass group. Behind it, it is closely related to two factors: one is fashion elements, the other two is the broadcasting effect.

The fashionable element of "Chao culture" is the foundation of its "broken circle". On the one hand, these "tide card" products are very creative in design, and they are also meticulous in their workmanship, whether they are Molly, CONVERSE's joint canvas shoes or Supreme's sweater. All dimensions show different sense of beauty and novelty. Even "outsiders" may be attracted by the appearance of these products. On the other hand, the cultural spirit attached to the "tide card" is not contrary to the mainstream values. Although minority feelings and various subcultures are not mainstream, they are absolutely not in conflict with mainstream culture and values. Just like street culture does not mean idle, "breaking principle" does not mean that it is contrary to moral ethics. They are more like evolutionary forms derived from mainstream culture and value, and are the products of the times. Therefore, these sub cultures or minority feelings are not difficult to be recognized or accepted by other groups. In addition, the sale prices of these "Chao brand" products are moderate, the consumption threshold is not too high, and they are easy to be accepted by the general public.

With both fashionable elements and moderate consumption threshold, let the "neap tide" into "flow" and "minority" become "the public". All kinds of tide cards also offer various kinds of repeated marketing strategies:

First of all, self positioning and labelling are important ways for all kinds of "tide cards" to carry out marketing and quickly establish user loyalty. Unlike brands that traditionally pursue cost-effective, the "tide card" usually highlights labels and positioning to the extreme. It emphasizes the unique concept and target group of the brand itself, and the main emotional brand. This practice of seemingly self binding and self shrinking is actually in order to form a higher brand communication degree with other brands. In fact, by creating a "high cold sensation", these "tide cards" can quickly capture the target crowd and transmit the minority culture with high recognition to the public. Under repeated "passive acceptance self suggestion", the original "outsiders" can also take the initiative to find their own commonality with the "tide" culture.

Secondly, the marketing role of big V and star effect is also very strong. In the Internet era, when faced with numerous brand information, the cost of screening is often very large. At this time, KOL, represented by celebrities and big Internet V, on the one hand, has its own fan foundation, interacting with "tide card", such as endorsement or being absorbed into loyal users, which has a positive impact on the consumption mentality of fans, and plays a vane in consumer choice. On the other hand, aside from the fans effect, celebrities and Internet V have certain authority and discourse power in their respective fields. Therefore, their choice behavior is essentially an endorsement of the brand, which greatly reduces the information asymmetry between the brand and customers and helps the brand to the public. A typical example is the Swedish clothing brand ACNE, which has been popular in the mainland market under the personal demonstration of Yang Mi and other stars.

In addition, the use of limited money, joint name and other "scarce marketing" mode can also rapidly enhance the popularity in the mass consumer market. Limitation means scarcity, and scarcity results in value. People naturally possess possessive desire for scarce resources, and show their identities, tastes and differences through "possessive scarcity". Therefore, to create a limited number, although it can only serve a small number of consumers, but it is easy to win the eye of the whole market; joint names are often used together with limited amount. This cross-border marketing practice can play the role of exchanging fans, thereby enhancing brand awareness and maximizing potential customers. BAPE, the best brand to represent Japanese street culture, is to create scarcity. The stores of BAPE only receive 10 customers at the same time. Others need to queue outside the door to create service experience and brand tonality. Besides, many BAPE products often produce hundreds of thousands of pieces and sell them in limited quantities, so that many pants and clothes are still popular after being priced at hundreds of dollars. Through this series of scarce marketing methods, BAPE has been popular in the global trend market.

Towards "Carnival of capital"

"Tide card" has risen from the small interest to the mainstream consumption craze. It can not be said that the "breaking circle" has won a great victory, and the hot market in the consumer market seems to be just the "hot tip" of the whole "hot wave". What really generates enormous energy is actually an extraordinarily active two tier market, and the increasingly popular "securitization" sign under capital support.

The most typical is "tide shoes". In the shoe circles, a large number of shoes trading platforms such as "poison APP" and "nice" began to pour in. Under the high arbitrage space, "fried shoes" became a professional activity. Some platforms even emulated the index compilation mechanism of the stock market, launched the "sports shoes index" as a reference for the trading of the two level market, and even divided the physical form shoes into a number of shares and sold them openly in the two market. There is no doubt that the "shoe ring" has become another hot speculative position after the "currency circle". Then, how does the tide shoe market come from the "materialization" of the minority people?

First, tracing back to the source, scarcity is the foundation. Because of the high tone and positioning of the "tide card", the brand often plays the marketing card of "limited amount" and "joint name". Under limited circulation, goods are often in short supply. Queuing, Yaohao, and even membership system are widely used in the property market and car market. The resource competition and distribution mechanism is also applied to the "tide card" market, which further strengthens the sense of scarcity of commodities.

The scarcity of commodities in the "first tier market" has made a re allocation of resources in the "two tier market" in the form of "bidding APP" and "nice". In the two tier market with price as the main competition mechanism, the shortage of supply will further drive up prices. For example, the "APP Travis" on the sports shoes trading platform "Travis Scott X Air Jordan 6 joint basketball shoes", offering price is only 1399 yuan, while the actual platform price is 6000-9000 yuan, and with the market supply and demand changes, prices fluctuate. In the free market, price fluctuations will certainly bring in some arbitrage players. Similarly, in the "tide shoe market", some people are also beginning to specialize in the "buy and sell" activities. There are many fans who say that many people go to stores to queue up and buy shoes with Yaohao, and then turn their hands on the two level platform to increase their selling price by several times. For them, sports shoes are not based on personal consumption or collection, but on the basis of "buying low and selling high" and making profits from them. Once this behavior becomes the mainstream of the market and more capital flows into the market for arbitrage, then the "tide shoes" will be transformed from a consumer product to a "speculative product".

On the two level trading platform, the use of some financial instruments and innovative tools further pushed the "shoe trade" to a "speculative" high tide of securitization. The "homeopathy" provided the installment payment service for the platform of shoe trading, greatly reduced the financial threshold for participating in market transactions, and allowed more players and leveraged capital to enter the market with the purpose of "fried shoes". On the other hand, the trading platform was constantly innovating, not only introducing the "tide shoes" price graph, issuing the index of securitization, but also inventing "consignment" service. Buyers could not receive physical goods after payment, and temporarily stored "platform" until the price went up, which could be directly hung on the platform for resale and even T+0 realisation. This innovative game is similar to the "futures" transaction in the financial market. On the one hand, some third party payment institutions. If we say "consignment" is built on the spot basis, then the "pre sale forwarding" launched by some platforms is a kind of fictitious class option transaction, that is, when the sports shoes are not listed, the buyers have the future ownership of the sneakers through the way of buying the right of presale, and then the "option" can be resold on the platform, or the stock market will be sold short according to the ups and downs of the sports shoes market.

　　平台祭出的各式“创新”，尤其是杠杆+“期货”“期权”等类证券化举措，进一步放量了市场的交易规模和流动性，也放大了参与者的风险敞口，而在监管的缺失下，资本犹入无人之境，也进一步助长了“恶意”的套利行为——很多杠杆资金通过控制“货源”，制造“稀缺”假象，吸引更多玩家高价接货，从中套利，而因 “证券化”后无需实物交割，平台更可以“无中生有”自作庄家来牟取暴利——让原本基于情怀、时尚需求的“潮鞋”市场陷入一场资本的狂欢，而笼罩在这场“盛宴”之上的，是随时可被戳破的价格泡沫，当大资本、“庄家”收割韭菜的时候，结局必是一地鸡毛。

Although commodity futures and options are very common in financial markets as risk management tools, they usually have some special requirements for their underlying commodities. For example, commodities that can be traded as futures or options are generally very large in scale of supply and demand. For example, soybeans, corn and other agricultural products, such as crude oil, natural gas and other energy products, are widely traded in the global market as the basic raw materials for industrial production. Because of the huge volume, it is difficult for large capitals or dealers to manipulate the market easily, so as to form an authoritative price in free competition. In addition, futures and options belong to standardized contracts, so the quality of the underlying commodities should be easily classified and the quality can be evaluated. Obviously, the scale of sports shoes is relatively small, and it is easy to be manipulated by the capital easily, and the counterfeit goods and inferior products are rampant in the market. It is also difficult for the trading sides to identify the true and false and assess the quality. This makes the "securitisation" of sports shoes basically only in the form, but a tool for speculative arbitrage.

Some platforms also realize that these "malicious" speculation arbitrage behaviors are essentially equivalent to killing the goose that lays eggs, which has seriously affected the normal development of the "tide shoes" market. The platform represented by "poison APP" has put forward the proposal that "shoes do not wear fried", and expect the market to recover rational consumption.

Before the stock market, after the currency circle, the result of history is the best witness, whether it is "fried shoes" or "fried blind box" and "fried clothes". Behind the prosperity, if there is no underlying foundation, the irrational market will inevitably escape the fate of the bubble burst. The tide will eventually recede, and Buffett said, "only after the tide has faded away, you will know who has been swimming naked."