The "Beijing-Soviet War" American version: Staged is also very busy

China's Jingdong Mall (on behalf of the online electricity business) and Suning easy to buy (from the physical power of the camp) of the battle is no sign of cooling, the industry also began to re-examine the two different DNA of the electric business camp's final fate will go. At the same time, the American version of the "Beijing-Soviet War" is also on the aloof, giving us the opportunity to gain more insight and inspiration in the game.

October 2012, Wal-Mart announced that the North Virginia State trial run 24-hour delivery home business, with Amazon in the region has long been "standard" of the same service to target.

During the trial run, customers can choose the goods door-to-door of more than 5,000 kinds of merchandise, including personal electronic products, furniture, bath towel and so on; the shipper is the nearest Wal-Mart store from the place of delivery and is responsible for delivery by UPS. Wal-Mart stipulates that customers need to complete the order on the network platform before noon, and then choose a 4-hour window between 4 o'clock in the afternoon and 10 to take the time to receive the goods and pay a unified courier fee of 10 dollars.

Wal-Mart's "Send Home" service was early in the San Jose provided by the Daily Grocery Express service upgrade; The pilot in North Virginia State, in the words of Wal-Mart spokeswoman Gallivara, is because the state's dozens of Wal-Mart entities have a large store coverage, "not as the outside world has guessed--like, ' Virginia is the Holy Land of lovers ' such reason ...

Later, the "Send home" service extends to Philadelphia and Minneapolibus, and then quickly expands to the entire San Jose and San Francisco area. Earlier this year, Wal-Mart allowed its customers to place orders online and pick up their goods at local entities ' stores.

It would be wrong to think that a real-store retailer like Wal-Mart would simply be a "follow up, target" service to rival Amazon, the big power trader. To give Amazon a "real look", a few days ago, Wal-Mart and Target had announced a halt to the sale of Amazon's Kindle products, including Kindle tablets and E-readers, which directly led to a fall in Amazon stock prices.

Perhaps, because China's suning is not to ban the sale of "Jing Dong", "the shock effect of the Kindle being shut out of the entity chain is not yet fully understood by the Chinese reader when it" waits for the electric dealer to have its own branded products "-but the" lowest bid "we discussed below The farce is not familiar to Chinese readers!

Real-world businesses such as toys Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Best Buy have all joined the "lowest price wars" of the summer. They promised to ensure that the goods that consumers buy this holiday will not be priced higher than any other store. Retail analysts believe the move is aimed at coping with the growing showrooming phenomenon (that is, when consumers tend to pick the right product in the physical store and then go online to buy it, the entity shop is forced to become a showroom! ）。

However, the protection of the "lowest bid" often follows a series of subsidiary provisions, thus making it impossible for consumers to buy the goods they desire in the full sense of the "lowest price" in their hearts. For example, at Wal-Mart, customers who have doubts about the "lowest price" have to complain, must hold a "print version, showing the same goods in other stores (including shop) the lower price" promotional leaflets as evidence to be able to defend rights. [While Wal-Mart stores have the latest advertising messages on their checkout counters, customers don't have to go shopping with promotional leaflets-but when it comes to rights, stores require paper flyers to justify lower-priced goods. In fact, retail experts say, according to the dynamic price engine system, consumer evidence of the process itself there is a paradox.

"It is well known that retailers often have various restrictive provisions (such as expiry dates, product availability guarantees, or external constraints) in the printing and publishing of special promotional advertisements," said Sucalita Mourproux, analyst at Forrester Research. " , the electricity dealer's pricing engine itself is dynamic, with a special promise of a week that is printed on a Wal-Mart flyer to compare Amazon's low price in a one-hour period yesterday, in itself the act of ' holding apples against oranges '. ”

Wal-Mart admits that retailers are now "price-matching" rather than "bidding for bids" (ad-matching) (a confession that is quite straightforward and appropriate).

In response to the "lowest bid" chaos, Booz &co consultancy chief retail strategist Tom Blishock Analysis said that although retailers need to have price competition, but not necessarily to reduce the minimum price. "Over the years we have been telling you that the mutual benefit between the store and the consumer is the essence of the transaction, is the basis for the healthy development of the retail industry," Blishock said, "Although such mutual benefits are sometimes reflected in low prices, it loses value if it causes businesses to watch profits fall.

"I think that the reciprocal win can also be reflected in: Businesses provide customers with ' bundled shopping ' opportunities, additional services, unexpected gifts, or just advice and guidance from salespeople, and so on; the retailer's job is to convince customers that he has gained a good value from the shopping experience, Not just a good price ... "said Blishock."

As shown in the first act of this article, whether it is a physical retailer (such as Wal-Mart) or a network power provider (such as Amazon), the services they provide are experiencing a "convergence" and "alignment", and the relationship between the two may evolve into a "mutual pollination", rather than a purely Sanya "0 and Game". -Isn't it? The authoritative research data shows that while the network electricity quotient is rising, it is also a gratifying situation that the growth of the online store revenue will be brought. According to the Forrest research company, the top factors driving offline consumption are ranked, 51% of consumers are "on the Internet platform to focus on the right goods", but only "not willing to experience the waiting time" directly to the physical store to implement the purchase behavior; another 45% of customers said in the survey that once they entered the physical store, They tend to buy extra goods, averaging 154 dollars more than expected.

Yes, there is growing evidence that "internet-affected Transactions" (web-influenced sales) are in the online store, which reached $1.13 trillion trillion in 2011 and will rise to 1.23 trillion dollars in 2012, To 2015 to reach 1.55 trillion U.S. dollars (then the total retail market of 44% share). To the entity store retailer, perhaps do not have to regard the network electricity merchant as "the competitor" simply, the latter cannot become a fusion "trans-channel business ecology" constituent? The retail business forecast reported that Trans-channel commerce would grow to 5 times times the size of pure E-commerce by 2015. After all, the old art of selling (and science)--whether it's a physical store or a Web store--ultimately tortured the endless optimization of the customer experience. "This article is published in" IT manager World "November 20, 2012, signed by China International writer. 】