How To Operate A Buyer'S Shop In The Internet Era

The buyer shop model began to rise in China in the first decade of the 21st century. In the era of relatively single fashion resources, a small number of international buyer's shop brands have been acting as "fashion intermediaries" in the past 20 years. Chinese consumers want to buy foreign popular products. These buyers' shops are good places to go. They introduce various fashion brands to Chinese consumers. They are the first stop to reflect the latest overseas trends. At that time, they could easily make profits only by relying on the information gap between domestic and foreign information and supply and demand.

However, with the rise of new media and the impact of international purchasing agent, domestic consumers' cognition of fashion is becoming more and more mature. Are those successful buyers' shops still suitable for the Chinese market? What warnings do their experiences in the Chinese market bring to local buyers? In this article, we discuss the mode types of foreign buyer's shops, combined with the operation examples of foreign buyer's shops in China in recent 20 years and the analysis of senior practitioners.

　　 Interpretation of foreign buyer's shop model

The rudiment of the buyer's shop first appeared on the streets of Europe in the early 20th century. At that time, independent boutique shops appeared on the streets of France, selling perfumes, jewelry, leisure sportswear and other products. The operators often took the responsibility of product design and procurement. Since the 1920s, this business model has been popular in European countries, and developed rapidly in Europe and America, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China and other places from 1960s to 1970s, during which famous buyer's shop brands such as Joyce, beams, browns and so on were produced. In the 1990s, the business model of European buyer's shops has further expanded to lifestyle, which has set off a new retail reform in the world. ?

In an article published in December 2021 (does China's more than 1000 buyer's shops represent real prosperity?), They agreed that the mode of foreign buyer's shop is not suitable for domestic buyer's market environment, because there are essential differences in the origin of the two, and the differences can be seen from the classification of foreign buyer's shop. ?

Hakata NewYork Paris, a senior fashion media person and creative director of Japan, once wrote an article for fashion information media platform fashionsnap, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the global modern buyer's store business model. He reorganized the definition of the buyer's shop based on his previous experience in the retail industry of the buyer's shop and his observation on the fashion industry in the past 30 years, At the same time, we have integrated the description of the Japanese buyer's shop mode by grailed, a men's clothing e-commerce platform, and summarized the common types of buyer's shops in the world according to the business characteristics

　　● The most important feature of the buyer's shop with multi brand collection is that the selection can clearly reflect the buyer's or founder's subjective aesthetic and interest preferences.

For example, in the water bar of Colette in Paris, Colette and Sarah, the owners of the shop, collected more than 100 kinds of mineral water and bubble water with unique packaging and good taste from all over the world; Opening ceremony in New York initially focused on street trend brands liked by founders Carol Lim and Humberto Leon.

　　 ● The main purpose of this kind of buyer's shop is to explore the new and advanced fashion designer brands at home and abroad. The founders of the buyer's shop usually have professional fashion background, unique taste and sharp vision. Therefore, most of these buyer's shops have strong art integration ability and distinctive style, and will derive unique business model or original brand.

For example, l'eclaireur, who specializes in dark art vision, and 10 Corso Como in Italy.

　　● The display type buyer's shop in the department store is characterized by large scale and easy expansion. For example, Barneys New York, Lane Crawford and Lane Crawford. ?

　　 ● Spa mode buyer's shop with complete production supply chain has strong commodity development and production capacity.

Japanese buyers are mainly of this type, such as beams and United arrow. In such a buyer's shop, expensive original products from abroad are usually used as a facade to show the level of a buyer's shop, and what really guarantees the sales of the buyer's shop is the replacement of its own brand. Most of the products are self-made products which are cheaper in the buyer's shop, and the common ratio is 4:6 or 3:7.

　　● The buyer's collection shop, which is composed of daily ready-made clothes, daily necessities, books and even restaurants, focuses on creating a certain life style. For example, 20twelve in the United States, merci in France, Niko and.

In the history of foreign buyer's shop development, the relationship between designer brand and buyer's shop is almost complementary in the market. Especially for young designers who start their career, it is a more convenient and safer choice for young designers who understand the design concept and conform to the design positioning to carry out exposure sales in the buyer's shop which is in line with the design orientation.

The classic case is Maria Luisa, a high-end boutique buyer in Paris. Maria Luisa poumaillou, the manager of the boutique, has found a group of designers with far-reaching influence on the world, including Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens, Christopher Kane and Riccardo tisci, who were not known by the mainstream market at that time. In addition, l'eclaireur, founded by the hardida couple in 1980 on the Champs Elysees, has long since discovered Martin Margiela's brand of the same name, Maison Martin Margiela Maison Margiela ）And Yohji Yamamoto and comme des Gar ? ons from the new wave of Oriental design were introduced. ?

　　 not acclimatized

The above-mentioned buyer shop examples are based on a clear business concept to select and integrate the goods in the store, and emphasize the distinctive personality of the store brand. However, when these small and sophisticated international buyer's shops enter the larger Chinese market, the general business rules in old fashion countries are not working well.
In the domestic chapter of the buyer's shop topic, Zhang Xun, the designer of the brand lad é coration, summed up for us: "the development of foreign buyer's shops is usually accompanied by the improvement of public consumers' aesthetic and fashion taste, and the unique design style and concept of independent designers have been recognized by the public, resulting in a series of commercial development." This is the temporary lack of the domestic buyer's shop market environment, and is also the fundamental reason why many international buyer's shop brands run into difficulties in the Chinese market. ?

Lane Crawford Lane Crawford was the first to suffer in the Chinese market. As early as 2001, Lane Crawford Lane Crawford opened its first store in Shanghai, taking advantage of the burgeoning luxury market boom in mainland China. Lane Crawford Lane Crawford is a boutique department store made by buyers, which introduces a large number of European and American minority brands to the mainland. However, the Chinese fashion market was not mature at that time, and consumers generally loved the logo style luxury goods. Only five years ago, Lane Crawford Lane Crawford withdrew from the mainland of China temporarily in 2006 because of the lack of water and soil. ?

A similar case that has attracted media attention in recent years is the Italian buyer shop 10 Corso Como, known as the "fashion academy". 10 Corso Como closed SKP stores in Beijing and Nanjing West Road stores in Shanghai in 2017 and 2019, respectively. A few years ago, there were not many brands of international buyer's shops in the mainland of China, which was a good time to get dividends. Instead, 10 Corso Como, which has long been well-known in the fashion industry, did not get the results matching the reputation, but lost the Chinese market. ?

The top 10 Chinese employees of Corso Como, who do not want to be named, believe that the main reason is the frequent changes in the management of the Chinese capital side. Since the second year of entering the Chinese market, they have not followed the professional advice of the European headquarters. Although they have tried to do a lot of localization measures, the Chinese management has not been able to do so There was no correct understanding of the Chinese fashion market at that time. "10 Corso Como headquarters itself has a deep connection with fashion media. The ability to predict fashion information and integrate products is benchmarking in the industry, but it is a pity that this congenital advantage has not been used well." ?

He also believes that 10 Corso Como has not caught up with the good era of being a buyer's shop in China, and if it can last until after 2019, it is likely to have a different ending. When entering the Chinese market, 10 Corso Como was overconfident in the local consumption environment. Although it is true that China's fashion consumption power has been upgrading in the past decade, Chinese consumers' understanding of fashion brands is in the stage of enlightenment. In the face of well-known big brands and vanguard minority brands with the same price, consumers generally prefer the former.

But 10 Corso Como's approach is to forcefully and confusedly push all kinds of creative products to Chinese consumers, rather than passing on a clear style orientation. Although 10 Corso Como has also introduced some Chinese designers' products But at that time, the influence of local designers was limited and the market feedback was not ideal. and 10 Corso Como doesn't have a home In order to achieve more effective localization, we should carry out real in-depth communication and cooperation with fashion industry. ?

Whether Lane Crawford Lane Crawford in the early days or 10 Corso Como later, these internationally famous buyers always leave the impression of exquisite high cold "Kaleidoscope". They do not actively strive for the resonance of Chinese consumers in terms of consumption habits and cognition of fashion, thus breaking away from the actual consumption environment and gradually being marginalized by the market. ?

　　 suit one's measures to local conditions

After years of investment and construction of infrastructure such as network and logistics, China's online retail is developed and convenient, and it is also more diversified. The local buyer's shop has not only pursued the small and refined state of traditional European and American buyer's shop. Connie, head of tudoo showroom, told Ciqi that in addition to the traditional platforms such as Taobao and tmall, the emerging small red book, Shuo Yin, dewu and micro mall have also become the flow positions of different buyers. It is a mature way for many local buyers to show different products on different platforms, present diversified content, and improve conversion and customer stickiness by means of live broadcast or private domain.
In contrast, many foreign buyer's shops are mostly single channel, and only some of the top buyer's brands can take into account both offline and online operation modes. Therefore, it is very important to understand the retail ecology of foreign buyer's shops if they want to truly integrate into the fast-growing and increasingly diversified Chinese market. ?

Especially in today's China, the shopping habits and preferences of the new generation of consumers have changed greatly. How to win their recognition and establish a two-way information transmission is an important issue for foreign buyers to operate in China. In the action of adjusting and planning for the Chinese market, the performance of Japanese buyer shop is very active. For example, studious Tokyo is one of the more active foreign buyer shop brands in recent years. We know that adapting to local conditions without departing from the headquarters' operating values is the key for a buyer's shop to survive in the overseas market with different consumer culture background. ?

Generally, international buyer's shop brands will enter the Chinese market through cooperation with Chinese enterprises. However, studious Tokyo adopts the full direct marketing mode, and all stores in China are wholly-owned subsidiaries of parent group Tokyo base, which means that the business policies and values of studio Tokyo can be seamlessly connected with the headquarters, avoiding the common separation problems in joint venture cases.
In addition, China's management is also a reserve of talents who are familiar with the corporate culture, so it is easier for the company to gather local excellent employees. In order to expand the overseas market, it is very important to cultivate and employ talents with local growth background.

These managers not only understand the taste preferences of Chinese consumers, but also understand the importance of operating Chinese popular social platforms in the current Chinese fashion market. The advertising investment of studio Tokyo in China's mainstream media is almost zero. Gu Zhengren, CEO of Tokyo base, said in a public media interview that the exposure that does not conform to the brand tonality does not have a high positive impact on the brand. Therefore, he has to spend a lot of publicity expenses to invite artists and celebrities to cooperate, Studious Tokyo mainly chooses to incubate its own KOL on social platforms such as station B and xiaohongshu, which gather generation Z in China.

Studious Tokyo employees currently active on social platforms

We input key words into xiaohongshu and find that many users with the corporate label of studious Tokyo have been settled in xiaohongshu. At present, a Jing, the store manager of Sanlitun store in Beijing, and AK, the image consultant of Shenzhen Center of excellence, are more active. Rick, an employee of studious 3rd Harajuku store, is also a famous fashion up owner on station B. Through ootd's clothing notes and easy to understand fashion popular science videos, these employees who have been active on the social platform for a long time have imperceptibly introduced the latest items of the store to online readers. Under the notes of a little red book written by Rita, the store manager of studious Tokyo Wuhan store, we can see that some readers have been planted with grass on the shoes and tops worn in this article. ?

Of course, the soul of a good buyer's shop lies in the quality of its selection. China has a huge market. Due to the different levels of fashion development and geographical climate differences, the fashion markets in the north and south, the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have obvious consumption characteristics. For example, the Harajuku fashion brand culture was popular in Hong Kong, China in the 1990s, and has a fixed consumer group in the local area, which has a high degree of loyalty to the brand. According to the buyer's director, Mr. Okamoto, Many customers in Hong Kong shop will skillfully name the brands they like to buy when they come to the store. However, consumers in the mainland do not have similar brand complex. They will pay more attention to the design, cutting and fabric of the products. They also have a high acceptance of new brands. Brands with relatively small number and short establishment time, such as sulvam, cullni and taakk, are more popular with local consumers. ?

Despite the fact that many well-known buyer's shops in the industry are still unable to realize large-scale operation in China, this buyer's collection store, which only sells Japanese designer brands, has opened eight physical stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and * * in just two years, covering key fashion cities in North China, central China and South China.
Moreover, the performance of studious Tokyo in mainland China is also very good. For example, four months after the store opened in Shanghai in 2019, the average employee performance of Shanghai Xintiandi store exceeded 2 million yen (about RMB 120000 yuan), which usually takes a year to achieve in Japan. Studious Tokyo has also made remarkable achievements in emerging fashion cities in Central China. On the first day of its opening in Wuhan in February 2021, its performance was as high as 5687727 yen (about ￥ 320000), exceeding the pre-sale amount by 13.8%. As of December 2021, the expansion of studious Tokyo continues. ?

In the era of Internet, the replacement of fashion market is fast and cruel, and those who have settled down will inevitably face the risk of being eliminated. In the fierce competition with local buyers and e-commerce, when facing consumers with different cultures and different fashion preferences, the most important thing for foreign buyers, rooted in the European and American buyer store system, is to put down their posture modestly, deeply understand and learn the local market, find out the positioning, and operate accurately. This is the long-term solution to survive in the local buyer's shop market. In the future, when China's fashion market is really mature, the local buyer's shop brand also ushers in the time of expanding overseas market. The development experience of these international buyer's shops in China is worth thinking and learning from.