The New Year Is Coming To The Major Business Circles In Shanghai.

With the advent of Christmas, new year's day and Spring Festival, Shanghai's major business circles scrambled to upgrade sales activities, opening another round of large-scale promotion season at the end of 2011. However, because of too much gimmick, consumers did not necessarily buy it.

Promotion followed

Last Sunday, coincided with the western traditional festivals, Christmas, Xujiahui, people's Square, Zhongshan Park and other Shanghai commercial and commercial streets all extended their business hours from Saturday (December 24th) to 2 a.m. the next day. Some businesses even launched special promotions throughout the night, not only in a variety of forms, but also in greater discount than before.

When the reporter visited, she saw that the Christmas lights in the shopping malls in Nanjing West Road create a holiday atmosphere. "Santa Claus" can be seen everywhere, attracting customers to enter the store. In the Eastern Department stores and Paris spring stores in Wujiaochang, many brands have begun to discount, and the "full court 50 percent off" and "400 yuan for 1000 yuan shopping coupons" and so on; and the Raffles square near the people's square has launched a "full court" crazy shopping rush, which has been extended from 7 o'clock to 24 o'clock in the evening.

But the new world department store promoted the promotion of "200 yuan for 500 points" in the past year to "180 yuan for 500 points".

According to the salesperson of new world city, when shopping, the store will give customers a product card for settlement, and the points in the card can directly offset the amount of merchandise.

If you multipoint the multiple of 500, the minimum can reach 64% off.

The minimum discount for some imported cosmetics can also reach 24% off.

It is understood that as early as the beginning of December, Paris spring first fired the first shot of year-end promotion, which will fully advance the discount season at the end of this year.

During its "overnight business not closing up" campaign, it launched the "99 minus 70" and "99 minus 65" super sales promotion, attracting a large number of consumers to enter the shopping mall in a short time.

At the same time, the anniversary celebrations such as land Plaza, the first eight hundred companion, Pacific department store and so on have been held one after another, and various concessions have also attracted a large number of consumers.

In the same way, e-commerce platforms have been competing with physical shopping centres for passenger flow, setting off a wave of promotional climax again and again.

As early as this year's "11. 11" and "12. 12" period, Taobao mall, Jingdong mall, Dangdang, suning.com, Amazon, fan Kong, Le Tao and other electronic business platforms have launched collective promotion, spike, jump price, Chinese cabbage price and low discount.

At the end of the year, the annual sales promotion of the major electricity suppliers is under the banner of "comprehensive profit making consumers", and series of measures such as preferential subsidies, price reduction and gift giving emerge in endlessly.

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Frequent consumption traps

However, there are many problems behind the popularity of the sales promotion.

Some consumers reflect that some businesses are posing as new models and commodities.

In a large shopping mall in Huaihai Middle Road, Mr. Sun told reporters, "I want to buy an outdoor climbing shoes. A few months ago, I saw the same shoes in other shopping centers. The discount was only 500 yuan. I wanted to wait until the end of the year to buy them again, and now the price of these shoes is close to 1200 yuan. After the price reduction is 400 yuan, the price is still around 600 yuan.

"

Some consumers also said that in the discount posters of some shopping malls, they were written in large size "full * * yuan minus * * yuan", but the small characters on the bottom said "except for some commodities", while most of these "goods" were consumers wanted to buy, but they were also "new products" sold by merchants in the preferential activities.

In addition, some consumers suggested that the price of most of the long winter boots this year will be around 1800 yuan, and the minimum discount price will be seven hundred or eight hundred yuan. The original price of similar winter boots two or three years ago is only seven hundred or eight hundred yuan, which makes many consumers feel that the price is too far off.

In this regard, the industry analysis, since the beginning of this year, raw materials, labor costs and rents rose, resulting in clothing and other wearable goods prices rise significantly, the current industry generally recognized the increase of 15% to 20%.

At the end of the year, the preferential price offered to consumers is actually the result of the joint profits of suppliers and shopping malls, so the final price of goods is generally more reasonable.

However, it is not excluded that some brands deliberately raise their prices in order to participate in the "discount war" at the end of the year, leaving room for discount. "Some lesser known brands or" fake foreign brands "will use this method, but the big brands should pay more attention to them.

According to people familiar with the matter, the average cost of shopping in the mall is 60 percent off, and the market is about 25% more, with a profit of 25% to 35%.

Such a price still needs to hit 50 percent off, which is sure to drive up prices so as to reduce profits.

In the vicious promotion atmosphere, the price and value of goods are seriously deviated. Consumers will inevitably buy goods that are discounted first and fall into the trap of consumption.

In addition, merchants will also use "replacement", such as selling old goods as new products for the new season, or reducing the amount of deduction as far as possible when discussing promotional points, so as to ensure their profits.

Consumers are becoming more rational.

Of course, there are many consumers who do not buy it after a wave of sales promotion.

It is understood that this year's year-end promotions, in addition to Paris spring's "99 minus 70" to earn enough popularity, the same period hit the "199 minus 110", "199 reduction 100" shopping malls appear.

White collar Xiao Han told reporters, "when the Spring Festival in Paris launched the" 99 minus 70 "no closing activities, the entire shopping malls were very crowded, and queuing everywhere was very uncomfortable.

So I bought a pair of short boots on the second day after the activity, and played half off, more than 700 yuan.

Although it costs more than the sixty percent off discount of the activity price, it is free from congestion and trouble.

"

Reporters in the shopping mall also found that, compared with the sales promotion enthusiasm, many consumers' attitude is not positive.

Some consumers say that although sales promotion methods are varied, they are basically gimmicks, and businesses will never sell at a loss.

This is the peak season for consumption. When the gold price is paid, the actual price (including gifts, coupons, etc.) after the discount is almost the same, but some stores have more discount, some discount is less, and the price will be slightly different.

A department store practitioner also lamented to reporters, "consumers will not eat this one day. Apart from the discount, what new tricks can businesses have? Most consumers are aware of this now, so if they are not necessities, they will not rob as much as they did in the previous two years.

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Physical department stores encounter "cold current"

Why do businesses increase the frequency and intensity of sales promotion? How can the popularity of such a large-scale promotion not last? How can the consumer's buying passion continue? For this reason, the industry has analyzed that the growth of retail industry has slowed down or even suffered negative growth since the three quarter of this year, and the situation did not improve in the fourth quarter.

Therefore, after the national day, promotions are springing up, and no discount will be made. The retail "big guys" can not guarantee their performance.

From the frequency and intensity of promotion, the more abnormal the discount, the greater the performance gap.

An anonymous insider told reporters that the discount is the usual way at the end of the year. In order to increase sales, it is inevitable to clear the goods at the end of the year.

The prices of food and other necessities of food have risen rapidly this year, and the consumption structure of consumers has changed.

In order to stimulate consumption and avoid risks caused by economic instability, businesses have resorted to discounting measures to quickly clean up inventory and return funds so as to reduce costs and ease financial pressure.

As for the decline in consumer buying enthusiasm, the person believes that the recent international and domestic economic situation is not ideal and the overall demand has declined.

At present, the domestic property market, stock market downturn, high prices, this series of phenomena will eventually be reflected in the retail terminal consumer market.

Among them, under the influence of inflation, the disposable income of residents is decreasing. The high prices lead to increased consumption of food for consumers, squeezing the consumption space of clothing and fashion.

On the other hand, the economic downturn leads to a decline in consumer psychology and a lower desire to buy.

This person further pointed out that this year, department stores have difficulty in achieving the dual goals of fixed sales and profits. As a result, most businesses choose to sacrifice profits and make big sales to ensure sales.

However, the increasingly large discount activities began to cause the department store industry to fall into a dilemma of declining profits.

Repeated sales promotion will not only maintain a steady passenger flow for merchants, but also make gross profit margins continue to suffer.

Innovative profit model is the way out

In fact, although the sales promotion has stimulated sales volume, it has also formed the consumer's psychology of "no discount, no consumption", and the increasing sales promotion will eventually lead the retail industry to a vicious circle.

What we need to point out is that the homogenization of department stores has led to the homogenization of promotional techniques and frequencies.

Professor Chao Gang Ling, director of the modern marketing research center of the retail industry and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that the concentrated sales promotion of passenger flow makes it difficult for consumers to have a comfortable consumption experience. For businessmen, the increasingly fierce "price war" is difficult to sustain for a long time.

In other words, no matter how big the promotional discount activities are, they are only short-term actions.

In this case, the physical market must jump out of the "price war" and find another way.

Wang Xianqing, director of the Institute of circulation economics of Guangdong University of Business, thinks that the department store industry needs to break through the ice and still needs to innovate its profit model.

"Let consumers not only shop for shopping, but also experience service.

"He suggested that in the face of increasingly fierce commercial competition, we could try to attract customers through new ways such as experiential marketing, cultural marketing and so on. We should have more cultural elements in marketing, more urban civilization and more moral cultivation.

In addition, reporters in the interview also learned that for consumers, businesses to enhance the level of integrity management is also particularly important.

In contrast, the "clear price" and "clear cut" are more popular.