01
What's going on in the retail industry with the rise of discount shops?
At the same time as the box horse force change, many other retail industry counterparts are not idle.
According to retail fair, Yonghui Supermarket has opened "genuine discount shops" in a number of shops across the country, and the first Yunnan flagship shop was officially opened in the Century Jinyuan Shopping Centre in Kunming before the Chinese New Year; BBK has announced that the price of commodities has been reduced by 15% to comply with the retail industry's low-priced strategy; Olezi, a supermarket from Germany, has proposed that "Good quality, low enough price", in October 2023 launched a lower price "super value" series; the U.S. warehouse brand Costco opened its sixth shop in China in Shenzhen in January this year, and plans to open a whole shop in Nanjing. Eco-mode flagship shop ......
The trend has also spread to the snack food retail industry, with Liangpinpu announcing the largest price cut in 17 years and Sanjisongquiri launching a "high-end cost-effective" strategy.
For a while, discounts have become the hottest keyword in the retail industry, and it seems that a price war has begun. However, according to E&S, discounting cannot be equated with low prices and price wars.
Looking back at the development of China's retail industry, the low price strategy has been around for a long time, and there is almost no way out of competing solely on low prices. Carrefour has also tried to upgrade its hypermarkets into membership shops and warehouse shops, which eventually ended with its withdrawal from China. Another example is the temporary discount shop, although in the opening of the shop at the beginning of attracting the attention of young people, but because of the serious homogenisation, unstable sources of goods and other factors, whether it can attract consumers to continue to repurchase, has also become a problem.
According to retail fair, Hou Yi, CEO of Box Horse, has said, "Let the good goods are not expensive, the best goods, high-end goods, the price down is the ability." And for how to achieve discounted change, he thinks there are three key words: low price (low price), low cost operation (low cost operation), but unique (uniqueness).
Before making this statement, Hou Yi went to Europe specifically for a local retail supermarket inspection. He found that discount operation has become a global retail trend, and is also a reform road that Chinese retail must go through.
In the view of "Electricity and Shop", behind the discount operation is actually the change of the whole consumer market. This is a special period of consumer change, but it is not untraceable.
02
Behind the discount, the consumer market has changed?
"The save, the spend, ride a bike to the pub", "not XX can not afford, is XX more cost-effective", behind many similar buzzwords, is the whole society's consumer attitudes change.
Cautious consumption, pay more attention to the price of goods, is gradually becoming a major feature of the current consumer market. And for the retail industry, discounts are not new.
According to retail fair, as early as the 1990s, Japan's economy entered a recession, consumers began to return to rationality, demand declined, and became more sensitive to price. At that time, the Japanese retail industry underwent a transformation, and discount shops rose rapidly, such as Daiso Department Store, a 100-yen shop, Don Quixote, a soft discount shop, and Uniqlo, an affordable clothing brand.
As the growth rate of the domestic economy shifts gears, there is a similar logic to the popularity of discount retail.
Specifically, "Electricity and Shop" believes that the mainstream consumer groups not only to ensure that their own consumption level is not reduced, but also affected by the reality of reduced income, but also focus on the planning of consumer spending, but also to buy in line with their own consumption needs of the "good stuff", to meet their own more consumer needs.
This new feature of market change has begun to appear in department stores, supermarkets, restaurants and many other areas.
According to retail fair, electricity and Shops observed that the clientele of discount retailers can be divided into two groups: one is low-income people, who are sensitive to the prices of ordinary daily necessities; and the other is the middle class with a certain degree of purchasing power, who will be interested in luxury goods with big discounts.
For domestic retailers, the latter group of consumers contains greater business opportunities, at least in Hou Yi's view. He suggests that the competition facing Chinese retail is different from that of other markets in the world. Discounted supermarkets for the middle class are a huge blue ocean market, and online services are a major feature of China's retail market.
Therefore, the "30-minute delivery" service pioneered by Box Horse has raised the threshold of retail services in China, and pushed China's retail industry into a comprehensive, Internet-based competition that includes both online and offline services. To gain an advantageous position in such competition, the test is the whole enterprise's operation system and supply chain.
Source: 赢商网