Five years ago, feeling the crisis brought about by the invasion of large retail chains across the country, Du Zhiyong, chairman of Shanxi Pulisheng Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd., decided to work with Shanxi Cosmetics Store to build a local chain platform. In 2014, Shanxi Pulisheng Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. was registered and established in Taiyuan.
At that time, the first stores to join the Pulisheng system were Taiyuan Longsheng, Yangquan Jialibao, Changzhi Shunda, Xinzhou Xinpeng, Datong Qianzicai, Luliang Tianma, Yuncheng Lily and other seven major Shanxi cosmetic terminals. So far, there are 84 self-operated stores under Pulisheng shareholders and 30 franchise stores, covering the entire prefecture-level city in Shanxi. There are Pulisheng stores from south to north, which is already a benchmark enterprise for chain stores in Shanxi Province.
Five years have passed in a flash. While Pulisheng has grown, chain alliances similar to Pulisheng have emerged in many provinces across the country, such as Jiangsu Dadian Alliance, Fujian Perfect Combination, Gansu Aoia System, etc. What inspiration will Pulisheng, who maintains independent operation, bring to the store alliance model after unifying the store image?
image unified brand, independent operation and vitality
Although Pulisheng was an alliance in the early days of its establishment, in fact, internal members still managed their own stores. Last year, after completing the overall image transformation, the store is now unified as the blue and white "Polisheng" door. Du Zhiyong said that the early alliance mainly built a communication platform, hoping that members would have more exchanges with each other about business and industry. "Now, after achieving image unification, we will embark on the road of standardized management."
"In the operation of franchise stores, we will delegate power to the store to the greatest extent." He said that the consumer market in each city is different. The biggest advantage of delegating power to the store is that the store can adjust its brand and category structure according to its own store characteristics, regional attributes and other factors, and it is very flexible. "If Pulisheng's stores from south to north are selling the same products, it means that they are not sure about the market."
Looking at the CS alliance in other provinces, after the development reaches a certain stage, the alliance will either uniformly regulate operations in the form of a shareholding system, or integrate resources to develop private brands with greater profit margins. In contrast, currently, Pulisheng System's own brands only include paper products and daily chemical brands. Regarding skin care and makeup products with large profit margins, Du Zhiyong firmly stated that he would not consider developing his own brand. "Professional people do professional things, but we are not professional in our own brand and will not involve this business. We have been in physical stores for many years. Our strength is how to sell goods and do this thing well." He emphasized.
In his opinion, high profit means great risks. Building a physical store requires steady progress, step by step, which is consistent with the belief that "the tree that embraces is born from a hair, a nine-story platform, and a rise from a sturdy scholar" hanging in his office. "Further, from the consumer perspective, current consumers recognize famous products. Radical launch of their own brands may not be accepted by consumers, but the gain will not be worth the loss." Competition in
channel intensified. In the interview with "famous product strategy" attracting customers
, from the perspective of retailers, Du Zhiyong also sincerely talked about the crux of the local brands' current CS channel.
"The online sales of a local brand have accounted for more than 40%. Where do these consumers come from? Most of them are cultivated by the CS channel. Online brand development will inevitably reduce investment in agents, which in turn causes the agency to reduce services for terminal stores, forming a non-virtuous cycle. Channels are not valued by brands and stores cannot be sold. In the end, the brand gradually disappears into the CS channel." He analyzed.
Although channel competition intensifies, Du Zhiyong is not impatient. He firmly believes that the CS channel will still have its own market share. "As long as you recommend what consumers want to them, physical stores will have business."
According to his observations of local consumers, consumers currently have a high demand for famous products. "Famous products come with their own traffic, which can gain consumer recognition. Pulisheng continues to launch the famous product strategy in order to better meet consumer needs." Du Zhiyong emphasized that the famous product strategy is one of Pulisheng's development directions.
"Although some international famous products have small profit margins in the CS channel, Pulisheng's audience has a high recognition of this type of brand and has always been at the forefront of Pulisheng's sales system." This also made Du Zhiyong understand that products cannot be selected because of the high or low gross profit. Pulisheng must respect consumers' choices. According to him, Pulisheng's clerks are prohibited from recommending high-order products to customers, and can only recommend products suitable for consumers.
reporter observed that the current Pulisheng store mainly focuses on "light experience" in service experience. Du Zhiyong admitted that service experience will be a direction for future development. However, due to the lack of professional personnel, technology and brands, "the service experience projects have begun to be added in the past two years, but at present, the effect is not very obvious."
opened 4 pure imported stores, testing the new model
has seen consumer needs, and Pulisheng has also begun to try to explore imported categories. Since November last year, Pulisheng has opened four cosmetics stores focusing on imported products. Du Zhiyong told the reporter of "Cosmetics Finance Online" that testing such stores is to capture the high-end consumer group.
During the test process, Du Zhiyong found that this type of store cannot satisfy consumers well in terms of product services. For example, for some high-end brands, consumers often choose department store counters, and the counters themselves will also have more membership services. "At present, our development of such stores is just an attempt. Although the effect is not ideal, we are adjusting to a better reverse development." Du Zhiyong said.
In the Shanxi market, the trend of consumption in the two-level differentiation is becoming more and more obvious. "Current consumers either choose domestic products with high cost performance or top international brands, and their acceptance of intermediate brands is very low. Consumers who pursue imported products will always pursue imported products, and consumers who pursue domestic famous products will buy domestic famous products that have been for many years." This is the conclusion Du Zhiyong came to the conclusion after observing local consumers.
However, no matter what type of product is sold in the store, Du Zhiyong believes that professionalism and service will be the two "trump cards" of the franchise store in the future. "Just like the success of Watsons and Guerlain is the result of professionalism. In the future, the CS channel will develop towards professionalism."
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