Can online and offline retailing “shake hands and talk”?
The “6·18” just passed is the second-largest online shopping carnival in China. Different from previous years, the integration of online and offline omnichannel has become a major feature of this year. All the e-commerce giants have entered the offline retail market in a big way, and the trend of the hegemony is on the rise. The “new retail” is full of vitality. However, whether online and offline retail sales will “shake hands and talk” and get rid of this difference will face a series of challenges.
First, the combination of online retail and physical retail has spawned new industry norms.
Compared with the traditional business field, the industry standard in the field of online retail is still in the process of improvement. At present, "Network Retail Monitoring Indicator Specification" "Online Retail Platform False Deal Management Specification", "Network Retail Platform Self-operated Business Evaluation Index and Grade Division", "E-Commerce Consumer Product Quality Inspection Sampling Specification" and "Mobile E-Commerce Service Product Management Specification" "The standard has been closed for public comment. In the next step, it is imperative to introduce industry standards in the field of online retail as soon as possible.
Second, the new retail environment urgently needs to develop new technical standards.
For example, Ali’s Box Horse Fresh, Yonghui Supermarket’s super-species and other fresh experience stores will be integrated with catering, online and offline in a physical environment. This environment integrates many technologies such as cold chain logistics, central kitchen, near field communication, digital labeling, and electronic payment, and involves many emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing. In the future, as the application area expands, more transactions will be connected to such environments. This constitutes no small pressure on the formulation and implementation of relevant technical standards.
Third, “new retail” requires physical retail to change its business philosophy.
In the traditional business logic, business activities mainly focus on improving service quality, increasing passenger flow, reducing the loss of goods, etc., and simply aiming at improving key indicators such as the efficiency (how much turnover can be produced per ping area). The business logic of “new retail” focuses on the social, localized, mobile, personalized consumer environment, application data mining and other analytical techniques to more specifically meet the needs of different groups and even each consumer. Therefore, in the process of the integration of online retail and physical retail, the first thing is to activate the rich data stored in the physical store, apply to data analysis and consumer portrait drawing, and promote the two-way interaction and integration.
At the same time, under the support of strong data analysis, it can also provide strong support for the supply-side structural reform of the manufacturing industry. As a result, the supply side and the demand side are expected to achieve real-time, all-round docking, and thus truly build a new consumer environment covering the entire industry chain.
In addition, there is a derivative problem, that is, the overall pattern of “new retail” is still in the process of construction, and who will eventually become the industry leader? Is the e-commerce company represented by Alibaba and Tencent, with a market share of 14%, swallowing 86% of the retail market? Or offline retail giants, after learning the new logic of online retail, relying on strong market power to counter e-commerce? Or will it produce a new format of the intelligent era after the honeymoon? All kinds of uncertainties or possibilities just confirm the creativity of the Chinese economy. We will wait and see!
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