Text | Chopped pepper TMT, author | 24
Recently, the owner of the chopper brushed in the Little Red Book, Sanlitun opened a trend collection store - Tomato Pocket, and when he opened the visit, he was surprised by the long queue outside the door on Saturday.
Tomato Pocket, which has been established for less than two years, has three stores such as Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, Beijing Xidan Joy City, Beijing Chaoyang Hopson Hui, and the sanlitun image street store that has just opened recently, all of which are directly operated. At the same time, Tomato Pocket is inseparable from the help of capital, and after disclosing the 50 million A round of financing of innovation workshop in August, it completed the A+ round of financing less than two months.
It is reported that the tomato pocket exceeded 10,000 people on the opening day, the sales volume of the whole day reached more than 300,000, and the average stay time in the store exceeded 30 minutes, how to form such a consumer store that lengthened the shopping time?
New consumer brands gather, trend buyers and KOLs to choose tens of thousands of SKUs, private domain users become "tap water", with the Z era niche hobby circle as the cut of the tomato pocket want to create offline "Little Red Book"?
When offline retail experiences a "cold winter", why can a number of trend collection boutiques such as Cool Tide Play and KKV frequently expand stores and grow against the trend? In business logic, would this be a good business?
01 Blind box, beauty is just "two cups of milk tea money"
On the same day, the tomato pocket opened, and 20-year-old Xiaomin lined up for one of the long queues. JPT Rainbow Candy KIKI limited edition sale, which has been sold in many fashion stores in Beijing, she saw the tomato pocket opening time limit of 20 sets on the public account, excited. When it opened at 10 o'clock and before dawn at 6 o'clock, she moved to a small bench and lined up at the door. Because it was so cold, she could only hold hot water in her hand and wait for the moment when she got the number plate.
Xiao Min helplessly said that the last time she was in a tide play shop, the second place did not get the number plate, the reason is that the first girl spent 4,000 yuan in one breath to buy 50 boxes of limited sale blind boxes, less than an hour on the idle fish sold at a high price, so there is a limited price blind box at the original price, must be grabbed early.
Young people's love and fanatical consumption of hip play seems to be commercially confirmed by fashion play stores such as Bubble Mart, TOP TOY and 52TOYS. The chopper searched for relevant content in the Little Red Book, and there were more than 10,000 grass planting notes. In the tomato pocket, the entire wall of the display area is full of tide play, including the recently popular White Bear Department Store mini seabream grilled blind box.
In XiaoMin's view, she buys blind boxes as often as ordering takeaways, "69 yuan, 79 yuan can buy hidden models and first editions, but it is only the price of two cups of milk tea (a cup of Xi tea or Lele tea). "This is a reference for young people's consumption, mostly evolved from platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douban." By analogy, some of the domestic lipsticks that are now popular on the line can be bought for less than a cup of milk tea money. ”
The popularity of the national tide lipstick, the tomato pocket is not missed, and the INTO YOU, yeast color, orange, etc. that are popular in the Little Red Book can be seen in the store. In addition, the tomato pocket also has "three pits" clothing, handmade, cultural and creative handbooks, mask skin care products, imported snacks and so on. Therefore, compared with vertical shops such as tide play shops and cultural and creative stores, the category of tomato pockets is more extensive.
When the post-90s polytechnic male ink book and his girlfriend go shopping, they can't understand that a book is premium to 89 yuan, and a plate of tape is more than 20 yuan, just because it looks good? Later, his girlfriend told him that this was called a "handbook" and that every page of the book's handmade work was a work of art cherished by enthusiasts.
In the trend collection store, a counter and a vertical class represent a niche hobby circle, a cotton doll circle, a handbook circle, and a tide play circle. Even the beads that I bought for more than a dozen yuan when I was a child are now a member of the "beading circle", and some trendy jewelry is sold as a brand, and the cost is not less than 100 yuan.
In the tomato pocket, even the chapter area that does not participate in the sale is a circle. Mingye came to the tomato pocket for "Jizhang", and there are about 5,000 enthusiasts in the Beijing Jizhang circle. One day he went to the Sanlitun Spring Breeze Learning Bookstore to collect chapters, and by the way, he went to the tomato pocket diagonally opposite and found that there were four time-limited medals of the constellation series, the city series and the regional series, and immediately called on other friends in the group to punch in.
02 Capital and stores may not understand the trend, but they bet on "KOC"
Sanlitun Image Shop was the first street shop opened by Tomato Pocket. Offline, the entrance is the traffic, and the location determines the life and death of the store.
Before the tomato pocket construction of the core of the offline retail store is settled in the clothing floor of the mall, most girls after buying clothes, far away will look like they can visit.
The operation logic of the tomato pocket store is to attract consumers to enter the store through the "industrial style" door design and selection, and use experiential products to extend the customer stay time, which is then converted into sales. According to reports, the average stay time of guests in Sanlitun store is 30 minutes per day.
The focus of the gameplay to stretch the user's stay lies in the permutation and combination of tens of thousands of SKUs. In the tomato pocket, all kinds of niche hobby goods have their own separate counters, tide play and cultural creation are the two categories with the highest sales rate, and will also be equipped with high-frequency consumables and seasonal items, such as imported snacks, daily necessities and winter just need hats, gloves. In addition to imported snacks, the snack area is dominated by new consumer brands such as ffit8 protein bars and Yongpu coffee, which are different from online e-commerce with large volume and low price, and the offline without price advantage is mainly small packaging, focusing on the immediate and emotional consumption of users.
There are also drum kits and ukuleles that do not sell properties. Chopped Pepper TMT observed that every user walked up to the drum kit and couldn't help but want to interact and touch it. The tomato pocket store has no sales, only a tally clerk, which allows users to put down the burden and shop at will.
The unique gameplay of the tomato pocket combination selection lies in the "three lines of online data + buyer + user". First evaluate the consumption of new consumer goods and niche hobby products from e-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Taobao, and trend buyers select products from the market according to their own categories.
However, the trend stubble after stubble, each stubble will blow a gust of wind, vertical hobbies thousands, each with it? This means that stores face very large trial and error costs.
Capital and businesses may not understand the trend, but they bet on the choices of young people. Constant trial and error made them realize the importance of user suggestions and began to invite KOLs and KOCs to participate in the selection. Tomato pocket said that young people's circle, interest is very deep, not only 89 yuan to buy a handbook, but also spend eight or nine hundred to buy other peripherals, such as tape, pen, stickers, even badges have hundreds of styles, and even brands have to carefully consider which is what people in the circle will like. Currently, the hundreds of KOLs we work with can help them identify and provide advice.
Further, how to reduce instant consumption and improve the repurchase rate, the private domain is particularly important. At present, the membership users of Tomato Pocket have reached 100,000 people, and the stickiness of users lies in the organization of online and offline activities, such as some artist signing exchanges and seasonal festival theme activities. Yesterday, Tomato Pocket opened a Christmas jazz music party, on the one hand, inviting KOLs and private domain users to participate, but also a new format to try.
03 In the future, new consumption prefers "new offline channels"
In the era of new offline channels, channels are no longer just "middlemen" and traffic channels, but also need to upgrade business formats and create "explosive models" from the perspective of both consumers and brands.
Especially for a large number of new consumer brands that have not yet made efforts offline, offline channels are the next wave of blue oceans and "test fields". For example, domestic beauty brands such as enzyme color have rich experience in online operation, but due to cost and other issues, they have not yet developed offline channels, and will seek offline channels that are consistent with target users, and brands such as tomato pockets and KKV will become supplements to their brand's offline user experience.
For shopping malls, facing the squeeze of online e-commerce and the dilemma of declining traffic, boutique collection stores are the "sharp weapon" for gathering passenger flow.
Therefore, under the impact of online e-commerce, Tomato Pocket, KKV, and Cool Tide Play have expanded their stores against the trend with the advantages of multiple SKUs and low gross profits, and the scale effect is obvious, which proves the success of the collection format. According to the incomplete statistics of chopped pepper TMT, in the first half of this year, KKV added 79 stores, with 281 stores nationwide; Jiumu Miscellaneous Goods Company added 33 new stores in the third quarter, with a total of 436 stores; the total number of Cool Tide play stores has exceeded 300. Loft, Japan's most popular national grocery store, also opened its first overseas direct store in Shanghai last year.
According to the Frost & Sullivan Report, the top five boutique collection stores in the trendy retail market account for 17.8% of the market share, and KKV and KK Pavilions rank fourth, with a market share of about 1.8%. It is not difficult to see that this still belongs to a blue ocean market.
But under the crazy expansion of stores, the balance between profitability and users has become a problem faced by almost every trendy retail store.
First, the first- and second-tier core business districts and the popular large-scale store model have led to high rents. Second, most of the brands come from third parties, the proportion of private brands is small, and it is difficult to improve the gross profit margin of products. Third, the model of relying on sourcing goods from third-party brands can also greatly exacerbate inventory risk. Because, for trend retail, in order to continuously meet the needs of young people, tens of thousands of SKUs need to be "new" and "wide", and quickly updated, putting forward higher requirements for inventory capacity. Taking KK Group as an example, KKV has more than 20,000 SKUs, and even if 40% of them are exclusive products and customized products, inventory will still account for 57.8% of the company's current output value in 2020.
And KKV's solution to costs is crazy financing.
In addition, in the continuous upgrading of new channels to meet the needs of young people, complex selection mechanisms and dependence on trend buyers will also limit the profitability of trendy retail stores. In order to have a profit advantage, it is fundamental to have its own brand, do large-scale, expand market influence, and form differentiated advantages.