In 2023, will the road for physical stores really be easy?

The bleak depression before 2023 is mostly attributed by physical store operators to the "mask" factor. Will the non-disease-affected market after 2023 really see the expected natural improvement?

At the beginning of last year, I had the honor of experiencing the largest industry internal circulation in China's physical retail and service industries in many years.

All kinds of physical stores have put on the cloak of "online and offline integrated business transformation" and joined Douyin group buying. For beauty and cosmetics, you can wash your face for one yuan and get skin care products for free. For catering, you can eat a balanced combination of meat and vegetables for five yuan. The director-level haircut that usually costs 128 yuan can be done for only 9.9 yuan. The problem is that the social environment has led to a small flow of customers and consumers' consumption psychology is too conservative. Only by attracting customers with low prices can stores survive.

In fact, as someone who entered the market to operate group buying in the same city at that time, my thinking was similar to that of traditional physical store owners. In fact, their thinking was actually led astray by teams like ours.

Should we do online operations? Should we design private domain retention for online customers? Yes! But think about it again, can traditional physical stores that only pay employees in cash, can only use traditional fingerprint punching for work, and don’t even have a complete member consumption behavior analysis system really undertake this group purchase operation in the same city that has emerged in just a few months?

1. What problems will merchants encounter during the transformation process?

Many businesses have encountered many problems during the so-called transformation process. The most obvious ones are:

① Online traffic and sales can only last for one month at most. After almost one month, most businesses go into shutdown mode.

The content output of online platforms needs to be original, sophisticated, and in line with the platform's tone. However, how can these traditional teams continue to output sophisticated content over a long period of time? They can only use straightforward promotional videos. This kind of content that does not conform to the platform's tone will be thrown into jail after enjoying the traffic support dividends from local merchants for a maximum of one month.

② When some customer relations issues that were not responded to and fermented offline in the past have an online platform as a vent, many merchants will find that the customer relationship maintenance in their stores is so poor.

In traditional physical stores, especially chain stores, business owners have centralized power similar to that of ancient emperors. The operation of stores comes from reports from various levels and final sales data. Sometimes, the descriptions of supervisors and managers are "peaceful and prosperous", but in fact, the reputation of the entire brand has long been sparse. When business owners suddenly face a flood of poor customer reviews on the Internet, they panic even more. At this time, whether to continue or terminate this transformation becomes a headache for them;

③ Most bosses in traditional physical industries are like a locomotive, dragging the entire team forward slowly, while what consumers need now is the pleasant experience of sitting on a high-speed train.

In the process of business transformation, we always encounter such a problem - the boss is full of confidence and busy, while the employees watch the boss tinkering with these new things like watching a monkey show.

The bosses of traditional entities all talk about people, goods, and venues, but how many of them have a leadership and operating system that can truly constrain and motivate the team? How many of them have a team that can truly make the best use of their people?

The summary is that people are scattered, online and offline venues are separated, and goods are stockpiled in warehouses and cannot be sold.

2. Is it still necessary to do group buying in the same city?

A while ago, the boss of my previous company talked to me for a long time, and mainly asked me - "Is there still a need to do group buying in the same city?"

I did not answer "no" directly, because this thing can be implemented in a small number of merchants. Such merchants have a management team with clear goals, a systematic and standardized operation system, a good customer relationship foundation and a standardized member analysis system. Online expansion is only a supplement and enhancement to offline entities, not a life-saving straw.

There is no management with clear goals and no clear corporate goals. Once the market situation changes, the entire team will run around like a headless fly, and will be influenced by the performance of other teams. But is your team really the same as others?

There is no systematic and standard operating system. Relying on traditional feeling-based appointments and nepotism, the company's affairs, big and small, are handed over to a supervisor or manager who the boss thinks is suitable, and the boss just waits for reports and checks the final sales data. This kind of management method should have been eliminated long ago.

Because those so-called suitable candidates will tell you in the final report - "Nowadays consumers don't like to go to physical stores. Not only us, but other peers' business is also bleak", or another version - "Everyone goes to buy things online, offline costs are too high, and sales can't make money, so it's very difficult." In short, the market is bad, consumers are bad, and online shopping is bad.

In fact, it is not that the market is bad, because in the same market, there are indeed people who make money against the trend. It is better to see how others do differently from what you do. Are consumers bad?

Perhaps the existing products cannot meet the needs of consumers or cannot expand more consumer needs. Just like the market affected by the "mask", when the economic income is sluggish, many people will think that consumers will definitely pay for the low-price strategy, which leads to the internal circulation of the industry, but the final result is only a flash in the pan of this low-price behavior. Think about it, if you have a little money in your hand, but not much, and you already have facial cleanser at home, will you buy a bottle of facial cleanser for 29.9, even if it was previously sold for 49.9 in the store?

But if what you have in your hand is not a bottle of facial cleanser discounted to 29.9 yuan, but a product that improves people in some new ways or a set of exquisite and unique service processes, even if it is priced at 49.9 yuan, I believe more people will be willing to pay this money for the service experience and value enhancement, rather than meaninglessly repeat purchases at a low price, unless it is daily necessities such as rice, oil and salt.

So when the products you provide may not create new value for consumers, and you don’t have any solid customer loyalty with them, how do you sell them?

If you are still complaining about online platforms diverting customers, complaining about the slow market adjustment after the "mask", and complaining about consumers not coming to the store, it is better to spend more time thinking about business goals, matching a procurement, sales and inventory system suitable for your own company, adjusting the team structure and formulating a reasonable operation system, with customer thinking as the core and a membership management system realized by data, and mainly offline entities and supplemented by online traffic operations and storage, to re-operate your own store.