Department store management reform in the era of big data

Department store management reform in the era of big data

Someone once commented that Ma Yun's success lies in that he reshaped the trust relationship between people through Alipay and the evaluation system. The O2O transformation of traditional department stores will reshape the understanding and trust between people and business, people and goods, people and services, people and experience and even people and the world with the help of big data.

The Current O2O Road of Traditional Department Stores-Passive Struggle

The biggest driving force of the department store industry's commitment to O2O transformation is undoubtedly the impact from e-commerce.

According to the analysis of China Resources Entrepreneurship, the competition from the e-commerce industry had an impact on profits, which affected the same-store sales of retail business to drop by 2.6% year-on-year. Guangzhou Friendship also said at the beginning of the year that the online retail market share was obviously diverted last year, and the overall growth of the traditional retail industry further slowed down, with multiple difficulties and challenges intertwined. Wangfujing Department Store also said in the announcement that the rapid development of Internet retailing and cross-border electronic commerce had a certain impact on the revenue growth of the company and the industry.

Regrettably, the initial reaction of the traditional department store industry after this round of impact is not a calm reaction based on the rational analysis of e-commerce and its own characteristics, but more a stress reaction after panic. The most typical symbolic behavior here is the self-built B2C mall. According to statistics, among the 50 major department stores published by the Top 100 Survey of China Chain Store & Franchise Association in 20 14, 36 have started online retail business, most of which are self-built B2C platforms.

Self-built B2C platform itself is understandable, but it reflects a relatively narrow competitive mentality of traditional department store practitioners-just like competing with past competitors, if your things sell well, then I can sell them cheaply through introduction to catch up with you! In this way, the problem of weakening the competitiveness of traditional department stores is simply explained as the lack of online channels, and then the same simple and rude treatment method-self-built online channels is adopted. The result is obvious. Although the investment is amazing, neither traffic nor sales can compete with pure e-commerce, and the large-scale development of online channels of traditional department stores is far away.

Some enterprises choose the strategy of entering the open platform, which can effectively reduce their own investment, but it is difficult to achieve breakthrough growth because they do not have the initiative and voice of the platform. With the rise of the mobile Internet, many traditional department stores began to compete for the entrance of the mobile terminal, and various department store apps emerged one after another, but the results were similar to those of self-built B2C platforms.

Although many traditional department stores have realized multi-channel online and offline in form, they actually bring only huge investment and disproportionate flow and sales to enterprises. Take Wangfujing Department Store as an example, its e-commerce project construction has been facing serious losses. According to the annual report data, as of 20 14, the loss of Wangfujing e-commerce project has reached 42.0628 million yuan.

Needless to say, the O2O transformation of most traditional department stores is essentially driven by the anxiety brought by e-commerce, which makes their O2O road lost from the beginning.

Omni-channel, seemingly beautiful

20 14 has an interesting phenomenon. In the minds of many traditional retail enterprises, a keyword that is better than O2O is "omni-channel".

Everyone thinks that O2O is too virtual and not as real as omni-channel.

This can be seen from the strategic reports of many enterprises. The word "omni-channel" far exceeds "O2O", and many industry summits also use "omni-channel" as a synonym for "O2O".

The social psychology behind this is not difficult to analyze: "O2O" is too deep, too far, too obscure, and no one can say a word clearly, giving people an extremely strong sense of insecurity. "omni-channel" is different. With channels, it means that there is a passenger flow, which means that it can bring sales and profits. If the channel can be omni-channel, it will bring more sales and profits and alleviate the current business decline of traditional department stores.

This simple logic is most likely to cater to the anxiety of current traditional practitioners and is a more realistic O2O thinking. In this regard, some media people commented: "Compared with European and American countries, China's current O2O is more eager for quick success, pays more attention to profits, and lacks the sincerity and ideal of social digital transformation."

The reality is cruel, and solving complex problems with simple thinking will inevitably bring complex results.

When traditional retail enterprises first tried the omni-channel road, they immediately encountered two major problems: traffic acquisition and traffic conversion. The logic of online real estate based on various traffic portals is completely different from that of commercial real estate that occupies a prime location offline and waits for customers to come to the door. At present, the acquisition cost of new customers of e-commerce has reached around 300 yuan, and with the increasing investment of pure e-commerce, traditional retailers have no advantage in striving for online traffic. Turning the huge offline passenger flow you own into online has also proved to be wishful thinking. Consumers between channels will not take it for granted to realize interaction. BBK Group, which has been deeply involved in Hunan market 19 years, has annual offline passenger flow 10 billion. Although the grand goal of achieving 60% conversion rate within three years has been shouted, and measures such as replacing paper receipts with electronic receipts and joining various guiding preferential activities have been taken, from the actual performance of Yunhou.com, there is still a big gap from the goal. ..

Generally speaking, "omni-channel" is under the banner of "O2O", but it still continues the thinking orientation of "taking goods as the core" in the past and still takes the enterprise itself as the starting point, which has not created additional value for consumers in essence, and naturally cannot be recognized by the market.

The Real Meaning and Breakthrough of O2O —— Big Data Application

How do traditional enterprises embark on the correct O2O road? To answer this question, we must return to the essence of business, that is, "taking consumers as the core" and look at the value of online and offline. To put it simply, for consumers, the biggest charm of online is the convenience of information acquisition, while for offline, it is an irreplaceable sense of realistic experience. Therefore, for traditional enterprises, the best O2O strategy is to let consumers realize the perfect integration of information and experience on their own platforms. To achieve this integration, it is inseparable from the help of big data.

A misunderstanding that the traditional department store industry must break through is that it only regards the channel as the entrance of traffic, but does not realize that its more important value is the entrance of data; The "2" in "O2O" is regarded as the conversion of traffic, but the interaction between data is ignored. In fact, in the foreseeable future, big data will become the core asset of all enterprises. Losing data means losing competitiveness, and retail industry, as a channel terminal, has natural advantages in this respect. The source of bargaining power of the traditional department store industry to the upstream will also change from the possession channel to the possession data in the future.

There is a failure that the data is not opened during online to offline. Therefore, online and offline are isolated and cannot create new value.

Amazon 20 13 12 has obtained a new patent called "predictive delivery". Through the analysis of user data, packages can be sent in advance before they place an order for shopping. This transcendental analysis and prediction ability comes from Amazon's comprehensive analysis of a series of big data, such as customers' previous orders, product search records, wish lists, shopping carts, and even the time when users hover over a certain product, so as to deliver the package before consumers actually place an order.

Offline data collection ability lags behind online, but through the interaction of big data platforms, offline channels can effectively use the data fed back by online platforms to upgrade the consumption experience and create more value-added experiences for consumers. At the same time, with the emergence of augmented reality technology, short-distance technology, far-infrared passenger flow detection, two-dimensional code scanning, electronic payment and other emerging technologies, offline stores will be better armed and the data collection ability of offline channels will be continuously enhanced, so as to interact with online data.

The integration of online and offline data will outline a more complete portrait of consumers for traditional department stores, grasp the physiological, psychological and behavioral characteristics of customers in an all-round way, and then provide strong support for business decision-making and realize accurate marketing to consumers.

For consumers, not only can they easily find the products they need online, but they can also enjoy a quality service experience offline, which will be very sticky to the platform. For enterprises, the improvement of operational capacity brought by big data will eventually be reflected in the growth of sales and profits, and truly achieve the goal of getting rid of homogenization, transformation and upgrading. This is the real value of O2O.

Prospect of department store management reform in the era of big data

For the big data upgrade of traditional department stores, foreign counterparts have taken the lead. Macy's started the O2O layout based on big data several years ago, including:

The offline store is equipped with an order processing system.

Understand consumers' mobile lines through in-store wireless hotspots, optimize the design of in-store mobile lines, and help brands to carry out marketing services. In addition, cooperate with Google Maps to provide brand navigation services.

Cooperate with Google Wallet to provide mobile payment services.

Kiosk is installed in the store for consumers to inquire about the basic attributes, selling price, inventory and other information of goods, and support online ordering and settlement functions.

Online official APP application software, consumers can query goods and other consumer comments, place orders, pay and print orders through the APP, and also fill in online consumer satisfaction questionnaires to give feedback on their experiences.

The demonstration effect of Macy's lies not only in the innovation of its technology application, but also in the optimization of its soft service. For example, Macy's Department Store has a customer service staff next to each kiosk to guide customers to the corresponding brand stores to try out products and help customers place orders and settle accounts on mobile devices. Customers feel convenience and pertinence in this consumption experience, and more importantly, they are paid attention to, and the repurchase rate naturally increases. This also reminds us that for big data applications, hardware facilities and soft services are equally important.

After experiencing the initial channel anxiety, the domestic department store industry gradually began to rationally understand the value of big data. In 20 13, large domestic department stores such as Wangfujing, Yintai, New World and Guorainbow successively laid Wi-Fi to provide consumers with free services. It is understood that the average initial investment for setting up Wi-Fi in each single store is between 400,000 yuan and 600,000 yuan. After completion, the following functions can be realized:

In precision marketing, after a user connects to Wi-Fi, data information such as contact information and action route will be transmitted to the background system synchronously, and the background will refer to the user's online shopping data to feed back the user's attributes, and then push relevant product coupons or activity information.

Shopping mall dynamic line optimization, according to the long-term user action route data accumulation, shopping malls can optimize the counter position.

For the domestic traditional department store industry, there are two directions worthy of attention in the process of building a department store from online to offline based on big data.

1. Establish effective big data analysis and application transformation capabilities. Although the concept of big data has been widely accepted by the industry, it is not mature at the technical level, and the analysis and application transformation are far from reaching the stage of automation and intelligence, and the corresponding investment is also high. How to turn big data into effective productivity at low cost is a difficult problem faced by traditional retail enterprises. In this regard, some domestic department stores have explored the innovative mode of "making enterprises become O2O platforms and employees become big data cloud processing terminals", which provides solutions for traditional retail enterprises at this stage. One of the representative enterprises is the rainbow-crossing micro-products.

At the end of last year, Guorainbow officially launched the "Guorainbow Micro Products" full sales APP. Micro products above the rainbow are sent to mobile phones through selected products. Employees "shopkeepers" can edit products in their online stores as needed, and then use social tools such as WeChat, Weibo and QQ to share products to their social circles, provide services and form sales. The company is responsible for commodity procurement and inventory management, marketing graphic production, order processing, logistics distribution and unified customer service, and strictly controls the sales and service behavior of "shop assistants".

The micro-product effect of over the rainbow is that over the rainbow Company does * * * big data analysis (recommended explosive goods) while providing goods and support services through a big platform. As a small front end, employees quickly make adjustments according to the customers they face, and realize the effective interaction of big data applications.

For consumers, through online and offline platforms, you can find any store, a floor, a category or even a counter clerk in Flying over the Rainbow anytime and anywhere, which is equivalent to tens of thousands of physical clerks in more than 60 stores in Tianhong. They are all "shopkeepers" on the "rainbow mobile terminal" and can conduct one-on-one shopping guide service with customers online. Whether before, during or after sale, offline exclusive service and after sale will be more convenient and secure after customers make an appointment.

2. Through big data analysis, gain self-operation ability and get rid of differentiation. At present, most traditional department stores in China are at the level of category management, and their commodity codes are defined according to the discount rate under a counter. This code is only related to the discount rate of the counter, and there is no in-depth data on basic attributes, prices, inventory, etc. Without commodity information, it is difficult for department stores to help counters carry out personalized marketing activities, and the role of retailers is weakened, which is closer to the positioning of "second landlord".

Big data analysis will analyze and control the data through online and offline channels, firmly grasp the single product information of every commodity entering and leaving the platform, and help enterprises realize the transition from category management to single product management. The realization of single item management means that enterprises will be able to effectively grasp the rhythm of commodity purchase, sale and storage, control inventory risks, and then fully grasp the self-management ability of commodities. Traditional department stores are expected to complete the first-level transformation from simple joint venture → deep joint venture → single product management → data sharing, unique goods → distributed goods, collective stores → own goods, and become market units with truly differentiated competitive advantages.

Some insiders commented that Ma Yun's success lies in that he reshaped the trust relationship between people through Alipay and the evaluation system. The O2O transformation of traditional department stores will reshape the understanding and trust between people and business, people and goods, people and services, people and experience and even people and the world with the help of big data. Only by contributing to the world in the process of digitalization and internetization can we stand proudly in this wave.

The above is the related content of department store management reform in the era of big data shared by Bian Xiao. For more information, you can pay attention to more dry goods sharing of Global Ivy.