Long press the QR code or click "Read Original" to register. 30+ industry experts, 100+ B2B platform founders, 800+ manufacturer friends, gather in Fuzhou to jointly explore the path of Internet transformation for the FMCG industry. What are the core advantages of e-commerce platforms built by retailers compared to pure e-commerce? Currently, retail industry funds generally flow in three directions The first is opening new stores, expanding to third- and fourth-tier cities. For example, RT-Mart opens about 40 to 50 new stores each year to expand into lower-tier cities. The second is focusing on infrastructure development. A large part of this infrastructure is in e-commerce, including cashier systems, warehouse logistics, etc., which occupy a lot of capital but have long payback periods. For example, RT-Mart's Feiniu.com and Better Life's Yunhou.com. The third is mergers and acquisitions. These regional leading brands hope to radiate their influence to surrounding areas and expand their reach by merging with local retailers. But currently, more retailers are focusing on expanding into lower-tier cities in China. In addition, investment in e-commerce is still relatively large. Many retail enterprises hope to offset the impact of declining same-store sales through e-commerce channels, and use O2O and e-commerce to bring some customer traffic back to physical stores. E-commerce "Complex" In some developed countries, e-commerce relies on the infrastructure of existing retailers. For example, in the United States, among the top ten e-commerce companies, only Amazon is pure e-commerce; most others are like Walmart. Walmart's e-commerce channel is one of the most commonly used channels by consumers and is also one of the largest e-commerce enterprises in the United States. But the situation in China is very different. Whether it's Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, or Yihaodian, none of them are supported by offline enterprises. At this point, we always ask: What is the core advantage of e-commerce platforms built by these retailers compared to pure e-commerce? If they cannot establish obvious advantages in products, prices, logistics and distribution, or customer experience, I think it is very difficult to compete with pure e-commerce platforms. Perhaps it can help enterprises make up for some consumers lost to e-commerce channels, but this compensation may not be complete. Therefore, physical retailers need to be very careful when investing their own funds in e-commerce construction. They must understand their own advantages and how to build a core advantage. From this perspective, some regional retailers may have more opportunities because their coverage area is relatively limited, giving them certain advantages in price or distribution over pure e-commerce platforms like JD.com and Tmall. Whether it's physical stores or e-commerce, they must provide customers with a unified and comprehensive consumer experience. Offline stores cannot compete with e-commerce in terms of price and product selection. The most important reason why consumers go to offline stores is the experience, making them willing to buy in stores. For example, IKEA doesn't open many stores in each city, but it truly allows consumers to experience and feel all products. Similarly, for certain products, allowing consumers to order standardized items through e-commerce channels—e-commerce can be a part of the enterprise's comprehensive service to consumers. In this way, I think it is relatively successful. The cooperation between Yonghui and JD.com is a way of leveraging. In fact, many retailers now open stores on JD.com or Tmall. Benefits of this leveraging On one hand, it brings traffic to these retailers. The traffic resources of pure e-commerce platforms are enormous, equivalent to opening a store in the most prosperous area of Beijing or Shanghai; On the other hand, it attracts more people through e-commerce advertising resources. Its media effect can directly translate into sales. But can such a layout succeed? On e-commerce platforms, consumers also have many different choices. Where do customers ultimately go? In the end, competition will still move offline competition online. So if everyone has good traffic or such a media platform effect, the final competition will definitely be on products or other aspects. Now most manufacturing enterprises have established close cooperative relationships with e-commerce companies. In terms of price, promotions, or various marketing resources, they actually give great discounts to the self-operated platforms of these e-commerce companies. To some extent, when retailers open stores on e-commerce platforms, they must consider whether existing traffic can ultimately be converted into sales, and also what advantages they have compared to the self-operated products of the e-commerce platform. Where We Fall Behind In the past ten or twenty years, Chinese retail enterprises have developed very rapidly and done a lot of infrastructure construction, but compared with foreign retail enterprises, there are gaps in several aspects. First, influenced by China's economic dividend or demographic dividend, retail enterprises expanded very quickly. But they did not do well in customer experience or truly making customers dependent on the retail enterprise. This requires retail enterprises to return to the basics, to the concept of truly serving customers well. There is still a big gap between Chinese retail enterprises and Japanese and Korean retail enterprises in many service systems. Second, supply chain requires long-term meticulous work. Why has Walmart been a market leader in the United States for decades? It is inseparable from Walmart's long-term emphasis on supply chain and technology to build the core competitiveness of retail enterprises. Walmart is the only private enterprise in the United States that owns a communications satellite. All data is processed on a large scale through the DDI exchange platform, sharing and exchanging data with suppliers. In this regard, it is hard to see such investment in infrastructure or supply chain technology among Chinese retail enterprises. Third, retail enterprises themselves still have some positioning issues. From the data, all hypermarkets basically attract the same type of people. It is hard to see very different customer structures; the differences are very small. But foreign retail enterprises, after years of competition, all surviving enterprises must have significantly differentiated positioning and characteristics. For example, the following examples:

  • Walmart takes the concept of everyday low prices to the extreme.
  • Costco in the United States targets the middle class, or even higher-income classes, with membership-based products.
  • Some discount retailers in Europe that are growing very well, such as ALDI and LIDL in Germany, have very limited products but low prices, and their stores are actually very simple. So, over decades of operation, these retailers have formed distinct corporate brand positioning or overall experience strategies. In China, past expansion was actually expansion in geography and number of stores, so few have truly thought about where their unique competitiveness lies. Therefore, at this level, how to do differentiation and customer experience well, customer experience based on truly understanding consumers, and supply chain construction—these are the internal strengths of retail enterprises that they really need to work on. From the perspective of enterprise development, talent is also a foundation. Foreign retail enterprises have some of the best talents. In China, for a long time, retail enterprises attracted relatively limited talent, which also hinders the development of the entire enterprise. If retail enterprises can attract first-class talent in brand, supply chain, or technology like e-commerce companies, it is also a very effective way to strengthen their competitiveness. Where Is the Way Out? More enterprises may develop in two directions: 1. Some retail enterprises become larger and larger through mergers. Currently, Chinese retail enterprises are very regional, such as Wumart in Beijing and Bailian Group in Shanghai, but they cannot compete effectively outside their regions. In the future, there may be national retail enterprises as large as Walmart in China. 2. Focus on customer experience and achieve perfection. Most retail enterprises may not be able to become very large, but in a certain format or a certain customer segment, they can achieve the ultimate customer experience and create better customer benefits. I think there are still many opportunities in this regard. If we consider customer experience as an equation, the numerator is function and emotion—whether consumers can buy suitable products, whether they like you, and whether they are emotionally loyal to you; the denominator is time and cost efficiency—the less time and lower cost, the greater the value demand relatively. So from this perspective, retail enterprises can certainly develop in terms of time and cost, making the denominator smaller; they can also work on making the numerator better—that is, in a specific field, they can build certain differentiated aspects of their retail enterprise to the extreme, and they can also do very well. For example, in clothing, Zara and H&M do not have their own production, but they are very successful through fast supply chain transfer and keen capture of fashion trends. In foreign countries, many retail enterprises create differentiated competitive advantages through private brand positioning. I think Chinese enterprises need to consider more how to truly build their own differentiated competitive advantages. In this regard, there are many opportunities for segmentation. So there are opportunities to become bigger, and there are also many opportunities to become more detailed and extreme. Retail enterprises must think about what their corporate positioning is. For example, Costco, Walmart, and Germany's ALDI all have very clear positioning, and they may stick to their positioning for ten or twenty years, growing bigger and bigger along that path. I think what is taboo is "trying every direction, and finally not being able to do the best in any direction." Retail is actually a very detail-oriented industry, and it is hard to form core competitiveness this way. Therefore, retailers must formulate the most suitable development strategy for themselves, develop based on their own conditions, and not blindly follow the herd, such as pouring money into e-commerce platforms or expansion, which carries certain risks. Source: Economic Observer New Food Era · New Distribution —— 2016 China "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum —— This is a grand event focused on how the FMCG industry channels will transform under the general trend of Internet+ transformation Conference Agenda 09:00-09:30 Registration 09:30-09:35 Host opening 09:35-10:05 2016 China FMCG Industry Trend Analysis Report——Zhao Bo 10:05-10:25 FMCG Enterprise Transformation Strategy and Path——Liu Chunxiong 10:25-10:45 Opportunities and Challenges Brought by FMCG Channel Reform——Field 365 CEO Liu Zhao 10:45-11:25 Alibaba Retail Link All-round Empowerment——Alibaba Retail Link Guo Kunkun 11:25-12:00 Roundtable Forum——Brand Transformation: Improvement vs. Reconstruction? (Guests to be confirmed) 12:00-13:30 Lunch 13:30-14:00 Distributor Transformation: City Distribution Trend Development——Weijie City Distribution CEO Wang Qi 14:00-14:30 Roundtable Forum——Why Should Distributors Do Logistics in Transformation? 14:30-15:00 Detailed Explanation of Zhongshang Huimin's One Machine, Two Wings Strategy——Zhongshang Huimin Vice President Su Xiaoxin 15:00-15:30 Detailed Explanation of Zhanghe Cloud Factory Strategy——Zhanghe Tianxia Yang Lixiang (Speech content to be confirmed) 15:30-16:00 Supply Chain Finance as a Lubricant for B2B Driving Traditional Business——51 Order CEO Chen Xian 16:00-16:30 2B Investment Principles and Ideas——ZhenFund Founder Xu Xiaoping (Guest to be confirmed) 16:30-17:00 Small Retail, Big Business Opportunities: China's Retail Transformation and Upgrading——Yurun Group E-commerce Division General Manager Wang Jianfeng 17:00-17:30 Roundtable Forum——Who Is the King of FMCG B2B Models? (Guests to be confirmed) 18:00-20:00 Dinner For manufacturer friends who want to transform, this grand event is not to be missed. Interested friends can long press the QR code below or click "Read Original" to register. Registration: Long press the QR code below or click "Read Original" ↓↓↓ Click "Read Original" [Register]