In 2019, The Retail Industry Conjectures: Please Bear In Mind These 5 Points Of Reflection.

Blindly imitate the appearance, the result of this vicious cycle is enough to disappoint many investors and consumers.

From now on, not only does it imitate appearance, it is more important to study the core of learning and then innovate.

1, in-depth cross-border / integration Break boundary

The integration of formats, the integration of industries, and the integration of retail stages.

At present, the purchasing behavior of consumers has gradually changed from the purchase of goods to the form of satisfying their needs and improving their lives. The retail industry is no longer a single purchase mode, but it should become a new retail concept that integrates life style.

Therefore, retail is no longer a concept of selling an industry or a single product. It should combine the advantages of formats and the variety of industries to form an organic way of life. Sales are also part of this way of life.

And offline and online distinction does not exist. Offline formats can use online platforms to promote and increase sales. Online formats will also increase OMNI CHANNEL by offline.

Therefore, we must study the characteristics of online and offline formats and the lifestyle of consumers.

From many cases in 2018, it is still in line with traditional mode of thinking that leads to failure or difficult business.

Consumers do not understand or want to know about retail formats. They just want to buy the goods they want and enjoy the freedom and convenience of easy shopping (including catering and entertainment).

Therefore, retail formats and businesses will gradually be integrated into a channel based on consumer behavior. The entertainment and experience advantages of shopping center formats are integrated with the convenience and diversity of commodity purchase in department stores.

Daily necessities and food purchases are combined with the convenience of supermarkets to solve diet and experience, culture and exchange formats.

Consumers can combine various formats and businesses to enjoy the fun of life through the purchase of commodities, and the stages of retail (production, logistics, platforms, information, data, etc.) will gradually deepen.

In order to provide the lifestyle that consumers want, integrate the relevant formats and businesses, and look forward to the true meaning of the new format.

2. Personal stories Make my own story

We must be a storytelling shop with personal characteristics and participation.

First of all, we should start with the concept of "ready stores to attract customers" and establish a store with a sense of consumer participation.

In any way, communication can arouse consumers' sympathy and involve them, thus stimulating consumers' perceptual thinking and satisfying their rational needs.

Therefore, what is more important is intuitive perception than rationality, which is more important than understanding and emphasizing the sentimental and thematic characteristics of the story.

In particular, like the traditional mode, the lack of understanding of consumers can not stimulate their emotional needs, and do not have the overall story.

In a specific space, only the special nature of the environment will make customers feel more disappointed.

In addition, many experts are talking about the consumer's sense of experience, but only consider eating, drinking and playing, but they lose the core sense of experience.

For consumers who want to shop, shopping behavior is a very important experience in itself. This is not to be forgotten.

And because of the differentiation of consumers, the experience of each consumer group is different. Even the same consumers experience different feelings under different scenarios.

Therefore, we must cultivate the ability to lead the needs of target customers and any specific group of customers to their emotional control.

Many experts are saying that consumers are starting to buy rational purchases and are looking for ways to deal with them.

However, consumers tend to rationalize buying reasons and tend to choose business facilities or brands that are easy to explain to others. At this time, business needs to provide more than just rational factors such as price and quality.

Instead, consumers feel that this is a business tailored for themselves, satisfying individual subjective feelings. The theme or idea and interest that business wants to talk will become more important.

To this end, we should conduct a comprehensive study of the marketing, service, customer analysis and sales environment of commodities (or brands).

3. Pursuit of precise cell Find healthy cells

Consumers are increasingly subdivided and their demand is too wide, so the way of approaching consumers through traditional commerce or goods has become the past.

It can be said that it is impossible to create a business satisfying all the different levels of consumer demand, whether it is a physical store or an online format, and the age of income and classification of different family levels or age groups has passed, so specific target objects must be selected.

For example, a group of retired people over the age of 60 who have experienced many cultural baptism, rich economy and high consumption of life in the young age (the Japanese government official hill T-SITE/ bookstore), and the economically motivated children's young families (such as T-SITE/ housing bookstore in southern Hunan) should be targeted at the business of the target customers.

If we establish a store satisfying this particular consumer, the consumers of the group will attract consumers of other levels like the cell division and integrate into the unexpected consumer groups, thus forming a multi-layered consumer group.

Before 2018, a customer centered business direction has emerged. Most companies or experts are emphasizing this point, but careful observation reveals that there is not much research on these customers (consumers).

After studying, I found that there are few other research reports on consumer observation besides big data.

Of course, the past behavior and trend of big data analysis is also very important, but this can only be aimed at the behavior that has happened, or political and economic, according to the social situation, changing the shopping behavior of consumers or related to emergencies, and studying different characteristics of consumer groups.

In the absence of any consumer research results, the slogan "consumer centered" with slogans is no longer feasible.

Through thorough investigation and observation, we should have a deep understanding of target customers, clearly understand their needs, and provide customized services for them.

4, corresponding variability Responded To Variation

Because consumers are looking for a different experience, new food, Xinle interest and other consumer behavior changes in the near place (convenience), to experience the change of life style of the main consumption time, and more and more dissimilar formats.

The competition between the same formats and the development of online formats have led to a great sense of crisis in the offline industry. At the same time, they are accustomed to the new generation of virtual space such as the Internet. They are more and more interested in the actual space of moving the five sense.

Therefore, we need to develop a differentiated strategy based on experience.

Business should get rid of the existing mode of emphasizing only the new space environment, and subdivide it into sensory experience, perceptual experience, cognitive experience, physical experience, daily style experience and so on, so as to formulate strategies.

For the offline industry, from the two aspects of commodity and environment, we use big data and small data to prepare products with flexibility, while shopping centers need to excavate brands that can bring changes to commodities, and we must begin to prepare direct brands.

In particular, this will become an important starting point to show self differentiation and self creation story.

The small format (supermarkets, convenience stores, hypermarkets, etc.) under fierce competition should also be based on the differences in the products that the target customers want, so the importance of developing their own brands is essential. This is not a matter of selectivity, but something that must be done.

In the environment, we also need to face up to the existing problems. The space environment can enhance the customer's sense of experience and satisfy their curiosity, but there are limitations.

It is very difficult to grasp the smart and changeable customers with the hardware (space environment) that excludes the commodities. We must change the fashionable theme development plan that has nothing to do with the commodity.

Like today's space environment, throughout the shopping center cases in 2018 and before, it may cause a short notice at the beginning of the shop, but the maintenance time is not long, and the impact on the whole shopping center is not large.

The commercial space environment is the stage, and the stage changes according to the different performances.

From now on, we must create a space environment that can quickly and conveniently cope with customer changes. Therefore, we should strengthen the mobility software (VMD) part and improve the utilization rate of this part compared with the hardware part (interior decoration).

Compared to simple consumption patterns such as buying, eating, entertainment, etc., we should create a commercial space with unlimited changes and distinct themes and stories for consumers who like to explore time and space.

5, strengthen the nature of format Value of retail format

We must strengthen the nature of format.

All formats have their own uniqueness. They can't imitate others' appearance only because they are doing something. They must strengthen the basic form of business, and then explore the advantages of their own formats.

Through in-depth understanding of the characteristics of various formats, learn from each other's strengths, and increase on this basis.

Regardless of any format or type of business, retail is basically commodity and commodity planning, and the core is how to sell it to consumers.

But if there are problems with basic commodities, then the follow-up work will not have any meaning.

There are many types of shopping centers. At present, many forms in China are UEC (Urban Entertainment Center/ location in the city, purchase function added entertainment, leisure function).

Not only is the restaurant or entertainment related products, according to different positioning to develop the basic functions of purchase, at the same time increase entertainment and food experience.

However, the current situation is not overly dependent on restaurants, but rather giving up thematic stories, buying functions and entertainment and leisure functions, like the feeling of large food street.

Plan the merchandise (brand) that is in line with the location, find out the ability of its commodity (if there is no suitable brand, choose independent research and development) and have the layout to guide the customers (for example, first, reflect the layout of their lifestyle).

In 2018, though Eataly and other successful supermarkets and O4O based on big data and capital were mistaken for new retail boxes.

Many supermarkets and gourmet new supermarkets have opened up without realizing the super species of food and merchandise purchase connectivity, but the results of such development are mostly failures.

What is the reason? The answer is very simple.

Think about the competitiveness of commodities (food, retail) and what complementary relationship (rather than listing) should give customers the value.

It's not only the supermarkets that started in 2017, where the windy, unmanned shops are now located.

Forget the small waste of resources, many people do not own ownership but make use of the essence of the shared economy. They regard the economy as the leasing industry and the result of "sharing bicycles" which are eager to expand the scale.

Blindly imitate the appearance, the result of this vicious cycle is enough to disappoint many investors and consumers.

From now on, not only does it imitate appearance, it is more important to study the basic core of learning format, and then innovate on the basis of format.