Nike is about to remove thousands of online stores that sell its products in the China market. In terms of pricing strategy this is a completely correct decision. What it does not solve is the structural problem.
Read on Substack →We advise international brands on Asia, and Asian brands going abroad. Most of it sits in China, Korea, and Japan. The judgment comes from having run brands in this category.
These are the questions the category is working through right now. They come up in almost every client conversation.
Nike is about to remove thousands of online stores that sell its products in the China market. In terms of pricing strategy this is a completely correct decision. What it does not solve is the structural problem.
Read on Substack →Li-Ning paid for Stephen Curry, and the signature shoe was never going to return it. The volume and the margin sit a tier below, in the team and lifestyle models around 700 to 999 CNY.
Read on Medium →Acquiring a foreign brand only works when the buyer has already built the capability to run it. Anta had. BenQ had not, and Siemens Mobile was gone inside eighteen months.
Read on Medium →Wei Kan, founder of Conduit Asia, a sports and lifestyle brand strategy consultancy, is a regular named source on China consumer and sport markets. The six placements below are only the most recent. The full record runs longer, across the outlets listed underneath.
“It all goes back to how the consumer perceives what kind of value they want to get from a shoe.”
“This is the right thing to do, especially at this moment. Otherwise, the consumer will always expect the discounted Nike product.”
Cited on how local brands build their campaigns around China’s domestic running calendar and win local racers on price.
“Calls to switch to domestic brands tend to be loud and short. The cost that matters is the slower one, a loss of the brand affection Lululemon has been building.”
“A real marker for the industry.”
“That gap between adapting what you have and building from what the consumer needs is where many international brands are losing.”
Founder Wei Kan is quoted on China consumer and sport markets by Bloomberg, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Nikkei Asia, the BBC, Footwear News, and Het Financieele Dagblad.
Journalists and producers: for comment or background on China consumer and sport markets, write to wei.kan@conduitasia.com.
Our clients are brand and commercial leaders.
Most engagements start with one bounded question, answered in writing. The work can grow into a market briefing, a standing retainer, or a full market activation programme. Conduit Asia leads the strategy and regional partners deliver it.
See how engagements work →Institutional investors and research firms consult us on category structure and on the reality behind reported numbers.
Media come to the same ground. The work runs as scheduled consultations or as commissioned analysis.
Read published work →Conduit Asia advises sport and lifestyle brands on Asia. We also publish analysis on the category for institutions and media.
The practice was founded in 2024 by Wei Kan. He spent twenty-five years in brand marketing across Asia-Pacific, fourteen of them at Nike and Converse. His full record is on LinkedIn.
Client work is confidential and is not discussed publicly. What appears here rests on established analytical frameworks applied to information that is publicly available.
Conduit Asia is the trading name of Conduit International Limited, registered in Hong Kong. We work from Shanghai.
Published work draws only on public information and established analytical frameworks. It contains no confidential client information and no non-public information from former employers. Conduit Asia does not provide investment advice and does not issue ratings on securities.