Bai Jingting's path into retail: GOODBAI co-brands and channel expansion
Blue Whale News, June 27 (Reporter Zhao Kai) - Recently, a large fence quietly went up along Yanqing Road in Shanghai, marking the brand GOODEES WORLD. The brand is the first national store of a sub-line under GOODBAI, the label led by well-known actor Bai Jingting. Not far away are his coffee shop, clothing store and 24-hour vending machines.
Two months ago, GOODBAI also opened a pop-up space here, and Bai Jingting's giant posters drew countless check-ins, turning Yanqing Road into what some called "Bai Jingting Pain Street." From the business ecosystem, channel building and pace of expansion, Bai Jingting is one of the more business-savvy bosses in Chinese entertainment.
The boss selling clothes, coffee and plush toys: multiple products rank in Tmall's top ten, with co-brands including Salomon and New Era.
The five-bay townhouse along Yanqing Road is GOODBAI's first physical store anywhere in China. The brand was founded in 2021 by well-known actor Bai Jingting and is a clothing and lifestyle brand. When the store opened in 2023, it triggered long queues and scalper resales, with some people waiting nearly seven hours. Even three years later, on an ordinary weekday afternoon, the store still has steady foot traffic, with many customers shopping, trying on clothes and taking photos for social media.
The store design is retro yet minimalist, with pigeon elements, a nickname for Bai Jingting fans, visible everywhere. In terms of categories, GOODBAI covers clothing, shoes, hats, bags and accessories. Prices are not too high, mostly ranging from RMB 39 to RMB 2,900: short-sleeve T-shirts are mostly RMB 199, shoes are concentrated in the RMB 159 to RMB 799 range, and canvas bags, hats and jewelry are mostly priced from several dozen to a few hundred yuan.
One of GOODBAI's breakout products is its runaway shoe, priced at RMB 459, which ranks ninth on Tmall's sports-and-leisure shoe repurchase list. Brands ahead of it include giants such as Adidas, FILA, Anta, ASICS and Xtep. That ranking to some extent reflects GOODBAI's influence.
The first store of GOODEES WORLD, which is about to open, also has a dedicated section in the store. This sub-line comes from its original IP, the fluffy character shown on the fence. Unlike the casual sports style of the main GOODBAI brand, GOODEES WORLD is positioned as "cute, warm and healing," and its products are mostly shoes and clothing, phone cases, plush charms and hair accessories.
In its Tmall flagship store, a RMB 129 twelve-zodiac plush charm has sold more than 7,000 units; meanwhile, the RMB 99 baseball-cap keychain in the Yanqing Road vending machine has sold out.
Since its launch, GOODBAI and its sub-lines have released co-branded products with many brands, including Salomon, Diptyque, New Era, Levi's, BABY-G, Holiland and Line Friends minini, covering different categories such as mid-market favorites, national brands and streetwear labels.
Beyond shoes, clothing and IP derivatives, Bai Jingting's business map also includes coffee roasting.
Not far from the GOODBAI Yanqing Road store is Bai Jingting's coffee shop, where a cup of coffee sells for RMB 28 to RMB 48, in line with prices at other specialty coffee shops in Shanghai. In 2024, the pricing of its "GOODEES Full Satisfaction" cookies at RMB 21 for two pieces sparked online controversy.
Outside Yanqing Road, GOODBAI has opened two more physical stores in Chengdu and Aranya, and has also launched pop-up and slow-pop-up stores in Beijing, Paris and Seoul. Beyond its own online and offline channels, GOODBAI has also entered some multi-brand retailers, such as Musinsa, known as the "Korean Uniqlo." Overall, from selling shoes and clothing to coffee and IP derivatives, Bai Jingting is building a consumption ecosystem around young people's lifestyles.
The business logic of celebrity brands: a combined play of traffic and channels
There are many entertainers in the industry who build brands. Bai Jingting once said that Maugham compared the feeling of becoming famous to someone handing you a string of pearls. Bai Jingting has been thinking about whether he can find the "pearl chain" again. Brands such as GOODBAI can be seen as the "second string of pearls" he found for himself.
Celebrity brands usually have a natural traffic advantage, and their path to success resembles that of emerging apparel brands: social-media seeding, pop-up store trials, and first stores in core business districts as a combined play. The difference is that celebrities and their circles are often "walking seeding machines," as many stars have worn GOODBAI products in public.
But celebrity-founded brands can also trigger accusations of overcharging fans, or simply fade away after a while. At the same time, because the brand is deeply tied to the celebrity, there is a risk that success and failure rise and fall together.
Product and reputation swings: quality problems trigger public opinion and fixes
GOODBAI has also fallen into negative public opinion because of product-quality problems. In 2024, the Shanghai market regulator reported that a denim jacket from the brand failed to meet the national mandatory standard in measured pH value. In 2025, a RMB 599 hoodie was exposed to have its heat-transfer print peeling off, and the graphic appeared on car seats. After the incident was made public, the brand's affiliated company issued an apology, announced a recall of the affected batches and promised to make corrections.
From sports leisure to outdoor-lifestyle: expansion into multiple brands and niche segments
It is worth noting that the affiliated company, Zhetinghao (Shanghai) Brand Management Co., Ltd., is owned 41%, 29% and 10% by Bai Jingting, Shangguan Zhe and Li Yong respectively. Among them, designer Shangguan Zhe has brought brands to London Fashion Week, and Li Yong has also worked deeply in the apparel industry for many years. So Bai Jingting's clothing business is not based on traffic alone; it also brings in professional support from within the industry, with a certain foundation in design, production and supply chain.
As for Bai Jingting himself, he is known in entertainment as a "sneaker king." He loves multiple sports and is also a spokesperson for sports and outdoor brands such as New Era and Salomon. As sports demand becomes more segmented and diversified, GOODBAI has also developed niche lines such as football (916 express) and tennis (polomove).
In addition to the casual-sports style of GOODBAI, the affiliated company also owns teenteens for young women, the women's fashion brand Ayrae and the trendy outdoor brand 30C. Take 30C as an example: it has chosen to enter the outdoor boom through a trendy style, matching the demand for broader outdoor consumption and combining it with design advantages. It has already opened a store on Xiaohongshu, and the Bai Jingting same-style vest is sold out in multiple sizes.
From hit casual-sports shoes, to IP trendy plush toys, to the broader outdoor segment, Bai Jingting's expansion path has basically revolved around trends and lifestyle. For some co-branded products, there is already a collaboration background between the brand and Bai Jingting himself. Celebrity brands need to avoid becoming merely star merchandise. How to move beyond fan economics and reach a broader market may be the long-term direction they still need to pursue.
Bai Jingting once said, "Even if you separate me from the person I am, consumers still recognize it, and many people will still like it and think it looks good. That is my ultimate goal."
