Building an omni-channel new retail system - taking pharmacies as an example

New retail is a new retail model and a way for traditional businesses to achieve transformation and breakthroughs. This article introduces the concept of new retail and how to use and build an omni-channel new retail system. Read the article and take a look!

1. What is new retail?

New retail refers to a new retail model. Baidu said that new retail refers to a new retail model in which enterprises rely on the Internet and use advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to upgrade and transform the production, circulation and sales processes of goods, thereby reshaping the business structure and ecosystem, and deeply integrating online services, offline experiences and modern logistics.

This is a very complicated explanation. From an operational perspective, new retail is the integration of online and offline. Consumers can select items online and then go to offline stores to experience them. In addition, big data can be used to understand consumers' consumption habits, so as to provide more complete services.

2. Why should we build an omni-channel new retail system?

New retail includes brand power, product power and sales power. Brand power and product power will not be elaborated here.

Brand power is actually the perception of your company by consumers. For example, when it comes to air conditioners, the first thing that comes to mind is Gree, and drugstores should be like buying medicine at XXXX. Product power: As a sales terminal, drugstores cannot change, but they can diversify their products, including the entire health system, and select more popular products based on consumer portraits.

Secondly, lasting brand power and product power are sales power.

Furthermore, the sales power we are talking about is the sales channel. The core of the competition in sales power is the competition in channel capabilities, so we mentioned the need to build an omni-channel new retail system.

Faced with the onlineization of China's consumer channels, onlineization is still constantly updating and iterating. For example, from the original single search e-commerce Taobao, there are now social e-commerce, content e-commerce, local life e-commerce and interest e-commerce.

Including O2O, instant retail that combines online platforms with physical stores, has promoted the development of fresh food and health care, which is why we need to build a new omni-channel retail system.

3. What is the omni-channel new retail system? How to implement it?

Hou Yi of Hema believes that many people’s understanding of new retail is only online and offline dual-channel sales, which is actually only the first stage of new retail. In the future of new retail, physical stores are only the basis of sales, the source of traffic and brand recognition. The Hema APP is the core of new retail, which can be infinitely expanded and has unlimited imagination space.

Therefore, the new omni-channel retail model is: online store + offline store + instant retail + community (district) sales.

1. Online Store

• Build your own pharmacy mini program or APP. If you are starting from scratch, it is recommended to build a mini program first, as the cost of the mini program is low. Like Hema, it has built its own APP, and everything from shopping, delivery to payment is completed within the Alibaba ecosystem. It is more cost-effective for small and micro enterprises to use mini programs and rely on the WeChat system.
• Access to e-commerce platforms, especially due to the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, more online purchases have been made at pharmacies, and Ali Health and JD Health have developed rapidly, including entering Taobao, JD.com, Douyin, Meituan, etc., as well as more new e-commerce platforms in the future.
• Connect to the APP platforms of other related companies. Currently, more and more companies, including brand companies, banks, insurance, highways, and catering companies have established their own APPs.

2. Offline Store

Offline stores will not disappear, and the entire real economy will not disappear. On the contrary, the country will encourage the development of the real economy. Then offline pharmacies should be based on the current geographical advantages. Most pharmacies are built in communities. Offline stores are the basis of sales, the source of traffic and brand awareness.

3. Instant Retail

They have set up stores on local life platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me, and have also established 24-hour door-to-door medicine delivery services through their own store mini-programs.

4. Community (district) retail

Both community and community retail are established in the private domain. Community and store communities are built through traffic, and customer purchasing behavior is increased through benefits, activities and group buying. Communities covered by stores must carry out community activities. Introducing communities in activities can develop potential customers into new customers and can also convert them multiple times, so it is a necessary channel.

At present, instant retail and social retail will be very important supplementary forms of retail. They will meet the needs of users in different scenarios and play a very important marketing role, such as increasing users.

4. Build an omni-channel new retail model

It is highly likely that China's market structure will be dominated by online. Traditional pharmaceutical companies are facing the impact of giants such as JD.com and Ali Health, so companies must face the new retail model, accept new retail, do new retail, and carry out omni-channel transformation, breaking the store-centric approach and becoming online-centric and user-centric.

Establish a complete operation system, including online mall operation system, e-commerce operation system, store operation system, product system, user system, delivery system and digital system, none of them can be missing.

In short, omnichannel must be done!

Author: Laicai Operation Notes