The "Hypothesis Verification" Method For The Supply Chain Of Footwear Industry

The "hypothesis verification" method for the supply chain of footwear industry

This paper introduces a hypothetical verification method for scientific ordering of stores, which does not require large investments by enterprises but can achieve actual results. This method has been well applied in 7-Eleven, a famous retail chain in Japan.

In fact, from a non professional general consumer perspective, it will be considered that the commodity category and price of Japanese 7-Eleven will not be much better than that of other convenience stores, but the profit margin of Japanese 7-Eleven is 2 times that of Japan's convenience store industry, which is second third of that of Rosen and the whole family.

Why can 7-Eleven achieve far more than its competitors? "Hypothesis verification" is a secret weapon.

The philosophical basis of "hypothesis verification" is that Suzuki Minwen, the founder of 7-Eleven, put forward that consumption in today's era has completely entered the field of psychology, because the market has shifted from seller's market to buyer's market. It is far from enough to consider commodity sales from the perspective of economics. The judgement of commodity value is determined by the heart of consumers.

He said: "if we can not continue to make assumptions based on human psychology, and verify according to the correct information, we can not judge the next step."

In 7-Eleven stores in Japan, when ordering, a salesperson can query all kinds of reference information through the GOT system (a handheld flat end computer), such as inventory sales information of various single products, meteorological conditions and weather forecasts within 20 kilometers of each store, various activities in the neighborhood around the store, and TV advertisements for new products.

Although the computer can provide daily sales data for the last week and the latest week in order to give orders to the shop assistants, 7-Eleven requests that its own clerks, when ordering, cannot be mechanical and only consider the past sales trend. Instead, they should think flexibly about all kinds of factors that will affect the consumers' purchase and consider the consumers' psychology.

For example, the same 20 degree weather, 30 degrees of humidity and 70 degrees of humidity are very different for consumers, and the corresponding demand for food products is also different. Therefore, changes in climate, temperature, humidity and other factors have a great impact on the sales of convenience stores in communities. Store employees should pay close attention to these factors and be able to think clearly about their impact on customer demand.

A shop once learned from the weather forecast that it would be snowing tomorrow, because Kanagawa county had very little snow all year round, so the store manager immediately thought that the consumer's snow boots were rarely set up, and immediately procured a group of boots to put them in front of the store on the second day, which really sold well.

Another shop in the same area was unconscious and moved, and missed the opportunity to sell.

However, the impact of meteorological temperature on sales is not absolute. For example, because of the relationship between air temperature difference, hot coffee in summer can not be sold well. In winter, high fat ice cream is also well sold. For example, it may rain for two days, which will affect consumers to go shopping. However, after third days of rain, consumers will also go shopping.

Therefore, before carrying out the "hypothesis", we should pay attention to the sensitivity of "five senses" and the use of information to people at ordinary times, ask why and think more about the reasons why consumers like or dislike.

Because the activity of "hypothetical verification" requires the creativity and courage of the employees to be truly implemented, 7-Eleven also encourages employees to devote themselves to their work in order to accomplish their careers no matter what they do. If an employee has never considered the best selling and best selling reasons in a store, the problem of the possible outcome of the new product may not be suitable for 7-Eleven, because the employee is not deep into the work but just satisfied with the work assigned by the boss within the specified time. This kind of work is a torture for the employees themselves.

In addition, the development history of 7-Eleven has been growing in constant self denial and innovation, so employees have always been courageous to challenge new things. Even if the results are not satisfactory, enterprises will not be critical. The experience of failure is a learning for employees and enterprises.

Because 7-Eleven business leaders attach great importance to "hypothesis verification" and perfect and powerful information system support, stores can carry out the "hypothesis experiment verification" process every day, for example, a shop employee thinks sandwiches and cups of soup can be sold together better. Then stores try to change the display location of goods, and then verify them by comparing the purchasing process of consumers with the sales data recorded in computers.

Every shop in the enterprise carries out the "hypothesis verification" process every day, which means that 365 experiments are conducted a year. The store operators use their brains every day in the sales method, so their sales experience and the control of consumers accumulate over time, forming a core competitiveness, that is, selling the same quality goods with the competitors, and their performance will be much higher than that of the competitors in other months.

Of course, for the traditional footwear enterprises with terminal aging and R & D plagiarism, ordering does not seem to be a big problem. The order of stores will not be thoroughly studied in actual operation. How to achieve the optimization in the actual operation? The current management optimization theory has EOQ model (assuming that the demand is constant), (s, S) the min max inventory model (assuming that the demand is random), the newsboy model suitable for short life cycle commodities, and the Pareto rule. These simplified analysis models may be enough.

However, in the face of increasingly fierce shoe brand competition and the emergence of new retail formats (such as the integration of multi category stores), conservative traditional shoe stores are actually losing sales growth, customers are constantly shunting, and profit margins are constantly being compressed. Therefore, finding a new way out and developing space is a way that does not want to go.

But once the traditional shoe stores want to pform into innovative formats, they are faced with how to reasonably design the commercial space and layout facilities of new stores, how to arrange the variety structure and volume of new shops, and how to adjust the layout of container shelves, such as the display of container shelves, the adjustment of the layout of lights and music, and so on.

For example, the new stores in China tend to simply estimate the volume and turnover of the guests based on the business area of similar scale stores, and store operators are often unwilling to devote their energies to seriously collecting information and putting forward "hypothetical". They are busy rushing for many so-called "burning eyebrows" (such as finishing up decoration, goods preparation, industrial and commercial taxation, fire fighting, recruitment of shop assistants, etc.), and in fact, those "urgent" things are often caused by inadequate basic management and no scientific methods and procedures.

To put forward the reasonable "assumption" of new shops, we must honestly investigate the residents' information, competitors' information, and related organizations, organizations and facilities in the business circle, and take the consumer's perspective into consideration of the reasons why he is willing to buy or not to purchase at home, and then put forward the "hypothesis" such as the combination of distribution of goods and passenger turnover.

In addition, the various factors and information that should be referred to in the "hypothesis" must be applied flexibly. For example, 7-Eleven considers that the front traffic flow in the residential area is not the main factor to consider the passenger flow and the turnover assumption, but the traffic flow on the main traffic artery is the most important factor, but if the traffic condition of the main road is not conducive to pedestrians crossing and crossing, the visitor rate will not be high, so it is not possible to predict the turnover with the same traffic flow.

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　　在企業的管理實踐中，已經進行過無數次鞋企終端門店銷售問題診斷和分析，使用“假設-驗證”的威力確實巨大，在基于門店分品類分性別分系列的銷售數據基礎上，對影響進店率、試穿率、成交率的不同因素進行分析，當然貨品新鮮度豐富度、門店清潔美感、人員的服務意識都是最起碼的，天氣、商圈、競爭對手動態、進店顧客資料等等也都要考慮，當我們進行“假設-驗證”時，可以發現歡迎語的話術、一張海報的色彩文字、店內燈光的開光、促銷道具的擺放、陳列方式的改變都會對顧客心理產生影響，最終影響到銷售，一次次的假設之后讓我們對消費者心理把握、對門店里的軟件、硬件、人件的系統性認識、以及影響銷售的每一個細節認識得更加精確和細膩。

Of course, there are still some factors affecting our store to apply new methods. For example, the shoe industry information system focuses on sales data entry instead of analysis. The education level of terminal chip managers and shopkeeper is low and not good at computer system application and analysis. Therefore, it is more difficult to carry out "hypothesis verification" in comparison with 7-Eleven.

However, the author thinks that the way of thinking can be used for reference, and every store manager can actively think about the changes that may affect the sales of various kinds of stores tomorrow, and put forward his own "assumptions". Then, he will carry out experiments according to his own assumptions in order to store, display, sell and sell, and finally verify through a cycle of sales performance and consumer response. This can make the atmosphere of the dull and dull stores become more active. Employees can improve their interest and initiative through the hypothesis and verification, and the sales level and inventory level of enterprises can also develop in a favorable direction.

Corporate headquarters can also give higher performance pressure and corresponding incentive measures, strong information system support, and create conditions for stores in terms of terminal retail format innovation, product development and promotion.