Will Salesmen Be The Third Pole Of New Retail Sales?

In addition to offline stores and online stores, "shopping guide" or "salesperson" will also be the protagonists in the new retail market.

On the 2 days, Microsoft announced that it would shut down 83 Microsoft Store retail stores for many times, and many people were surprised. Compared with many brands, Microsoft, which is too rich in money, is by no means the main body that can not afford the loss of the entity shop due to the epidemic.

Then why did Microsoft close the store or forever?

In my view, according to the development trend of Microsoft in recent years, focusing on the enterprise market, cloud computing, AI, and so on, the retail of personal consumption is not the future of Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft now has the confidence to provide sales and services through digital online. Customs stores are in line with Microsoft's own development strategy (therefore, other consumer brands do not need to learn from Microsoft). The epidemic is just a catalyst.

A lot of people may not pay attention to it. The official statement of Microsoft's closed shop specifically mentions that stores do not lay off workers, and the existing retail personnel will serve consumers online. It can be said that specialized manual shopping guide is indispensable.

In the past, offline stores were important traffic entries. Later, the emergence of e-commerce business, offline store superimposition online business has become the standard of all retail stores or brands.

But now it seems that in addition to online stores and offline stores, salesmen who provide sales services are becoming the third pole of new retail sales. With the support of digitalization and mobile Internet technology, "shopping guide" will become a leading role in the new retail market.

"Online store + online operation + Guide buyer's triangle structure" may be the standard configuration of a brand retail model in the future.

The signal has become more and more obvious. During the epidemic in 2020, many offline stores did not open, and many shopping guides even created at home, creating sales and serving customers. At the same time, some retailers have begun to exert themselves in the "shopping guide".

　　 The power of new retail guides

Daniel Chan, CEO, is the leader of the industry that pioneered the new retail guide.

In a speech at the beginning of June this year, he mentioned a business insight: over the years, the core business area, the property of steel reinforced concrete is the most important factor of productivity in the department store, but in the near future, the ultimate control of the retail industry will be transferred to the "shopping guide" in the store.

"There will be a shift in the ultimate control. These people who are usually called shopping guides may grasp part of the control of the entire retail industry in the next two or three years."

In Daniel Chan's view, "shopping guide" is familiar with commodities and directly communicating with consumers. The core of their value is to provide an efficient connection.

Online, when the epidemic is forced to close, the value of "shopping guide" is fully highlighted. After the Spring Festival this year, Yintai and Taobao broadcast live, and invite shopping guides to be launched on the home line. The professionalism of the shopping guide has been amplified in Taobao live, and products are well known. Even if they are far away from stores and counters, they can still serve and sell. At the same time, because of the power of live broadcast, the retail efficiency of shopping guides has been significantly improved.

Live broadcasting has become the daily guide of Yintai shopping guide.

During the epidemic period, the number of consumers who broadcast the 3 hour service by Yintai guide is equivalent to the passenger flow of the 6 month service resumed. Another sales volume guided by live broadcast is equivalent to a week in the store.

The more than 5000 shops of BELLE, the shoe king, also temporarily shut down during the epidemic this year. But the shop is closed, and BELLE's first-line salesmen operate through the community and live at home. Some salesmen even exceeded the sales volume before the outbreak, and a salesperson of real beauty was nearly 200 thousand in February.

During the epidemic period, the online sales of BELLE footwear industry increased by 40% over the same period, and the proportion also increased significantly.

Five grain mill is a company focusing on natural health food. There are more than 3000 direct counters in the country. Fortunately, the grain mill has made a digitalized deployment in one or two years ahead of time. After the outbreak, the whole team worked hard to gradually extend the service from line to line, so that the brand could truly go to space and time and go to the center.

After the terminal stores closed completely, they lost the role of traffic introduction and consumption service, and the "guide buyers" of the five storehouse mills became new counters and service terminals.

Du Xinhua, director of digital marketing of five grain mill members, said: "if we do the same dimension analysis, we will find that the personal image, personal signature, and even the contents of the daily circle of friends, and so on, are very easy to do analogy with the terminal store recruitment, brand materials, including terminal display, and the importance is obvious."

　　 New infrastructure to enlarge the power of shopping guide

In today's Yintai department store, there is a huge difference between the daily work of "shopping guide" and ordinary brand shopping. Generally speaking, more than 9 a.m. every day, Yintai's shopping guide is not waiting for customers who are coming to the house passively. Instead, they take orders from the day before the day, share meow Street products to the community, and prepare for direct sale.

Retail stores or brand "shopping guide" evolved into a new retail guide, and digital support for retail outlets is essential.

On the one hand, digitized people's freight yard will become a new infrastructure for future retail sales.

The "shopping guide" that can directly touch consumers and generate emotional connections should fully grasp the needs of consumers. At the same time, we can grasp the operation information including inventory and product information in real time to get customers and services accurately. Using technology to empower front-line shopping guides is a new capability of retail brands.

For example, the use of digital tools and standard sales tools can help employees optimize their efficiency, reduce staff costs and enable consumers to get better experience.

Five grain mills will make full use of WeChat's functional modules to add materials to sales services, and guide buyers can accurately push the video presentation of product consumption methods combined with customer's consumption records to enhance the customer experience.

In order to ensure the standardized output of the "guide buyers", the headquarters content team of the five grain mills will export different topics and different content matrix with various communication scenarios, and deploy the preset content module in WeChat enterprise in advance to facilitate the national "shopping guide" to extract their own content.

At the same time, in order to monitor the implementation of all kinds of tasks, the five Gorges mill will independently develop sales management tools and data to connect with WeChat. So as to help headquarters to do the monitoring through data, whether the line shopping guide meets the requirements and adjusts the strategy in time.

In recent years, the new digital shopping malls operating system in Yintai department store is a "middle stage", providing daily business decisions and shop management guidance for "shopping guide". In addition, Yintai and Taobao, Tmall, through short video, Taobao live broadcast, help "guide shopping" to precipitate professional ability.

Digitalized Yintai "guide shopping" carries out daily effective communication and learning on nails, and acts online with customers on meow street. It breaks the restrictions on time and space in the department store by Taobao live, brings Yintai to a wider scene and brings over 90% new customers.

On the other hand, the promotion of "shopping guide" from front-line staff to "retail third pole", retailers or branding are also turning from traditional organizations to "new organizations".

In April 15th this year, Yintai Department issued a new recruitment plan for retail sales through the official WeChat in the new year, and the first batch of 300 people were recruited, including the opening shop manager, shopping guide and collocation division.

In June 4th, Daniel Chan revealed for the first time that intime department store set up an institution called "meow guest". This year, the 100 thousand mew guest force will be launched, and every meow guest is called KOC (Key Opinion Consumer), that is, key opinion consumers. They may be Yintai's "shopping guide" or ordinary consumers.

Let the "guide buyers" play a new role, and they will also create new changes in their income structure. In recent years, the five grain mills have broken through the internal distribution mechanism, and the shopping guide can get the benefits from online sales.

"Shopping guide" can link goods to customers through new retail outlets, across cities, across stores, across categories and across brands. The income of Yintai shopping guide has also become diversified. On the basis of the wages and bonuses paid by the former brands, the commission income of sharing the commodities has been added, and the monthly income is twenty thousand or thirty thousand. Shaoxing Yintai city Shiseido's shopping guide Xiao Fu, in the Yintai new retail business, half a year's commission income exceeds 100 thousand yuan.

At the beginning of this year, Yintai Department announced the guide salary status. In the past year, 5 million new retail guides of Yintai department store, nearly three of the adult salary exceeded 200 thousand, and the most annual shopping guide is far beyond 500 thousand.

In the future retail market, the "shopping guide" may be repositioned and transformed from the employment relationship to the brand or retail store, and the "shopping guide" at the grass-roots level will become a "community of interests" that shares the interests of the whole enterprise.

In the post epidemic era, the demand for health and social distance will make the shopping guide between people and goods more important. The epidemic is just a catalyst. Daniel Chan said.