British Marsha General Store Shanghai Area Contracted To China For 7 Years

In March 2nd, Marsha general store announced its closure. Shanghai The 5 stores coincided with Prince William's visit to China. Like the chilly spring cold weather, 7 years after entering China, the old British department store giant is plunged into an unprecedented cold spell.

In the afternoon of March 4th, reporters visited the Marsha flagship store in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai. The four floor 3800 square meter shop is located in Jingan District gold (1168.20, -28.00, -2.34%) lots, and is sandwiched between H&M and GAP two giants. Although it is time for work, the popularity is quite strong. Seemingly unaffected by the negative news, there is still a strong festive atmosphere in the dazzling shops, but a poster of "more discount products coming in" is posted at the door.

Greater Shanghai contraction

According to Martha's Greater China investment strategy, which is provided by public relations companies, "as announced in April 2014, to ensure that the structure of the store is in line with the company's strategic development plan, Marsha decided to close the 5 branches in the greater Shanghai area by the end of August 2015 and evaluate the resource structure of the Shanghai headquarters."

How will the resources be reassessed? When the reporter enters the two floor of flagship store Women's wear About half of the winter ladies wear "SALE" logo. At lunchtime, many mature women were thrilled to try and put on a long queue at the door of the fitting room.

A senior retailer in Shanghai commented that "the shop was actually a year ago, and when it came out, Martha made some changes in China. For example, the clothing was introduced in size 6, but it was still not acclimatized. Underwear household dress Counter shrinkage is very severe, younger clothing is also a lot less; food for ordinary consumers is too expensive, the sales mode is constant, and the discount will not be discounted at the end of the sale, so it can only be scrapped if it is critical.

Martha insiders told reporters, "last year is a strategic adjustment, and did not mention 5 shops, and this shop is not all in Shanghai, but the greater Shanghai area." The 5 branches were shut down except Jiangqiao store. They were not in Shanghai.

Even in the United Kingdom, the performance of this Centennial aristocracy is hardly optimistic. In the third quarter of 2014, sales of women's clothing decreased by 5.4% compared with that of year-on-year sales, while sales in the UK dropped by 1.1%, while international sales decreased by 5.8% in the 2.8% main business sectors.

When reporters asked for sales figures in the Greater China region, Martha insiders said: "the UK only discloses the consolidated figures and does not have separate financial reports in China." According to the UK's headquarters reply, according to the first half year's 2014/15 report, our overall sales in Asia increased by 6.3% at fixed exchange rates.

According to DDT's recent "2014 China shopping center and chain brand cooperation development report", with the growth of macro-economy and per capita disposable income, the growth rate of retail industry continued to decline. In 2013, the total retail sales of social consumer goods amounted to 23 trillion and 800 billion yuan, an increase of 13.1% in nominal terms, a decrease in the four consecutive year and an increase of 12.1% in the first half of 2014.

Long Yongxiong, DDT's China consumer industry partner, pointed out that "under the tight macroeconomic environment, the traditional retail business is facing multiple pressures. Data show that in 2013, about 38% of the sales of e-commerce channels were transferred from physical channels."

　 Localization of a century old shop

According to ret Rui Yide, China commercial real estate research center, only in 2014, large chain store samples closed 26 stores all year round. Among them, Zhong Du department store and Ito Yang Hua Tang each closed 3. In fact, more than department stores are frustrated. In the most prosperous Nanjing West Road, several old franchised stores such as ancient and modern, passers-by have been closed.

In the striking position of the two floor of the Marsha flagship store, a large posters of Marsha Tmall [micro-blog] shop are posted. Will the electricity supplier become the fixed sea god needle to save this century old brand?

Founded in 1884, it was originally a small stall selling a penny commodity by Michael Marks (Michael Marks) in Liz, England. After Tom Spencer joined (Tom Spencer), the famous Marks & Spencer company was born.

According to the industry, if the sales per square foot is calculated, the British Marsha's department stores in London have more profits than any retail store in the world.

As of March 2014, the group's total revenue was more than 10 billion 300 million pounds, of which 798 shops in the UK accounted for about 90% of the total sales, while 455 overseas outlets contributed less than 10% of the total revenue, with over 85 thousand employees worldwide.

Over the past hundred years, Martha has been through the wind and rain. In 1998, he became the first British retailer with a surplus of more than 1 billion before tax. After several years, he fell to a low level and rebounded again from 2007. In October 2, 2008, Marsha first entered China and opened the flagship store of Shanghai Nanjing West Road 863. Since then, the Yu Garden store and zhongshengdian and Jinzhong plaza have been opened, and have continued to this day.

Despite the fact that last year, Stephen Rayfield, managing director of Martha Greater China, affirmed Marsha's excellent performance in Admiralty square and flagship store in Nanjing West Road. He also revealed that he was reassessing the existing store structure and could adjust some of the two tier shops in the second tier cities.

Why did Martha not continue the local myth in the Chinese market? Apart from the factors of the depressed traditional retail environment, what else does Martha need to reflect? Martha, who is positioned in the high-end market, is slightly dissatisfied with the localization of China. In 2009, China's regional executive, Shi Rui De, left the mainland. The business in mainland China was managed by the Hongkong office until the second half of 2011.

There are voices pointing out that Martha's management in China is British, and the products, pricing, publicity and sales models in the Chinese market almost copy the British model. Martha's position in China is not clear, and management and supply chain aging are all problems that need improvement at present.