The Global Trend Of Closing Stores Is Coming, And Self Built Online Malls Become Chicken Ribs?

UBS pointed out in the 2015 China Consumer Goods Industry Outlook released on January 13 that under the impact of e-commerce and high labor and rent costs, the pressure on retail industry practitioners has doubled. 85% of retailers said that their expansion this year was relatively small, and they may even close their stores. This proportion has increased from 72% last year, representing that retailers are pessimistic about their outlook for 2015.

Echoing this background, both at home and abroad are experiencing a tide of closing stores. According to the Statistics of Major Retail Enterprises Closing in 2014 released by Lianshang. com, as of December 31, 2014, 201 stores of major retail enterprises (department stores, supermarkets) in China had been closed, 35 stores were closed compared with 2013, an increase of 474.29% year on year, the highest in history. Specifically, a total of 23 department stores were closed, of which 4 were closed by Parkson, making it the most closed department store in 2014; A total of 178 supermarket stores were closed, of which 16 were closed by Wal Mart, making it the supermarket enterprise with the most closed stores in 2014.

Taking Beijing as an example, three stores of Huatang Shopping Mall in Beijing (Wangjing Store, Beiyuan Store and Xizhimen Store) have closed one after another; Parkson's Beijing East Fourth Ring Store also closed its doors on July 1, 2014.

The reporter of Securities Daily visited the Asian Games Village store, Sanlitun store and You'an store of Huatang Mall in Beijing and found that the overall store layout of Huatang Mall is very similar, generally only five floors. Specifically, the basement is a food supermarket; The first floor above the ground is engaged in cosmetics, jewelry, etc; The second floor is women's clothing; The third floor is for men's clothing, children's clothing, etc; The fourth floor is for bedding and snacks.

The reporter found that the clothing brands of Huatang Mall are generally at the middle and low end, and the area of catering, entertainment and parent-child is relatively small. Even on weekends, the flow of people is not high. The reporter also visited the Xizhimen store of Huatang Shopping Mall, which was still open at that time, in July last year. The store is located near the zoo and the aquarium, where there is a huge flow of people in Beijing. It is close to the Beijing North Railway Station, the Xizhimen Bus Station, and Metro Lines 2 and 4. It should have a large flow of people, but in fact, it is also not satisfactory. One important reason is that there is a large shopping center called Cade Mall not far from the Xizhimen store of Huatang Mall. It is reported that Huatang Xizhimen Store has never been profitable since its opening in 2005.

Du Yanhong, retail industry researcher of CIC Consulting, said in an interview with Securities Daily that the main reason why many department stores chose to close their stores was the impact of online. It is under the great impact of online that the flow of people in physical department stores has decreased and the performance has been under pressure, so it is necessary to adjust the stores to maximize the use of resources. "At present, the impact of e-commerce on offline has occurred in many countries. There is no doubt that e-commerce will continue to seize the market by virtue of convenience, low prices, rich categories, etc., and offline store closure will continue".

Taking Wangfujing, the leading enterprise of Northern Department Store, as an example, as early as the beginning of last year, Liu Bing, the chairman of Wangfujing, said at the annual shareholders' meeting that the company's development had fallen to the freezing point. Wangfujing's 2014 semi annual report shows that in the face of the development status of the department store industry, the company will fully promote strategic transformation related work. Not only transform shopping centers, but also Channel construction In terms of virtual shelves, virtual counters, code scanning, Wangfujing APP, WeChat, Wangfujing E-Shop And mobile malls are advancing. At the same time, Wangfujing also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tencent, and the two sides formed a strategic partnership to try to layout O2O (Online To Offline)。

The reporter opened the Wangfujing online mall and selected Baicaoji brand in the beauty column. There are only 13 kinds of products presented below. The customer service of Wangfujing online mall told the Securities Daily that it would cost 199 yuan to shop in the online mall for free of freight. The logistics options are Yuantong or Zhaiji delivery. It takes two days to confirm whether there is any goods from the customer placing the order to arranging the delivery, Then it takes two to three days to arrange the delivery. Although the online mall said that it has 15 days of return and replacement guarantee, similar cosmetics products cannot be returned or replaced from the time of signing for the goods.

In contrast, the variety of Baicaoji in Tmall flagship store is quite rich, and there are coupon giving activities when shopping for a certain amount of money. The same product is available in Price Shangtian Cat Store is relatively cheap. In addition, users can also choose more express companies and have the right to return and exchange goods unconditionally within seven days.

According to the 2014 semi annual report of Wangfujing, Beijing Wangshang E-Commerce Co., Ltd., the e-commerce platform of Wangfujing Department Store Group, lost 19.7 million yuan, and it is estimated that the annual loss will be about 40 million yuan.

The same thing also happened to the e-commerce platform Wushang. com (which is positioned as "online shopping for Wushang") under Hubei Wushang A. There is no doubt that the variety richness is far less than that of Tmall. com, and the region is limited to Hubei Province. According to the 2014 semi annual report of Hubei Wushang A2014, Wushang. com just started its trial operation in the first half of last year, and the company hopes to open a breakthrough in website sales.

Some insiders said that listed companies in the retail industry have made efforts to build online shopping malls, which is purely "thankless". "But it is impossible not to do so. Now physical retail enterprises have increased their online shopping mall business, but this area can not do as well as Tmall in terms of variety richness, visitor volume, logistics and distribution, and it will cost a lot of human and financial resources".