How to deal with O2O in the transformation of traditional retail enterprises

PricewaterhouseCoopers, a world-renowned accounting firm, published a report entitled "How do China retailers cope with the increasingly blurred online and offline sales boundaries?" The analysis report expounded the habits of China consumers from the aspects of discovery, experience, transaction and loyalty. , and thus elaborated the impact of developing O2O on retailers. So how do traditional retail enterprises deal with O2O in the transformation of mall system? , can be analyzed from the aspects of discovery, experience, transaction and loyalty.

From online to offline, the boundaries between numbers and entities are increasingly blurred.

Online-offline is rapidly growing into one of the most important retail trends in China. Consumers in China often switch between digital and physical shopping channels. Retailers need an O2O strategy to support this complicated consumer shopping process. PricewaterhouseCoopers believes that retailers and brands need to adjust their retail models to reflect the nonlinear shopping process of new consumers, but this is not enough to solve single problems such as social strategies or online payment. Therefore, PricewaterhouseCoopers' O2O architecture covers four stages of consumers' shopping process: discovery, experience, transaction and loyalty.

Discovery: From Information Dissemination to Dialogue

From the perspective of commodity discovery, research by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that digital channels have become the most important way for China to interact with consumers. According to the survey data of PricewaterhouseCoopers, 85% of consumers choose to use digital channels to research new products first, and 58% of consumers in China say they buy through digital channels, both of which are higher than the global average.

Digitalization has changed the interactive ability between retailers and consumers in China, but it needs brand-new procedures and functions to manage marketing activities and publish creative advertising content in near real time. Brand-new consumer participation choices have changed the marketing activities of large shopping malls. Retailers can use online websites, mobile devices and even self-accessible interactive devices to communicate with consumers in a deeper and more complicated way.

Experience: the combination of offline and online

The ubiquitous smart phones in China's first-tier and fourth-tier cities have witnessed that China consumers have crossed the western e-commerce model and turned to a "mobile-first" retail environment. This rapid transformation has brought great challenges to traditional retailers, who spend a lot of money to build stores, which are becoming "exhibition halls" for online products. In China, 86% of the respondents admitted that they would go to the store to browse the products before deciding to buy online, which shows that the lower online price is the key driver of consumers' purchase decision.

Physical retailers in China will bear the brunt of the pressure of the rise of e-commerce, but physical stores are still an indispensable part of the retail industry. China's retail stores must be constantly developed to adapt to the domestic consumers' "first move" retail habit. The future store lies in whether it can "connect" all the nodes of shopping through technology, provide consumers with a better shopping experience, and predict and exceed customers' needs.

Transaction: form a buying cycle.

Being able to track the whole purchase process of consumers (from commodity identification to transaction) has always been the pursuit of sellers. In a purely digital world, tracking technology makes this pursuit possible. Mobile payment or mobile wallet is usually regarded as a solution of tracking technology. China is a leading country in the field of mobile payment. Being able to use these mobile payment services at retailers' physical sales points makes O2O a very powerful retail model. For the first time, brands and retailers can form a purchase cycle between online marketing investment and in-store transactions.

Loyalty: From Commercial Coupon to Unique Experience

The key to the success of online and offline lies in regular multi-channel communication with consumers, and at the same time, a rich customer file has been established for these consumers. Mobile phone is the only platform that is almost consistent with consumers' shopping journey, which is why many retailers in China regard mobile terminal loyalty programs as the central link of their O2O strategy. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 79% of consumers in China said they were happy to receive preferential information or download coupons through their mobile phones. In order to achieve the best loyalty programs, retailers should be able to support continuous consumer participation and provide relevant benefits according to consumer value.

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