The traditional retail giant, which has been enjoying China's demographic dividend, has felt a sense of anxiety.

When the internet hit like a scourge, the traditional retail giants, which have been enjoying China's demographic dividend, have felt a sense of anxiety. Nowadays, O2O has become a traditional retail big guy to get rid of the fate of the last straw, but it is difficult. As the main driving force of O2O practice in China, the O2O practice of electric business is not smooth. "Two-way labor pains" is the realistic state of the road of O2O with Chinese characteristics at present. The future, the electrical business and entities, who will become the accessory, all unknown. But what we can foresee is that the core of retailing is the consumer, the consumer-centric layout must be the last winner.

Play: eight, recount

2014, can definitely be regarded as O2O year. Now, looking at the 1 billion gamble that Lei and Mingzhu two years ago, it seems that the results are less important, and in a new business environment, no competition is zero-sum game. Retail companies with retail genes are no weakness when internet companies are playing with the internet gene. Whether it is Suning, Wal-Mart or Amazon, Taobao, O2O business model test water is in full swing, is eight, recount.

Table 1: Retail O2O cross-border model

Homeopathy

As the main impetus of domestic O2O practice, the homeopathic penetration of electric business enterprises is understandable, and its common demand lies in solving the defects of its innate after-sale service, optimizing the user experience and creating a closed loop of retail industry chain, thus further enhancing consumers ' willingness and confidence in online consumption. Generally speaking, its offline layout has the following three kinds of ways.

Open a proprietary experience shop that synchronizes with e-commerce sites. Vertical electric Business "Dream Bazaar" since 2011 in Guangzhou Liwan District South Street, Fishing tail Bridge opened the first online flagship experience shop, and successively in Shanghai, Dongguan, Jiangsu opened nearly 10 stores. Coincidentally, 2011, Taobao Mall's first home improvement online experience pavilion-"Taobao Mall, Love Bee Tide" opened in Beijing. 2013, Poly-Mei excellent product of the front door flagship store and Jingdong Mall in Singapore Tang Shop under the experience store also began trial operation.

From the operation of these entities store mode, it does not operate as the purpose, mainly to brand image display, physical display, or user experience, the store has a terminal query machine and support two-dimensional code, such as scanning query parity, the product can be the basic guarantee line price. The salesperson is guided without orientation and receive counseling, some support online ordering and payment, offline take returns, but also regularly organized to enhance communication with consumers marketing activities. This model can solve the problem of the poor after-sale and experience of online enterprises to some extent.

Work with other offline entity companies. In the short term, the alliance between the Electric Business enterprise and the entity enterprise is the most economical way to test water O2O, and it is also the hottest way at present. 2014, following the "Double 11", Alibaba teamed up with Yintai, Yue City, New World, Hualian, Wangfujing, five major domestic retail department to create "mobile phone Taobao 3.8 life Day", and through the form of low-cost subsidies to promote users online payment and offline consumption, offline shopping malls 1500 brand counters participated in the event, Alibaba is the use of O2O to enter the local life services in the field of important measures. In addition, Jing Dong also United Tang long convenience store cut into O2O, and successively with the million convenience stores, Beijing Huaguan Shopping Center signed. The advantage of this mode of cooperation is to be able to guide consumers to scan two-dimensional code for line up and down orders and payments, which will be part of the offline consumers into online users, and form a line under the good interaction.

Strategic investment or acquisition of offline entity enterprises. The ability to integrate and control offline resources is critical to O2O's successful practices. Compared with the alliance between the Electric Business enterprise and the entity enterprise, to the offline enterprise's strategic investment or acquisition can help the electric business enterprise to the Entity enterprise Resources control and the integration, therefore, at present, to the offline entity Enterprise's strategic investment or the acquisition becomes the electric business enterprise to enter the O2O more direct way. January 2014, Tencent strategic investment in the large-scale business logistics enterprises in South China City, and began with the South China city outlets and a good century home plaza, such as retail business cooperation to negotiate. April 2014, Alibaba paid 692 million U.S. dollars to buy Yintai department store 35% of the equity, while embarking on the exchange of their membership system, in the Alipay client launched "Silver Thai Treasure" electronic Membership card. There have also been news that Amazon will buy Sears, a major department store, and, once it succeeds, Amazon will be able to control 2,400 of Sears's stores, pushing the line down O2O shopping.

The reverse of survival

Compared with the active infiltration of the electric business enterprise, the O2O of the retail entity enterprise appears very passive. Department stores, which have been the best in retail sales, averaged 4% per cent growth in 2013, a far cry from 2006-2011 's 16.5%. Wangfujing, Tianhong, Ginza, Parkson and other large department stores all return to single digits, the decline is more than 15%, huge profit and survival pressure makes retail entity enterprises forced through O2O to promote channel transformation. One side is business expansion, one side is business transformation, obviously, from the original intention of the two push O2O, the retail entity's O2O Road seems to have become more difficult. At present, the retail entity Enterprise's O2O also basically can divide into three kinds.

The "whole channel" operation is realized by self-built electric business platform. 2010, Suning Appliance is on line with its own electric platform suning easy to purchase, to the physical store "big home appliances and 3C products" as a breakthrough, through the reform of the Entity store assessment system to promote the operation of the online platform. Subsequently, its online platform as a breakthrough, the implementation of the "go to the electrical" strategy, and in 2012 opened the first operation of the entire category of Suning Expo Super Shop, to achieve the line on the next two major platforms in products, prices, logistics and other aspects of the overall opening, synergy and sharing. In addition, Wangfujing, Yintai, Tianhong, Ginza, Parkson and other large department stores have built their own electric business platform.

Cooperation with electric business enterprises. As mentioned above, as the dominant person is the electric business enterprise, therefore, its O2O basically relies on the product of Ali, Tencent, the core is to import passenger flow as the main goal of the scene and business settings, including the operating content is usually, preferential, diversion, mobile payment, membership and management, some enterprises extend to CRM management, data analysis , member accurate management. For example, top grade discount, rainbow and so on successively with the micro-letter cooperation, Tangju convenience also with the Beijing-east cooperation, but, from the concrete to achieve the effect, its O2O strategy is mostly focused on the marketing level, rather than the real online and offline interaction of the entire channel operation, its customer experience on the existence of obvious deficiencies and personalized design, and unsustainable.

Strategic investment and acquisition of e-commerce sites. 2012, Suning easy to buy 66 million U.S. dollars wholly-owned mother and child to buy a platform for Red Children Company, and promote the Red Children in Suning entity shop Landing, as its impetus to "go to the electrical" strategy of important measures. In the same year, Wal-Mart raised its stake in shop 1th from 20% to 51% by increasing capital and expanding shares. realized the total holding of store 1th, in an attempt to circumvent its previous in the construction of e-commerce sites can not avoid the price system conflict, purchase channel conflict, assessment system conflicts and other contradictions. Amazon also plans to buy Sears, a major department store.

Pain point: Chinese characteristic o2o, stones

Undoubtedly, O2O is one of the future forms of the electric business and the only way out for the transformation of entity retailing enterprises. However, in the top ten U.S. power companies, only a single O2O, the other nine are engaged in the offline business, the main catalyst for the company is physical retail, which is very different from China. Therefore, for domestic retail entities and electric business enterprises, whether the line on the line of penetration, or offline to the online transformation, both in O2O practice are stones, facing the channel conflict, Cross-border management, logistics delivery and other pain points. Especially for the passive transformation of the physical retail enterprises, the reality is even more brutal.

Table 2: Supply chain and logistics system

From the overall point of view, whether it is electric business enterprises, or retail entities, O2O sales need to be presented from the commodity information, pre-sales distribution, the sale of the payment and after-sale logistics and distribution, such as a series of links to optimize. Therefore, the biggest difficulty and pain point of O2O practice lies in that both of them have access to the supply chain and logistics system under line. This problem is first embodied in inventory management and order management. Imagine that, in the full channel sales model, customer orders can be generated from anywhere in the retail, can point to any one of the inventory point for the goods out of the library, this must require the order and inventory of the unified arrangement and coordination. In addition, we need to ensure that all channel customer data consistency, so that customers in any channel can be the corresponding services and experience. At present, whether it is electric business enterprise, or retail entity Enterprise, the entity shop of electric business enterprise often can only experience, did not establish supply chain system, and the existing supply chain system of retail entity can not cope with the pressure of massive e-commerce order. In other words, both supply chain and logistics system are currently only completely independent system, not enough to support its full channel operations. In addition, electric business enterprises and retail entities in the process of moving towards the integration of dynamic equilibrium, but also the inevitable cause of the following pains.

Line to bottom

Generally speaking, the electric business enterprise's offline layout mainly realizes through two kinds of ways, one is self-built, the second is the cooperation. However, from the current situation of the offline layout of the electric business enterprise, the operation management of the experiential shop is the biggest problem, and the way to cooperate with the retail entity is often confronted with the problem of insufficient ability to control the cooperative resources. The fish and the bear's paw cannot have concurrently, the electric business enterprise has to face the dilemma choice.

Experience shop Operation Management. From the current point of view of the self-employed, most of the operators are located in the experience shop. However, due to the characteristics of the domestic electric dealers driven by investment rather than profit and the rising operating cost of the offline entity store, the Electric commercial entity shop which is positioned by "experience shop" has been unsustainable for a long time. From the current situation of the expansion of the real store of the electric business, it is one of the difficulties to O2O the profit model of the experience shop. In addition, as the experience shop is different from the warehouse, once a large number of implementation, its image design, decoration, space layout and so on the traditional retail enterprises very familiar with the problem will become the electric business enterprise faces another difficult problem.

Partner Resources Control. Compared to the electric business platform on the enterprise and brand resources to control and transfer, electric business enterprises in the process of cooperation with offline enterprises, the cooperation of the resources of the control is obviously inadequate. Taobao 2014 held the "mobile phone Taobao festival" as an example, as Taobao test water O2O important activities, its activity is not the same as "double 11", but the effect of the activity is obviously inadequate. During the event, the mobile phone Taobao app in the iphone China free list of the rankings did not show a sharp rise in the trend, the main reason is that compared to the cat on the control of the business, Ali to the offline business control and resource integration capacity is weak. As a result, the complexity of local resources and their need for regular maintenance and continuous expansion to become the electric business O2O Road of one of the pain points.

Line down to Line

Compared with the offline layout of the electric business enterprise, the channel transformation of retail entity enterprise is more difficult, and it will face six problems such as strategy, mode, talent, flow, experience and management.

Strategy。 Unlike foreign countries, domestic retail entities are not the main driving force of O2O practice, O2O practice is a passive strategy under the pressure of survival, without clear strategic planning. At present, the retail entity enterprise built the electric business platform has become a chicken, and in the retail entity and electric Business enterprise cooperation, the initiation and planning of various activities of the Internet giants as the main leading, retail entity enterprises can only achieve a short marketing goals. How to turn its marketing reliance on e-commerce system to real sales, and to form the O2O strategy is the biggest problem of retail entity O2O.

Mode。 The department store, which has become an important part of retailing, has become the next business form in the rise of E-commerce, and the joint venture model has become the biggest pain point in the transformation of department stores. This is because, in the joint venture mode, the department stores can not grasp the store merchandise inventory, but also can not grasp the consumer details of consumption and other peripheral information, and these two are precisely O2O practice in the most important. In addition, with the joint-venture model and the problem of pushing higher commodity prices, it directly led to its network channel and offline channel price conflict, and become a department store industry O2O practice in the shackles.

Management。 Changes in the way of operation often challenge the management system. O2O practice, the retail entity's online channels will inevitably have an impact on the interests of shoppers, consumers online purchase can not be brought to the shopping Guide staff Commission, will lead to the quality of service shoppers decline, and then affect the consumer's shopping experience. In addition, online business is usually a computer to replace the manual automated operation process, therefore, in order to achieve full channel operations, the standardization and standardization of business processes are the basic conditions. And from the current part of the entity Retail line business process relies heavily on subjective judgment and decision-making, lack of normative system and rules, lack of information system support, in the short term these problems are restricting its O2O process.

Talent。 E-commerce and retail entities are two different business systems, there are big differences in channel, marketing, logistics and so on. The infiltration of the retail entity system into the e-commerce system means that its management concept and style, organizational structure, management team, and other major adjustments, this change will inevitably lead to internal elbow, and the solution of this problem is the premise of both wins. Whether it is Su Ning, Wal-Mart, or Wangfujing, Big Yue City and other department stores, it is inevitable to face the introduction of E-commerce talent and how to effectively motivate E-commerce personnel in the retail entity system Talent Management mechanism of the plight.

Flow。 Portals and traffic are familiar to marketers of internet companies, but they are a common problem for retail entities. To the department store retail business, its own platform operation, whether from the view volume or sales view is not optimistic, not only difficult with Taobao, Jingdong, a shop, and many other electric platform to contend with, to help department stores out of the difficult or even closed the dilemma has hardly played any effect, eventually reduced to "chicken ribs." To Wangfujing department store's online mall for example, its daily average of independent visitors and daily average page browsing volume is only 7800 and 24180, one-day turnover is not million, or even less than a Taobao store turnover.

Experience。 The O2O practices of retail entities are mostly dependent on products developed by the Internet giant, such as micro-bo, micro-letter, Alipay, etc., but the application of Internet platform products, only in accordance with the established product design business scene and experience flow, can not fully take into account their own positioning, target consumers, commodity combinations and other characteristics, Lack of humanization and personalization, but also basic stay in the marketing level. And the core goal of O2O practice is to promote the shopping experience of consumer as the center under the whole channel operation, so as to realize "sustainable operation" and "profitability". Obviously, bypassing the commodity and supply chain management, focusing only on the quick-effect marketing level, is contrary to the essence of O2O practice.

Outlet: Customer value is greater than channel value

The history of retailing has proved that no retail company is dependent on the success of marketing to maintain its evergreen, which applies not only to the whole world, but also to the distinctive China; What is the core of O2O practice? Is customer value, not channel value. Whether it is the electric business, or retail entities, consumer-centric, in the commodity information presentation, inventory distribution, consumption experience, order payment, logistics and distribution, after-sales service business chain key link "internal strength" of the overall promotion, the formation of closed-loop, is the most important O2O practice.

Today, the cost gap between electric and physical stores is narrowing, and consumer experience and services are key. Therefore, I do not agree with the pessimistic attitude that the retail entity will become the accessory of the electric business expansion. Retail entities can be clearly positioned, recruit more capable personnel, proactive, to enhance the consumer experience as the goal, in infrastructure, technology applications, supply chain management, fan service four aspects to seek breakthroughs, its position in the O2O Alliance layout is also worth watching.

Table 3: Retail O2O closed loop signal

Technology applications. As the whole channel key node equipment, the popularization of the intelligent terminal will make the consumer in each channel seamless jump experience become possible. Accordingly, for domestic retail entity enterprises, single goods management is a prerequisite technology, similar to Wi-Fi positioning, ibeacon and other indoor positioning technology is to achieve a natural flow of the whole channel experience key technology. For example, indoor positioning technology can not only show users interested in the direction or distance through the real navigation service, improve the consumer shopping experience, but also can help retail entity enterprises based on spatio-temporal business product analysis and product layout, including accurate collection of consumers in the various brands stay time, route and so on. In addition, compared to the app or micro-letter public number, the application of indoor positioning technology can be marketing information at a specific time, a specific location to send to the characteristics of users, avoid mass harassment, and truly achieve precision marketing. In fact, the lack of corresponding technical support, retail entity enterprises in any form of O2O can only be carried out at the marketing level.

Supply Chain management. With the increase of the transaction scale under the whole channel operation, both the E-commerce Enterprise and the entity retail Enterprise will feel that the core value of the O2O is not the diversification of the channel, but the whole transformation of the supply chain. As for the O2O practice of retail entities, although the electric business has shown unprecedented enthusiasm and advantage in O2O practice, we should not be too pessimistic about the O2O of retail entities. The essence of O2O is offline to Online,offline is the offline experience, online is the back-end supply chain processing. This also means that retail entities in the O2O practice, necessary through the promotion of supply chain management, to achieve in the entity shop customers need goods "missing code", can be different shop or directly from the Warehouse express to the designated address, can be real-time tracking of the orders of the channels, can complete the virtual channel orders in the store return. Therefore, as soon as possible to improve and improve their supply chain management capacity is the most basic and key steps.

Infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, O2O practice often emphasizes interaction and precision, while the O2O model is truly implemented through infrastructure. First, IT infrastructure investment, the protection of offline operations and the stability of the customer experience. In the 2012, the O2O of the catering industry made it purchase a large number of advanced CRM systems serving offline catering enterprises and low-cost equipment terminals. For the retail industry, IT infrastructure investment is also the basis for the promotion of supply chain management, is a top priority. Next, is the virtual infrastructure investment, the guarantee line under the on-line payment system, the member system unimpeded and so on. These will inevitably need to rely on the advantages of Internet companies, retail entities according to their own business category, combination of ways, the initiative to layout their own business scene, with the help of Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and other internet giant products, launched O2O operation. Otherwise, the backwardness of terminal infrastructure construction and the occlusion of virtual infrastructure system will make the pain point of the retail entity in experience and management still unable to be solved.

Fan mode. As is known to all, the vermicelli marketing has made millet today's brilliance, and the member system of the retail entity becomes its biggest resource of the vermicelli marketing. The value and advantage of the retail entity can be realized when the retail entity lets the consumer really feel the service that the online or other channels cannot provide. In fact, whether it is the promotion of convenience, or the maturity of holographic projection technology, online shopping can never completely replace the retail entity offline experience. Then, how to convert ordinary consumers into loyal customers, and then upgrade to a fan group, and happy to share consumption, it is worth every retail entity to ponder, and this is not just a simple loyalty exchange. "Fans" represent a consumer trend today-participatory, emotional and circle of consumer groups, using the experience of millet vermicelli marketing can be found that the secret to the marketing of fans is not cool, but exposure to them, understand their feelings and preferences, and become a part of them. This kind of marketing is not short, but a long-term maintenance with the consumer relationship, is a kind of humanized service.