Department stores, or shopping centers?

A department store is a retail store that integrates various types of products. Its features include:

1, the full range of goods;

2, large passenger flow;

3, well-funded, complete personnel;

4. Pay attention to goodwill and corporate image;

5, pay attention to the shopping environment and product display.

Although for the entire retail industry, the birth of a department store is called “the first time in modern business” and has epoch-making significance. However, department stores are facing serious problems as the Internet is increasingly impacting the traditional retail industry. CB Richard Ellis, a commercial real estate services and investment company, believes that in the retail property market in China, the polarization of shopping malls and department store formats is prominent, and the department store industry is facing breakthroughs from internal and external issues:

Internal worry is mainly caused by the characteristics of the department store industry itself. First, the limited operating area of ​​the department store restricts its further development. Second, domestic department stores have long relied on an associate model and lacked self-employment capabilities; external difficulties stemmed from slower economic growth and social retailing. The slowdown in total growth, the rise of diversified retail formats, the continuous escalation of commercial competition, the impact of online shopping on physical retailers, the greater impact on department stores, and rising costs of personnel and rentals.

At the same time, CB Richard Ellis further analyzed that in the face of unfavorable patterns, the department store industry can break through from several aspects:

1. Department store shopping malls, the introduction of fashion brand flagship stores, specialty stores, increase the mall experience elements;

2, carry out self-operation business;

3. To increase the proportion of self-owned properties, the proportion of self-owned properties can be increased through development or project acquisition;

4. Online and offline business linkages to build an online shopping platform to meet consumers' online browsing, online inspection, online ordering "blanket" purchase behavior.

Faced with the above challenges, department store operators are gradually transforming. At present, many traditional department stores are transforming into eco-friendly shopping malls. This is because shopping malls, with their rich business mix and good shopping environment, have not only improved customer stickiness through diversified services, but also greatly improved customer experience through online and offline integrated services, and are gradually becoming more and more The consumer's first choice.

It should be pointed out that this transformation is no longer simply a transition between entity forms, but more from a single operation to a diversified direction, from simple physical stores to online offline integration. This is a concrete embodiment of the department store transition o2o in the Internet era.

Due to the full rise of shopping centers, the huge impact of e-commerce, and the saturation of the group buying market, consumers have increasingly felt “aesthetic fatigue” and pure “eat”, “wear” and “weekend shopping” can no longer satisfy consumers. Further consumer demand, but also can not produce consumer stickiness.

In order to break through the problems of homogenization and a single shopping experience, shopping malls should enhance their sense of space, convenient services and targeted activities. In order to deal with the huge impact of e-commerce, department store mall transformation will not only break through the simple “shopping” experience, create a shopping experience that is different from the virtual world, but also pursue the online and offline integrated shopping model, ie o2o mode.

In the future, the shopping center is no longer just a place for shopping, more is to provide an experiential, interactive social platform, more emphasis on meeting people's various experiences in the place.