Why have shoes become a hot item for online shopping?

Although my country's real economy has been severely affected by the economic crisis, online retail has remained exceptionally robust. According to market research data, in the second quarter of 2009, the sales volume of China's B2C (online retail) market reached 4.544 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 155%. The number of users covered by B2C malls approached 130 million, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 10.9%. The user growth rate consistently outpaced that of C2C platforms, demonstrating a strong momentum of catching up.

All signs indicate that shoes may be the next star in online retail. A large number of e-commerce professionals and traditional apparel vendors firmly believe that e-commerce still has great potential, and a number of entrepreneurs have also entered the footwear e-commerce industry. For example, ANCL, a leading online apparel retailer, will soon make a major foray into the footwear market, with a significant launch planned for early September. Other notable players include "Calorie," which generates substantial traffic on the Hupu sports forum; "Letaozu," founded by a former Baidu executive; and "Kusai" and "Haolemai."

As a leading player in China's apparel e-commerce market, VANCL is accelerating its expansion, from its initial focus on menswear to its major forays into womenswear and childrenswear. VANCL plans to develop footwear into an independent brand product line, potentially becoming its third major product line after menswear and womenswear. Furthermore, VANCL is currently in talks with a Spanish design team that has collaborated with ZARA for four years and possesses international experience in footwear design. The more than ten processing plants in the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian regions previously manufactured for leading international casual brands like ZARA, ensuring top-tier international quality.

So why have all these entrepreneurs converged on the shoe market? This is closely related to the recent acquisition of Zpp0s. Tony Hsieh, a Chinese-American entrepreneur, dedicated the past decade to exploring B2C online shoe sales. After years of battling in the fiercely competitive online shopping market, he built his Zpp0s brand to $800 million in annual sales, capturing over a quarter of the $3 billion US online shoe market. In mid-July of this year, Zpp0s was acquired by Amazon for $847 million, demonstrating that even in the highly competitive online shopping landscape, vertical B2C businesses in specific sectors remain promising.

In China, the B2C model for apparel is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with core B2C companies already established for products including outerwear, shirts, trousers, and socks. However, while some apparel B2C companies have also ventured into footwear sales, footwear remains largely an ancillary product due to limited styles and quantities, failing to achieve large-scale online direct sales. Therefore, as the domestic e-commerce market matures and is poised for explosive growth, vertical e-commerce, particularly in footwear, is naturally attracting the attention of savvy businesspeople.