Gu Kun's long-term development path for his luxury goods empire must be to focus on men's products, but he absolutely cannot tell Rupert that right now.
Because Richemont Group's positioning among the three major luxury groups in the world is to focus on men's luxury goods, especially luxury watches and jewelry. If it were said out loud, wouldn't it be directly competing with Rupert Gang?
If you reach Gu Kun's level in business, you still need to have the basic skills of talking to people and telling ghosts.
However, it is useless to deny it directly. Others are not fools and will not believe it directly. There must be a set of self-justifying arguments to make Gu Kun's setting very reasonable.
As a result, Gu Kun stripped away the logic of later generations and modified it, and used it to convince Rupert.
"Sir Rupert, you should know that I have been considered a master in the financial industry before. I have gained a lot from Nasdaq to the Hong Kong stock and foreign exchange market. I would like to say that my level of understanding of the upcoming Internet economy exceeds
All other people in the luxury industry around the world, you wouldn’t object, right?”
Gu Kun took a handful of Arctic cod and king crab spaghetti and spoke calmly while gently stirring it with his fork.
This entry point is relatively easy for people to accept, just like admitting that the opponent "plays chess better than the swimming champion, and swims better than the chess champion", there is nothing shameful.
Rupert shrugged as Gu Kun expected: "Everyone has their own expertise. This is normal. I hate the Internet. It reduces the mystery of high-end existence."
Luxury industry tycoons generally don't like the world becoming more and more equal.
Gu Kun smiled faintly, and expressed his sincere attitude, and said: "Yes, I have been working in the Internet investment circle for several years, and I have discovered a trend, that is, the Internet will make everything
For intangible assets such as goodwill and brand, there is a winner-take-all trend concentrated at the top, which is the Matthew effect.
With the deepening of the Internet, life will become increasingly difficult for the mainstream luxury brands in the future - however, the Internet will not let the strongest kill all the weak, and will generally leave the second strongest in each segment.
Even this second-strongest person will reap a very large inertial dividend, and even just by claiming that he is the leader in the fight, he will gain great social attention and free reputation."
That's right, what Gu Kun said is the tactic used by later generations of Goudong to follow the trend invisibly: Tmall has a Double Eleven, Goudong must have a Six Yao Eighth, whatever Tmall does, Goudong must show off
The posture of a resister.
But in fact, this gesture itself has benefited it a lot, because it has implanted a subconscious idea in the minds of netizens across the country for free: Goudong is Tmall’s only competitor, so it must be the second in the industry.
But what is the reality? When Goudong started to jump up and down to emphasize this character, he was not qualified to be this opponent at all. He was still fighting with Li Guoqing's Dangdang.com for online book sales. He even said, "
"I am sure to win Dangdang.com" are not qualified.
Even so, even if the founder’s own marriage scandal is used as the initial starting point for fame, and the company’s positioning must be promoted by any means
, that is, "This is not true, Ma Feng is plotting against me."
I believe that 80% of the netizens who heard this sentence at the time had not heard the real name of the founder of Goudong, but when they heard "Oh? Who is this person? Is he actually qualified to be cheated by Ma Feng?"
After searching on Baidu, I found out his identity and the name of his company.
Therefore, in the Internet era, if you want to become famous quickly, what should you do if your goodwill skyrockets? Shape yourself into the industry's number one enemy and create an online image that says, "As long as I hold on, so and so will be in trouble, and my bones will be stuck in my throat." You will
Subtly considered to be the second in the industry.
In the same way, if Gu Kun wants to pull the flag, he just pulls the biggest flag, indicating that he wants to confront LVMH boss Bernard Arnault head-on. Then it is possible to attract a lot of eyeballs and misunderstandings in an instant.
Of course, the basic skills must be solid in the future, and hard work and caution in management are also very important, so as to digest the false reputation you attracted at the beginning, otherwise you will still fall.
This is not to say that hard work is not important, hard work is always important. Just like if the founder of Goudong does not have a few brushes and does not have at least much stronger execution ability than normal people, and just relies on a lunatic to scold the street and attract attention, even if he is a temporary netizen
If you are regarded as Ma Feng’s opponent, if time passes and you find out that you have become a gangster, you will be abandoned by history.
Opportunities and abilities are both important, but opportunities are more important, and abilities must at least be able to seize opportunities when they come.
…
"If you want to grab the flag, just grab the biggest one. Anyway, you can't win the first place in the industry in any field. Why not just pretend to grab the largest share of the second place in the category market?"
John Rupert smacked his lips at Gu Kun's words and summed them up in his own way. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that Gu Kun had something to offer.
Especially in Gu Kun's rhetoric, the details are actually quite rich. He took out many details of the tricks used by the famous Goudong Pang in later generations and analyzed them in detail. He said it so well that Rupert was deceived even a little bit.
Not surprising.
Today, among the three largest luxury goods groups in the world, LVMH ranks first. It competes head-on with Kering Group, which ranks third, because both of them focus most on clothing and bags. Those who sell famous brand clothes, bags, shoes and beauty
As for makeup, I won’t do it on May Day.
In fact, the role played by Kering in later generations is to LVMH, which is equivalent to the role played by Gou Dong to Taobao. What Kering earns is the 20% of revenue that is divided from the largest mainstream market in the 28-20 rule -
—In the Internet era, the most common distribution model is that the leader in a field earns 80%, the second runner up earns 20%, and the third runner up dies.
The Rupert family's Richemont ranks second in market value, but it does not fully compete with LVMH and Kering because Richemont is taking a different route. It has almost given up on clothing, bags, shoes and hats, which are the fattest and most profitable products.
, focusing on jewelry and watches.
It's not that jewelry and watches are not expensive, but the cost of jewelry and watches is relatively high, and the profit margin is not that high - people who buy jewelry pay more for the material itself. If a diamond jewelry sells for more than the diamond itself
It is generally accepted that the price is too expensive. If the craftsmanship of designers and craftsmen is so valuable, buyers will weigh it and not pay the price.
Because the purpose of buying luxury goods is to show off your wealth after all. Instead of buying a diamond ring that is not very valuable but has valuable designer and craftsmanship skills, and the audience may not understand the purpose of showing off your wealth, it is better to just buy it in one step.
The diamond is bigger and the design fee is cheaper.
In comparison, the profit margin multiples of luxury goods such as clothing and bags are much exaggerated, and the cost of raw materials is almost zero. Materials such as so-called crocodile skin are as if they are free compared to bags that cost hundreds of thousands each.
of.
Richemont's business strategy is not to compete with LVMH, but to focus only on its own market segments. It pretends to give up the most profitable clothing and luggage and stick to watches, which makes LVMH retreat in the face of difficulties.
Now Gu Kun's attitude and business logic have greatly increased Rupert's sense of security.
He was eager to see a desperate new competitor whose positioning was highly overlapping with that of LVMH, so he rushed in recklessly.
The Rupert family just sits on the mountain and watches the fight between tigers and tigers.
…
"It seems that we can cooperate happily."
The meal lasted only three and a half hours, and after finishing the 23-course top-notch French meal, John Rupert's attitude when talking to Gu Kun turned into that of old friends.
In addition to being reasonable, Gu Kun also tried his best to make the other party feel that he was someone he could cooperate with through the subtle influence method used by many other people in the industry.
"Thank you very much for your foresight. You will be proud of your decision today in the future." After the other party expressed his stance, Gu Kun extended an olive branch appropriately without being humble or overbearing.
Rupert still had the last bit of doubt and hesitation, but he asked frankly: "I have one last question, why do you still hold those shares in Cartier for a long time? You are not saying that you don't make jewelry, but
Do you want to concentrate on fully competing with LVMH?"
Gu Kun smiled calmly: "However, I am willing to exchange all the Tiffany shares I have. It is because you don't have anything else I want at the moment, so I will hold on to Cartier and I can exchange it if I have the opportunity next time."
Stocks.
You know how stubborn the founders of luxury goods are, how much they reject external funds and act like barbarians at the door. Sometimes it’s not easy to use money. It’s better to squeeze out more equity of other stubborn people and use these stubborn people to exchange for each other.
."
Rupert felt that this was indeed the case and began to discuss the pricing details.
The two parties carefully discussed some share issues, and then reached an intention to exchange the equity of its brand subsidiaries worth nearly 1 billion US dollars.
Gu Kun sold 20% of Tiffany shares with a market value of more than 700 million U.S. dollars and Lanzi, which was worth nearly 200 million U.S. dollars, to Rupert, which can be regarded as a solution to Richemont Group's current plan to fully acquire the Lanzi brand.
The bone is lodged in the throat.
Before Gu Kun stopped selling, it would have been troublesome for Rupert to buy Lanzi if he had to force both parties to suffer losses. Therefore, for the time being, this cooperation seems to be indeed a win-win situation for both parties and a mutual benefit to the outside world.
After this transaction, Gu Kun's equity in luxury brand subsidiaries was reduced from 11 to 8, and two of them also reduced their shareholding proportions, leaving only 6 companies with real heavy positions.
But among these six companies, the shareholdings of Gucci and Giorgio Armani were suddenly several times higher than before!
Before the deal with Rupert, Gu Kun only had a pitiful 2.3% in Gucci, worth about US$100 million and a little bit, but now it has skyrocketed to 14%, worth US$650 million.
Giorgio Armani's shares have also increased from 4.2%, US$24 million, to 33%, with a valuation of more than US$180 million.
In addition, some male-oriented brands such as Proni have also increased their shareholding proportions, adding up to an increase of one to two billion US dollars.
Gu Kun finally changed from an outsider who invested in a bunch of small companies to someone who could control a limited number of big French and Italian companies and was qualified to negotiate with the company's founder team or senior management team.
Of course, he will not be in a hurry to negotiate or seize power. For the time being, he still needs to use this posture of "stopping violence with force" to "keep hope."
Being able to threaten others with force, but not threatening, is the fastest way to raise your hopes.
Just like when every country first developed nuclear weapons, its diplomatic rhetoric had to say "other nuclear-armed countries are welcome to join us in maintaining world peace and order."