Can Wanda Optimality Save The Department Store Industry?

The golden age of traditional department stores has long passed. Department stores are exploring the transformation and upgrading of business types through various ways. Wanda Department Store has recently begun to test the "buyer's shop".

According to the World Clothing, Shoes and Hats Network, the first“ Wanda Preferred ”The collection store was quietly settled on the third floor of Wanda Department Store in Tongzhou, Beijing. The simple store design is not eye-catching, but it integrates the collection store form of different categories of goods, and indeed builds a differentiated consumption scene for the traditional department store space.

Wanda Preferred Interior

According to the introduction of Wanda Optimality, the goods in the store are selected by professional buyers from all over the world, and the cost performance of the goods is strictly controlled. The categories include latest fashion , jewelry Shoes , skin care products, local delicacies, etc. Buyers will also update the goods frequently according to the emotional attributes of "trendy", "fun", "online celebrity" and other goods, so as to maintain the attraction of collection stores to young consumers.

Wanda preferred goods layout

Outside the collection store, this Wanda Department Store is also more flexible in its operation mode, and will open "store in store" or "flash store" according to the retail characteristics of the goods and the demand for sales space.

The business model of "buyer's shop" first appeared in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Buyers or shopkeepers collected products from all over the world according to their personal taste and taste and concentrated them in one store for display and sale. The key to determining the sales of a buyer's shop is the buyer's grasp of style and taste. Since 2010, European and American buyers' stores have begun to decline under the influence of fast fashion brands, e-commerce and new marketing forms, but domestic buyers' stores have embarked on a fast track.

In addition to European or Hong Kong funded buyers' stores that enter the Chinese market and local independent buyers' stores that support domestic designers, traditional department stores have also begun to actively introduce or self build buyers' store brands in recent years.

Before Wanda Optimality, the business model of "private brand+buyer brand+scenario sales" was established after Nanjing Xinbai acquired the British retail department store HOF; In 2012 and 2015, Yintai created two buyer store brands, namely, Xiyou and JIHOOD. One is dominated by international luxury brands, and the other is characterized by intelligent stores. At present, more than 10 stores have been developed; In addition, Shanghai Ruiou Department Store Self operated Buyer Store Assemble By R é el and the b á lancing of Bailian Group are also developing rapidly.

The combination of local department stores and the buyer's store mode, on the one hand, conforms to the development route of boutique department stores, on the other hand, it also provides a differentiated consumption experience, meeting the more segmented consumption demand in the context of consumption upgrading.

Zhou Changqing, secretary-general of China Commercial Real Estate Big Data Alliance and CEO of China Commercial Data, said to the interface news that this brand collection buyer store is the ultimate sales scene created around the target consumer group, and they have gathered different kinds of goods originally scattered in department stores into one store in the form of "buyer system", It provides a richer choice of goods for a certain category of consumers.

In addition to catering to diversified consumer demand, the advantages of capital, supply chain and location are important reasons for the development of buyer stores in the department store industry. The reason why Wanda tried this model is that it also took into account the existing advantages of Wanda Department Store and Wanda Plaza. "It hopes to use the massive category, brand and commodity resources of Wanda Department Store to reduce the operating costs by reducing the distance between upstream and downstream of the supply chain through pricing based on quantity in Wanda Plaza, a unique large-scale business platform, and finally let consumers get a better shopping experience."

In Zhou Changqing's view, department stores originally attract customers with a wealth of goods. In the process of transformation and upgrading, they should strengthen their vision and ability to select goods and improve their response to customer needs. In the exploration of the department store industry combined with the buyer's shop, the Yintai buyer's shop brand "Collection", which is often compared with Wanda's preferred model by the industry, is optimizing the selection method and consumption experience of the "buyer's shop" in a more intelligent way.

Yintai positioned "goods collection" as "a buyer's shop that can open up online and offline channels". The goods of the collection shop are mainly from Tmall's top brands, online top single products, online original designer works and direct purchases by manufacturers. Although like Wanda Optimality, it emphasizes the high cost performance of goods in the store, "goods collection" will not only rely on buyers, but also optimize the selection method by combining the analysis of online big data. At the same time, the "goods collection" intelligent store operation has also improved consumers' offline experience. For example, in store goods can quickly capture product information through RFID magnetic buttons, improve online and offline payment efficiency, and fitting mirrors and fitting rooms can intelligently identify product information and consumer demand. This innovation to improve product and consumer efficiency also conforms to the development trend of new retail.

At present, although many department stores are trying to set up "buyer stores" in the form of brands, this model has not yet formed a trend in the industry. Zhou Changqing believes that it is difficult to replicate the "buyer's shop" on a large scale. After all, the shop targeting a certain target consumer group may not be suitable for the positioning and tonality of all department stores.

For more wonderful reports, please pay attention to the World Clothing, Shoes and Hats Network.