China's chain store growth slows

China's retail sales from the National Bureau of Statistics, the 2013 sales of China's chain stores amounted to 350.87 billion yuan, from 2007 to 2013, chain store growth slowed, even in 2012 to reach the 0.8% growth point, the proportion of total retail sales of consumer goods to 1.5%, In 2013, the net purchase market turnover accounted for 8%, the growth rate of more than 50%.

It is clear that the performance of chain stores can not be satisfactory, the past advantages are not, has been overtaken by E-commerce. The traditional chain store enterprise is facing the difficult predicament and the unprecedented challenge from the electric business giant.

The dilemma faced by traditional department stores

China's department stores have a history of nearly a century, in this century, as China's continuous social change, the department store has also been ups and downs. In the last century of the 90 's, there has been a period of gold development, can be said to be a department store Societe Generale. And into the 21st century, with the rapid development of the Internet, the rise of E-commerce, subversion of the commodity economy, but also to the department store industry by unprecedented impact. Traditional department stores are also unwilling to be outdone, also began to try E-commerce. This is similar to the impact of the Internet on the traditional washing industry, as I mentioned in the Idonews column, "The Internet's traditional washing industry." But according to the data of the iris Consultation, 2013, the Chinese chain stores enterprise online turnover amounted to 3.96 billion yuan, accounting for chain stores overall turnover of 1.1%, and this data only accounted for the entire net buys the transaction market 0.2%, the net buys the market share is very low.

In fact, China's department Stores "net" earlier, as early as 2001, Xidan Mall has established the Xidan shopping mall I Shopping Network, is the early mode of the business. After that, including Tianhong shopping malls, Yintai shopping malls, top grade discounts and other major traditional department stores have established their own official shopping websites, expand online channels. Most of the traditional department stores are the official website of the joint venture or "joint venture-+ Self" model; and the net buys the user basically is the market member, the line on-line below the user coincidence degree is very high, the actual net buys the user to be very few; This also leads to little online goods.

First of all, this situation, the biggest limiting factor is the department store's pool model. Joint venture mode, is the department store to introduce brand manufacturers, the latter is responsible for the operation, the former pay a certain proportion of sales return as a return, and accept the former day-to-day management. Such a joint venture model in China has more than more than 10 years of history, although there is a reduction in department store capital investment, reduce operating costs, reduce the benefits of risk, but it makes the department store's profit space is squeezed, so that major shopping malls commodity homogeneity serious, it is difficult to establish the core competitiveness of department stores. In addition, the joint venture mode, each brand shop is operated alone, shopping malls do not have control of commodity prices, it is difficult to manage a single commodity, which also led to the market can not put the information on these goods online for sale. When the mall realizes this, it also begins to shift slowly to the proprietary mode, where some commodities are procured by the shopping malls, the single information management, and then the unified pricing for sale.

Secondly, it is too expensive for traditional department stores to move from line to line completely. The department store must coordinate with the merchant, collect the commodity information, and update it regularly, which needs large data to realize. Staffing, logistics and distribution, will increase the cost. and express delivery business is built or commissioned by the third party distribution, these department stores are in the exploration.

Finally, the traditional department store in the online mall marketing efforts are not enough, a lot of shoppers to the shopping malls do not know the shopping mall cable website.

Try to be the helpless after the

When the traditional department store is still in a rude awakening, electronic commerce has been pressed into the army. To Consumer-to-consumer Taobao and the main consumer-oriented cat and Beijing-east, such as the Boss, is changing the Chinese consumption habits, more and more people choose to shop online. According to the data report, 2013 Chinese internet shopping user size of 300 million people, in China, the penetration rate of 48.9%. Of course, in order to compete for the market, these big electric dealers will also have a real gold and silver scuffle from time to time, and as consumers of the biggest beneficiaries, they will participate more actively.

Taobao and Jingdong are different, Taobao is just an online commodity platform, independent stores put the goods online to sell, this is like a department store's pool model, just one online on the next. And Jingdong itself is a big shopping malls, so the goods are self-employed, just business all online. In addition to these electric dealers, and then emerged a lot of such as Poly-Mei excellent products, beautiful said such vertical electric dealers, also to Happy Rodeo, their strategy is to cater to different tastes of consumers, for them to launch the most suitable for their products.

In the business market, the cat and Jing Dong occupy 70% of the market share, the current market for the business of the "two super strong" situation. As a whole, the market position of the cat and Jingdong is firm, and the competition of the second group will become fiercer, leaving the market and opportunity of these traditional department stores very few.

And most of the traditional department stores in the since the establishment of the business does not work, but also reluctantly chose to enter the third party platform, such as the Cat and Beijing East. 2005 top grade discount settled in Taobao, after into the cat platform, the current top grade cat flagship store turnover has exceeded tens of millions of days, the 2011 Silver Thai net into the cat platform, 2013 "Double 11" one-day sales of 37.04 million, is 6 times times the same period last year; Obviously, on these big business platform, to the department store to bring a lot of traffic, also bring a return. But for a long time, the reliance on these platforms will increase, and the impact of their brand will be reduced, which is the last thing department store bosses want to see.

O2O advantages of traditional department stores

2014, known as the "O2O year", from the PC end to the mobile end, all walks of life began to test water O2O, a large number of new O2O company was born. O2O is to bring online consumers to the offline entity store, consumers can pay on the line, and then go down to experience service. Not only are the emerging companies, many traditional industries also want to O2O to achieve transformation, and this time the traditional department stores do not want to miss this opportunity.

As early as October 2010, Yintai Investment Co., Ltd. and Yintai department store investment set up Yintai E-commerce Branch, officially involved in E-commerce. Yintai Network is a self-employed platform, in operation and Yintai department stores independent of each other. Silver Thai network positioning at 18-35 years old, the average single pen consumption in more than 500 yuan in high-end users. 2013, Yintai net sales amounted to 900 million yuan, accounting for the group's total turnover of 5.9%. Strictly speaking, Yintai O2O Real landing should be launched from 2012 I ' m famous collection shop. Consumers enter the store to experience the goods, and then through the store provided by the ipad to buy. It is reported that after the introduction of the I ' m famous shop, its sales in the department store in front of the rankings. October 2013, Yintai department store also entered the micro-letter platform, opened "like Yintai" public accounts, and realized the micro-letter payment. "Mobile phone Yintai" launched at the end of 2011. To 2013, daily coverage of more than 200,000, mobile phone Yintai sales accounted for the overall 22%.

Not only is Yintai department store, many traditional department stores have started O2O layout. And compared to the business, department stores do O2O itself has a congenital advantage. First of all, traditional department stores have obvious advantages in supply chain. Take Yintai department store, it has more than 2000 online fashion brand suppliers and a large membership resources. Second, the user positioning precision, generally at 18-35 years old, the average single pen consumption in more than 500 of the high-end users. Finally, the traditional department store has its own logistics distribution, distributed throughout the country, convenient distribution, relatively small cost. It is to see the department store in the O2O field unique advantages, at the beginning of 2014, Ali 5.37 billion Hong Kong dollars to invest in Yintai department store, the two sides will be O2O mode to get through the line of the next business system.

O2O challenges after transformation

For the traditional department store, their obvious advantage is under the line, so the traditional department stores do O2O key not online, but offline shopping malls, how to maximize the advantages of the offline, is their O2O way out. And online is just the complement of offline, to provide consumers with information services platform. and offline market and brand is two closed loop, because the brand soliciting attributes than shopping malls, shopping malls service attributes higher than the brand, if the two leave each other interface, from positioning, systems and other synchronized integration, will attract more consumption.

At the same time, for department stores, how to build strong relationship with consumers and improve the consumer experience, but also the department stores need to consider the issue. How to let a consumer into the market to arouse his desire to buy, rather than let consumers take shopping malls as other business "fitting room", to the department store experience products, and then go online to buy. Some department store optimization practices are:

(1) The use of membership system, the consumer identification, and then for members of the private custom catalog.

(2) in the market, the laying of WiFi. Free wifi in the marketplace market activity information push can provide consumers with better quality service. At present, the application of the propaganda is not in place, many to the market consumers do not know that there is a service.

(3) Consumer installs store app. And such app not only can provide the commodity information for the consumer, but also may the consumer carry on the floor navigation and the brand localization. The current usage of this powerful app is still low, and many consumers don't know, and app's operability and practicality have yet to be strengthened.

In addition to doing a good job shopping malls service optimization, it is more important to the department store system to be reformed. Because the traditional department store informationization degree is low, manifests for the management, the supplier, the inventory, the hour and so on the system to be weak, cannot support each channel conformity system. In order to realize the O2O transformation, the first step of the department store is the comprehensive information management. And the value of the information management of the single goods is more embodied in the precision marketing, which can better provide the consumer with the commodity information.

Throughout the country, the industry's O2O model, the same criteria is the service and experience, for the traditional department store is no exception. How to do a good job of shopping malls service and the experience of goods, so that consumers easily and comfortably in the shopping malls, is the traditional department store from the power of the army to break through the transformation of the most effective way.

Text/No Shadow Ninja