Behind the prosperity of badminton market

　　In 2011, I was honored to be a person in charge of the Tennis and Badminton Exhibition Zone of China SportShow, and became a member of tennis and badminton industry. Before I was at this position, I had superficial knowledge on badminton. At that time, I was of the view that badminton would have a prosperous market, as it had a great appeal to the people and had a great participation – wherever you went, you could find that the badminton courts were crowded. Outwardly, badminton has a bright future in its development. However, when I became a member of this circle, I began to realize that behind the prosperity of badminton market, there existed many problems.

　　The badminton market is a new-rising market. Even several big traditional brands has exploited the market for a long time, but there still is a broad prospect and great potential for development. Despite that those traditional brands have occupied comparatively large share of the market and have restricted the space of small and medium enterprises for development to some extend, many small and medium enterprises are still willing to seek development in such a compressed space as the market is full of temptations.

　　The joining of more brands to the badminton market can benefit the expansion of the whole market. It is a good thing as the participation of different enterprises can bring more elements to the market. However, due to the immaturity and the low access standard of the market, the problem of uneven levels of these brands has come into being. Through the SportShow and our investigations on the market, we can see that, the best side is, the small and medium enterprises are eager to seek a breakthrough in the market – However, due to they are limited in scale and lack of standard in manufacture and marketing, it may bring a chaos to the market to some extend.

　　Most of the badminton equipment manufactures are small individual workshops with unstable production scale. They are weak in competitive strength. During the process of cooperation with the distributors, it is the distributors who make a small order first, and after selling of these goods, then make another order. Therefore, the delivery time of the sports goods is uncertain. As for those relatively mature industry, such as, the outdoor sports, distributors may make an order in large amount. The uncertainty of the order cycle time may affect the stability of the market, but also may lead to the loss of distributors.

　　At the 2012 China SportShow, the outward indent for badminton equipment exceed any of the previous Shows. More encouragingly, some overseas clients who have never set foot on badminton industry also appeared at the show. It is because on one hand, we have strengthened our publicity work, and have invited more audience, on another hand, the time of the SportShow coincided with the period of periodical return of the business clients. It was a good opportunity for the development of the badminton market, especially the overseas market.

　　Comparing with other well-developed sports, there are still some channels in badminton need to be developed. On one hand, we strive to open up badminton market in more countries; On the other hand, we should strengthen cooperation with those countries that have already established a business relationship with us. Our aim is to have a more stable, more prosperous overseas badminton market.

　　Comparing with the outdoor sports and some other high-end sports, badminton is a sport for starting a business easily and with a low cost. This is also the reason why there are so many people like to play badminton. At present, the overall level of the Chinese people in badminton has surpassed the primary level of badminton play. Along with improvement of the skill, there will an increase of the demands of the badminton players on equipment and playing court, and the badminton market is asked to be upgraded constantly. At this stage, the most important thing for us to do is to reinforce the standardization and the order of market. Only by doing so, we can integrate the resources effectively to promote the development of the badminton market.

　　At present, the badminton market still has the problem of insufficient distribution channels, low propaganda strength and poor quality of some distributors. Only by solving these problems and establishing a standardized and stable market, then the people can have an even better badminton world.

　　(The Author is the person in charge of Exhibition Zone of Raket Game Equipment at China SportShow)