Chinese physical store lost to e-commerce? Japanese store may give us some tips

Who is the Chinese physical store lost to?

Now walking on a street, nine stores are discounted, and there are "big sale", "big clearance" and "full-price specials" everywhere. The reason is mostly "contract expires" and "store transfer" "10 Anniversary" and so on.

The harder the business is, the more the goods are sold, and the boss is voicing: 2,580 packages per month can survive, and the only way to make money is to sell more bags... So, various discount gimmicks emerge in an endless stream. It has become a major feature of Chinese physical stores.

In fact, the fundamental problem of physical stores comes from: the boss always regards the physical store as a channel for buying and selling, has no sense of service, and has no service spirit, and cannot increase the added value of the product. Simply relying on the difference to make a profit, this kind of physical store will be eliminated sooner or later.

If it is just a sales channel, e-commerce is obviously a more advanced way: lower cost (no rent), no leaving home, more convenient price, more styles, and so on. Therefore, many people think that China's physical stores are defeated by e-commerce. Is it really?

Who is the Chinese e-commerce lost?

The dilemma of e-commerce has started three years ago. All e-commerce platforms have encountered traffic bottlenecks, profit growth has slowed down, and market demand is almost saturated. The essence of the double 11 is actually to suppress the demand and then the concentrated outbreak, so the formation of the double 11 day of consumption blowout, the data looks pretty.

Although e-commerce does not have rent, it has to operate on the cable, including advertising, activities, personnel, customer service, express delivery and so on. Now the cost of opening an "online shop" has exceeded the rent of physical stores, and the cost of getting customers is getting higher and higher. For example, for some Taobao stores, the cost per customer is about 80 yuan, but many goods. The price is less than 80 yuan.

The fundamental point is that e-commerce always regards itself as a “comparison tool”. The same website is horizontally proportioned, and different websites are vertically oriented, so the profit of products is getting thinner and thinner. At the same time, the cost of relying on traffic to obtain customers is increasing. High, leading to rising online operating costs.

China's business is forming a balance: the operating costs of e-commerce continue to rise, and are getting closer to the rent of “physical stores”; the cost of attracting consumers from physical stores is also increasing, and it is getting closer to “online stores”. The cost of getting the customer; then the two sides began to stalemate.

At the root of it, whether it is a physical store or an e-commerce, the fundamental logic of making money has not changed. These are the four words: small profits but quick turnover. Do not ask for quality, just ask for quantity; don't want quality as long as profit. This is the biggest common problem of Chinese business, but this road has been taken to the extreme and we have gone.

The more you focus on the results, the easier it is to lose results.

Is the unmanned supermarket a business future?

In order to break through the status quo, we began to use the technological innovation to carry out commercial upgrades. For example, in the past few hours, the unmanned supermarkets are hot. In terms of speed, these seem to be convenient for our shopping, but look at the following news reports of several media reports:

There are many similar reports and analyses. Why is the "unmanned supermarket" being questioned as soon as it was born?

The core value of an unmanned supermarket is that its input and operating costs are lower than those of an ordinary physical store. Previously, data showed that its overall operating cost was less than 15% of that of a traditional convenience store. However, it does not really solve the core problem of business.

Everyone must remember one sentence:

In the future business competition, not everyone's cost is lower, but who's service is better!

If our thinking still stagnate at the stage of “who has lower costs”, we will always stay at the stage of price war, imitation, and shoddy. What is more sad is that we do not understand the essence of business at all.

If there is no one, who will do the service?

If there is no one, who will create added value?

Retail has moved from an era of transactions to an era of relationships. Merchants can work in the store to create an unparalleled consumer scene, but e-commerce is trading through computers and smartphones, so it is difficult to provide consumers with a unique experience, they must seek a breakthrough!

Let's take a look at our neighbor, Japan. Today, when the entity is difficult to do, the Japanese department store has suffered a certain impact, but it still stands still. Japan's Isetan is still overcrowded.

What secrets are hidden in Japanese stores?

1. Integrating social functions into new formats

Osaka's EXPOCITY, Japan's tallest Ferris wheel, 4d cinema with Japan's largest imax screen, Japan's first experiential English-language education facility, English Village, and the Shaun theme entertainment world.

At the same time, it has implanted the latest technology and the latest concept, and integrates “entertainment”, “education” and “shopping” to make the venue become the core of Osaka New Entertainment and fully integrate into the residents' life.

Grand Front integrates numerous new social features, high-tech laboratories, university research institutes, brand museums, maker spaces, car theme pavilions, technology experience pavilions, gallery spaces, salon spaces and more.

Grand Front integrates into various social functions, attracts a wider customer base and increases consumer stickiness, and has now become a popular tourist destination in Osaka.

2, warm hearted service details

Business services are all details. "The same brand of the same clothes in the store and department store, there is no difference in itself, but in the mall, I can enjoy more additional services. It sounds like nothing great, but these details It’s really warm.”

The shelves with slopes that can be replenished automatically, and the corridors that are designed with solar sun and rainy weather in the commercial street are silently conveying respect and consideration to customers.

Baby stroller and wheelchair, just near the entrance, with disinfectant paper towels next to it

Many companies that have visited Japan have also added services such as children's trolleys, first-aid kits, mobile phone stations, pets and other services after returning to China. However, from the inner feelings, the attention from the perspective of customer needs is still far from the details. Far from enough.

The people-oriented spirit is everywhere in Japan. Buying good things in the store, the cashier puts the chapter on the ticket and presses it on the oil-absorbing paper, sucking away the ink to prevent dyeing to other items;

After handing the packaged goods to the guest, the cashier will have to walk out of the counter for a short period of time, then receive the items in the hands of the next queue, and lead them to the counter to continue the process of collecting, stamping, sucking, and farewell.

At the restaurant, the waiters in the business area have been busy, but they can see that there are only half a box of napkins and they are filled up in time. They are kept neat and tidy. If you see the soy sauce bottle and chair deviate from their original position, they will recover in time. .

Japanese-style service

For example, in the rainy days, the Japanese shopping malls will prepare to wipe the rain gear and the body towel from the perspective of customer demand, which can be reused intimately.

In the design of the bathroom, it is applied to the decoration and decoration, but it is the concern for the different conditions of the customer and the needs of the scene.

Female toilet, in front of the mirror is a dressing table, intended to divert the crowd, to avoid someone washing their hands and continue to make up the queue

Mother's toilet with baby

Handrails in the sink to help the elderly improve stability

Even when the customer expresses the likes of the brand, the clerk will recommend the same brand store in the area, and will take the address and the album to the customer for reference.

This is the scale of Japanese business. The only criterion for this scale is people - respect and concern for people.

3, the quality of the craftsman to build an extension of the family

The deepest impression of the Japanese real industry is the focus. A sushi restaurant can operate for 150 years or even 250 years, which is very common in Japan.

Japanese employees are proud of their inheritance and excellence. In their minds, they do not distinguish between big business and small business. They can get satisfaction in continuous concentration, so they are calm. Opening a store is not a good thing, but it is good enough to satisfy yourself.

Ingenuity is the source of the strong vitality of the Japanese real estate industry. Greenwood Mall is the most appropriate case. The Greenwood Mall is located in the Komatsu area of ​​Musashi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Tokyo. It opened 13 days and has a passenger flow of over 1 million. This shopping mall has only 37,000 square meters, but it has the largest roof garden in Japan.

As the chairman of the company with 7-111, Ito Yokado and other companies, Mr. Suzuki repeatedly emphasized that "the most important thing is to build the Greenwood Shopping Center into a place that everyone is willing to play, and to buy something to go home during the process of playing." .

4, pay more attention to the fun of shopping rather than the price

As the Chinese people use e-commerce shopping, most of them will pay attention to the price of e-commerce, and the price of e-commerce is generally cheaper than offline.

In Japan, there was an institution that did the corresponding investigations and enjoyed the fun of shopping. It was the primary reason for Japanese consumers, and the second reason was “cheaper than physical stores”.

5, quality first to create a unique selling point

The most reliable point of the Japanese real estate industry is that there are many brands, and there are no defective products or fakes. Japanese merchants are very strict on the quality of goods. If you buy defective products in big shopping malls, not only will you get a large amount of compensation, but the manager has to personally apologize. The biggest advantage of buying things in Japanese department stores is reassurance.

For example, the popular Japanese male tofu, based on the hand-carried inheritance of the bean curd shop for decades, has created a unique visual system, and launched the “beauty tofu shop” and the “boiled tofu soup”. , male - TOMOTSU, green soybean tofu, etc., as well as rock music of soy milk, thick fried tofu captain, captain of tofu pill.

After the male tofu became famous in Japan, the price was four times higher than the earliest. It is also the introduction of more comic-themed handmade tofu, a variety of cross-border derivatives, and the rhythm of the Japanese handmade tofu empire.

6, bothering to satisfy consumers

The Japanese design community has been pursuing sophisticated content positioning, and it is necessary to respect the commercial positioning and then the specific design. Just like we do museums and science museums, we do display design and architectural design. Japanese investment is not a mentality of the landlord, but a joint operation.

The Roppongi business district in Tokyo took 15 years to open, and some of China's famous shopping malls took half a year from design to opening, and more than 2,000 people wanted to work overnight before the opening.

Japan Matsuya Department Store was designed by the original research institute. It emphasizes the original state of things and insists on the scene design of commercial real estate experience. In the anti-commercial design, the design of the brand-based venue emphasizes that the department store and the brand together convey a high quality of life. Consumers of course love.

7, the invincible after-sales service

After buying something, if you don't want to take a big bag and wrap it home, you can entrust the mall to package and deliver it to your door. This service is not limited to large items such as home appliances. Any clothing, shoes, purses, daily necessities, etc. can be delivered directly to the guest's home or hotel room.

Japanese parcel service providers can use the convenience store to deliver parcels, and online retailers can also use convenience stores to achieve nearby delivery. It is precisely because Japan's e-commerce distribution system is based on physical convenience stores, which means that the Japanese e-commerce system and the physical store are coexisting and co-prosperous, rather than the absolute competitive relationship between you and the living.

8, O2O thinking to make e-commerce store integration

In recent years, many physical store partnerships in Japan have launched e-commerce platforms and physical store simultaneous sales services. Products purchased by consumers from the e-commerce platform can be picked up at the physical store of the department store, and goods that are out of stock in the physical store can also be purchased through the e-commerce platform.

It can be seen that Japanese department stores face the consumer demand in the new situation, instead of rejecting the new shopping model, they are advancing with the times, actively building online shopping platforms and e-commerce business to cope with the impact.

9. Eco-business circle of mutual win cooperation

Take Osaka as an example. Osaka's business forms include commercial streets, station commercial eco-maps, and convenience store layouts. Usually commercial streets are concentrated in the bustling downtown area, and each commercial street is connected by the station ecosystem, and the convenience store, shopmall, and supermart are arranged in the area between the stations to construct the underground and commercial network from the area. Eco-map, often a market area will jointly launch marketing activities.

Every store has a wide range of goods on the storefront. At the same time, Japanese goods are generally small in size. A shelf can be separated from the top to the bottom by seven or eight layers, so it is a general physical store that can also be placed in an absolute large number. Product variety for customers to choose. And each of the offline stores has different characteristics, and there is more room for customers to choose.

The essence of future business

There is a philosophical quote in "On the Truth": "Man is the measure of all things. When people exist, everything exists. When people do not exist, everything does not exist."

This shows that the only standard of all things in the future is "people", and everything exists because it pleases "people." The degree to which you please "people" determines the value of your existence. The same is true for goods, which must reflect respect and concern for people. The essence of business is that it is moving from “buying and selling relationships” to “service relationships”.

In the future, business competition is for the consumer groups born in the 1980s and 1990s. This group of people is born with no material and no shortage of products. What they need is a kind of “care”. This kind of care needs face-to-face communication and touch. reflect.

In the future, those physical stores that are just selling things will become less and less competitive, and those physical stores that offer users a unique experience will stand out.

This is the essence of "consumption upgrade": the retail industry has entered the era of a relationship from the era of a transaction, businesses can be active in the physical store, thus creating an unparalleled consumer scene, but the e-commerce is through the computer Trading with smartphones makes it difficult to offer consumers a unique experience, they must seek a breakthrough!

This is the essence of “demand upgrade”: consumers need to transform from a sense of satisfaction to a sense of satisfaction to a spiritual level. In the past, people were moving with things, and now things are in the heart. At that time, the culture, innovation, experience and feelings of the merchants will all be useful to the hero!