Introduction: Assuming that the products provided by retailers are still at the level of use value, then they will undoubtedly face a very big problem: they have not figured out why customers buy it.
Times are changing, and if cognition does not follow up, the judgment of the market environment is still a fog, blurred and difficult to understand.
As a Harvard professor said in his book, the merchant sells 0.5-inch drill bits and believes that customers buy it because they value the quality and reasonable price. After investigation, they found that this was not the case. Customers buy it mainly to hang family portraits and university diplomas. In other words, the manufacturer thought it was selling drill bits, but in fact it was selling beautiful memories of life.
Similarly, Wang Wei, the founder of Fresh Legend, publicly stated that Fresh Legend is starting to upgrade its own brand in the series, moving into the national trend style, and trying to achieve originality of all pictures and fonts. "We judge that the 'national trend series' will sell better and better in the future, because the ethnic complex will become stronger and stronger."
To be honest, the "ethnic complex" mentioned by Wang Wei is also the emotional premium beyond the value of the product, and consumers are willing to pay for it, especially for the consumer groups born in the 1990s and 500s.
"Sentence first" and "face control are the way to be the norm" are their labels. It is not difficult to see from this that their preference for product accent has become an important decision-making factor for their product selection and ordering. At the same time, the latest data shows that since last year, the Taobao 90s consumers with 800 people, which have 800 million active users, have surpassed the 80s for the first time, showing strong consumption capacity and potential.
01
consumers have changed
. The preferences and purchase preferences of the new younger generation of consumers determine the expansion and contraction of the market like breathing. In this case, whoever can take the lead in meeting the latest needs of young consumers will be able to stand out from the track. However, it is not easy to understand young people and do their business. First, the preferences of young people who advocate personality and fashion always change and are unsteady, which leads to market fragmentation and small-circle consumption; second, the product selection and marketing strategies under the traditional thinking of retail merchants are difficult to quickly match the actual needs of the post-90s (abbreviated for post-90s and post-00s).
For example, young people today not only need to eat eggs, but also organic eggs, and eggs laid by hens with particularly value. What is the egg laid by a valued hen? This shows that companies operate chicken farms in accordance with the concept of sustainable development and are responsible to consumers, thereby producing vibrant, green and healthy old hens.
shows that today's consumers are no longer simply buying a basic product, but buying appearance, social sense, technology and meaning, as well as an unforgettable memory. Assuming that the products provided by retailers are still at the level of use value, then there will undoubtedly be a very big problem: they have not figured out why customers buy it.
This goes back to the problem of 0.5-inch drill bit mentioned by Harvard professor at the beginning. If retail companies follow the logic of "creating beautiful memories of life", they will create or introduce other products, such as reorganizing the store's textile area according to the simple and comfortable style that young people have always been following. This will not only introduce new items, but also involve the creation of the overall atmosphere, just like the practice of Pangdonglai Golden Triangle Store.
In addition, as Xu Xin, founder of Investment Queen Today Capital, said, "Consumers are becoming more and more 'lazy' and more 'added'." Laziness is reflected in the general unwillingness of post-90s and post-00s to cook, which has created takeaways that currently exceed 40 million orders per day, while addiction is reflected in the popularity of short videos such as , Douyin, and .
Correspondingly, consumers' "lazy" and "addiction" characteristics also contain unlimited business opportunities. "Lazy" is a very powerful driving force for human evolution. Because of "lazy", inventing and innovating can we better enjoy life.
02
Value creation has changed
"Invention and Innovation" is applied in the current business environment where major technological breakthroughs are stagnating and product homogeneity is becoming increasingly serious, it refers more to marketing creation downstream of the industrial chain. This is different from the past distribution of major activities of enterprises in R&D and products.
For example, the best-selling ice-skin mooncakes on the market during the Double Festival are often exquisitely packaged about 20% to 30% more expensive than the sub-profile. As for the raw materials, taste and even the sales look are almost the same, which shows that consumers are actually paying more for packaging outside the product.
Of course, it is not that R&D and product innovation are not important. They are still the key to enterprises competing in the market. If there is no product that can open the gap with other competitors, how can we talk about loyal customers and brand building? But if the product is done well, it does not mean that the company can gain a competitive advantage.
summarizes it in one sentence. The value created by marketing is downstream value, and the value created by R&D and production is upstream value. In the view of Lin Xin, visiting professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, the current center of value creation in the retail industry has gradually shifted from upstream to downstream, and even entered an era dominated by downstream value.
This can be seen from the young people's attitude towards national trends and IP joint products. Data from e-commerce platforms shows that in 2019, the number of searches for keywords related to new domestic products has exceeded 10 billion. On social platforms, buying and showing off national trends is becoming a new trend that people born in the 1990s and 2000s are keen on.
is the convenience store brand with the largest number of stores in the Beijing market. Convenience Bee pays great attention to establishing strong connections with young consumers. The key to establishing strong connections lies in the frequent and diverse interactions and communication between stores and customers, the introduction of popular IPs and Internet celebrity products, and the creation of new products with well-known brands is its main eye-catching new ways to play. With the prevalence of the eye economy, convenience stores such as FamilyMart, Rosen , have also invested in the "embrace" of a series of popular IPs that are popular among young people without exception. Lai Yang, director of the Beijing Beijing Business Circulation Strategy Research Institute, said that the personalization of the consumer side has prompted convenience stores to link goods, services and demand to consider, and deconstruct their internal logic and value with innovative thinking, thereby reconstructing and deepening their diverse values. One of them is the output of various ideas that are extremely innovative and adapted to consumer needs.
03
Strengthen consumer research
It is true that wine is also afraid of deep alleys.
Although there are many good products in the store, it lacks innovative marketing strategies, and consumers' desire to enter the store will be greatly reduced, especially in the current situation where shopping channels are becoming increasingly diverse and consumers have a lot of choices.
When facing a wide range of products, more and more young consumers are paying more attention to realizing their role identity in the process of product consumption and reflecting their own differences through products, rather than just meeting basic product needs.
Lai Yang believes that as a place for product sales, supermarkets and stores should also be fashion vanes and windows, attracting customers to shop by constantly updating products, store designs, event promotions, etc., thereby creating a group of highly sticky consumer groups and achieving continuous sales growth in stores.
"Overall, compared with some excellent foreign retailers, domestic retail companies are still relatively lacking in cultural theme marketing, and only a few companies have begun to explore and try consciously." Lai Yang bluntly stated that to narrow this gap, domestic retail companies need to strengthen research on consumers and improve brand selection capabilities.
, one of the Japanese convenience store giants, can be said to be one of the experts in cultural and creative marketing. For the selected market segments, Taiwan 7-11 implemented corresponding marketing strategies and publicity for OPEN young players to attract target groups. For example, during the event, consumers can go to the 7-11 store to exchange ceramic bowls of OPEN young players. These ceramic bowls are exquisitely designed and have a certain practicality, thus setting off a wave of collection and exchange shopping among young women.
"You must always give the surrounding consumers a feeling of "common and new", so that they are willing to visit the store every few days, and while understanding the fashion trends, you can also find some interesting small products." Lai Yang emphasized.
