Dong Wenmei, chairman of T100 parent-child children's wear, talks about how brands and retailers should co-exist

T100 Parenting Children's Wear Chairman Dong Wenmei

Retail "panic"
Recently, I have exchanged views with some of my peers. Although they have good performances, their shop in the mall still suffers from adjustments in their positions. This has caused me to be tangled up. The overall performance of China’s department stores has been declining. The trip to England has convinced me that China’s department store retail environment will also have greater reshuffling and more profound adjustments.

At present, the practice of many department store practitioners makes me "understand." Performance decline, vicious competition, some people rush to take measures, hoping to stop the decline momentum, this kind of mood I can understand, but unfortunately some of the practices are only afraid of "drinking water and thirst quencher." Recently, a lot of voices about “going to dress” in the retail industry, as clothing brand merchants, we can personally experience that some department stores are continuously narrowing the apparel area, increasing catering, cinemas, entertainment and leisure areas. Dining and entertainment are large in area, low in efficiency, and low in rent. Although they can attract people in a short period of time, the high rentals and high deduction points in the apparel area are more in line with the long-term business interests of the department store. What's more, does the people of the country really need so much "eat, drink, and play"? Are China's department stores marching from "discount-style" homogenization to "eat, drink, play" homogenization? Costume consumption is the top of the four major livelihoods of “clothes, food, housing and transportation”. Where is its position?

The shock of online shopping and the decentralization of passenger flow have caused many retailers to feel confused and overwhelmed. This is what they feel for me. But in fact they do not need to be flustered. Because the essence of retailing is experience, clothing, catering, entertainment and other experiential products must be completed in physical stores. E-commerce cannot replace physical stores because e-commerce cannot experience art, service, and life. The market share taken by e-commerce is no more than a 15% share of daily use items with low experience. According to McKinsey & Company's forecast, China's online retail market sales will reach 420-650 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, equivalent to 20% of China's total retail sales of social goods in 2012. We visited British business companies and they are now very focused on high-tech marketing. Customers enter the service staff and they know what you want to buy and what you have bought before, despite the use of the most advanced information technology in the era of Big Data Cloud, the UK's top department store Harold. Raj Assanand, director of operations at Harrods, still believes that e-commerce is just the icing on the store floor, and is an aid to realizing the top shopping experience in physical stores.

What really needs to be flustered is the loss of judgment. What are the experiential products? What kind of brand structure is welcome by the customer base? What is the subjective experience consumption model in the future? and many more. If these problems cannot be judged, they can only achieve the “salary reduction” type of adjustment. The higher the rent deduction points are, the higher the number of bees is, “eat, drink and play,” and drive away the self-owned brands to make way for the “international brand” of the three or four streams. These are truly fluctuating actions.

Now that more than 90% of the department stores are doing real estate, real estate uses department stores to advertise, and department stores become the “facade” of real estate. If there is no real estate support, how long can the Chinese department store industry support?

The "clothes, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothes, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing, etc. The process of channel adjustment is also the process of branding and channel business. Good brands will come out or will come out, not your channel, that is his channel. When a brand grows, it needs to pass through a department store, but it is not non-essential. A mature brand can withdraw from a department store, just like Dong Mingzhu of Gree Electric Appliance withdraws from Gome. Now that many women's wear brands in China are not stationed in department stores, I believe that in the end it must be the era of brand success.

The core of retail is the experience of the <br> I attach great importance to the British experience, not only because the T100 brand style is "nobility, British style", but because the United Kingdom is the birthplace of modern business model, its commercial retail operation mode, experience The test of prosperity and depression is of great significance for reference.

Different from the Chinese Department Stores, where the experience of personalized art is different from that of homogenization, the British department stores are embarking on a differentiated development of echelons, Harrods Department Store at the spire, John Lewis serving the middle class, M&S (Marks & Spencer Martha), There are youth department stores, and the positioning of each department store is very clear. Each department store in its own position, do its best to highlight features to enhance customer experience. Harrods's experience revolves around the word "luxury". It is splendid and glorious. Entering Harrods is like entering art galleries and museums. Harrods invests more than 1 billion yuan to decorate buildings every year, spending 300 million on decorative stairs, and building stairs in the form of opera houses. Build and play the opera on the stairs. Harrods Department Store sells 15 billion yuan each year, and we sell the best shopping mall Shin Kong Place Department Store in China with an annual sales of about 6 billion. The British believe that a department store represents a culture of a class. John lewis has a very petty bourgeoisie decoration. Even the general merchandise for the general public has its own cultural personality.

Rather than superficially interpreting Wanda's practice as "going to dress", it is better to extract "positive energy" from the perspective of "enhancing customer experience." The Wanda system has increased the proportion of lifestyle and experience industries. Wanda has increased its brand rankings, increased its specialty brands, and has become the flagship champion brand, trend individuality brand, and international luxury brand at home and abroad, especially with local and international specialty restaurants. The cooperation between the food and beverage brands that have been welcomed makes Wanda Plaza more distinctive, attractive and gathering abilities.

Self-owned brand & own brand The British people pay great attention to the style, personality and cultural connotation of the product when choosing the brand clothing. Therefore, the style of the British clothing brand is clear and the consumption of the consumer group is clear. In the United Kingdom, each department store also has its own personality and will not change its position in order to meet a certain luxury. Every department store in the UK has its own brand, from clothing, bedding, dining table to food... Almost all categories have their own brand and distinctive brand collocation as a magic weapon to shape department stores. British department stores retain their customers with distinctive brand components. Chinese department stores rely on discounted sales to quickly withdraw funds. They lack brand personality and lack the determination to explore new brands. They believe that creating a new brand is risky and they do not know how to cultivate their brands. .

In the department stores of developed economies such as Europe and Japan, their own brands dominate, and there will usually be one or more floors dedicated to selling local designer brands or more distinctive brands.

On the other hand, in China, department stores still regard the foreign brands as the best, giving up their own brands to cater to foreign brands, including some brand companies still blindly representing foreign brands. China has long been an era of "wearing Adidas on fashion," and some practitioners' practice has really underestimated the aesthetic capabilities of current Chinese consumers. A group of good local clothing brands have grown up. They can help the department store to realize the characteristics of the brand composition, win a stable customer group, and no reason why the department store industry turned a blind eye.

Coexistence with the brand in the UK In the United Kingdom, department stores are highly dependent on the brand, and department stores often use their branded products to create their own position in the market. They will also vigorously cultivate new brands with potential, such as Harrods Department Store gives almost half the floor, to Victoria Beckham (Victoria. Beckham) and other emerging designers clothing brand display sales. Brand owners and marketers have indeed reached the status of interdependent symbionts, so brands and department store businesses respect each other.

Emphasis on family consumption occupying one floor in Harrods' entire children's products area. There is a children's amusement park and children's restaurant on site. Children's clothing is in a large position. Children, children, children, outdoor areas, bathing suits, evening dresses, etc. The different products are distributed in different areas. Having used the Chinese department store's children's wear area to squeeze, I specifically asked this question to Director Harrods: Why did Harrods wear children's clothing in such a large area? His answer is: Do you want to think about who really has the ability to spend? It is people who have families and children, not young people. These people must come to shop for family consumption. Children's clothing is an important part of family consumption. Not only Harrods, but also other British department stores. A four- or five-story department store has a children’s clothing area of ​​at least several thousand square meters. The British believe that the real consumer groups should be home-based, and only family consumption can really drive department store consumption. They pay more attention to the children's clothing taste than the Chinese. They think that children's clothing represents home taste and culture.

China's children's base, the status quo of only child, and so on, all determine that our children's product consumption needs will only be greater than in the United Kingdom. Children's products range from diapers, baby carriages, children's beds, toys, foods to children's wear. They have a wide range of sales, and the product elimination rate is several times that of adult products, which has a very broad market. At present, children's product manufacturers are fully aware of this point. In terms of children's wear, international luxury brands have launched children's wear in China, and domestic brands are not far behind. Why department stores do not see this business opportunity? At the same time, we moved children's clothing from the core position to the front hall, and from the edge hall to Nakajima...?

Losing household consumption, department stores will eventually lose their competitiveness. Fortunately, there are also some eye-catching domestic department store practitioners, gradually aware of the importance of "family consumption", such as Beijing's Jinyuan Yansha mall, children's clothing and other areas of children's products gradually expanded to the entire floor, operating performance is also see improvement.

There is a popular saying in the British folk: first-rate talents do business, second-rate talents do scientists, and third-rate talents do civil servants. As a member of the brand, I sincerely hope that together with outstanding retail partners, starting from the retail experience, starting from the family consumption, symbiotic coexistence, sharing difficulties, and win-win tomorrow!