Women's clothing has started to be self-service. Is it a real demand or just a gimmick?

As consumer concepts continue to evolve, the rise of self-service women's clothing stores has become a new shopping option. This article explores the characteristics of self-service women's clothing stores and their differences from traditional stores, as well as consumers' preferences for self-service shopping experiences. By gaining an in-depth understanding of the operating model and consumer psychology of self-service women's clothing stores, readers can better understand this emerging retail model and think about its position and future development trends in the current consumer environment. This article is suitable for readers who are interested in the development trends of the retail industry.

The emergence of self-service women's clothing stores seems to be a "gimmick". However, if we take a closer look at the mental journey of some people when buying clothes, this gimmick does not seem to be without reason.

Many people have had this experience: walking into a store, wanting to see if there are any clothes that fit them, but being afraid that the salesperson in the store will keep staring at them; seeing clothes they like, wanting to try on a few sizes, but worrying about whether the salesperson will look good if they don’t buy them…

Of course, the obstacles facing clothing stores are not limited to this. Branded clothing counters in shopping malls often cost more than a thousand yuan, and even with a discount, most people still cannot afford them.

Affordable sales, user-friendly, and free to try on, scattered self-service women's clothing stores in the city are being discovered by more and more young people through social platforms. So, what do self-service women's clothing stores look like? Compared with traditional stores, what are their advantages?

1. Location is both important and unimportant

Sunny Day Self-service Women's Clothing Store is located on the 11th floor of the Ring Plaza west of Zhongshan West Road in Shanghai. If you don't use navigation, most people would probably miss it just by looking at the house number.

The whole building is used for both commercial and residential purposes. The biggest feature of this type of building is that it is down-to-earth, or rather messy. There is no bright lobby or professional security downstairs. People can come and go as they please, and all kinds of takeaways are piled up in a mess on the table in front of the first floor door.

Coming out of the elevator, you can find the store by following a handwritten sign. The room is not big, about 60 square meters, and neatly displayed clothes occupy 80% of the space. This is also a warehouse, and some unopened clothes are piled under the hangers.

Photo by New Retail Business Review

There are a few small seats near the window and in the corner, where you can rest when you are tired of shopping or waiting for friends. When I walked in, the owner, Qingtian, didn't even raise his head, concentrating on his own business, to convey a message to customers who enter the store - how to shop and how long to shop is up to you.

In a later conversation, she introduced to Retail Jun that this building not only has ordinary residents, but also various businesses such as manicure, beauty, and training. "Some old customers often get their manicures done downstairs and then come up to buy clothes." Qingtian said that a small social ecosystem has been formed in this inconspicuous building.

Qingtian’s store location is not an isolated case. Various hidden “advertisements” on social platforms show that self-service women’s clothing stores mostly prefer to be located in commercial and residential buildings. Most of them are located in the city center with relatively convenient transportation.

For example, a self-service women's clothing store called "Mowang" was once located above Qingtian, but later it became larger and moved to Baoding Building on Xujiahui Road. Now, in Changjiu Business Center on Jiaozhou Road, "Mowang" has opened a second store, which is about 200 square meters.

“Although it doesn’t have the natural popularity of street shops and high-end commercial centers, the rent here is really cheap, probably only one-fifth of the rent of popular shops in the same area.” In Qingtian’s opinion, self-service women’s clothing stores are mostly characterized by affordable prices. If the store costs are too high, it will be difficult to be competitive.

Instead of pursuing an overly convenient geographical location, the self-service women's clothing store tries to save as much as possible on the interior furnishings and decoration.

Qingtian's store opened on the eve of National Day in 2022. Apart from using a few curtains to draw three fitting rooms, she did not make any changes to the interior furnishings. Even the lamps were left by the previous tenant. It was not until last year that she added a few spotlights.

However, doing business only by cutting costs is not a long-term solution. In addition to costs, a stable customer flow is the key to a store's survival. Currently, 90% of Sunny's customer flow comes from social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu, and the customer base is mostly students and young people who have just started working.

Since the clothes are updated quickly and the prices are cheap, and there are clearance sales from time to time, the customer stickiness of Qingtian is very high. "Some people come not only by themselves, but also bring their friends. Some young ladies in the surrounding office buildings will take advantage of the lunch break to take a look around and chat for a while, just like old friends."

Using social media to aggregate fans and then direct them to offline stores is a common "strategy" used by self-service women's clothing stores, including Sunny Day. The affordable Mowang women's clothing store has more than 4,000 fans on Xiaohongshu and more than 1,000 fans on Douyin.

According to Qingtian’s plan, as her number of fans on social media gradually increases, she would like to open another store in the future if she finds the right place and the right people.

Photo by New Retail Business Review

2. What is the difference from traditional stores?

Compared with traditional stores, the biggest feature of self-service women's clothing stores is that they do not rely on natural customer flow due to geographical location, but instead attract traffic through new channels such as social media , thereby attracting popularity at low or even no cost.

Qingtian said that she also considered the source of customers when she first selected the location, but she made two plans at the time: one was to attract offline traffic through social media, and the other was to start live streaming for online sales. "I didn't expect that the customer flow would be quite stable later, so I just did live streaming sporadically."

"Self-service selection", "try on at will", "clearly marked prices", "take photos", "online aesthetics", "affordable sales", these are all high-frequency words used in the promotion of self-service women's clothing stores. Of course, this is also the common pain point that many people currently face when they go to traditional stores to shop.

Huang Ying (pseudonym), born in the 1990s, said that the biggest reason why she was reluctant to go to offline clothing stores to buy clothes was that the shopping guides were too enthusiastic . "As soon as I stepped into the store, the shopping guide came up to me and asked me what clothes I wanted to buy. But in fact, I just wanted to go in and look around. I didn't have a clear purpose, so it was very embarrassing."

This kind of excessive enthusiasm can easily bring pressure to consumers. Huang Ying, who calls herself an i-person, always prepares a response phrase "just take a look" before entering a store every time.

"I used to wonder why clothing stores can't be like 24-hour convenience stores, where shopping guides are only responsible for quietly cashing out or sorting goods, and customers can buy whatever they want." Huang Ying expressed great interest in the self-service clothing store mentioned by Retail Jun. She felt that this model was very similar to a convenience store and would try it out when she gets the chance.

Unlike Huang Ying, Maomao (pseudonym) doesn't like to go to offline clothing stores because of the price . In her opinion, the price marked in many clothing stores is one thing, and the actual transaction price is another, including brand counters in shopping malls.

"If I bargain too much, I'm worried that the shopping guide will look down on me. If I bargain too little, I'm worried that I'll be at a disadvantage." Over time, Maomao felt that it was better to buy clothes at stores like Uniqlo, where the original price and the current price are clearly displayed, and the prices are the same online and offline. If I particularly like something, I can buy it immediately. If something is a bit expensive, I will wait until the price drops before buying it.

"No size for you" is also a permanent thorn in the hearts of many customers. Speaking of buying clothes, Ms. Guan, who just retired this year, was very angry when she bought clothes. Before the Chinese New Year, she saw a small shop near her home that had a lot of new spring clothes. She liked a pair of pants very much and wanted to try them on. Unexpectedly, the shopping guide looked her up and down and said, "Sorry, we don't have your size." The attitude was polite and cold, which made her very embarrassed.

For most people, beauty is everyone’s desire. It is one thing to find that something does not fit you after trying it on, but it is somewhat uncomfortable to be rejected in public because you do not have the size.

3. What is the self-service clothing game?

Relatively speaking, self-service women's clothing can avoid these embarrassments.

In the past two years, all walks of life have been talking about emotional value. In addition to the product itself that can make consumers feel happy or resonate, the service provided by the store clerk in the shopping scene is also an important outlet for emotional value.

Of course, the more considerate the service, the better. For example, Haidilao used to be the leader in the industry with its meticulous and thoughtful service. However, in the past two years, various jokes about its excessive service have appeared on social media, forcing Haidilao to rethink the issue of service.

Not only the catering industry, but also the clothing industry has begun to pay attention to moderate service. In the past few decades, almost all changes in the clothing industry have been centered around price, channels, and inventory. These actions are all aimed at sales, but they ignore the need to provide consumers with moderate service.

In terms of appropriate service, Uniqlo is a model. In Uniqlo, you don't have to worry about having a shopping guide following you around, providing seemingly caring but borderless service; you can bring all the different sizes of the same clothing into the fitting room at once and try them on one by one, even if you don't buy any in the end, it doesn't matter.

In fiscal year 2023, UNIQLO's revenue in Greater China increased by more than RMB 30 billion year-on-year. Although it is impossible to measure how much role moderate services played in this, the performance growth is after all tangible and visible.

Affordable self-service women's clothing also captures people's most basic needs.

On the one hand, in the current context of consumer stratification, consumers’ purchasing freedom has begun to extend from their wallets to their spirits, and they want not only cost-effectiveness but also “heart-price ratio” . As a result, “affordable price” plus “self-service” has produced a magical chemical reaction.

On the other hand, fans come from online to offline not only for the clothes that are updated quickly and are cost-effective, but also for the self-consistent and casual emotional resonance provided by the word "self-service", which does not sound profound.

Of course, not all self-service women's clothing stores are located in commercial and residential buildings. Some chain brands with a certain scale, such as MUSTOFF, have already opened stores on the streets or in shopping malls in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

But unlike affordable women's clothing, this type of self-service women's clothing brand focuses on creating distinctive and high-quality products. For example, Mudufu has opened a self-service store featuring "vintage clothes".

In addition, some self-service women's clothing brands want to try to expand their brand scale and influence by opening up franchises. However, judging from the feedback on social media, the self-service women's clothing after franchising is full of the same cheap feeling, which makes people think of "cutting leeks".

However, will the “leeks” who have seen the world today still be easily “harvested”?

Author: Tian Qiaoyun

WeChat Official Account: New Retail Business Review (ID: 1089053)