Can the offline store still be opened?

Speaking of opening offline stores, about nine out of ten people will advise you: forget it, physical stores are not easy to do, especially clothing business. The homogenization of goods is serious, discounts are given every day, the gross profit of sales is getting lower and lower, and the rent is getting higher and higher. Maybe just to work for the landlord, but in short, it is better not to open.

I heard that Aunt Li next door has lost hundreds of thousands in recent months, and I heard that Lao Wang next door started a shop with 500,000 yuan last year. Now there are three stores a year, and it is said that the annual sales are tens of millions. Aunt Zhang, who also runs a clothing store next door, sold more than 200 thousand in July, and it is still in the off-season. If the peak season comes, it won't sell more than 300 thousand.

The most interesting thing about the retail of shoes and clothing is that the sales performance is high, and the shops that make money are all other people's shops. The business world is always so wonderful, it is both spiraling and cyclical. Opening a shop is never an easy task. Even if you are rich and an old driver, there is still a high probability that you will end up in today's offline market in China.

Both online and offline are the Red Sea.

In fact, offline physical retail has been competing in the Red Sea for ten years, so many people have gone to do e-commerce. However, from traditional e-commerce to live e-commerce, to social e-commerce, online merchants have long been sorrowful except oligarchs. Today, most people who return to the offline are those who fail online.

Is there a chance to go to the physical store under the bottom line? The editor thinks that there is an opportunity, and basically three efforts should be made. One is to use scientific and technological means and data capabilities to manage members and communities, the other is to upgrade the original service model, and the third is to provide differentiated goods or services.

The essence of retail

No matter whether the retail business is done online or offline, the essence has not changed, that is, drainage and repurchase (passenger flow and service). In other words, the location of the store determines the life and death of the store. Therefore, when choosing to open stores in department stores, shopping centers and street shops, the first thing to consider is location; Location is the guarantee of passenger flow. With passenger flow, there is business.

Passenger flow is an innate requirement. If there is no certain passenger flow guarantee, the drainage strategy, commodity strategy, transaction strategy and activity strategy of the day after tomorrow are basically in vain.

The logic of opening a shop offline

Before opening a shop, we should be clear about four things. The first is the rental-sales ratio. Practice has proved that if the rental-sales ratio exceeds 20%, the store will become the landlord and the profit will definitely be lost. The second is the breakeven point, that is, the fixed cost of the store ÷ gross profit margin = breakeven point. Fixed costs usually include store rent, store staff fixed salary, water and electricity, commodity logistics costs, store decoration sharing, etc. And the gross profit margin is (sales revenue-product cost)/sales revenue multiplied by 100%. The third is passenger flow. Look at the daily passenger flow where this store is located. It is less than 5,000 passengers on weekdays and less than 1000 passengers on weekends. This position is generally not much better. Fourth, brand sales ranking Whether it is a department store or a shopping center, there is generally a sales ranking every month or quarter. Let's take a look at the sales of TOP 10. If the performance of TOP 10 is less than 200,000, then this position is basically hopeless.

There is a basic model and logic for opening an offline store. According to the above logic, generally choose the location first, and then choose the product. After a set of processes goes on, it will basically not fail, which is also the reason why those offline entities succeed.

Differences between first, second, third and fourth tier cities

The so-called first-tier cities and new first-tier cities can generally be summarized together, but there are essential differences between second-tier cities and third-tier cities. There are some industrial clusters in second-tier cities, and talents can be introduced on a large scale only with industries, while most third-tier cities do not have large-scale industries.

Second-tier cities are still capable of demolition. Third-tier cities don't like demolition very much, but only build new cities, and the purchasing power is mainly local people, which determines the essential difference between opening stores.

In product selection, first-and second-tier cities pay more attention to fashion and personalization, while third-and fourth-tier cities pay more attention to self-image labeling and packaging. Therefore, opening stores in third-and fourth-tier cities is inseparable from higher pricing rate and stronger sales service, and both elements are indispensable.

Pricing is the key to profitability.

According to different passenger flows, make different sales strategies and price strategies. In other words, different stores have different passenger flows and customer groups, so should their sales strategies. Adjust the customer unit price according to the passenger flow, and flexibly define your own business model with different strong and weak sales.

In retail business, you should know what kind of customers you are dealing with. ZARA and Uniqlo can be opened in first-and second-tier cities, and large-scale low-priced stores can be opened. Fourth-and fifth-tier cities have high consumption frequency, large population, large flow of people, few people and low consumption frequency, so the customer list and gross profit can't be lower.

So sometimes we will see that the unit price of women's wear in many small counties is higher than that in big cities, because selling one piece a day can break even and two pieces can make a profit. In the case of insufficient passenger flow, it is unrealistic to sell dozens of pieces a day.

For most brands, too many rules and regulations are a drag on store management. Why most small shops that do bulk cargo can survive and make money is because their operations are flexible enough and their services are guaranteed enough.