Two days later, The Peninsula Hotel.

Gu Biao, who flew to Xiangjiang again to inspect and learn from experience, was warmly received by Liang Jinsong.

"Why did the transformation come so suddenly? Even if you have money, you can't think that one stubble is another. Gu Sheng, with all due respect, you knew almost nothing about the luxury industry. ”

As soon as the two met, after Liang Jinsong listened to Gu Kun's meaning, he first cautiously poured a little cold water on him.

This is an old acquaintance who is responsible for his friends before he dares to say this. Gu Kun's subordinates' words, it is estimated that after listening to Gu Kun's decision, they will definitely only directly praise the boss's wise decision.

Gu Kun also knew that these words were unreliable at first glance, so he stated his thoughts on the cause and effect.

“...... This is also for the future Lanfang high-end commercial real estate to have sufficient cash channels, and to facilitate high-quality investment and cash-out. You should know that although there are a lot of tourists going to Lanfang this year, there are more than 500,000 people going to Lanfang in the mainland alone, but the per capita consumption is too low, and on average, all expenses are counted, including air tickets, only 2,000 US dollars!

When people from the mainlanders come to Xiangjiang, how much do they spend on average at one time? In fact, eating, drinking, and playing are much less than those in Lanjiang, but the key is to buy duty-free goods with tariffs! Just for the pure purchase of things, one person must spend at least more than $3,000! The GDP pull is too strong.

In the future, it is absolutely necessary for Lanfang to thoroughly explore the GDP driving potential of these tourists, and further develop Lanfang from a tourist mecca and an international conference mecca known for its beautiful scenery to a shopping paradise. But to ensure that we pull out this part of the benefits, the royal family can make a lot of money, then there are some luxury brands and tilt to promote these brands, it is necessary.

At present, I cooperate with the Malays, and I can only make some articles on bird's nest and durian coffee, and they have not yet done it, and the category and scale are too small. ”

Many officials may think that in '98, mainlanders were not very rich, and they couldn't spend more than $3,000 per capita on going to Xiangjiang - because many people have the impression that after five or ten years, those who go to Xiangjiang will spend so much on average on shopping.

However, every word Gu Kun said was absolutely true, and he personally discovered it based on the current research.

The reason for this situation has a lot to do with the relatively small number of people coming to Xiangjiang from the mainland.

People who come to Xiangjiang to shop are all rushing to the advantages of Xiangjiang, a free trade port, and want to be duty-free and cheap. Therefore, although there were few people who came to Xiangjiang at the end of the 90s, everyone had to shoulder more than the needs of relatives and friends to bring goods.

It is rare that one or two members of the big family can come to Xiangjiang, and relatives and friends have said in advance what they want to bring, and even colleagues in the unit have to help them. This is a huge gap from 10 years later, when Xiangjiang said that everyone could only buy it for themselves.

In other words, when you come to Xiangjiang to buy something, you earn what you buy, so it has little to do with whether the tourists have money or not.

However, for these problems, Liang Jinsong put forward his own views: "Isn't Lanfang also a free trade port? There are no tariffs." If it is only a part of the income, as long as the scale of tourists increases, it is completely possible to snatch some share from Xiangjiang. ”

Gu Kun shook his head: "Lan Fang did not build a large-scale high-end SHOPPING-MALL before, and the grade was not enough, so it was difficult for tourists to rely on the authenticity of shopping like Xiangjiang."

On the other hand, most of the tourists who come to Xiangjiang now still enter the country on the ground, right? It is more convenient for them to bring goods and can bring large quantities of household appliances. Almost all of the tourists on the Lan side enter and exit by plane, and only a few people take cruise ships, and the weight of luggage is very limited.

Our Lanfang International Airport was only built and put into use in the middle of last year, and it has only been a year and a half. In the first year, the airport facilities were relatively poor, and the duty-free shops had not yet been built. ”

Different from what many people imagined in later generations, most of the shopping tours that went to Xiangjiang in the mainland in 98 were actually attracted to the duty-free imported electrical appliances in Xiangjiang.

Especially at that time, there were a lot of wealthy people from the mainland who came to Xiangjiang to buy laptops.

In the final analysis, it is still the stage where mainlanders are not rich enough to consume luxury goods, and the size of the petty-bourgeois middle class is far from large.

Women's things such as beauty and skin care products, jewelry, clothing, and bags that are lightweight and have a high logistics net worth do not account for a large proportion of the amount in the carrying. On the contrary, many people get married at home or do something else, and there is an imported large color TV and an imported laptop, which can greatly support the façade.

In 98, among the shopping malls in Xiangjiang, the most sought after by mainland customers were electrical counters, computers were the hottest, followed by MP3 and digital cameras, which had just appeared and were still known for their fashion and nobility.

Such a shopping structure is destined to be tariff-free even if the Lan side is exempt, but it is still very difficult to grab it from Xiangjiang.

If Lan Fang does not develop and control some luxury brands and improve the competitiveness and profit ratio of luxury shopping, it will compete with Li Jiapo at most in the future.

The key is that the flow of people is far less than that of Lijiapo. In Lijiapo's 98 years, more than one million Chinese people have passed through every year, perhaps less than one-fifth of them have made a special trip to travel, and the remaining eighty percent have been doing business or running boats or re-exporting through Lijiapo. But whether they are traveling to Lijiapo or passing by, those people will also bring Lijiapo's duty-free goods.

On the whole, Gu Kun will start the layout now, and it is absolutely necessary to make efforts in two or three years.

......

Liang Jinsong had a preliminary understanding of the customer's needs, patiently took out a stack of equity reports, and spread them out in front of Gu Kun:

"After you called me that day, I transferred the investment composition of Heung Kong Investment Bank and other financial institutions in which we have a stake. If you want to exchange shares, Crocodile's crocodile, Goldlion's menswear, Chow Tai Fook's jewelry, Emperor, and Ernest Borel watches, these companies can more or less exchange up to 15% of the equity, as long as the replacement price is right.

In the luxury industry, I must remind you that you must not fantasize about starting a new design brand. It's okay for young hipsters who play with new brands and don't have much spending power, but luxury can't be extravagant. What luxury requires is history. ”

Liang Jinsong didn't expect big customers to be satisfied with this, but he was entrusted by others, and these homework still have to be recommended.

Gu Kun really shook his head: "Of course I know that luxury requires historical heritage, and I have never thought of creating any trendy brands by myself, I must acquire or invest in existing luxury brands." However, I don't like these so-called famous brands in Hong Kong, and I don't think that in ten years, these brands will not be able to meet the requirements of mainland tourists for luxury goods, and they are not high-end enough. ”

Gu Kun's mind is still very clear, he has never been like those fools, relying on his personal reputation and traffic and connections in the circle, to create a luxury brand out of thin air.

In contrast, acquisitions and stakes are much more viable.

There is almost zero threshold for shareholding, just like the shareholders in the mainland A-share market in the future, as long as they are determined, in 2016/2017, they want to buy Qianzhou Moutai shares casually. Strictly speaking, it is also an investment in scarce luxury, and history has proved that the scarcity of the Moutai brand is very sufficient, and those who think its stock price is too expensive when it is 200 yuan, and when it is more than 1,000 yuan per share, they are stupid, but they are helpless.

As for the acquisition, in fact, it is not as incredible as the public thinks.

For example, the owner of the LVMH group, who once became the richest man in the world in later generations, and the Frenchman Arnault, in fact, most of his business was acquired through mergers and acquisitions, not a luxury brand developed by himself.

When Arnott started his own business, there was actually only one brand, that is, Dior, plus the later LV, in Arnott's luxury empire, strictly speaking, only these two brands were biological.

Arnault started his business in the early 80s, and until 94 and 95, his subordinates only snowballed by relying on two "pro-son" brands to make money, and then acquired Givenchy, which can be regarded as entering the fast lane of buying, buying, buying.

In the final analysis, it is because during the Cold War, the future of luxury business was uncertain, and everyone did not want to be extravagant.

After the end of the Cold War, the expectation of "globalization" led to the rapid development of the luxury industry. In addition, Arnault can be regarded as seeing the grassroots of Internet media, which makes it easy to promote the "world's top brand", so he is desperate to succeed.

Officials who don't believe this can ask themselves, especially those who lived through the pre-Internet era - in the era without the Internet, only people who care about the luxury industry can shout those famous brands, and every country has a name brand that everyone in each country knows for themselves.

It was the emergence of the Internet, especially the emergence of search engines, that led to the rapid expansion and unification of the perception of "the world's top brands". Because no matter how good the silk is, people can also search for curiosity and know what the biggest brand is today.

Even if the public doesn't care about luxury goods, those who care about luxury goods can make their pretends, which greatly promotes the consumption motivation of those who care.

If a green tea watch shows off her wealth and buys a Hermes to walk on the street, and the straight man doesn't know her, then why does she spend this unjust money?

And without the Internet, would straight men know Hermes by relying on traditional media?

It's impossible, if you rely on magazines alone, straight men won't read Ruili and Mina at all, and they won't know Hermes for the rest of their lives. If you rely on TV alone, straight men will change the channel the first moment they see Dior, and they still know a fart Hermes.

There must be a button group, hot search, post bar, and these channels for pretending to share, so that the brand dividend reach rate can skyrocket.

Arnault was obviously the one who saw these truths most clearly, so he began to understand the changes of the Internet to brand media in 95 years, and began to become very determined to pay a lot more premium than other peers at that time.

Because he believes that these high-quality brands can swell to a degree that is many times more valuable and monetizable than the original in the new era of Internet marketing.

Others can't understand it, are unwilling to give such high expectations, are unwilling to buy the equity of competitors at a high price, or it is too late to see this, and they can't grab him - for example, Arnott's biggest opponent in the future, Kering Group, the reason why people have fallen to the second and third place in the world in the luxury world is because they are slow to buy, buy, buy.

It was already 2005 when Kering joined the buy-buy-buy war, and it was only because the big Italian brand "Gucci" (Gucci) was facing the risk of a hostile takeover by Arnott, and the Gucci board of directors took the initiative to ask Kering for help to dilute its shares.

So strictly speaking, Gu Kun is definitely not too late to make a move now, although he is three years later than Arnault's LVMH reaction, he is at least six years faster than Kering.

For him, the bigger obstacle is his Chinese status, and if the news of controlling certain luxury brands is exposed, will it lead to a decline in the international pressure of these brands - not that Gu Kun has low self-esteem, but that he must consider what he will do if foreigners stop buying these brands because of national attention.

Perhaps, he can't be as radical as Arnault to throw money, or even be the largest shareholder, he can only share the money and introduce strategic cooperation.