The physical store is not without life, the physical store must have life.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public number “Linker Network” (ID:linkshop2012) , the author of the joint business network.
On October 17, the 2019 Lianshang Fengyun Conference and the 2nd China (Fujian) International Smart Business Conference were grandly opened at the Fuzhou Strait International Convention and Exhibition Center.
At the meeting, Xu Jingbo, president of Asia News Agency, gave a keynote speech on “Why are Japanese physical stores still developing under the impact of e-commerce,” focusing on the basic situation of traditional Japanese retail industry and the impact of the digital economy. The secret of the development of the old department store.
The following is a summary of Xu Jingbo’s speech compiled by Lianhe.com:
Hello everyone! I am Xu Jingbo from Tokyo. What I want to share with you today is the traditional retail industry in Japan. It is what we often say about how physical stores are doing now, how to maintain them, how to survive, and where digital retail in Japan is currently What kind of situation is Japan’s experience and lessons in the development of the retail industry.
First let us introduce the basic situation of Japan retail industry. According to the ranking of 250 retailers in the world in 2018, there are 64 in the whole Asian region. In fact, there are 15 in China including Taiwan and Hong Kong, and 32 in Japan. Everyone can see that in addition to department stores, there are convenience stores, supermarkets, drugstores, shopping centers, and vending machines.
The business development in Japan is earlier and faster than China. Ginza has a store called a commercial department store. It was founded in 1673 and has a history of 346 years. So most of Japan’s department stores are old department stores with hundreds of years of history. How did these old department stores come over? How to seek development under the impact of the digital economy now has some secrets.
From the current ratio of physical stores, the total retail market in 2018 is 18 trillion yen, online shopping only accounts for 6%, and online shopping in China accounts for 19.8% in 2018. Compared with this data, China’s online shopping is indeed real. Japan is developing fast, and its scale is larger than that of Japan.
There is also a survey showing how many people in Japan have bought things online, only 28%. It is hard to imagine a developed business empire in Japan. Why are you not keen on online shopping?
Japan and China are now entering the issue of aging children. The birth rate of children is getting lower and lower. The age of 65 years old has accounted for 27%, and China is 19%. But our population in China is bigger than Japan.
Under such a background, if a Japanese business enterprise blindly expands your physical store, it is likely to be ten or fifteen years. When your investment has not been recovered, you may want to close the store. . Therefore, Japanese business enterprises are very cautious about opening a new store because they have suffered this loss.
Then, look back, why the Japanese e-commerce market is not doing much, for several reasons: First, when China’s e-commerce can be removed by electronic intermediaries to obtain the highest price advantage, < Strong> There is a big spread between online and offline.
This situation is unlikely to happen in Japan. The price of online and physical entities is the same, but the entity has more experience. This has led to e-commerce simply providing shopping convenience, but does not provide a shopping experience.
Second, Japan’s business format is too common, too prosperous and too popular. Every village in Japan has a convenience store, and Japanese convenience stores are different from convenience stores in China. Japanese convenience stores combine all functions of retail, banking, express delivery, public payment, etc., including simple Office.
So there is no inconvenience in having a convenience store in a village. Taking money to buy things, picking up parcels, remittance, copying, and printing can all be done at a convenience store.
So, this very popular business format allows the Japanese to buy what they want, anytime, anywhere, which makes it difficult for some of our e-commerce market to develop.
One more reason is that the Japanese are very experienced. Whether it is a Japanese department store or a convenience store, all things can be touched. Many Japanese people still have the habit of visiting shops, shopping, and shopping.
Although the culture of shopping in Japan has not disappeared yet, this kind of shopping culture brings about the prosperity of the entire business district, because after going out to buy things, you have to take a car, eat, drink coffee, eat cake, circle After that, your consumption is greater than at home.
So on the holidays, there are too many Ginza people in Tokyo, because everyone is out shopping. Moreover, in local cities in Japan, it is a rural shopping center and a supermarket where a family is reunited. Why? Japanese people in the supermarket, shopping center to provide you with a large number of meals, while providing a free rest area, so everyone likes to go there.
thatThe reason why Japanese physical stores are so friendly to survive is that the supermarkets in the Japanese community are basically open 24 hours a day. When you are hungry, you can buy anything in the supermarket, so this 24-hour service is available. This makes many Japanese people do not need to lie on the computer or ask for a quick delivery.
The development of Japanese physical stores is not just a receptor, that is to say, after I opened a store, customers came to my store to buy my things. Now it is the opposite, to provide consumers with a new way of life.
This lifestyle has two in Japan, one is a drug store. In the original concept, the drug store would think of Watsons, because the drug store is selling medicine, and later there is cosmetics, but the drug store in Japan is a simple cosmetics and health store in addition to the Ginza drug store, the drug makeup of the living community. The connotation of the store has been expanded indefinitely, and the large drug store has prescription doctors, so it is a life-intensive integrated commercial facility.
There are a lot of housewives in Japanese society. When they get back from school at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, they take their children to the supermarket to buy things. When they buy, they go home to cook and wait for her husband to come back. The discount time in Japan is from 7:30 to 8:30, especially for some sushi, bread and food to be eaten that day.
There is another format that is the Bird House Bookstore. It is very difficult to sell books in physical stores. Japan has also encountered this problem. How to reform? Most of the people who go to the bookstore to visit the bookstore are after 70, 80, and 90, which means that there are more white-collar bookstores, not old people.
After work, there are bookstores near the station to go shopping and see what books. Draw an area in the bookstore to make a light meal. In such a grand reading atmosphere, you can slowly drink coffee and taste the cake. This is the business model of the bird house. So now the bookstore has become a new business format.
There are two new ways to survive in Japanese stores. The first lifestyle China has begun to learn, is the comprehensive shopping body of the subway light rail.
Why is there such a commercial format, because the highest traffic is at the station? There is a special situation in the Chinese station, that is, there is security check, so the subway light rail is only a place for a transportation hub and is not regarded as a commercial place. .
The traffic volume of a station like Tokyo Station is 900,000 people, and the traffic of Shinjuku Station is 1.2 million people a day. If 1% can be consumed here, the consumption capacity is huge.
The people who go to work are mainly white-collar workers. Most white-collar workers who pass the station light rail subway are the mainstream of consumption in China. If these people can stop and walk into your store, they will definitely Spend money.
Secondly, at present, Chinese department stores are mixed with shopping centers, and Japanese department stores and shopping centers are separate. What is this concept?
The department stores are in the most prosperous places in the city center, and the shopping centers are all in the suburbs. This is a complete two formats. Then, the biggest thing that department stores in the city do for survival and development is to take the bottom layer out of the food supermarket. In addition to buying some cakes, fruits, and drinks, the most cooked food is a very important thing. The hot spots of gathering and selling.
Finally, talk about electronic payments. Digital sales are inseparable from electronic payments, and China is one of the fastest growing countries in the world for electronic payments. Our current Alipay and Tencent payment have all gone abroad.
Alipay and WeChat payment can be used in almost all convenience stores in Japan. However, here is a point to note, because Alipay and WeChat must be bound to China’s bank account and mobile phone.
So, including Japan, local consumers overseas do not need Alipay and WeChat because they have no way to use them.
So, it is a fact that overseas Alipay and WeChat have already landed in overseas countries. But this fact is actually the extension of the domestic payment market. Consumers are still Chinese or tourists.
So, the Japanese society now has a big problem with electronic payment. Why is there no Alipay or WeChat payment in Japan? There are several reasons for this: First, there is a strong sense of protection of personal information.
All payments are tied to the ID card, and the ID card is bundled with the phone, so all the electronic platforms registered on the phone and ID card can know where you bought it.
In other words, you need to know all your personal information and whereabouts to check your ID card. Japan has been pushing ID cards desperately in recent years, but it has been opposed by many Japanese nationals because of concerns about personal information.
Second, Japan and China are missing a credit card era. Japan has been in the credit card era since the 1950s and is now an era of personal financial credibility.
Because the Japanese people believe in credit card information protection and personal credit rating, Japan still believes in credit cards and does not believe in electronic payments.
Therefore, Japan is now developing electronic payment for several years. The Tokyo Olympics will be held next year. Some foreigners will be accustomed to electronic payment after coming. Japan’s current electronic payment is tied to a credit card.
In this case, in fact, electronic payment has become a change or extension of credit card payment means, rather than a new electronic sales model.
Third, there is also a card in Japan that can be recharged to 20,000 yen (1200 yuan). The transportation card can be used in all stores. It is an electronic money. This makes the Japanese feel that having this card is enough. Therefore, the transportation card has also greatly affected Japan’s electronic payment.
Fourth, the special awareness of Japanese cashism. Many stores in Japan have not been able to use credit cards until now, and they use cash. They say that credit cards have to pay a handling fee. Another point is that the flow of funds is not so big. If you always have one or two months, the funds will not be transferred.
In addition, cash is a change in money. When it becomes a number, there is actually no feeling. I also went to experience it. When I made a red envelope, I sent a red envelope of two hundred dollars and went out. When I took two hundred cash, I would measure it.
So the entire Japanese society is still very conservative in cashism. The electronic payment of this thing must also be lost, it depends on how the entire society controls personal information and how to protect personal information. This awareness is how to protect the personal information that customers provide to you in our retail industry is also a big issue.
In short, Japanese physical stores are still very good in Japan. From the overall sales situation in the past six months, the proportion of department stores in the metropolis is not high, especially in the year, there are nearly 40 million. After foreign tourists came in, the amount of foreign tourists shopping in department stores accounted for 88% of last year.
At the same time, physical stores have a phenomenon that deserves attention. They are now also selling online, which means they also open websites and sell through their own apps.
The Japanese department store also has a special mode, which is diplomatic sales. It is a door-to-door sales service for the affluent people. It sends a beautiful album of the best and best products in the world to VIP customers, and then goes to the door. Goods are delivered to your home, and these goods are high-end.
So, this proportion accounts for about 10% of diplomatic sales in commercial department stores. I think we can learn this marketing model.
The physical store is not without life, the physical store must have life, because when a society is seeking a kind of tranquility and leisure, I believe that this culture is still there. Under this circumstance, I believe that China’s physical stores will surely usher in the second spring.
The cover image is from pexels