What kind of existence is AXEN? It is a affordable substitute when you don’t understand all the ideas behind it.
At the price point 1000 RMB, the lasts and styles of John Lobb and Edward Green are completely reproduced, and the similarity is more than 85%. Goodyear construction with excellent leather suppliers.
Of course, there are Goodyear shoes around 1000 RMB in the market, but those leathers are very poor, and the most terrible thing is the aesthetics.
As soon as AXEN came out, it killed the game and always out of stock.
John Lobb may not have many affordable substitutes, but there are too many for Edward Green, or those who hope to become Edward Green substitutes, but which one has achieved this price? No wonder AXEN sells off the charts.
I don’t like the concept of affordable substitute. It is like to pick up the low hanging fruits, and then who is willing to spend their brainpower to design new and beautiful things?
Let’s think about the logic of enhancing Intelligence Property protection in China. Why was it loose before? It used to be copying from abroad. Isn’t it the fastest to pick up ready-made ones? As long as it is cheaper, it can seize the market immediately.
Why is it strict now? We have copied almost everything, and now there is nothing new, only homogeneous competition. The only determinant is volume. In the end, everyone has no profit, or the largest one kills others, becomes a monopoly, and obtains excess profits later on. Consumers may get some benefits during the fierce competition process, but they also get worse products. Well, you don’t know what the difference is, but I can tell you clearly that it is the case.
What is AXEN’s pursuit?
Let’s learn about its concept and what it is doing.
First of all, who is the brand AXEN related to? At first, this information is hidden, but now, it is also made public, that is, CHU Jiahao, the founder and “director” of TGC/Oct Tenth.
As I mentioned above, AXEN’s leather is a dimension-reducing blow at this price because it uses TGC leather. As we all know, Oct Tenth, the private label of TGC Workshop, is one of the top brands in China’s footwear industry. Whether it is workmanship or materials, it is absolutely worthy of the word Artisan.
Then, under the premise of Oct Tenth brand, why does the factory director want to establish a new brand? On the one hand, of course, it is to deal with the downgrade of consumption, which is a commercial consideration. On the other hand, CHU thinks that at the price of 1,000 RMB, many brands live too comfortably and do not give consumers the best products they can do. The original words are, “lying down to make money is comfortable for too long.”
Therefore, there is the first point to pursue, the concept, to give consumers the best products at this price.
The second point is to upgrade the entire supply chain.
How to maintain such a price and have a healthy profit margin? There is no way to compress labor, only raw materials, that is, the most important cost of welted shoes, leather.
Under the education of me and bloggers like ENP, many people have already learned about the leather of high-end shoes. For example, Weinheimer Germany, we know that black calfskin is the best. C.F.Stead in Britain, suede is very strong, and Janus is the representative of top suede, antelope leather is also wonderful. There is also Nevada leather from Haas, France, which Edward Green uses very well.
But the price of these good leather is really not cheap, so when you see shoes with a price of 1,000 RMB, most of the time, you don’t dream about these famed leathers. AXEN uses it at present, which is also through some resources of TGC workshop (leather in non-core parts), which is not long-lasting. Therefore, it must develop domestic leather factories and maintain this level. Is this an improvement to the industrial chain?
Besides leather, there is another process that I seldom talk about and many shoe factories don’t care about, that is finishing. Edward Green is the best example. Why is its leather texture so different? In addition to its good leather selection and clicking, the most important thing is that it has its own post-treatment technology. Post-processing uses some “paint”, which is not very accurate. For example, Edward Green uses a “wax” made by himself, so I can only use this name, because what is in it is unknown.
What CHU is doing is to study this process thoroughly, which is the key to achieve good results when the standard of leather substrate is not as good as that of top European leathers.
This is equivalent to doing product research and development, which will eventually be passed on to the whole industry.
This is AXEN’s incomprehensible ideal.
For shoes, this price/performance ratio is really exciting.