Guoan: Pursue diversified business, but always serve fans

Special correspondent Song Ci reports On April 11, Beijing Guoan's third home game of the season had to be postponed due to weather conditions. However, the third piece of the 2025 [Beijing] character series launched by Guoan Licensed Products - Xicheng District Badge will be sold in the official flagship store as scheduled according to the original sales plan for each home day.

As a loyal Guoan fan, Mr. Liu, a Beijing designer, buys a large number of Guoan peripheral products every year, from home and away jerseys to scarves and hats, from field jackets to cotton clothes and vests. Since last year, Mr. Liu has been collecting home game day badges with Beijing elements from the club. In order to snap up the urban version of the badge launched this year, Mr. Liu specially used two mobile phones to make an appointment at the official store, and snapped up the purchase as soon as it went on sale. It's a pity that I still didn't grab it. "It's so hot, 300 badges and thousands of people make reservations, and they are immediately killed in seconds, so they can only wait for the next time to grab them." Mr. Liu looked regretful.

Like Mr. Liu, there are more and more fans who like to buy Guoan merchandise, and after the opening of the offline flagship store of Guoan licensed products opposite the Gongti, a large number of fans gather here before every home game.

This offline physical store is jointly built by Beijing Guoan Club and Hangzhou Fude, a licensed product partner, and the two sides have been working together since 2018 to jointly produce and operate Guoan's official licensed products. In the past 7 years of cooperation, the two parties have created a variety of products, including retro jackets from the 90s of the 20th century, silicone team emblem cheering suits, numbered T-shirts with Beijing urban themes, souvenirs of the Workers' Lawn, as well as mascot Beijing Lion plush series blind boxes, and even co-branded mooncakes. Today, there are more than 300 types of official licensed products of Guoan, which is second to none in China.

The Guoan franchise store in the inner corridor of the Workers' Stadium has been upgraded this year, with official pop-up stores in Grandstand 8 and Grandstand 24, and the flagship store with two pop-up tables with a total area of more than 300 square meters, which is not inferior to the official product stores of clubs in Europe's top five leagues.

Foreign player Fabio has scored consecutive goals, and his jersey is the hottest selling this season. In second place is Serginho, a naturalized player who has just completed naturalization, and fans who buy jerseys will print the number 29 and number 7 in the store as soon as possible. In terms of domestic players, the jerseys of the leading star Zhang Yuning and veteran Zhang Xizhe, as well as Zhang Yuan and Cao Yongjing, who have joined in the past two years, are quite popular with fans.

Fude Company, which is responsible for the operation of Guoan's franchised products, also acts as an agent for AC Milan and Arsenal's official licensed products in China, according to relevant personnel: the current development and sales volume of Guoan's licensed products can be comparable to many European clubs.

20 years ago or even earlier, every time the national security match day, Gongti North Road became a big bazaar for small traders and hawkers, all kinds of pirated jerseys and scarves were placed on the streets, at that time, a pirated jersey cost 80 yuan, and it didn't take too much effort to cut it to 50 yuan, and it was sold at 25 yuan immediately after the game started, and the hawkers could almost empty the goods they brought every time. "At that time, on the one hand, I felt that genuine jerseys were too expensive. On the other hand, it is true that it is impossible to find a store where you can buy official products. "That's why fans remember buying pirated jerseys back then.

After Sinobo Group took over Guoan Club in 2017, Chairman Zhou Jinhui emphasized on many occasions that it would respect the history of Guoan, and more importantly, respect and serve Guoan's fans, including the team's change of neutral name and specifically soliciting the opinions of fans, which is the main reason why Sinobo finally left the word Guoan for Beijing fans. Since then, the Guoan Club has begun to expand the types of derivatives while diversifying. At that time, Guoan Club used to produce its own jackets and T-shirts, which were worn by all club employees, players and coaches (outside of official game hours), including Zhou Jinhui.

Over the past 10 years, Guoan's Ministry of Commerce and Brand Department have continued to communicate with fans, especially on the design of the new jersey, which will solicit fans' opinions, and then negotiate with Nike to implant the elements that most people want to see into the jersey design.

Initially, Guoan sold only a few hundred official jerseys each season, and through communication with fans, including asking fans how much price was acceptable, and using the sales of the previous year to determine the sales focus for the next year. In 10 years, from a few hundred pieces to thousands, two thousands, five thousands, and more than 10,000 pieces last season. "Over the course of 10 years, we've been cultivating the spending habits of our fans and getting them used to buying genuine shirts as a way to support the club on a regular basis. At the same time, we will understand the fans' feelings for Guoan and the city of Beijing, and then integrate them into our derivatives, so that everyone is willing to collect our products. The relevant person in charge of the Guoan Club said.

The relevant person in charge of the business department of the Guoan Club said frankly that Guoan, as a professional club established for more than 30 years, has been actively exploring the diversified business operation of the club from 1992 to the present, hoping to achieve a balance between revenue and expenditure.

In recent seasons, Guoan Club has created a number of club brand derivatives with Beijing cultural characteristics, including the memorabilia of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Guoan, which is a collection that caters to the preferences of Guoan fans with graphic badges to leave a memory and leave beautiful moments.

For Guoan, there is still an important task to be completed in the future, which has been brewed, researched and planned in the early stage, which is to establish its own membership system. According to the existing number base of major fan organizations in Beijing, the conversion rate of annual pass holders and the potential of online communities, the number of registered members in the initial stage of the establishment of the Beijing Guoan fan membership system is expected to be between 15,000 and 30,000, and it can be gradually expanded to more than 100,000. In the future, Guoan's derivatives will be combined with the membership system to do some exploration, so that product development and sales form a closed loop.

Fans are the most important cornerstone of the club's survival and development, so Guoan will respect fans and actively listen to their opinions in the process of commercial development. "While pursuing commercialization, we will always insist on respecting the fans, we are not only building the club brand, but more importantly, serving the fans and making them love our products." The head of the club said.