What Slowed Down The Department Store's Footwork?

　　 With the past 10 years in China Electronic Commerce The rapid development of the market, no matter because of the trend of the surging tide of the Internet, or the persecution of the global financial crisis, some of the most powerful state owned department stores in China are quietly planning to enter the e-commerce strategy.

　　 In May 15th, the electronic shopping platform of Yintai Department of China's chain store group, Yintai Hui's fashion guide information channel, was launched on the first hand. The business includes more than 200 brands and more than 100000 pieces of clothing, bags, shoes and hats, accessories, cosmetics, jewelry, luxury goods and so on. The Yintai Hui shopping channel, which is located in fashion brand goods, was officially launched in September.

Old brand Department stores The net time is earlier.

In April 2000, Wuhan Zhong Bai group founded the 100 electronic commerce network. This is also the first large-scale online shopping mall in Wuhan to start with B2C business.

In September 25, 2006, one of the stores under the Wangfujing department store was officially opened.

In December 2006, Bailian Group founded the Agel Ecommerce Ltd on the basis of e-commerce. Its business is mainly carried out through online trading platform, which is called "Bailian E city".

In September 23, 2008, the contemporary online shopping mall was completed and opened to trial on the occasion of the 13th anniversary anniversary of the Shang Cheng mall.

Although there are more and more department stores joining the ranks of the e-commerce business, the gentry of these traditional department stores seems to be somewhat "unacclimatized" in the new environment of survival compared with the previous ones, and their business is "not too hot and cold", and their influence and regulation are far less than their status in the traditional market. Leading to this embarrassing situation, are there many factors that impede the pace of innovation and development of traditional department stores?

Early disturbed by "abnormal factors"

domestic B2C website Basically there is no obvious development, or maintain the B2B mode. Retail businesses do online retailing have a lot to do with consumers' habits and market environment.

Xidan shopping center, an old retail business over 80 years old, set up online shopping centers as early as 1998, and began ventured to launch online shopping. The Xidan shopping mall IGO5 love shopping website, built in 2001, is the earliest and most famous e-commerce platform for large state-owned commercial enterprises in the field of e-commerce.

At that time, the domestic retail market was still in the first round of e-commerce hot, its logistics, financial environment and other aspects are not mature. From the actual results, the Internet retailers who were purely B2C at the time could hardly live to the present. Many of them had no end of their lives, and the capital input of the "mouse" plus "cement" mode such as Xidan shopping mall was relatively small, basically surviving, but now there is no big climate.

For the early years, the department store industry has achieved little success in the e-commerce market. The Secretary of the China Chain Store Association, Pei Liang, believes that a large proportion of these factors are caused by some abnormal factors. From 2000 to 2006, the domestic B2C website basically did not develop obviously, or maintained the B2B mode. At that time, whether retail enterprises did online retail had a great relationship with consumers' habits and market environment. In recent years, it was a very important pre paving stage. In this stage, some enterprises did not attach importance to, or even gave up e-commerce, which may not be a wise move.

In the current situation, online retailing is getting more and more popular. Amazon, Dangdang and Taobao, which have already started, have begun to invade online department stores. In May 18th of this year, VCG officially announced that the company's founder and CEO was low-key in preparation for the new year's new clothing e-commerce website V+, and V+ is committed to building a platform for the major traditional market brands, jumping into Taobao, Baidu and Tencent's shopping mall e-commerce platform "Red Sea".

These e-commerce websites, both in terms of popularity and technology, have the advantage of first mover. Looking back at traditional department stores, in the field of e-commerce, not only to solve the transformation of business processes, but also to deal with the problems encountered when online channels are conflicting with traditional stores.

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In order to encourage and strengthen the determination of the traditional department store giants to take the first step bravely to the e-commerce market, and to help the large department stores who have already entered the e-commerce market, Yao Jian, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, held in March 16th this year's Ministry of Commerce's regular cloth Conference that one of the key points of the work of the Ministry of commerce is to further support the traditional commercial enterprises, promote the development of e-commerce, promote the combination of the entity market and the online market, and promote the commercial enterprises to drive the store sales by network sales. The Ministry of Commerce will give more attention and policy guidance to the traditional commercial enterprises in terms of payment means and integrity system in the network platform. The scheme will set up special funds to subsidize Wangfujing, Shanghai Bailian and Wuhan Zhong Bai listed companies in Beijing.

These "key training objects" have already been regarded as small achievements in the field of electronic commerce in state-owned department stores. Wangfujing's Bi an and Guangzhou stores have e-commerce mode, and Wuhan Zhong Bai has an independent shopping channel. However, the state department stores encouraged by the Ministry of commerce are still working quietly, and have not yet launched concrete plans. When all walks of life go to the new field of electronic commerce, the state department stores always seem to be in a slow state.

Integration line management is difficult.

The development of online shopping centers on the Internet is not simply copying the store sales model, but completely opening up a new operation system, otherwise it will lead to greater difficulty in sales.

What has slowed down the pace of the development of state-owned department stores in the e-commerce market? How can these department stores go through the threshold between themselves and the potential Internet market? The key is to accurately find the combination of entity stores and online stores.

First of all, it is necessary to find a suitable entry point to make e-commerce and traditional purchase better combined. The development of electronic commerce in department stores is not the best one compared with other formats. The department store is actually a high value and high experience format, especially for some high-end department stores consumers who buy things here attach great importance to additional social status, including personalized services. This kind of service is difficult to embody in e-commerce mode. Nowadays, most department stores are mainly selling clothes, and buying such clothing products, it is very difficult for consumers not to try and feel in person. What exactly is the advantage of online shopping mall? It is necessary for every department store to think clearly. Pei Liang thinks that department stores need to find another way to make online shopping malls. The online shopping mall is not an extension or a simple copy of this department store's category, positioning, which will lead to greater difficulty in sales.

The second is to think about how to integrate e-commerce into the overall management process of enterprises, such as ERP, CRM and so on, to minimize the impact on the existing management mode of enterprises. "It's not hard to put several items on the Internet." Wang Jin, Vice Minister of Information Department of SOGO, said, "but how many business departments do we need to go through after the sale of goods, from receipt to payment, to the completion of supplier settlement? How many external agencies are involved? The business process integration is far different from the current physical store business process." In her consideration, the transaction of a commodity will involve departments, such as shopping malls, suppliers, logistics distribution, finance and so on. This process is very tedious and needs a perfect process to regulate and manage.

Unlike most IT technologies involved in IT projects, the online shopping business launched on the Internet has completely opened up a new operation system. This will mean the flow of every detail involved in this business. Aside from the system, shopping malls not only need to re organize and integrate business processes, other departments, including resource integration and other related matters will also be necessary, and the difficulty can be imagined. It is not an easy task for a department store that has opened for more than a decade or even decades.

In addition, online and offline easy "price competition" also makes all traditional department stores difficult. How to coordinate two sets of people and achieve the biggest profit is a thorny problem.

Online department stores need more time to get up.

Li Zhisheng, the Minister of marketing and information technology, has not much enthusiasm for online business. "After this survey, we find that the whole network environment is not suitable for e-commerce." In Li Zhisheng's view, if the Department Store expands its business on the Internet, it is also an extension of its service items and services. It does not change its fundamental business mode. If we give up the basic business, the traditional department stores' living space and ability are very low. And because the main purpose of the Department is to make traditional department stores, it is totally different from the whole business philosophy and business mode of e-commerce. If the traditional department stores are too much involved in the online shopping mall, they are risking the fundamental business of their own businesses.

For the traditional department store industry, the current e-commerce mode is indeed new. E-commerce is not simply moving the sales mode of the store to the network, but rather requiring another set of people to operate.

　　 Pei Liang said that many enterprises have not yet built e-commerce as a company strategy. Now is the opportunity for the rapid development of the retail industry. But this choice is wise or unwise. If e-commerce is eroding the market in the future, more and more consumers choose to shop online, while department stores do not get the share they want in the new market, so their cake in the market is also shrinking. From this point of view, this is a question that needs reflection.