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China Outdoor Retailer Association(CORA)
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After a quarter century of high speed growth, China has a urban white collar population that are looking to get away from the city on weekends and holidays and enjoy the outdoors.
Still in its early development, the outdoor market in China has experienced dramatic growth in the past 5 years. The market is growing past some hurdles, such as counterfeits and parallel importation, and entering into a period of steady, fast growth. It is estimated that total retail revenue for outdoor products was around 1000 Million RMB for 2005.
At the moment, the market is dominated by U.S. and European brands, such as the North Face, Columbia, Garmont, Big Pack, and Vaude. A number of domestic brands, such as Ozark, Toread, and Northland, have emerged recently as the market heated up, and have been growing quickly.
Despite the upward trend, several issues hampers the growth of the outdoor business.
- Fake products and factory leaks are still available on the market, especially for brands that do not sell their products in China.
- Brand-appointed distributors are new to the market. Many of them are under-financed and can not service the market properly.
- Parallel importation, mainly from Korea and Japan, has caused channel conflicts and price confusion at the retail level.
- Post-sales service and warranty is mostly done by retailers, with limited support from brands and distributors.
The China Outdoor Retailers Association (CORA) is established to tackle of these issues for retailers. As the first organization of its kind, the goal of CORA is to:
- Improve business efficiency through a common ERP system?
- Facilitate group purchasing for its members
- Centraliz online order processing and fufillment
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