After years of erosion of e-commerce, the diversion of consumers by professional beauty retailers and the violent impact of the epidemic, the US fashion retail industry has entered a critical moment of reset and revival in 2022. Large shopping malls are increasingly recognizing the importance of capturing every consumer trend for content services and model innovation. Increasing investments related to healthy consumption to create shelves and experiences that appeal to consumers is one of the most important ways for them to succeed in resetting.
According to the Global Wellness Institute's 2021 Global Health Economy Report, the health economy market has reached $4.4 trillion in 2020, with "personal care and beauty" (one of the 11 sectors often classified as health economies, including health tourism, mental health, fitness-related, and spas) expanding from $1 trillion in 2017 to $1.1 trillion in 2019, although down 13% due to the pandemic At $955 billion by 2020, the industry is still likely to "rebound after the pandemic and reach $1.4 trillion by 2025 at an annual growth rate of 8.2 percent." The overall healthy economy is expected to reach $7 trillion by 2025 at an annual rate of 9.9 percent.
Wendy Liebmann, founder and CEO of WSL Strategic Retail, a company focused on management consulting in the retail industry, told WWD: "The opportunity for shopping malls lies in high-income and young customers, and they must follow their interests. Their interest in health is a trend that began to emerge five years ago and has been violently amplified by the impact of the epidemic. Previously, this trend was not fully exploited by shopping malls, and now is their best and last chance. ”
Several large retail centers have already begun to move.
Not long ago, Saks Fifth Avenue added a health channel to the top of its homepage, subdividing categories such as "fitness", "health and nutrition", "rest and relaxation" and "sexual health", integrating the "big health" products that have been integrated into the beauty or home channel into a first-level channel juxtaposed with clothing, beauty and home, in which more than 1,000 products from 50 brands are sold, including bath products, aromatherapy diffusers, humidifiers, audio, loungewear, and slippers , silk sleep masks, acupressure massage pillows and swing sofa beds, and prices range from $9.99 to $995.
Along with the consolidation of shelves, Saks has also hosted a series of online events to enhance the promotion of health products: they hold fitness classes with star trainers, conduct webinars with fitness KOLs and brand executives with more than 20 million Instagram followers, and even invite quantum energeticists to discuss crystal charging and fragrance healing.
Active investment does pay off for performance growth. So far, about 25% of consumers who buy health products are new registered customers of Saks.
Bloomingdale's focus is on fitness. At the beginning of 2022, Bloomingdale partnered with digital fitness platform Obé to launch a new content series, promoting it online channels and in-store, with a focus on promoting exercise equipment represented by the Theragun fascia gun and "pure" beauty that focuses on health and pollution. At the same time, Bloomingdale has also established its own differentiating features through the focus on "sexual health", and its official website currently offers 43 products related to "sexual health".
The Wellness Shop on Bloomingdale's website integrates health-related products from different brands and categories
Elizabeth Miller, vice president and merchandise manager for Bloomingdale's cosmetics division, said: "Just as health is increasingly becoming a culture and concern, sexual health and self-love are increasingly becoming part of contemporary culture. As a modern department store, it is necessary to be close to the spirit of the times. ”
Bergdorf Goodman's strategy is to focus on carefully curated luxury wellness services, integrating product categories in the beauty category by functions such as nutrition, sleep improvement and post-workout restoration, and offering high-end skincare and wellness products such as Augustinus Bader and 111Skin. Macy's measure is to promote and sell massagers, aromatherapy, men's beauty, dental care, hair care and air purifiers at different price points on its own "wellness at home" online tool.
Personal care area at the Men's Specialty shop in Bergdorf Goodman
The measures taken by several major retailers are essentially adjustments to their content services and operating models. This is a response to a single trend that targets only consumers' healthy consumer needs, but for the entire fashion retail industry, innovation based on meeting the actual needs of shoppers is the way to develop.
The strong demand for healthy consumption also exists in the Chinese market.
According to the health consumption survey launched by Jingdong Health and "First Finance" magazine, most of the first-time visited families have an annual health consumption quota of 500 yuan to 5,000 yuan, even if the annual income of families below 120,000 yuan will also buy high health products; people's health consumption is no longer just on "treatment", health care, nourishment, fitness, beauty, maintenance of various parts of the body have been included in the category of "health consumption"; more than 40% of consumers have purchased beauty instruments in the past year. Beauty and body equipment such as fitness equipment, and personal care equipment such as teeth washers and nose washers are also chosen by more than 32% of consumers. In particular, it is worth mentioning that the survey also shows that first-tier cities, new first-tier cities and lower-tier cities do not show a large demand difference in the consumption of health products. The survey results believe that the extension of the health industry is gradually expanding and refining, and the categories of health products are constantly enriched and iterated, jointly driving the upgrading and transformation of a trillion-dollar market.
This deserves the attention of large shopping malls. However, at present, large domestic shopping malls can usually find clear beauty areas, fashion areas, children's areas, and catering areas, but there is basically no "health area" that has been formed. The same is true for online channels. Obviously, when healthy consumption is becoming a new highway, the country's large shopping malls have not caught this express train in time.
Large shopping malls are a product of urbanization and the development of the market economy. Especially in China after the reform and opening up, because of the improvement of people's consumption capacity, urban expansion and the support of infrastructure capacity such as buildings and transportation, shopping malls have developed rapidly in China, according to statistics, the growth rate of Shopping Centers in China has doubled in 2011, and in 2013, it exceeded the scale of 100 million square meters. Super-large shopping malls with integrated consumption, catering and leisure functions represented by Beijing International Trade Mall, Chaoyang Joy City, Shanghai International Trade Center, Chengdu IFS and Hangzhou Yintai have even become important public spaces for the daily life of urban residents.
After entering the digital age, in order to compete for consumers through offline experience and e-commerce channels, large shopping malls are also increasing their functions, evolving and upgrading in the direction of shopping and leisure theme parks, and indeed successfully increasing consumer coverage and residence time. Under the concept of "art gallery retail", the famous Shanghai K11 Shopping Art Center and Beijing Qiao Fu Fangcaodi Shopping Center appeared. The innovation of integrating the cultural and geomorphological characteristics of the local people to create a cultural landmark commercial space in a cultural city has also brought about a typical case such as the Commercial Project of RenhengCang Street in Suzhou. The success of the TX Huaihai | Young Force Center in Shanghai confirms that a segment targeting trend culture and Gen Z consumers can also achieve the success of a shopping mall.
At one time, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic restricted people's travel, which brought a severe test to large shopping malls, but China's efficient epidemic management and consumers' desire to return to public space have made large shopping malls quickly rejuvenate. At the same time, the strength of China's e-commerce ecosystem also provides a shortcut for the digitization of the physical retail industry, and it is not necessary to bear the cost of self-built official sales channels, but is more capable of investing in the sustainable development transformation with energy conservation and emission reduction as the core.
Under the action of comprehensive factors, large shopping malls in China and the United States have embarked on different development paths after the epidemic - American retail malls are actively adjusting their own content services and operating models, and they still bear the burden of sales; China's retail malls are building themselves into a fully functional, experience-oriented and interactive retail field. However, no matter how it changes, the content and service capabilities of the shelves are still the fundamental test of large shopping malls.
Kate Oldham, senior vice president and general manager of beauty, jewelry and merchandise at Saks, said the adjustments made in the online channel were "learned and tested before large-scale rollouts," and Bloomingdale said that "we are discussing internally how to extend these adjustments into stores," and JCPenney currently runs a "Sports and Wellness" category online about sportswear, healthy sleep and diet, and its executive vice president and chief marketing officer Michelle Wlazlo revealed that the chain is exploring how to reorganize healthy goods online and in-store, "in order to meet the needs of potentially younger customers, the traditional way we think, communicate, display and sell products will have to change." ”
In the US market, Amazon has built unmanned convenience stores, offline bookstores, grocery stores, pop-up stores, four-star special goods stores, and further plans to open a series of physical department stores in California and Ohio. In China, e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com also frequently have plans to set foot in physical department stores or shopping malls. When e-commerce platforms really come with strong shelves and capacity, the pattern of physical fashion retail will change dramatically. Compared with the world's leading model innovation level in the field of e-commerce, China's local fashion retail industry, especially large-scale comprehensive shopping malls, is still in the extensive competition of geographical location, scale and promotion. Under the potential energy of its own large enough scale and strong customer base, the next development of China's large shopping mall format is actually full of imagination. Starting to explore model innovation by catching the express train of healthy consumption in time may be able to complete a beautiful opening for this imagination. WWD
Written by Ma Xiao Thorn
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