What Inspiration Does Japan'S Retail O2O Have To China?

The development time of all channels and O2O in Japanese retail industry is even shorter. It only started in 2011, and is in line with the development of e-commerce, as well as the progress of communication technology in Japan and the rapid popularization of smart phones.

1. overview of the development of Japanese retail industry

From the official statistics, Japan's online retailing industry began in 2000.

At that time, Japan's Internet penetration rate was only 30%, but by 2013, this figure had increased by 83%, and the growth rate was faster.

At the beginning of the development of the electricity supplier, the electricity supplier only served as a supplementary means to enhance the performance of the Japanese entity store, and the online store and the entity store were independently operated.

In 2004, Procter & Gamble proposed the concept of "FMOT": English: Frist Moment of Truth, meaning that when consumers first saw the goods on the shelf, it was only 3~7 seconds before deciding whether to buy it. But at that time, Japanese shops and entities had not yet integrated, nor did they have the concept of O2O.

Therefore, customers can only browse the goods of online stores or physical stores.

By 2006, the concept of O2O began to sprout in Japan.

Since the beginning of this year, Japanese entity retailers have started the unified operation of online stores and physical stores, so as to achieve the unification of internal commodity management.

But at that time, customer management and supply chain had not yet realized online and offline integration.

Thus, although entity retailers own online and offline businesses, they still operate separately.

It should be noted that in 2006, Japanese retail managers already had the rudiments of the O2O concept, and began to carry out related research and development work.

In 2008, iPhone phones began to be sold in Japan, and intelligent devices soon spread among Japanese consumers, which stimulated the rapid maturation and development of information pmission technology.

But after iPhone entered Japan, Japan's local information technology was shocked and finally eliminated.

In September 15, 2008, the global financial crisis broke out in the United States, and Japan's economy and retail industry were seriously affected.

In 2010, TrialPay CEO Alex Rampell of the United States proposed the concept of "O2O", but at that time the idea was to induce customers to visit websites to purchase goods, that is, from online to offline.

In 2011, the US Retail Consortium (NRF) began to put forward the concept of "full channel", which is mainly for mobile retailing.

In the same year, Google Corporation put forward the "ZMOT" (English: Zero Moment of Truth), that is, zero contact marketing, meaning that consumers have to sell to consumers through the Internet before they have "not touched" to the merchandise, so that consumers can take the initiative to receive positive information and affect their consumption intention.

At this time, Japanese retailers began to consider the implementation of full channel, O2O, and consider the integration of online and offline business and management.

However, in 2011, a major earthquake and nuclear leakage in Japan caused Japan's supply chain to suffer a serious impact, which also caused a great impact on the Japanese retail industry.

As a result of economic stagnation, by 2012, Japanese IT manufacturers and retailers began to pay more attention to marketing.

The 2011~2012 year is the R & D year of all channel retail technology in Japan. By 2013, some products began to be listed, that is, 2 years from product development to research and development.

In 2012, the popularity rate of smartphone in Japan reached 50%, and Japanese retail enterprises began to carry out the marketing work of all channels.

On the whole, although Japan's O2O and total channel development is about 2 years later than the US, it began to explode in February 2013. This is the result of the co operation between retailers and IT enterprises.

2. characteristics of Japanese consumers

Because the territory of Japan is small and the geographical distance is not large, the market in Japan is very different, and the purchasing behavior of Japanese consumers is also very different.

According to the survey data, only 20% of customers in Japan are willing to simply shop online, while up to 72% of customers still have online shopping, but they still need to go to the physical store to confirm their products. Online and offline multi-channel shoppers purchase 2 times more than single channel customers.

In addition, the proportion of customers who order online and hope to pick up goods in physical stores is as high as 70%.

In addition, the survey also shows that Japanese consumers' O2O buying pattern is obvious.

About 75% of the customers even go to the physical store to find the products they like, and they will go online to confirm (offline offline). 72% of customers even go to the store to confirm or detect (online offline) even if they find their favorite products online.

From these data, we can see that Japanese consumers still have high expectations for physical stores.

At the same time, because the territory of Japan is small, the distance between cities is much smaller than that of China and the United States, and the convenience of consumers is better.

Therefore, the entity store occupies an important position in Japanese retail industry.

Because of this, in Japan, only 20% of the enterprises engaged in online retailing, while 60% of the retailers engaged in online and offline businesses.

3. full channel case of Japanese retail enterprises

Although Japanese retail enterprises have not been developing the whole channel for a long time, some advanced enterprises have sprung up, and their O2O models are also different.

(1) Shiseido mode: Cross Industry Alliance

In Japan, Shiseido has a large number of physical stores, of which more than 90% are direct stores.

In 2012, they began to make O2O.

The main highlights of its mode are both online sales and online sales of different industries (i.e. cooperation among different industries). This advantage is able to guide each other, because attracting a passenger flow from a single website is not easy.

In addition, Shiseido also has beauty consultancy, home beauty inspection services, direct online stores and physical store navigation, so as to interact with customers and ultimately achieve O2O.

(2) AEON mode: resource sharing

As we all know, as a very famous Vc firm, Softbank has invested in many retail businesses and Internet Co, such as YAHOO, Yong Wang and so on. Sun Zhengyi has a very big influence in Japan.

Because of the capital link, O2O has adopted the mode of cooperation with YAHOO.

Customers can download coupons on YAHOO's website and then scan them at the entrance of the store, then they can be used in the store.

The highlight of this "Yong Wang + Softbank + YAHOO" mode is that retailers can collect customer data in this way and drain to stores through YAHOO, thereby enabling YAHOO and AEON to share customer resources.

(3) NTT mode: Technology forerunner

NTT is the largest telecom operator in Japan. It uses GPS technology to combine customer inducement and registration of goods.

When a customer looks at a particular item after entering the door, he can scan the product with his mobile phone, and then he gets the merchandise score.

Even if the customer did not buy this time, the next time he patronized it, it could be used.

If the customer does not return second times, the retailer can also use the data left in the first scan to analyze why the customer does not come back, that is, to analyze his purchase behavior.

This pattern and

There are different ways of thinking.

The focus of the NTT model is that only when customers really get the goods, can they give points. And the mode of Yong Wang is that after customers enter the store, they have no direct connection with the merchandise and they have already given preferential treatment.

(4) east emergency

Mode: inventory unification

The O2O of Dong Jin Department Store is cut from commodity information sharing.

In 2012, east emergency department began to do inventory data.

Now, their online store goods and inventory information have been opened, virtual inventory, unified management, and visualization, every 1.5 hours inventory information updated once, realized the same format of inventory data to get through.

(5) JR Japan Tokyo station mode: store navigation

There are more than 200 shopping malls in Tokyo railway station in Japan.

How do we find customers and pull them into the store?

JR mode is: when customers are outdoors, use GPS to find them, and then push coupons to them. When customers come indoors, they use AR to do navigation (in fact, AR has location function) to find the shops they want to go.

At present, this model is still in trial.

(6) UNIQLO mode: social shopping

In May 2012, UNIQLO's social networking site was set up.

It uses the evaluation of the "leading user", that is, the customer who first purchases or uses the goods, to guide and inspire other customers to follow the purchase.

When other customers see the evaluation, if the evaluation is good, they are willing to buy it.

At the same time, manufacturers also understand the customers' ideas through this way, so as to develop targeted new products.

Their social networking sites are also built on mobile phones and PC terminals, and are independent social networking sites, rather than opening a column on the company's official website, which can directly and quickly collect customer suggestions.

(7) Ito, Yang Hua Tang, Yong Wang, Xi you: online supermarket.

As mentioned before, 70% of the customers in Japan like the stores themselves.

As a result, customers can pick up stores in Ito's Yang Hua Tang, Yong Wang, Xi you and the top retail outlets.

Within these enterprises, the unified management of stores and the Internet has been done, but in terms of specific details, each enterprise has different practices.

The inventory of Ito's Yang Hua Tang, Yong Wang and Xi You's stores and distribution centers is unified. The fresh goods are directly distributed by the stores, while the normal temperature goods are delivered from the logistics center, but the practice of the vertex is different.

Because the stores at the vertex are smaller and there is not enough room for customers to take care of goods, store inventory and online inventory are separately managed.

That is to say, the vertex has not yet realized O2O.

From the development and practice of Japanese retail enterprises, we can get this inspiration:

(1) the decision maker of the business district is no longer a retailer, but a customer.

In the past, business circle was set up by retailers themselves, looking at customers from the perspective of retailers; but now, business circle is determined by consumers according to their location, and is a moving business circle.

Therefore, retail stores can be seen by customers.

If there is no retail outlet in the consumer's "business circle", then the retail store will be eliminated.

That's why 60% of Japanese retailers want to do O2O.