Every Spring Festival holiday, first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai often lose a part of the high-net-worth consumer population due to the return of a large number of foreign populations, entering a relatively "stagnant" empty window period. This is almost the short-term dilemma that the brick-and-mortar retail industry has to face every year in the past.
In the past two years, with the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, many high-net-worth individuals in first-tier cities have left a strong purchasing power for the physical retail industry in Beijing, Shanghai and other consumer cities in response to epidemic prevention policies and reduce the risk of transmission.
According to a set of data disclosed by the Ministry of Commerce last year, this can be strongly verified and predicted - during the Spring Festival Golden Week in 2021, the average daily passenger flow of shopping malls in 10 first- and second-tier cities across the country increased by more than 200% year-on-year, reaching the level of 86% in the same period of the Spring Festival in 2019.
In addition, in the "Notice on Promoting Consumption in the Near Future" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, festival consumption is also listed as one of the key measures, and the "Notice" proposes to take multiple measures according to local conditions to meet residents' holiday consumption needs and adhere to the stable expansion of consumption under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control.
On the other hand, a recent research report released by the China Chamber of Commerce also pointed out that China's consumer goods market is in a steady recovery, especially that the competitive operating environment for physical retail is stable and improving.
Under the dual thrust of policy and economy, the physical retail consumption situation of the Spring Festival in 2022 is very optimistic, so it has become a must for the physical retail industry after the winter. Whether it is the long-term competition with e-commerce for a long time, or the growth of business mentality during the epidemic in the past two years. As the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger approaches, the signs of the physical retail industry seizing the major opportunity of "New Year in situ" are emerging.
Beijing Sanlitun Taikoo Li "Year of the King" theme activities
How to maximize the advantages of the entity and flexibly interconnect online and offline passenger flow? How to capture the minds of consumers and create a unique retail IP?
From the "Let's Tiger Well 'Roar' Life" in Taikoo Li, Qiantan, Shanghai, the "Tiger Year Wei Action" at TX Huaihai Young Force Center, the "Year of the King" theme event in Taikoo Li, Sanlitun, Beijing, the "Enjoy Winter" 2022 New Year Special Event in Wangfu Central, the New Year Theme Event of Chengdu IFS "Orange Star High Illumination Assist", and the Intime Department Store, which launched more than 500 New Year activities of large and small in more than 60 stores across the country from New Year's Day to Lantern Festival, are not difficult to see, Fashion retail giants are showing their trump cards to meet the battle.
Previously, the "2021 China In-Store Consumption New Trend Insight Report" released by Alibaba Local Life proposed four major consumer psychology for Generation Z, namely "consumption as social" for the purpose of seeking resonance and maintaining common topics, "consumption for people" for the purpose of purchasing interest-related products and satisfying personal preferences, "consumption for self-pleasure" to meet immediate interests, and "consumption for three views" for paying for national culture or personal feelings.
It can be seen that in-store consumption has become an important way for Gen Z to express interest propositions and find empathy.
In order to grasp the young consumer groups with diversified interests and seeking innovation and diversity, the popular themes such as ice and snow sports and national tide in the C position of winter sports are undoubtedly the explosive IP that can bring a bonus effect to the enthusiasm of the festival, and the retail giants have also used their best to actively establish like-minded intimate relationships with consumers in the social ecology.
Wangfu Zhonghuan Mountain Foothills Guest Hall Land Curling Experience Area
Just like the boom of the ice and snow season, since November 2021, the "Enjoy Winter" 2022 Chinese New Year special event has been launched in Beijing Wangfu Central. The outdoor ice rink continues to carry forward its "net red ice rink" advantage, with the three-storey foothill guest hall hosting fun sports events to bring indoor ski machine experience or land curling experience to members of Wangfu Central, while the three-storey observation deck is transformed into an ice and snow town that brings together more than ten winter sports, outdoor lifestyle brands, and regular fun interactive experiences.
Yintai Department Store has launched a two-month "National Tide" theme activity around the direction of creating a new consumption of the national tide and a national tide cultural experience - including sheng tang chun market, wanfu union, cyberpunk national tide garden party and Chinese clothing origin, tiger tiger shengwei flower lantern club five sub-units.
Beijing Yintai Department Store "National Tide" theme activity
At the same time, Li Ning and Anta, located in Yintai Department Store, in the joint marketing of the response theme, respectively listed new products in the Year of the Tiger New Year series such as the Nijin Doujin series and the Wuhuang Wan sleep New Year IP joint name.
When another year of "local New Year" has become the trend of the times, a large number of high-net-worth people reside in the city, compared with the traditional mentality of the goods organization, the Lunar New Year theme IP of physical retail has become a public space that links the relationship between people and creates a leisure culture.
Collaborating with artists to create a series of outdoor punch-in installations, or by launching a series of cultural and creative exhibitions of traditional folklore during the festival, is also a kind of "consumption for three views" physical retail strategy that pays for national culture or personal feelings.
In view of the different physical spatial structures and their respective advantages, Beijing Sanlitun Taikoo Li, Shanghai Qiantan Taikoo Li and Chengdu IFS have invisibly strengthened the cultural circle attributes by innovating new curatorial forms.
"No Tiger" art installation in Taikoo Li, Sanlitun, Beijing
In the Spring Festival theme activity with the theme of "Year of the King", Beijing Sanlitun Taikoo Li once again joined hands with pioneer artist Bi Heng to build the open fashion block into a tiger-shaped and energetic place for the tide to play and play - inspired by the classic totem "Cloth Tiger" in folklore, the aesthetics of mechanical technology have revitalized tradition, and transformed into the "No Tiger" art installation of King Kong mecha;
Shanghai Qiantan Taikoo Li teamed up with British artists Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan to create the artwork "Irrelevant Relevance" – "Big Red Cat and Blue Boots", and since January 20, a series of creative installations such as the ball weaving art installation inspired by the colorful bird's tongue spread.
Shanghai Qiantan Taikoo Li
"Irrelevant Correlation" – "Big Red Cat and Blue Boots"
In order to create a New Year atmosphere, Chengdu IFS "Orange Star High Illumination God Assist" New Year theme activities, in addition to the "Fulu Shoucai" four gods derived from the New Year image, and "Orange" as the main theme of a series of "Orange Star High Illumination Wishing Wall", "Fuxing High Illumination Gate", "Fushou Qi Zenith" punch card installation, at the same time in the seventh floor art gallery held the "Open Box Cultural and Creative Works Exhibition".
Chengdu IFS "Open Box Creative Works Exhibition"
The exhibition includes innovative handmade prints of blessing folk culture, as well as cultural and creative products that combine Chinese and Western cultures, and during this most representative traditional festival, through works of art and products, it brings the inheritance and innovative expression of traditional culture in an increasingly strong traditional festival atmosphere.
In addition, with the upgrading and innovation brought by digital technology to physical retail in the past few years, there is no longer a clear commercial boundary between digital and physical, but instead nourishes each other conceptually, and jointly enhances the closeness between communication and interactive experience.
Therefore, in the theme interaction on the occasion of this year's Spring Festival, in addition to physical strategies such as interactive installations or exhibitions, there is also no shortage of digital interactive experience initiatives that combine online and offline. For example, The "Year of the King" WeChat mini-game launched by Taikoo Li in Sanlitun, Beijing, from January 14 to February 15; Chengdu IFS has an interactive mini program with blessings and wishes, "Orange God Assist".
Chengdu IFS Interactive Mini Program "Heart Orange God Assist"
Intime Department Store attracts customers to the store through channels such as Alipay and Meow Street App, using online channels as traffic engines. In the activity unit called "Wanfu All Lian", through a series of mobile phone terminals and store redemption activities, digital technology was applied to social interaction and the creation of the Sense of Spring Festival ceremony - such as the linkage alipay launched the points redemption fun Spring Festival, the store wrote blessing coupons, etc.
TX Huaihai Young Force Center AR Red Packet Interactive Game
It is worth mentioning that according to the different elements of the Year of the Tiger, TX Huaihai has launched different interactive experiences or games on 4 floors, including "watch videos, plot unlocking", "taking photos of big cards, collecting elements", "involving games", "scene puzzles", and after each game is completed, you can get no threshold red envelope rewards for use in participating merchants. The coherent interactive experience of different floors and the game session with reward mechanism are not only conducive to enhancing the festive atmosphere during the Spring Festival, but also invisibly increasing the length of stay and the additional role of tour guidance.
Through a series of digital upgrades of online and offline interconnection, physical retail can not only obtain a large amount of online exposure, but also increase offline passenger flow and retention time, further promote sales performance, and greatly improve the efficiency of customer acquisition.
Although physical retail has been pushed into an unexpected dark moment since the epidemic in 2020, it is not difficult to see that in the face of the third Spring Festival brought about by the epidemic, the physical retail industry is moving from the initial difficult survival to today's active embrace of change.
From this wave of Spring Festival activities "inner volume", we can clearly see that the digital revolution of physical retail has moved to a more mature stage, online and offline channels from the past "independent development" to today's "each of the strengths"; under the shell of digital upgrading, theme marketing is still the core of the "differentiation" battle of physical retail - from the ice and snow world to the "national tide" garden party, from cyberpunk to traditional printmaking, physical retail through the current cultural and entertainment life of the detailed insight, accurately penetrate the various interest circles.
With the rising enthusiasm of the festival and the stable and good consumer economy, the opening examination of physical retail is heralding the farewell to the stage of homogenization and entering a new era of a hundred flowers. WWD
Written by Eva Liang
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Image source courtesy of the official