Department Stores And Large Supermarkets Are Declining.

According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2014, the main retail enterprises closed more than 158 stores in China, the highest in history.

Among them, there are 12 department stores and 146 large supermarkets.

Some experts say that this figure can not reflect the real seriousness of the closure of large shops in China, nor can it be explained that department stores are in a better position than large supermarkets. In fact, the difficulties of department stores are larger than those of large supermarkets.

According to the survey by CBRE, the largest commercial real estate service company in the world, in the first half of 2014, the market for closed business in China was 32% higher than that in the same period of last year.

In the second half of 2014, the major retail outlets dominated by department stores and large supermarkets continued.

In 7~10 months, the main retail entities in the above statistics also closed more than 21 stores, together with 158 in the first half of the year. In 2014, they closed more than 179 large stores in 1~10, which is 5 times the number of 35 stores closed in 2013.

According to the statistics of China Chain Store Association, the growth rate of stores with the largest number of chain stores in 2013 was only 7.6%, the lowest growth rate in 15 years, while in 2014 it was expected to be only around 5%.

Insiders pointed out that the number of new shops in many enterprises is not as good as the number of closed stores due to the large number of shops closing down. The annual growth rate of large shops may be even lower than the above figures.

The investigation by China Chain Store Association also found that large stores such as department stores and large supermarkets were increasingly reduced to "commodity exhibition halls", "fitting rooms" or "electric business warehouses".

Experts in the industry say that stores will disappear in the next 5 years.

This view even has a bosom friend in the US media: "the new generation of consumers think that department stores are an outdated way of thinking."

However, most experts believe that online shopping can not completely replace department stores and large chain supermarkets. Although the impact of online shopping is a reality, the intergenerational turnover of retail formats is often gradual and slow development. In addition, large entity stores also have their own advantages which are hard to replace. As long as innovation and pformation are in place, there will still be important seats in the world's retail forest.

The actual situation seems to be corroborate the above view.

Since 2013, traditional department stores and large supermarkets face the diversion of sales channels, such as electricity suppliers, and are taking pformation and integration as means of innovation.

According to experts' comb, the pformation and innovation of traditional department stores and large supermarkets mainly start from three levels: consumers, stores and supply chains: at the consumer level, using Internet thinking and O2O online and offline to connect consumers with more rights and greater convenience, use big data to understand and predict the specific needs of consumers, promote sales and develop personalized services with precision marketing; at the store level, strengthen various consumer experiences, re create and optimize membership management systems; at the supply chain level, focus on the use of Internet and big data to strengthen flow connection, reduce overall cost, and improve logistics efficiency and system competitiveness.

It is worth noting that the pformation of department stores and large supermarkets in 2014 has generally chosen the "Remodeling of the core competence of the store" to enhance the ability of commodity self-management, improve the shopping environment and business integrity, increase the functions of various kinds of life services, and form complementary interaction effects with commodity retailing.

Looking at the world, online shopping in developed countries also has a certain impact on physical stores.

For example, in the past 100 years, the largest number of retailers in the United States in the past 3 years, the number of shops has increased from less than 12% to less than 3%, but the top retailers in large retail stores still maintain a successful development trend.

For example, more than 90% of Messi's department stores are self-employed, more than 90% are self owned brand of the "Al Di discount shop", "good city" multi member stores with high-quality products at the lowest price, Herber, a retail salesman with differentiated brands, and American consumers' favorite retailer, such as Mr. vemman, etc., all of which are aimed at the needs of consumers and strive to achieve the ultimate goal of all aspects of commodity management and management so as to "stick" consumers.

Nord, the fifth place in the US Department store chain, was named "the most popular fashion retailer in North America" by Fortune magazine in 2014. The secret of its success lies mainly in its continuous provision of additional services, paying attention to and improving user experience at all times. Although about 8% of the returns in the United States are fraudulent, Nord still unswervingly allows customers to return unconditionally.

Over the past two years, compared with the decline of department stores and large supermarkets, shopping centers and community stores and convenience stores are flourishing. The investment volume and supply scale of the former are all blowout in China; the latter is the development of community shops and convenience stores; the main reason is that community business is increasingly valued and supported; the O2O mode of online shopping is rising rapidly; the 80 and the 90s become the main consumers; in order to reduce the cost of logistics "last mile" and facilitate the online shoppers in time, it is necessary to increase the most close to the consumer shops as a "self raising point".

According to the data of China chain operation association, the sales volume of department stores and large supermarkets increased by 9.6% and 8.7% respectively in the top 100 chain stores in 2013, while the sales growth rate of the main enterprises represented by convenience stores was 18.2%.

Experts generally feel that in addition to the comprehensive shopping centers such as shopping centres, the development of "slow, small and fast" stores in 2014 will become more obvious and will continue in the next few years.

In 2014, many of the main formats were

The retail enterprises of large supermarkets have pformed into shopping centers, and take this as a breakthrough point in the innovation of business models.

In September 2014, WAL-MART started to build its first shopping center in Zhuhai by investing in 600 million yuan, with a total construction area of about 100 thousand square meters. In the same month, BBK group held a global investment promotion conference to start a new Changsha Tianxi shopping mall with a total investment of 5 billion yuan and 700 thousand square meters.

According to the plan, BBK's "Xintiandi" shopping center series will be built in 13 ~2016 in 2015, with a total construction area of 6 million 170 thousand square meters, which is distributed in the 234 cities of central and southwest Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan.

In addition, Gao Xin's Plaza Shopping Center has been upgraded to some other places in the region, while the IKEA shopping mall, the dream shopping mall, the star shopping mall and the Yurun Group, which are the main products of the, have proposed the development of billions or hundreds of projects.

For department stores and large supermarkets keen on pforming shopping centers, experts say, on the one hand, this is because large retail stores have enough cash flow but business in recent years.

And labor costs rise, resulting in a small profit, we have to seek pformation, get rid of the passive situation; on the other hand, the shopping center has gathered supermarkets, department stores, electrical appliances city, clothing, catering, entertainment and leisure, etc. this "big box" is more popular with consumers than traditional large stores, and has the ability to gather guests, and it can better adapt to the new expectations of consumers for modern life.

In addition, many shopping centers' moves to department stores since last year may also be a reason for large retail businesses to build their own shopping centers.

Experts predict that in 2015, shopping centers will still be a hot spot for large retailers to invest. Meanwhile, they warn that there are three big worries in large shopping centers in China, such as the total volume of cities, the scale of construction in the country is too large, and the "homogenization" competition is excessive.

CB Richard Ellis pointed out that China accounted for 9 of the 10 largest cities in the world in 2013.

According to the British real estate brokers, there are more than 800 multi-functional comprehensive commercial real estate projects in China, with a total area of 300 million square meters, which is equivalent to the size of the more than 1000 mall of the United States, the largest mall in the United States.

At present, the number of shopping centers in China has occupied nearly half of the world's stock and construction. Investment difficulties and a large number of vacancies in business establishments have emerged. Future problems may develop very seriously.

Reviewing China last year

The ten hotspots are looking forward to the review report, and experts are optimistic about the development trend of community stores and convenience stores. In 2014, the typical survey of the Ministry of Commerce seems to support this judgement: the convenience store sales in the first half of the year increased by 13% compared with the same period last year, and the sales of supermarkets mainly located in the community grew by 11.9% over the same period last year, ranking the first and second in the six main retail entities surveyed.

In the latest shopper trend survey released in 2014, Nelson pointed out: compared with other retail channels, the number of Chinese convenience stores' annual stores increased by 17%.

This proportion is higher in three line cities (21%) and four tier cities (26%).

In addition, the development of domestic community shops and convenience stores also revealed a new hot spot: convenience stores rely on the geographical advantages such as dense network and close to the community. They are increasingly becoming the effective carrier of O2O mode and community logistics service. Online internet giants, offline retail giants, even logistics express giants, and all kinds of road investment are all starting to rush to "grab" convenience store resources.

Alibaba, Jingdong, Amazon, No. 1 store, Da Yun FA, BBK, Shun Feng, etc. have launched various forms of cooperation with convenience stores. The importance of smart city construction to the community business module also makes the convenience store's status increasingly enhanced.