For a long time, in the operation mode of traditional high-end shopping malls, the relationship with the brand is more like the relationship between the "landlord and the tenant", due to the excessive dependence on the brand and the lack of discourse power in the organization and operation of services, so that the goods and the field are relatively separated, and the image of the mall is more homogeneous.
For the "non-traditional" consumer group that is increasingly pursuing personality differentiation from the product itself and the shopping experience, it is obviously difficult to maintain customer stickiness, but this deficiency can be solved or supplemented to a certain extent in the buyer shops that play the role of "stylist" and "stylist".
Labelhood Shenzhen Vientiane Qianhai Shopping Center store
Since the end of the 20th century, Department Stores such as Galeries Lafayette, Lane Crawford, I.T. and Joyce have successively entered the Chinese market, introducing the buying and handmade model to China, and China's buyers' stores have begun to move forward in exploration. After experiencing initial setbacks and confusion, buyers have gradually improved in the run-in with Chinese consumers, with the number of stores opening from less than 100 from 2013 to more than 3,000 by the end of 2019.
After 2020, China's buyers' stores have entered an explosive period, according to Shitang statistics, there were 3101 buyers in the second quarter of 2019, an increase of 51% compared with the first quarter, and the market size was 7.21 billion yuan. According to Ontimeshow's 2022SS Ordering Conference data, the total transaction volume in the quarter is estimated to be more than 4 billion yuan, and the number of buyers and customers present is as high as 9603. A set of data revealed at the 2019 China Fashion Conference hosted by the China Fashion Designers Association shows that in the past five years, China's boutiques have grown from more than 70 to more than 500, an increase of more than 6 times. The urban distribution of buyers has also spread from first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to second- and third-tier cities.
As a buyer of imported products, although it once showed dissatisfaction in the run-in with the Chinese market, a clearer market positioning, a personalized brand group, and a novel and independent operation style and service model not only brought a certain degree of threat to the traditional high-end department store, but also had no lack of inspiration. This point can be verified again and again from the well-known buyers' stores that have continuously introduced their own traffic in high-end department stores for a long time, or the measures to develop self-operated buyers' stores and transform into buyer-made shopping malls.
In recent years, with the improvement of consumer fashion awareness, interest in niche brands has risen, and personalized expressions have become more and more pursued. Buyers who play the roles of "stylists" and "stylists" are increasingly able to adapt to changing consumer and aesthetic consciousness. Today's market has changed from the supplier-oriented brand side to educate consumers, to the consumer-oriented consumer stage, and the reverse effect on the brand side stage, then the transformation of traditional department stores to buyers has become an inevitable trend.
Those who know the times, go with the flow. Witnessing the budding and outbreak of buyers, now is the best time to develop the buying system, for the traditional high-end shopping malls that are eyeing the tiger, the introduction of their own traffic of the buyer's shop, or the trend of the integrated store is a safety card.
Looknow Beijing Guomao Mall store
Just like Looknow in Beijing's China World Mall, Labelhood in Shenzhen's Wanxiang Former Shopping Center, SND in Chongqing Global Shopping Center; as of now, Knowin Trend Lab, which has received multiple capital injections in 2021, has also successively settled in Shanghai Xintiandi, Shanghai TX Huaihai, Hangzhou Hubin 88, Beijing Xidan Renewal Field, Chengdu Jingronghui and other shopping malls, and Solestage's retail layout has also been deployed and Beijing Sanlitun Taikoo Li and Chengdu Ocean Taikoo Li. With a bright visual style and unique combination of goods, the distinctive boutique is injecting fresh vitality into the traditional high-end shopping mall, becoming the first step in its development towards the buyer's handicraft system.
How to upgrade from business form to model innovation? With the increasing volume of investment in self-operated buyers, traditional high-end shopping malls are using their existing advantages such as customer resources and operating resources to integrate the buyer system into their own development system, rather than introducing it alone.
Compared with independent buyers, the transformation of traditional high-end shopping malls to buyers actually has a certain degree of "geographical advantage" - just like the complete consumption dynamic line composed of unattainable traffic and rich retail formats in independent buyers' stores. Borrowing big names to divert traffic from the niche, so that consumers can enjoy the fun of discovering the niche in the world after visiting the well-known big names. At the same time, shopping malls can also use self-operated boutiques as a touchstone for niche brands to find the next long-red niche brand. Trends are fleeting and unpredictable, and self-operated boutiques can provide malls with a window into market trends.
For example, ambership, a group-operated beauty boutique officially opened in Shenzhen Printronix Center in October 2021; Karan Space, a Spuris self-operated boutique that officially opened at the end of 2021; or earlier, the "Assemble by Réel" integrated store in Shanghai Ruiou, which has been open since 2016; and the bálancing multi-brand collective buyer store opened by Bailian Group in 2017 in its veteran shopping mall Orient Commercial Building.
Wangfujing's first handmade department store, Dongan Ruijin
In January this year, Wangfujing's first handmade department store, the Dong'an Market, which brings together more than 600 international first-line luxury brands, independent designer brands and high street tide brands, was officially opened, and in the announcement at the beginning of the opening, the Group said that this is an important measure for the company to explore the transformation and innovation of the department store format.
It is reported that the renovation project was carried out by Luxemporium Ruijin Shangpin, which is a new business line under Wangfujing Group - in 2018, Wangfujing Group acquired Ruijin Shangpin (Shanghai) International Trade Company and created a team of buyers. At present, Luxemporium has 19 large-scale luxury buyer collection projects of more than 1,000 square meters in the country, covering Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Tianjin, Suzhou, Taiyuan and other cities.
On the other hand, as of now, Yintai Department Store has hatched a number of large-scale self-operated business lines, including new retail cloud stores, Yintai x Tmall trend collection stores, West Buyers' Stores, Xixuan Boutique Supermarkets, etc., and has just opened a new type of department store collection store intime365 on Jiangyin Renmin Road in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province on January 8 this year, displaying first-line beauty and luxury brands such as Dior, Burberry, and Leiberni, many of which are entering Jiangyin for the first time with intime365 as the window. Reach consumers face-to-face.
On January 8, Intime365, intime365, a department store under Yintai Department Store, was officially opened in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province
In April 2021, IncollecTion, a designer bag brand collection store jointly created by Yintai Department Store and Tmall, also opened in Wulin Yintai.
So far, the mini cloud store of Yintai Department Store has covered 22 cities and radiated 8 provincial capitals, with a total of 50.
SKP self-operated intensified buying bookstore SKP Select Home
Beijing SKP, which has been building its own procurement team since 2014, has successively launched SKP Select Home and SKP Select Beauty after launching its own boutique SKP Select, expanding its self-operated business scope to home and beauty.
At the same time, the high-end shopping malls that have seized the "time of day" and "geographical advantages" have not only taken the commercial real estate as themselves and acted as the "lessor" in physical retail alone in the past long time, such as art malls, trend centers, social retail and other theme shaping and corresponding community construction strategies, but also further presented significant differentiation and IP attributes in the operation of self-operated buyers, so as to enhance their competitive advantages and profit margins.
One of the most typical examples is SKP, which injects a multicultural atmosphere and interactive experience into physical retail through different space exhibitions and offline activities, and according to incomplete statistics, since December 2019, its own boutique SKP Select has cooperated with more than 20 brands to hold limited-time boutique activities.
Nike and Kwon Ji-yong jointly name the shoe concept art space
In December last year, Nike and Kwon Zhilong jointly launched a new shoe Kwondo1 at SKP Select on the third floor of SKP-S in Beijing to create a concept art space, using elements such as red daisies combined with in-store lighting to create a unique visual effect; last May, SKP Select Beauty partnered with Tata Harper, an American natural skin peel expert, to hold a "Pure SkinCare Master Class"; in 2019 During the Annual Xi'an International Fashion Week, Xi'an SKP Select held an in-house show as a theme interactive sub-venue.
As an important part of the complete experience of SKP-S Mars, SKP Select, with the concept of mars museum, is not only a collection space for many designers and international brands, or limited sportswear, but also tells the history of human development on Mars through spacecraft models, portraits of Martian women, space capsule-like fitting rooms and interstellar war stories, and records the deeds of Martian pioneers through video clips and abstract broadcasts.
SKP Select with the Mars Museum as a concept
As mentioned above, Yintai Department Store has gradually created a unique self-operated business matrix, and its new retail project Yintai Cloud Store has formed an online and offline integration link with digital customers, goods and fields, using the interaction mode of "cloud screen", using the digital platform as the medium, combined with the trial of various popular cosmetics and fashions offline to achieve a one-stop shopping experience. In view of the younger consumer groups and consumption scenarios, Yintai Yundian has also entered Zhejiang Foreign Chinese University, Hangzhou Normal University, Zhejiang University City College and other colleges.
Answer Limited, the country's first trend brand collection store in Xiaoshan Yintai, Hangzhou last December, tried for the first time the fashion trend to integrate convenience store culture, gathering niche designers, tide play, sneakers, Pop up, art exhibition/IP exhibition, coffee, providing an immersive experience space of retail + experience + social culture for young consumers.
Yintai Department Store is the country's first trend collection store Answer Limited
As such, it is not difficult to see that at the moment when consumers are seeking innovation and difference, the transformation to the buyer system with different trajectories is becoming a win-win choice for more and more high-end shopping malls to enhance the connection between goods and the field, further take the initiative to communicate better with consumers, and compete for profit space.
Looking back, when we discuss the transformation of high-end shopping malls by introducing well-known buyers or developing self-operated buyers around the core topic of "buying and handmade", it can actually be seen as part of the long-term strategy of China's high-end shopping malls - whether it is the concept of social retail known for community interaction and digital experience, the art and culture business philosophy that has been emphasized through exhibition installations, and the leisure park-style shopping mall presented by rich life services, it is one of the methods of inheritance. The core issue is nothing more than grasping the timing and place, and only grasping the appetite of these "non-traditional" people.
With such a comprehensive and interrelated idea, it is more conducive to bidding farewell to the introduction and replication of a single, and using the methodology of the buyer's hand system to achieve a steady stream of "value-added" for high-end department stores and leased brands; whether it is the buyer's shops that have become more and more "local and customary" in the past two decades, or more and more self-operated buy-and-sell shop business that is actively learned and used and run through online and offline, it will be able to learn from each other's strengths and go further in the future competition of China's retail industry. WWD
Written by Eva Liang
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