Some of our distributors may fail to pay us for their purchases in a timely manner. Such failure to make timely payment could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Our distributors place advance purchase orders at our biannual sales fairs and we offer a credit period of 30 to 90 days to them. We had no overdue accounts receivable as at December 31, 2012. However, we may not be able to receive payment for our products on time or at all if our distributors encounter financial difficulties. While we perform routine credit evaluations of the financial condition of our distributors, we generally require no collateral from our distributors to secure their payment obligations. As our sales increase, the amount of accounts receivable from our distributors may increase. If any distributor fails to pay us for its purchases in a timely manner, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.
Although China experienced significant economic recovery since 2009 from the global financial crisis and economic downturn, a global economic crisis of similar or more severe scale may reoccur. The impact of a future economic downturn on our distributors cannot be predicted and may be severe, causing a significant deterioration of their businesses. If that happens, they may reduce the volume of their purchase orders significantly and fail to pay us in a timely manner or at all. As a result, our financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected. In addition, if there are not sufficient products in the authorized retail outlets due to the reduction in purchase volume by our distributors, our brand image and reputation may be materially adversely affected.
Consumer sales of our products are conducted by distributors and authorized retailers over whom we have limited control.
We sell a substantial part of our products to our distributors, who in turn distribute our products to consumers through their self-managed retail outlets and through retail outlets owned and are operated by authorized retailers. We do not have direct contractual relationships with the authorized retailers that sell our products and we rely on distributors to oversee their self-managed retail outlets and retail outlets owned and managed by authorized retailers. As we have no direct control over the authorized retailers, we are only able to require them to comply with our policies, such as exclusivity, customer service, outlet image and pricing, through our distributors based on the distributorship agreements. Any deviation by our distributors and authorized retailers from our marketing and pricing policies or aggressive discounting of the retail prices of our products could result in the erosion of goodwill, a decrease in the market value of our Xiniya brand and an unfavorable public perception about the quality of our products, thus resulting in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our plan to manage new flagship outlets may not succeed, and there may be competition among our company, our distributors and authorized retailers.
We plan to open, or provide support to our distributors to open, additional flagship outlets in China. As of December 31, 2012, we supported five distributors in opening and operating five flagship outlets in five different cities. As we have only managed two flagship outlets in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, we may not have sufficient experience and skills required for successfully managing such flagship outlets. Moreover, as our authorized retail network owned and managed by third parties expands and market penetration of our products increases, there could be competition among our company, our distributors and authorized retailers in the retail market. If we cannot succeed in our management of self-operated flagship outlets or fail to coordinate well with our distributors and authorized retailers to minimize the competition within this retail network, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected and we may not achieve our development goals.
We operate in a very competitive market and the intense competition we face may result in a decline in our market share and lower profit margins.
We operate in the business and leisure apparel sector of the overall men’s apparel industry in the PRC, which is highly competitive. Participants in this market include both international and domestic brands which compete in, among other things, brand loyalty, product variety, product design, product quality, marketing and promotion, retail network coverage, price and the ability to meet delivery commitments to distributors and retailers. This competition has led to leading brands continuing to gain market share at the expense of less established and lower-end brands. We may not be able to compete effectively against competitors who may have greater financial resources, greater scale of production, superior product design, better brand recognition and a wider, more diversified and established retail network. To compete effectively and maintain our market share, we may be forced to, among other actions, reduce prices, provide more sales incentives to our distributors and authorized retailers and increase selling expenditures, which may in turn materially adversely affect our profit margins and results of operations.
We may not be able to accurately track the inventory levels at our distributors or authorized retailers.
Our ability to track the sales by our distributors to third-party retailers and the ultimate retail sales by the retailers, and consequently their respective inventory levels, is limited. We have implemented a policy requiring our distributors to provide us with their sales reports on a monthly basis and we carry out random on-site inspections of the authorized retail outlets to track their inventories. The purpose of tracking the inventory level is mainly to gather information regarding the market acceptance of our products so that we can reflect consumers’preferences in the design and development of our products for the next season. The tracking of inventory levels also helps us to understand the market recognition of our products in a particular region, and thus allows us to adjust our marketing strategy if necessary. The implementation of the policy, however, requires the distributors to accurately report the relevant data to us in a timely manner, which is largely dependent on the cooperation of our distributors. We may not always obtain the required data in time and the data provided to us by our distributors may be inaccurate or incomplete.
We plan to implement an enterprise resource planning, or ERP, system that will allow us to track sales at the authorized retail outlets on a timely basis. In January 2012, we entered into an agreement to utilize and customize Burgeon Programming and Design’s ERP software. While we are currently in a preliminary phase, we expect to implement the foundation of the ERP system over the next 12 months. Thereafter, we will begin testing the ERP system at up to 400 points of sales. We anticipate that the preliminary phase of ERP implementation will cost approximately RMB12.9 million ($2.1 million) over the course of three to five years. This ERP system is expected to facilitate the processing of basic replenishment orders from our distributors, the movement of products through our authorized retail network, and the collection of information for planning and forecasting purposes. If we are unable to roll out the ERP system as planned, we may not be able to accurately track the inventory levels of our distributors or the authorized retail outlets on a timely basis. Inaccurate, mistaken, incomplete or delayed data regarding inventory levels may mislead us to make wrong business judgments for our marketing efforts and sales strategies. If that happens, our operations and financial results may be materially adversely affected. In addition, if our distributors or authorized retailers cannot manage inventory levels properly, their future orders of our products may be reduced, which would materially adversely affect our future business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We are heavily dependent on certain of our key personnel and design and technical personnel. Our inability to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel could adversely affect our business and growth prospects.
Our success depends heavily on our ability to attract, retain and motivate key personnel, including senior managerial, design and technical personnel. In particular, we rely on the continued services of Mr. Qiming Xu, Mr. Kangkai Zeng and Mr. Mingjiang Liu, as well as our chief designer, Mr. Tiande Liao. Many of them have been with us since the inception of our business. We have not subscribed for key-man life or similar insurance covering our key executives, design and technical personnel. If we lose the services of any of these key employees and cannot replace them with personnel with comparable experience and expertise in a timely manner, our business and prospects may be materially adversely affected.
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