Martha Withdrew From China. House Of Fraser Wants To Open Shop In Nanjing.

In mid November, a piece of news exploded in the department store.

The closure of all the stores in the mainland of China has been announced, with only Tmall and Jingdong channels.

When the industry sighs and is busy checking the "N sin" of Marsha's department store, another British department store will open the door before Christmas in Xinjiekou, Nanjing. It is a 168 year old royal honours department store HouseofFraser.

The name "House of Fraser" is widely known in the UK, but people do not necessarily know that this old department store has a Chinese name called "Fred".

In April 2014, Nanjing Xin Bai, a subsidiary of Nanjing Sanqi group, acquired the equity of House of Fraser89% and opened overseas flagship store of HouseofFraser in Tmall international last October.

Then, when Marsha's shop encountered "Waterloo" in the mainland of China, why did the three groups build an overseas market?

Offline stores?

(photo) House of Fraser is located in the UK store.

Martha withdrew from China. House of Fraser wants to open shop in Nanjing.

In mid November, Martha general store announced the closure of all Chinese stores, and behind Martha's "big retreat" was a series of policy mistakes.

On the one hand, the most competitive food line in Martha's department is difficult to introduce large-scale Chinese shops on the threshold of inspection and quarantine.

The brand is "old fashioned and the size doesn't fit" but the price is not cheap.

In addition, some of the Marsha's department stores are located in remote locations, or simply sink two or three line cities. Location bias and low traffic also result in physical shops being unable to make profits.

Martha department store, which was under the line, still kept a spark on the line.

Reporters found that Tmall's flagship store is still on the new products, the highest sales in the shop, a price of 99 yuan cotton Bottomwear total sales volume of over 10000, sales of the top ten commodity prices are mostly hundred yuan up and down the basic clothing.

The failure of Martha's Department has sounded the alarm for physical retailing, but the rise of cross-border electricity providers has brought a host of new players. House of Fraser, one of the UK's time-honored stores, is one of them.

In 2014, the Nanjing group bought House of Fraser and landed on Tmall international in October last year.

The first store section of House of Fraser is an inch of gold, located in the most prosperous Xinjiekou business circle in Nanjing, and will officially open the door to the guests at the end of this year.

Why did the three groups choose to open offline stores at this time? Zhou Weijia, director of House of Fraser brand channel, told reporters that the main consideration of the decision is to try new retail outlets and open up online and offline channels.

At the same time, the Nanjing entity store is not only conducive to the establishment of brand spirit, brand awareness, but also the flow of online shopping outlets.

House of Fraser also plans to open Tmall flagship store next year to make use of Tmall's new retail tools and data empowerment.

"In the future, House of Fraser's Tmall flagship store will be synchronized with the physical store, while Tmall international flagship store will synchronize with the new products of the British official website."

Zhou Weijia expressed the hope that through the mechanism of split layer selection, the two shops will be differentiated to meet the needs of different consumers.

It is reported that the House of Fraser entity store will operate its own brand, buyer's brand and joint brand, aiming at the 25 to 45 year old cutting-edge middle class, and plans to launch high-end VIP rooms, private shopping consultants, authentic British afternoon tea and other high-end services.

At the same time, the fifty thousand square meter House of Fraser department store will also be located in Hamleys, the oldest toy store in Britain and Brookstone, the new wonder shop in the US.

Competition with Messi department store

When asked about why House of Fraser chose Tmall international, Zhou Weijia almost blurted out: "because Tmall traffic is big."

These remarks also reveal the common idea of international department stores: cooperate with the electronic commerce platform with huge traffic and smart clothes.

However, there must be fierce competition under traffic.

In the past two years, not only British House of Fraser and Marsha general merchandise, but also famous overseas department stores from the US Department Store Messi, Saks FifthAvenue and Japan's three Yue Yi Dan have all been involved in the Chinese electricity supplier market through Tmall international.

Among them, the aggressive atmosphere of Messi's department store is particularly noticeable.

In August last year, Messi department store and Ali reached an exclusive strategic partnership.

In September this year, its CEODustin Jones in China also publicly stated on the super brand day. In order to deepen the Chinese market, Messi not only moved the Chinese team to Hongkong, but also launched the Messi China official website next year.

In this regard, Zhou Weijia did not shy away from the competition between House of Fraser and Messi's department store, but he thought that the starting point of the two department stores was different, and there were some differences in the way of e-commerce.

Compared with Messi's department store, House of Fraser is relatively unknown in China.

Therefore, compared with Messi's department store's "smashing resources and changing GMV" way, House of Fraser wants to cultivate the brand mentality through the opening of physical stores and station marketing.

In the station, House of Fraser will focus on direct delivery and drilling and exhibition, and will put resources on the list of good goods and purchase, so as to aim more targeted customers.

{page_break} talked about consumer portraits, and Zhou Weijia revealed a group of interesting data.

More than half of new visitors are between 18 and 35 years old.

But in the final list of visitors, consumers aged 26 to 35 became the main force.

Therefore, House of Fraser's current selection is mainly targeted at urban white-collar workers with certain spending power.

Follow up items also want to stay away from price wars, but strive to improve customer unit prices.

Zhou Weijia said that the selection of HouseofFraser Tmall international flagship store was launched from three dimensions, namely, self operated brand, acting brand and purchasing brand, and some potential stocks were also excavated in the course of operation.

"Dune is a famous British brand. The quality of its bags is excellent, but the price is not high."

He disclosed that Dune can only be purchased in China through House of Fraser, so it will be one of the non self operated brands that will focus on training in the future.

A dispute about rookie Logistics

Speaking of difficulties encountered since entering Tmall international, Zhou Weijia admitted that cross border logistics was once a hard nut to crack.

At that time, Zhou Weijia's electricity supplier operation team collected other international businesses' cross-border logistics solutions, and eventually many clues pointed to the scheme of "connecting rookie logistics".

"When we communicate with the British people about the concept of" rookie logistics for 14 days, "the first reaction is how a cross border commodity can be guaranteed to be delivered to China within 14 days.

However, when Britain is still following the traditional logistics and pportation mode, China's electricity providers have set a set standard for speed.

Although the three group has acquired the House of Fraser, it is still impossible to let the British accept the unheard of rookie logistics.

In the process of communication with British branding, Zhou Wei Jia understands the reasons why British brands are hesitant.

"Connecting the rookie logistics requires accepting the rules of the rookie overseas warehouse.

For example, overseas warehouses must receive goods within 72 hours, so that they can be sent to domestic consumers within the next 11 days.

The cost of manpower in the UK is high, and the branding side has started to say that there is no manpower to dock with the rookie overseas.

In the end, House of Fraser decided to use traditional direct mail first.

Zhou Weijia clearly remembered that before the connection of rookie logistics, House of Fraser spent the longest 52 days from British direct mail to China's longest order.

In order to apologize, HouseofFraser paid the order in full, and the Chinese operation team took the expected pcript to persuade the British brand to get through the rookie.

After the entire logistics chain was opened, the fastest order took 7 days, averaging 10 to 11 days to reach the hands of Chinese consumers.

The logistics problem is coming to an end, but behind it is a question of how international businesses should decentralization.

Zhou Weijia said that because the three cell group has acquired House of Fraser, the power of China's electric power operation Department itself is much higher than that of the general generation operation company.

The problem of running in period also let the group headquarters decide that the domestic selection and operation are decided by the Chinese operation Department, while the British brands only provide delivery and distribution services.

Zhou Weijia, director of House of Fraser brand channel, told reporters that overseas department stores want to take root in the Chinese market is not easy.

On the one hand, it is necessary to integrate the resources on the line and online to start the brand awareness in China; on the other hand, we must also weigh the interests of the group, the brand side and the operator, and persuade the brand to cooperate with China's commercial strategy.

House of Fraser can avoid Marsha's decision making mistakes and open up a new retail Road in China. The industry will wait and see.