---
title: "What Is New Retail?"
description: "This article has been authorized. Recently, discussions about new retail have been widespread. Both online and offline retail enterprises, as well as industry leaders, are talking about new retail, with many supporting and some opposing it. In fact, retail is an industry that greatly needs innovation, especially in the current environment. From this perspective, thinking about, practicing, and innovating new retail is meaningful and valuable. It is even more necessary to proceed from reality, innovate in practice across different enterprises, formats, and specialties, and give new retail more substantial, rich, and valuable content."
author: "鲍跃忠"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2016-12-06"
language: "en"
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---

# What Is New Retail?

> This article has been authorized. Recently, discussions about new retail have been widespread. Both online and offline retail enterprises, as well as industry leaders, are talking about new retail, with many supporting and some opposing it. In fact, retail is an industry that greatly needs innovation, especially in the current environment. From this perspective, thinking about, practicing, and innovating new retail is meaningful and valuable. It is even more necessary to proceed from reality, innovate in practice across different enterprises, formats, and specialties, and give new retail more substantial, rich, and valuable content.

This article has been authorized
> Recently, discussions about new retail have been widespread. Online retail enterprises are talking about new retail, offline retail enterprises are also talking about new retail; Teacher Ma Yun is talking about new retail, and the retail bigwigs in the 13 Invitations are also talking about new retail. There are many who agree, and also opposing voices.
In fact, retail is an industry that greatly needs innovation. In the current industry environment, innovation is even more necessary to break through. From this perspective, everyone thinking about new retail, practicing new retail, and innovating new retail is very meaningful and valuable. It is even more necessary to proceed from reality, from different enterprises, different formats, and different specialties to carry out practical innovation, giving new retail more substantial, rich, and valuable content.
Thinking about new retail and practicing new retail, from the current point of view, also has very heavy practical significance:
\-- After nearly twenty years of rapid development in modern retail, to a certain extent, the industry itself needs to shift gears and upgrade; moreover, at present, various formats such as department stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, and specialty stores are facing very big problems. If there are problems, they must be solved through innovation.
\-- With twenty years of rapid development in the Chinese economy, the industry environment has undergone very big changes, especially in important aspects such as the consumer market and commodity market. The environment has changed, and the retail industry must change.
\-- Internet retail, after a period of rapid development, is also facing many problems at present. This is also directly related to its special genes, special mentality, a group of special people, and the influence of a special environment. In fact, the essence of retail is the same, whether doing retail online, offline, or combining online and offline, the core is the same. Nothing can violate the basic economic laws of retail. Setting aside the essence and talking a lot about technology is not doing retail. Therefore, online retail also needs to undergo transformation and innovation.
**What is new retail? Let me talk about my humble opinion:**
** \----New retail must pay more attention to the analysis, research, and management of commodities:**
Retail, simply put, is the activity of buying commodities from producers and then selling them. Therefore, the core of retail is commodities. Without the buying and selling of commodities, retail would not exist. The purpose of a customer choosing a retail store is commodities; commodities are the core medium connecting retail and consumers.
From this, it follows that retail that ignores the analysis, research, and management of commodities is definitely not new retail.
Commodity management, or category management, is about how, in the face of an increasing number of commodities, to choose commodities that are more suitable for your target consumers, choose commodities suitable for your operation, and combine them into your store. And through your scientific combination management, create advantageous categories, target categories, rich categories, and structural categories. Its purpose is to attract consumers, satisfy consumer demands, and achieve ideal sales output.
Commodity management and category management are complex and meticulous work. It has both scientific principles and artistic creation. To a certain extent, category management represents the technical complexity of the retail industry.
In fact, offline retail enterprises have been committed to category management over the years, making a lot of efforts, and thus achieving good results. But under the current situation where the consumer market is undergoing tremendous changes, without fundamental transformation, the current category management can no longer adapt to consumption changes, cannot meet consumer needs, and therefore requires thorough transformation.
Online retail enterprises generally feel a lack of the gene for commodity management, and of course, they are also limited by the way commodities are presented online. Basically, they move offline inventory online and use a few beautiful photos and a few beautiful models to display commodities. There is basically no concept of category management. Or, online stores are just catalog-style commodity sales methods. Under the current consumption environment, this is extremely unsuitable. At present, Taobao alone has 6 million stores. If each store operates 20 SKUs, that is 12 million SKUs. What a terrifying number!!! Not to mention buying commodities, just hearing about it is terrifying. Based on my own online shopping experience, at present, when logging into a store online, you must browse comprehensively to find suitable and cheap commodities; otherwise, you dare not shop. But if you browse comprehensively, it is very time-consuming and very inconvenient. Why? Because online stores lack the gene for category management.
In the current situation of extreme commodity abundance, the analysis, research, and management of commodities are increasingly important. Whether it is the lag in category management transformation of offline retail enterprises or the lack of the category management gene in online retail, these problems need to be solved through the analysis and research of commodities, through commodity management and category management.
**\----New retail must be more perceptive and grasping of customer needs:**
The objects served by retail are customers, people. People are the most complex emotional animals. Whoever can accurately and ahead of time grasp customer needs will master market initiative.
Customer needs are changing. And the speed of this change will accelerate with economic development, social progress, and income increase.
Customer needs, simply put, are divided into three levels: realistic needs, potential needs, and personalized needs. Realistic needs are needs that have already been expressed; potential needs are needs that already exist but have not yet been expressed. At the current stage where consumption has reached a certain level, the share of realistic needs is shrinking, and the share of potential needs is growing. That is to say, consumers are gradually generating greater potential needs. This market is growing, but these needs require retail people to grasp and explore. If you grasp and explore them, it becomes a huge consumer market. For example, the pregnancy, baby, and child market, the leisure and hundred-goods market, and the sports market that have already formed.
In fact, the perception and grasp of consumption require the wisdom of retail people, and the sensitivity and attentiveness of retail people to consumption. Data can be used as guidance; data can reflect the current situation; data cannot reflect the future. The future depends on human wisdom to predict. Therefore, whether it is the membership management of offline stores or the data push of online stores, it can only help enterprises solve the problem of precision marketing to a certain extent; it cannot solve the problem of systematically, completely, and comprehensively grasping consumption changes. Grasping consumption changes depends on wisdom.
**\----New retail must pay more attention to customer experience:**
Retail must be customer-centric. This is beyond doubt. Under the current situation of fierce market competition, consumption upgrading, and constantly changing consumer demands and consumption methods, paying attention to consumer experience, establishing consumer experience, and guiding consumer experience is one of the research focuses of new retail.
What is customer experience? Customer experience is grasping the essential needs of customers.
Do customers need celery, cabbage, pork, milk, dried fruits, and shampoo? No. They need breakfast, lunch, and dinner; they need a simple, happy, and quality life; they need health, sports, travel, culture, and fashion; they need social interaction and self-realization.
Grasping the essential needs of customers is mastering customer experience.
In fact, Teacher Maslow told us long ago that people have five levels of needs. So at what consumption level are Chinese consumers currently concentrated? Certainly, most have already stepped out of the basic need levels of survival and safety.
Grasping consumer experience is grasping the essential needs of consumers. It requires retail people to break the self-centered business positioning and truly establish a consumer-centered positioning. Be able to stand from the consumer's perspective and perceive the characteristics of higher-level consumer needs.
New retail needs to break the previous self-centered business model and establish a consumer-centered, scenario-based, and situational consumption model.
At present, whether online or offline retail, the commodity classification is carried out according to the physical attributes of commodities, such as fresh food, daily distribution, men's clothing, men's shoes, digital products, etc. The display and zoning online and offline are also based on the physical attributes of commodities. Customers who want to choose and buy commodities have to go to each area to find commodities, which is very troublesome.
This approach is self-centered and does not adapt to consumer needs. The entire commodity and display have no scenarios or situations to perceive customers.
**New retail, for online and offline retail enterprises, is to remove the traditional self-centered business model and re-establish an experiential business model with scenarioization and situationalization as the core. This is a strong demand from consumer changes and also a strong demand from new retail transformation.**
**\----New retail must be more open, sharing, united, and integrated:**
Thousands of years of retail models have been deeply rooted; decades of commodity circulation models have also been deeply rooted; whether online or offline, current retailers market and promote to consumers; retailers fight their own battles against brand manufacturers, distributors, and equipment suppliers. Retailers "squeeze" suppliers, brand manufacturers press goods on distributors, each calculates their own accounts, each chants their own scriptures. "Each sweeps the snow in front of their own door, and does not care about the frost on others' tiles." Such a retail model inevitably results in low efficiency and waste of resources. Whether retailers, distributors, brand manufacturers, or equipment suppliers, costs remain high, ultimately leading to all links struggling. This situation must change, and it is already changing.
New retail must thoroughly break the previous retail model. Retail must inevitably establish a new retail model that is more open, sharing, united, and integrated, whether for consumers, distributors, brand manufacturers, or equipment suppliers. It must establish a retail model based on the highest efficiency and lowest cost for the entire industry.
Retailers must break the previous concepts and positioning of marketing and promotion toward consumers, establish a cooperative relationship with consumers, break the previous simple buying and selling relationship, and establish a value relationship between retailers and customers. Only a valuable relationship can be stable and long-lasting.
Retailers must establish a new retail model that is more open, sharing, united, and integrated with distributors, brand manufacturers, and equipment suppliers. The era of fighting alone is over. The reform of the national army has changed from branches to war zones, forming a close union between branches. The retail industry is also facing industry union and integration. New retail must be an industry that is more open, more sharing, more united, and more in need of integration. The closed, self-fighting, and solo retail industry needs thorough transformation.
The standard for integration is efficiency and cost. A new retail model that can build a system and an inventory will inevitably bring historical value to the improvement of industry efficiency and the substantial reduction of industry costs.
This integration may be the retailer's integration of the upstream, that is, the commodity channel; or the upstream, that is, the brand manufacturer's integration of channels and terminals; or the platform's integration of the industry, such as Alibaba and JD.com. Integration is inevitable.
At present, the concept and technology of integration are basically ready; it just depends on who will be the integrator.
**\----New retail must be omnichannel:**
The situation where online retail and offline retail are incompatible and hostile to each other is changing. There is only one retail; online and offline are just different channels and different divisions of labor, just like brand manufacturers choosing KA channels or choosing traditional channels.
It should be said that whether to choose online retail or offline retail, the final decision is not in the hands of retailers, but in the hands of consumers and the market. Therefore, offline retail's resistance to online, and online retail's exclusion of offline, are both wrong. In fact, offline retailers should be clear that online retail is chosen by consumers and needed by consumers. Or, it can be said that offline stores have extended new sales space, increasing the area of stores and shelves. It is an opportunity and should not be entirely seen as a challenge. Online retailers do need to learn from offline retailers' years of retail experience, grasp the essence of retail well, and it is also not advisable to blindly exclude or blindly drive by technology.
At present, many people with lofty ideals are committed to integration. New retail must be omnichannel. This is a very simple truth.
**\----New retail must be more intelligent:**
Intelligence is an inevitable trend of social development and a manifestation of human progress. New retail must be intelligent retail, and the development of intelligence will inevitably bring revolutionary changes to new retail.
Intelligence should not be just a simple change, such as automatic cash registers. Intelligence should be a comprehensive innovation of the retail industry with the help of intelligent technical means. The development of technology will inevitably bring more intelligent development to the retail industry.
Intelligent retail may be a complete intelligent solution that can analyze customers, capture customer data, push information effectively and timely, provide complete customer solutions, and follow up with tracking services.
Intelligent retail must be intelligent management aimed at customers and commodities. It is intelligence that can effectively help retail enterprise managers reduce workload and improve work efficiency.
For example, based on current technology, there is a plan: customer enters the store--scans QR code, or Bluetooth technology automatically scans customer information--the backend can immediately start analyzing the customer--can immediately push targeted store commodities, promotions, and membership information to the customer's phone--can enable customers to obtain effective and valuable information faster--customers can rest and wait, or choose by themselves, greatly reducing the complexity of shopping and shopping costs--finally establishing stable customer relationships.
**Intelligence will inevitably be an important means of realizing new retail.**
-END-
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