Messi Quit, Auchan Changed His Mind, And Foreign Retail Sales Were Coming.

Six months ago, the official website of Messi general store announced that it would stop operation in June 9, 2018.

Recently, the US retail giant Messi general store also announced a notice of withdrawal. Tmall international Macys official overseas flagship store stopped taking orders from December 3, 2018.

The two announcements before and after that meant that Messi's department store would bid farewell to the Chinese market forever.

A wave is not yet smooth.

In late December 12th last year, Auchan China issued a statement in its official micro-blog, saying that "Auchan's withdrawal from China is a rumor. Auchan will not only withdraw from the Chinese market, but will continue to explore new retail integration and exploration".

According to "Lian Shang net", "after the serious research and discussion of Auchan's board, the company finally decided to hand over the retail business of China to the full hosting of the big brother of the brothers company."

As early as the beginning of the year, Carrefour China was accepted by Tencent and Yonghui.

This year, the giant WAL-MART also closed more than a dozen stores.

What's wrong with foreign retailers? Is it true that foreign retail sales in China are already in the air?

Messi stores farewell to China

As a super retailer spanning three centuries, Messi's department store has rich experience, but the famous overseas brand has come to China to catch up with the trend of the electricity supplier, but now it will lose its fortune.

On the one hand, Messi's department stores failed to achieve "localization in China" and failed to meet the expectations of consumers.

This is from the traditional electricity supplier mode of Messi department store.

The earliest layout of Messi's department store in China is traced back to 2012.

In the same year, the old foreign capital department invested $15 million in the electronic business platform, but soon after its stake, Jiapin net broke into news of bankruptcy and layoffs.

Therefore, with the decline of partners, the pace of Messi's entry into China has also been suspended.

Then, in 2015, Macy's s China Limited was established in 2015 with Hongkong Feng's retail group, and Messi's department store was able to smoothly enter the Chinese market.

It is worth noting that the competitive advantage of Messi's department gradually weakened.

Many media have reported that the sale of Messi's products in China's official website is different from those sold in the United States.

For example, compared with its products sold in the United States, Messi's clothing style in China is not new enough, its choice is less and its update speed is not timely. That is to say, Messi's department store has not really brought the product to China.

This is not pleasing to consumers who are constantly upgrading their consumption needs. In other words, it may be because Messi department stores have no insight into the needs of consumers and have pushed them out.

Now that it has arrived in China, it has failed to do as the Romans do. The first round of Messi's department stores failed to change according to the needs of Chinese consumers.

On the other hand, it is not clear about consumers' consumption channels, and brand awareness has not been fully opened.

With the gradual maturity of domestic electricity supplier and cross-border electricity supplier, Ali and Jingdong are playing a dual role. In addition, there are many social e-commerce providers, Xiao Hong book, cross border e-commerce NetEase, koala, vip.com and so on, and there are four competing businesses.

There are more choices for consumers.

The second failure of Messi's department is to ignore the ability of Chinese consumers to search online and not to understand the consumer's consumption channels.

For example, foreign consumers will shop at department store's online brand stores when choosing products, but in China is another case. The first shopping platform that consumers think of online shopping is Tmall, Jingdong and other integrated e-commerce platforms, or recommended by social networking providers.

Although Messi department store reached an agreement with Ali in 2015 and settled in the Tmall international platform, its popularity in China is relatively small, so its popularity in China has not been fully opened. Therefore, most of the local consumers in China do not know the existence of this brand, so the consumption power of Chinese consumers in Messi general store is not high.

However, this may also have a great relationship with the operation of the US headquarters.

As the headquarters of Messi's department store, the United States has seen a continuous decline in turnover in recent years. In 2016, it closed more than 100 stores in the United States and laid off a lot of jobs.

Without the support of us profits, Messi's department store is also getting harder and harder in China.

In order to attract the attention of Chinese consumers, Messi department store has invested a lot of advertising and marketing expenses in major e-commerce promotion festivals. But from its overall business situation, advertising investment has become a burden problem.

So since December 3rd, there is no Messi department store in China's electricity supplier market.

Auchan's business in China

Let's look at the recent news of "Auburn".

The Auchan Co was established in 1961 and officially entered China in 1991. In 2000, Auchan combined with big RFA, set up a holding company in Hongkong - Gao Xin retail and 2011 Gao Xin retail listing.

As one of the first foreign retail giants to enter the Chinese market, the performance of Auchan in China has been exhausted and the pace of development has slowed down.

There are two reasons for this time that the business of Auchan in China has been taken over by the company.

First, new and old rivals emerge one after another.

As a businessman, the traditional competitor of Auchan is a veteran competitor, including Carrefour and Yonghui.

In addition, in recent years, the new retail business has been booming.

Moreover, Ali, Jingdong, Suning and other online giants have also entered the Bureau.

Whether it's traditional supermarket retailing or new retail business, it means that the market cake that Auchan can divide is less and less.

According to the first half of 2018, Gao Xin's retail revenue was 54 billion 600 million yuan, a decrease of 0.33% compared with the same period last year, and its net profit was 1 billion 758 million yuan, an increase of 0.06% over the same period last year. Compared with the first half of 2017, the growth rate of 3.13% and 22.70% of net profit growth slowed sharply.

According to this data, relevant media reported that Gao Xin retail attributed it to the adverse effects of fierce competition in the first half of 2018 and diversified shopping methods on traditional hypermarkets.

Second, Auchan's own characteristics are not obvious.

The image of Auchan has always been in the form of hypermarkets, supermarkets and communities.

Despite the introduction of an unmanned container container last year, its offerings are limited, and compared with rival Hyundai supermarket's super species and Ali's fresh horse, Auchan looks pale in its marketing structure.

And Auchan is not all shop location is gathered in the crowd, it is understood that Auchan in Beijing gold four seasons Shopping Center store is relatively remote, the sale of goods are also more inclined to department stores, brand name is not very high.

In this way, compared with the general Shang Chao, Auchan does not have its own characteristics, and the location of the shops is not precise enough to reduce the number of people who choose to go to Auchan.

Although Auchan has entered China in 90s, it has been far slower than the sales volume of the company.

Statistics show that in the first half of 2018, the new store opened 11 stores, while Auchan did not open a new store. As of the first half of 2018, it had 395 stores nationwide, while Auchan had only 77 outlets in the country.

Store expansion is one of the most important channels for expanding business reputation, while the number of stores in less than one hundred outlets has reduced its own power to a certain extent.

Contrast also shows the relatively strong operational capability of the company.

So, by leveraging the advantages of Da Yun FA to complement the resources, Auchan, as the largest shareholder, may also gain more benefits.

Whether it is Messi's withdrawal from China or Auchan's management in China, it shows that the situation of foreign retail in China is becoming more and more difficult.

However, the other side of the dilemma is opportunity.

Foreign retailers should seize the opportunity and face challenges well, so that they can not turn over.

Foreign capital retail tells a good story: seize the opportunity, bravely cut the spine.

Amazon China's electricity business market share is less than 1%; the British Martha store, the British electricity supplier ASOS and other foreign enterprises are also frustrated in the Chinese market.

Foreign retail sales in China are becoming more and more difficult.

But Nirvana will be reborn and cocoon can become a butterfly. Holding foreign opportunities and meeting challenges is something that foreign retailers will have to face in the future.

Opportunities: diversify consumer needs and do user positioning with big data in Rome as the Romans do.

From this year's Tmall double eleven 213 billion 500 million sales volume, we can feel the strong consumption power of Chinese consumers, and the phenomenon of almost all products from Tmall, Jingdong and other platforms also reflects the diversification of consumer demand.

Therefore, the demand in the retail market is still very strong, and the potential of consumers should not be underestimated.

Today, Alibaba and Jingdong, which do well in the electricity supplier and new retail sector, are able to win the favor of many consumers. Part of the reason is that they have used the big data to accurately grasp the consumption needs of users. What is more obvious is the "recommendation" mechanism based on data integration, so as to guide consumers' consumption.

Looking back again, it is easy to see from the case of Messi's withdrawal from China that the biggest problem is that he has not done a good job in user positioning, he does not know the preferences of consumers, and can not understand the trajectory of consumers' consumption.

Therefore, in the context of the evolution of Internet technology, foreign retailers still in China should integrate big data, understand the needs of consumers through big data, and solve problems from the root.

From the point of view of capital, since the cost can already be opened to multinational stores, it is not a difficult problem for foreign retail enterprises to extract part of the funds to support technology development.

Because only when ROC do as the Romans do, and have the same market competition tools as domestic enterprises, can they make fewer detours and compete with Chinese local retailers on the same track.

Challenge: the domestic electricity supplier and the new retail pattern are clear. Foreign retailers are not easy to pry the Chinese market.

In recent years, a large number of new retail projects have emerged in the market. There are "super retail" and "super food" super species, box and horse fresh products; the NetEase of the boutique class is strictly selected and Taobao's heart is chosen; social classes are numerous and little red books; besides, there are giants supporting foreign enterprises, such as Carrefour's Tencent support, WAL-MART's Jingdong support, and Gao Xin's retail support.

Despite the support of the Internet and e-commerce giants, it also means that the new retail war dominated by giants is just beginning.

Besides, under the stock market, apart from the continuous extrusion of domestic brands, other foreign enterprises have racked their brains and want to have their own world in the Chinese retail industry.

The more competitors enter, the less market share they can get.

Take Ou Shang Lai to analyze, we might as well assume that if Europe is still not independent of the management of Da Rand, then even though the two belong to Gao Xin retail, there is also a competitive relationship.

Second, it is undoubtedly a competitor, that is, Auchan must grab market share with many competitors.

The latter must be more adventurous.

That is to say, in today's market structure of China, it is obvious that if only one side of one's own power is to challenge every competitor, it is obvious that the team of foreign retailers has become a problem that needs to be considered.

Generally speaking, walking, selling, and selling foreign retailers are really not very good, but fortunately, they still have the last straw -- Ali Tencent Jingdong.