After scouring the market for 3 months, I found 4 ways out for owners of maternity and baby stores!

This article describes what you should do in order to achieve a positive cycle in the maternal and infant track from the perspectives of mentality, form, and channels. I hope it can give you some inspiration.

After a speech in Beijing, a maternity and baby store owner told me that after running the store for more than ten years, she is now under unprecedented pressure and is very anxious every day. She doesn’t know where to go.

At that moment, I could especially understand her difficulties.

Because I have been in the maternal and infant store market for 3 months, I have seen dozens of maternal and infant stores with different survival models, and talked to dozens of maternal and infant store owners, shopping guides and dealers. Therefore, I know where the future development direction of this industry is.

So, facing the trillion-dollar maternal and infant market , what is the way out for a small maternal and infant store ?

I gave the store owner some advice and pointed out four solutions. I will share them with you today.

1. Accept that money is earned slowly

In terms of the overall environment, consumption is bound to be downgraded, there is little hope for an increase in the birth rate in the short term, and it is already difficult for the number of newborns to remain stable.

Don't be pessimistic, don't be optimistic, only by being objective can you survive .

You should know that the proportion of women in China who are suitable for childbearing will generally decline in the next 10 years. This means that within 10 years, mothers and newborns will be the stock market. For businesses with this group of people, competition will only intensify, and only the winners and the fittest will survive.

Therefore, if you made 1 million in the past year, you may only make 200,000 today; if you made 100,000 a month in the past, you may only make 5,000 a month now. You have to accept this gap, which means you are making money slower.

Acceptance does not mean lying down .

If you don't change your mindset, you will always be in pain and anxiety.

2. Highlight the "professional" image and make money by "professionalism"

 Opening and closing stores is so common today that there is no so-called "brand" for a maternity and baby store.

There are only two things you can rely on to make money: expertise and products .

Expertise is something you acquire within yourself, while products are controlled by brands and channels.

Therefore, you should run a "specialty store" rather than a "collection store" (grocery store); you should make money by relying on "professionalism" rather than on products.

What is a specialty store? It must have its own unique skills and characteristics, leaving customers with a deep impression of being able to solve problems and being professional. It cannot be just a store that sells products.

You can buy the product anywhere, why should you buy it?

For example.

You focus on children's nutritional supplements , and you have a wide range of children's health supplements for all stages and ages. You are also very clear about children's various symptoms, such as what nutrients they are lacking, and can give mothers professional advice and guidance.

For example, it is also OK to specialize in children's allergies . My child has an allergic constitution. When he gets up in the morning and gets a little cold wind, he sneezes and has a runny nose. What should I do in this situation? What medicine should I use and what should I pay attention to in my daily life? I have spent a lot of money on this.

Another example is focusing on children's growth. These are the rigid needs of the market and the pain points of parents.

You have to choose a direction, label yourself (your store), and be more professional than others. Then customers will remember you and trust you. The more intense the competition, the more valuable your expertise is, and the higher the cost of trust. Once trust is established, the greater the value, the more willing customers are to buy from you.

Then, you can sell them more products.

A mother and baby store that is not professional and has no characteristics can only compete on price, pile up products, and strain funds. In the end, it cannot make any money and may easily ruin itself.

3. Focus on "human touch" and discard cost-effectiveness

 If value for money means low price or cheapness, then throw it away.

Single maternity and baby stores mainly do business with familiar customers and are community stores. This is completely different from system stores such as Kidsland and Baby Room, which can rely on brands and a large amount of traffic.

It's your own business, and your home is nearby, so you should be humane. Treat customers like your brothers and sisters, don't be too calculative, and don't just focus on the small profits in front of you. How to do it specifically? Let me tell you two stories about community stores that I have experienced.

There is a fruit store near my home. One night I went to buy oranges. After weighing them, the boss said to me, "You are a regular customer . Some of the bananas in the store are overripe. They don't look good, but they are not bad . They are absolutely fine for your family to eat. If you don't mind, take some home to eat."

Her words instantly warmed my heart. Although I didn't need this little money, people are emotional, so I took some home.

Since then, I always feel that this store is particularly close to me, so naturally, I go there more often to buy. And later, a new fruit store opened downstairs, which is even closer to me, but I don’t go there much either. This is the power of human touch .

There was another restaurant. Once I packed food to eat at the office. He knew there were only two of us, so he told me: Don't order 4 dishes, you can't finish more. Which dish do you recommend not to order, which dish would go better with rice. In the end, I ordered 3 dishes.

You see, the boss could have made more money by selling one more dish, but he didn't do it. Why? Human touch is about relationships, not making more money right now .

The core of community stores is trust, relationships and human touch.

Besides, the customers of maternity and baby stores are mothers and grandmothers, and they all come for their children.

With human touch, customers will be willing to do it even if it means you earn an extra five or eight yuan. This is the premium brought by human touch.

4. Focus on private domain and service

 The owner of a maternity and baby store downstairs in my community simply closed the store due to the epidemic. But she has been maintaining her own private domain - two WeChat groups of old customers. I think the business will be worse after the store is closed.

I was wrong . When I met her again, the business pressure was not as great as before, and I made more money than before. Not only did she sell maternal and infant products, she also started community group buying, agricultural products, and cross-border products.

As long as you open a store, you must do private domain, so stick to it .

For independent maternity and baby stores to operate in the private domain, they do not need to be as complicated as big brands and carry out a large number of refined operations. They only need to grasp the key actions in the private domain and insist on not doing anything that hurts customers.

Use private domains to retain old customers, prevent loss, and encourage them to repurchase other products.

Regarding private domain operations, just do the following:

1. Private domain IP is to convey the store owner’s own image more clearly, with a little design from WeChat avatar, name, and signature.
2. Talk about the benefits that adding a private domain can bring to customers, whether it is adding friends or joining a group. Just make the benefits and value clear.
3. Post more on Moments and daily life.
4. It is very important to classify and label customers properly, so as not to confuse their information and provide better services to them.

Whether it is a husband-and-wife shop or a shop with employees, the future must be won by professionalism, and we cannot be like the makeshift team in the past. We must learn and grow, acquire some professional knowledge, run the shop well, and serve customers well.

The above four solutions are the suggestions I gave to the owner of the maternity and baby store. You can take what you need.

Finally, when there are more customers in the store, I suggest that we can set up a membership system for old customers, apply for a membership card, and give some real discounts and benefits. Recharge is not recommended, because recharge is a disguised fundraising, a disguised sacrifice of profits, and a price war.

What everyone wants to do is to run a long-term and healthy business, make the money they deserve, provide good service, and win professionally. The more humane a store is, the more suitable it is to become a member.

A netizen left a message saying that in today's market environment, it is extremely difficult to make a lot of money by opening a store, but it is not difficult to support a family by running a small store steadily and seriously .

Ideas determine the way out, and attitude determines happiness.

We are all a speck of dust in the great era. We are powerless to change the trend, but we can prepare ourselves and adjust ourselves after seeing the trend clearly.