Written by | Xiao Yue
Edit | Li Kexin
Caption | IC Photo
Recently, Volvo's first city center store in Shanghai Jingyao Qiantan Shopping Center was officially opened, compared with the traditional 4S store, the store in addition to creating a leisure atmosphere for consumers in the Nordic style, but also providing consumers with Swedish coffee and other choices, to meet the needs of consumers in the store at the same time, but also give consumers more choices for leisure experience.
According to Volvo, by the end of 2022, more than 30 city center stores will have landed in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as new first-tier cities such as Chengdu and Hangzhou.
It is worth noting that in recent years, with the rise of new car-making forces, compared with the traditional 4S stores, brand experience stores, as an emerging offline service model, are becoming the favorite of fans of different car companies, and at the same time, in order to better meet the needs of users, car companies have also re-warehoused experience stores, whether it is "Wei Xiaoli" in the new forces of car manufacturing, or BBA (joint abbreviation of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, audi) in traditional car companies, are involved in it.
For example, as a BBA in the Mercedes-Benz has previously landed in the trendy area of Beijing Sanlitun Chinese mainland the first Mercedes me experience store, although it is now closed, but during the business period, it still attracts a large number of Mercedes-Benz fans to punch in and consume, and the outside world previously believes that Mercedes-Benz's move allows customers to fully experience the lifestyle that the brand wants to pass to users in addition to obtaining the standardized services of traditional 4S stores, which will help enhance the conversion of users.
In addition to traditional car companies, Weilai in the new car-making forces also has a layout on the experience store, which has created NIOHouse in many prime locations across the country, according to relevant information, as of June 2021, WEILAI has built 25 NIOHouses in China, it is worth noting that with the increasing enthusiasm of domestic young consumers for coffee, in these experience stores, coffee has also become the standard, and some car companies have developed coffee beans related to their own brands.
For example, in the early years of Mercedes-Benz in Sanlitun Mercedes me, a South African coffee bean was named Mercedes-Benz No. 3, while the coffee beans in Cadillac House in New York were provided by Joe Coffee, a famous café in New York, and the first city center store built by Volvo in Shanghai Jingyao Qiantan Shopping Center also mentioned the choice of Swedish coffee.
In the process of communicating with DoNews, many interviewees pointed out that compared with traditional 4S stores, experience stores have natural advantages in reaching users and transmitting brand value to users. More importantly, as a store that reaches the front end of consumers, the services it can carry and the personalized services that consumers feel also strengthen the tone of the brand for brand fans and potential customers all the time.
Veteran car companies: the experience is not enough, catering to make up
For car companies, experience stores are not a new thing, and even as early as 2013, the Japanese luxury car brand Lexus has already started this matter.
This year, marked by the official launch of its first brand experience space in Tokyo's Aoyama district, INTERSECT BY LEXUS, Lexus brought a new type of car showroom concept into the industry.
The experience space covering an area of 157.9 square meters and nearly 4 meters high is divided into two floors, the first floor includes a café and a garage gallery, allowing consumers to appreciate the Lexus model while appreciating the special coffee tea in the sense of tranquility created by the space, while on the second floor, it includes lounges, boutiques and other configurations, in the boutique, consumers can choose to buy goods around Lexus and enjoy food in the rest area.
Interestingly, in this experience space personally designed by Masamichi Katayama, a world-famous interior designer and founder of Wonderwall Interior Design Company, compared with the traditional car display space with the LOGO exposed to consumers to convey the brand bluntly, "INTERSECT BY LEXUS" is obviously more restrained, but it conveys Lexus brand culture to consumers all the time.
First of all, in the design of the experience space, the bamboo lattice façade echoes with Lexus' unique spindle-shaped intake grid, and secondly, in the café on the first floor, the sofa leather seat of the lexus LF-A supercar interior also allows users to enjoy the tea break while subtly understanding the brand, and this degree of subtlety, even refined to the sound of playing music in the store, has also adopted the Mark Levinson brand dedicated to Lexus cars.
As for the role of "INTERSECT BY LEXUS", Mark Templin, executive vice president of Lexus International, has previously given a clear conclusion, that is, to create a warm, comfortable and inspiring space to enhance the interaction between consumers and consumers and cars.
Coincidentally, after Lexus, Cadillac, as an American luxury car brand, also established its first Cadillac House in New York in 2016, the Cadillac House reached 1114 square meters in terms of floor space, which is more pure in the display of the store, according to previous media reports, in addition to the outdoor placement of models related to Cadillac, it is almost difficult to see products directly related to Cadillac indoors, of course, while the area is larger, It also offers a richer range of content.
It is understood that at that time, Cadark had cooperated with the creative company Visionaire and planned to hold exhibitions in the space of Cadillac House once a quarter, in addition, Cadillac House also introduced some fashion brands into the space.
In such a space, the brand has also broken the previous one-sided contact with consumers, and Cadillac brand director Melody Lee also said bluntly in an interview with the media, "We try to tell consumers - what they can feel from Cadillac's brand." But for the first time, creating a Cadillac environment like this one for consumers to walk in and experience. ”
If space is only a stepping stone for car companies to break the circle of consumers, then with the landing of luxury car brand Mercedes Mercedes me city experience stores, consumers' space-based experience has been elevated to a new height.
In 2016, Beijing's Mercedes me city experience store officially landed in Sanlitun, covering an area of 2400 square meters, as the first Mercedes me experience store in Chinese mainland, and at the same time in Sanlitun, known as a fashion trend landmark, the format of this experience store is naturally more abundant and diverse.
First of all, the store is divided into two floors, the first floor is mainly Mercedes-Benz peripheral, in addition to the concept car display, the key chain, water cup and other souvenirs are also on sale, and if consumers have car purchase needs, you can also book a test drive service, the second floor is mainly based on catering, including Sichuan restaurant "Sifang Sanchuan", "Mercedes me Cafe" "Lighthaus" bar, etc., and compared to the Mercedes-Benz brand in the past to give people a sense of expensive, the catering price is more close to the people, although the Sanlitun experience store has been closed due to the epidemic and other factors. However, from the menu of Mercedes me Cafe on the public review, it can still be seen that the price of the almond latte is 38 cups, which is more moderate than the price of catering around Sanlitun.
Earlier, Ni Kai, president and CEO of Beijing Mercedes-Benz Sales Service Co., Ltd., pointed out in an interview with the media, "Through the Mercedes me Sanlitun experience store, we not only hope to provide a pleasant and convenient life experience for the majority of Chinese consumers, but also hope to provide them with a relaxed environment to understand the brand history of Mercedes-Benz." ”
Obviously, compared with traditional 4S stores, car companies hope to achieve more efficient user reach through experience stores, so that consumers can enjoy the brand experience and understand the brand culture more effectively.
"Wei Xiaoli": Go, go to the shopping mall to open a larger compound store
In terms of doing experience stores, the logic of overseas brands is more inclined to obtain more young consumers, and it is also based on this Cadillac, Lexus and other brands have laid out experience stores, and from the data point of view, it has also achieved certain results.
Taking the previous Lexus Tokyo experience store as an example, according to public information, between September and April of the following year of the year of the experience store landing, the number of experience stores was 30,000, but compared with the number of receptions, the more valuable information is that of these 30,000 people, 20 to 39 years old consumer groups accounted for 69%, obviously, the experience store model is favored by more young people.
Obviously, grasping the trend of young people and winning a place in the context of young people is of equally important strategic significance for domestic new energy vehicle companies.
Taking NIO as an example, its first NIO House (NIO Center) landed at the end of 2017, No. 1 East Chang'an Avenue, Beijing, covering an area of 3,000 square meters, according to its official website information, NIOHouse covers Living Room (living room, rest area), Forum (lecture hall), Library (library), Labs (office area), OpenKitchen (open kitchen), Joy Camp (children's playground) and other functions.
In the living space created by NIO, in addition to enjoying leisure with the same friends, users can also experience the coffee provided in NIO House, perhaps inadvertently inserting willows, with the high quality of NIO Coffee (NIO coffee) in the experience store, so that NIO frequently out of the circle.
From the data point of view, in the NIO House and the smaller NIO Space for the user to build a living space, the user has been effectively driven.
According to some data related to NIO House released by WEIO in January this year, in the five years since 2017, 38 NIO Houses and 321 NIO Space have covered 144 cities, and the two have received more than 1.5 million users.
In addition to Weilai, Xiaopeng Automobile, which is also a member of the new car-making force, has also laid out in the experience store, and in June 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile's first flagship experience center in the country landed in Sanlitun, with an overall area of about 500 square meters.
On the day of the opening event, He Tao, co-founder and senior vice president of Xiaopeng Automobile, said bluntly about the location of Sanlitun, "This is a very young and fashionable location in Beijing, so we adopt a design style full of fashion and technology, which is also an area of great interest to young user groups at present." ”
Perhaps knowing how to master the future is mastered by young people, a significant feature of the new car-making forces is that they directly move experience stores into shopping malls. According to the "Analysis of the Basic Portrait of China's New Energy Vehicle Users in 2020" previously released by Ai Media Consulting, 76% of mainland new energy vehicle users come from people aged 26-45, which highly overlaps with the main consumer groups of shopping malls.
An obvious data is that in Beijing Hopson Hui alone, there are as many as 10 new energy vehicle brands settled, in addition to Wei Xiaoli, Nezha Automobile, Weima and other brands have also settled.
A more important feature is that after entering the shopping mall, Wei Xiaoli is more of a composite format. For example, NIOHouse is not just about selling cars, it is more about lifestyle collection stores that extend from the car culture: kitchens, libraries, cafes, parent-child centers, co-working areas, etc., all of which are included, where owners can not only test cars, but also enjoy and socialize.
For example, Xiaopeng Automobile launched the "Pengyou Time" car owner play circle, committed to planning high-quality life activities, creating a diversified life sharing platform, and deeply cultivating the user ecology.
Obviously, whether it is a new car-making force or an old car company, whether it is to build an independent experience center or to enter a shopping mall, the core appeal is still based on the mental occupation of young consumer groups.
Coffee, a cure for anxiety in car companies?
The relationship between car companies and coffee and catering is originally clear, but because of the young user group, there is an inextricable connection between the two, which may also reflect from a certain angle that the current new car-making forces have laid out behind the experience store, which is the desire and anxiety to seize the market, and this anxiety and uneasiness even extends to the car companies' consideration of coffee drinks in the experience store.
In Lexus Tokyo Aoyama's Experience Store, consumers are offered freshly ground coffee from Norwegian coffee shop Fuglen, a café with a long history in Norway that was previously named the world's best coffee by The New York Times, and currently has only two stores in the world, one in Norway and one in Tokyo.
As a long-established coffee brand, FUGLEN Café itself can be called its own traffic, as its LOGO of the bird that spreads its wings and flies high, it is frequently photographed and shared by fans, and after the brand enters Tokyo, the store has become a store where fashion trendsetters rush to punch the clock.
In the choice of coffee beans, all selected from Oslo, Norway roasting, while adopting the Nordic shallow roasting method, so that the acidity and fruit flavor of coffee beans are fully trapped in the mouth of consumers, which is also quite popular with consumers, in addition, FUGLEN will also launch seasonal limited products in a timely manner, under this strategy, further increase the LTV of the product.
The introduction of such a brand as a coffee drink provider in the experience store by Lexus not only reflects the tonality of the brand, but also reflects the brand's spare energy in creating an experience space to some extent.
Similar to Lexus, the coffee beans in cadillac house in Cadillac are also quite elaborate, and public information shows that its coffee beans are provided by the famous café Joe Coffee in New York, while Joe Coffee's own brand positioning is niche and high-end, and it currently has 11 chain stores in New York.
It is worth noting that in this car company around the coffee quality of the you chase me, Mercedes-Benz is not lagging behind, this is reflected in Mercedes me experience store that Mercedes previously opened in Sanlitun, according to public information, in order to me café café raw material quality pursuit, Mercedes-Benz even bought an organic coffee bean brand in South Africa, and named it "Mercedes-Benz No. 3", and from planting and roasting are also done in South Africa.
At the beginning of the opening of the Sanlitun Experience Store in 2016, Ni Kai, as the president and CEO of Beijing Mercedes-Benz Sales Service Co., Ltd., revealed to the media present, "The coffee beans used in the coffee are all shipped from South Africa by Boeing 747." ”
According to the "White Paper on the Development Trend of China's Freshly Ground Coffee Market Industry 2021" released by Analysys, the mainstream consumers of Freshly Ground Coffee in China are currently concentrated in 20 to 35 years old, 1-2 tier cities, people with certain educational backgrounds and payment capabilities, and the demand scenarios for coffee are becoming increasingly diversified, involving diversified scenes such as refreshing, socializing, accompanying meals, and life rituals, and the most important thing is that different demand scenarios need to rely on different products to adapt, in addition to the common American, classic milk coffee, Creative coffees with unique selling points and highly recognizable characteristics are also popular.
Obviously, although car companies are aware of the potential of the younger generation of consumer groups, coffee, as a high-frequency consumer goods for young people and a new social currency, has become an effective driving force for car companies.
Note: The pictures in this article are from the brand's official website