Wanda Department Worries About Taiwan Business Channel

The "2013 cross strait retail CEO Summit Forum" hosted by the Taiwan Market Research Institute "Oriental online", which is jointly organized by the Taiwan University of political science and public enterprise center, was held in Taipei. As the most heavyweight and highest retail forum in Taiwan retail industry, the forum invited a number of mainland mainstream channel merchants including Sun Jinghuan, assistant general manager of Wanda Group and general manager of Wanda Department, to carry out all aspects of interaction and exchange on major topics such as how to "land" and so on.

In the report of 36 Taiwanese brands, Wanda reached 42% of the support rate and became the most desirable channel for Taiwanese brands to cooperate. The support rates of Huarun the Mixc and Jiu Guang Department stores, which ranked second and third, were 25% and 22%, respectively. In the eyes of many people in the industry, Wanda's real attraction to Taiwanese businessmen is its huge advantage in terms of channels, formats and terminal control.

　　 Worry about channel for Taiwanese businessmen

Taiwan brands regard Wanda as the first choice, and also reflect the importance of channels in brand marketing development. China's mainland is vast and its economic development level is uneven, and the need to compete with many competing firms has become one of the difficulties for Taiwan brands to enter the mainland. As the leader of China's department stores, the scale of Wanda Department's distribution in the one or two, three or four lines and suburbs, new towns and other channels has also made the support of Taiwanese businessmen unsurprising.

Statistics show that by the end of 2013, Wanda Department store will have 76 stores in the whole country, and the number of stores has left behind Jin Ying, Mao ye, Yintai and Baisheng. According to the expected planning of Wanda Group, by 2015, the number of stores will reach 130, and the business area will increase to 3 million 600 thousand square meters.

Wanda's department store has presented a huge commercial layout covering all one or two or even four tier cities to all brands. In recent years, as the saturation trend of front-line market is becoming more and more obvious, Wanda Department stores has accelerated its expansion in the three or four line. In Yinchuan, Langfang, Jinjiang and other three or four tier cities, Wanda Department stores have become the landmark buildings in these cities.

"For Taiwanese businessmen, fast track laying is often the core strategy for entering the mainland market in the early stage." An industry analyst said, "the strength of Wanda Department Store's deep to three or four line cities and its location in the golden section not only eliminates the time and geographical differences of Taiwanese brands, but also means that Taiwanese brands will get the best brand education opportunity."

"Once the Taiwanese brand opens up cooperation with Wanda, it means that they will gain the advantage of channel layout across the country." The source said.

　 Four format to promote brand diversification

Taiwan brand has always been considered as a unique and discerning brand origin, but its brand awareness and marketing operation are obviously lagging behind competing brands such as mainland brands. Therefore, Taiwanese brands have been playing a moderate role in consumer preferences and sales. In the survey of the difficulties encountered by Taiwanese businessmen in mainland China, 16.7% of the brands thought that "low brand awareness is not easy to get the favor of shopping malls".

In view of this phenomenon, Wanda Department store has begun to build a business mode with multiple formats and parallel business, so as to make the market segmentation more reasonable and effectively enhance brand identification in the shopping mall without losing consumers and brands at the same time.

"Unlike the general merchandise department, which ignores the market gap," the industry analysts said, "from the community life shop, fashion boutique to high-end living shops, high-end luxury stores, Wanda Department stores to create four kinds of department stores, although parallel in the shopping malls, but the distinction is very strong." According to the reporters, in the future, every Wanda Department store will accurately link different city levels and different consumption capabilities, so as to form a differentiated operation characteristic closely integrated with the local market.

Accordingly, under the driving force of the four parallel business models of Wanda Department store, the Taiwanese brand can go all the way and gradually enhance its popularity in the mainland. Wanda's department store will continue to expand the platform category and create a new "attracting passenger flow" through the cluster effect brought by the collective intrusion of Taiwanese businessmen.

　 Strong terminal controls power

If the 76 branches of Wanda Department Store in the end of 2013 can enable Taiwan businessmen to achieve the "channel occupation", the "reassurance" that many Taiwanese brands will like to cooperate with will be the strong terminal control capability of Wanda Department store.

First, in addition to creating a first-class shopping environment in China, Wanda Department also provides terminal management services such as fund security, on-site management and staff management for brand customers. Based on the fact that there were several cashiers in the brand stores who had collusion in the case of collusion of millions of business transactions, Wanda Department also provided terminal management and control programs for brand customers, built a unified cash register system, and strictly controlled the capital safety chain, so as to make the brand terminals fully protected in Wanda Department store.

Secondly, the chain store mode of Wanda Department also eliminates the tedious process of direct docking with relevant departments such as industry and commerce, fire protection, taxation and so on. Brands can start business only by stocking up and preparing the campers, and brands can focus more on the management level.

Third, "total to the total" docking, significant savings. Wanda Department store has a large scale in China, but in the communication links such as investment promotion and marketing, brand headquarters is directly butted with Wanda headquarters, so that the instructions can be fully conveyed to all stores, forming a concerted effort, and at the same time, it greatly saves the manpower and material costs of both sides.

With China's transformation from "world factory" to "world market", Taiwan businessmen's brand name "landing" is just the tip of the iceberg for foreign brands to open up the Chinese market. The complexity and diversity that the Chinese market itself is unable to avoid also makes many foreign brands stop. Wanda Department is gradually becoming more and more gold partners in China with its understanding of the Chinese market and Chinese consumers.