The footsteps of the Spring Festival are getting closer and closer, and the sales of new year goods are hot. Citizens and tourists can buy pineapple puff pastry, egg yolk puff pastry, coconut cake, pie, nougat, whether in a long-established shop or an internet celebrity shop... The reporter's investigation found that the "New Year sales war" between the net red shop and the long-established store is extremely fierce, and both are seeking new marketing growth points.
【Phenomenon】
Demand for new year goods is blowing up
Merchants "carefully customized"
Not long after New Year's Day this year, the homepages of various e-commerce platforms hung out the promotional copy of the "New Year Goods Festival" early, and various Internet celebrity stores and long-established stores also launched New Year gift boxes. Most Chinese New Year cake gift boxes, whether it is product combination or packaging design, are described by merchants as "carefully customized" - in addition to conventional pastries, some gift boxes also come with Spring Festival, cultural and creative products, and the packaging of the gift box is printed with New Year greetings.
"For us, the New Year Festival is even more important than 'Double Eleven', because before the Spring Festival, everyone has a strong need for souvenirs, which is the real peak sales of pastries and candies." Zheng Fuxiang, senior operator of Su Xiaocang's e-commerce department, said. The reporter learned that during the sales period of New Year goods, whether it is an internet red shop or a long-established store, the single-day sales of the main products increased by 2 times to 5 times compared with usual; the sales of individual products increased sharply before the Spring Festival - for example, the production and sales of rice cakes in Huang Zehe during this period showed a spurt of growth.
【Survey】
The main buying group
Still offline
Due to the similarity of product categories sold, net red shops and long-established stores share the cake of "New Year goods market" - in today's developed online shopping, e-commerce platforms have become an important battlefield for new year goods sales.
Comparing the sales data on Tmall or Taobao platforms, it can be found that the total sales of long-established new year goods such as Huang Zehe, Gulangyu pies, and Nanputuo vegetarian cakes are generally less than the total sales of new year goods in Internet celebrity shops such as Su Xiao Sugar and Sanwei Crispy House; however, the sales of some long-established products are not lost to Internet celebrity stores, such as Huang Zehe's coconut cake and egg yolk puff pastry. Of course, there are also some long-established stores that perform well in e-commerce sales, such as Ajizai.
Interestingly, in Xiamen, whether it is an internet celebrity store or a long-established store, its online sales currently account for 10%-20% of the total sales of the brand. The main buying group of New Year goods is still offline: net red shops are for tourists; long-established stores are more for local residents and businesses. It is difficult to say whether the sales war will be won or lost at present, but what is certain is that both are seeking new growth points - long-established stores want to attract more young consumers, and Internet red stores want to "go out of Xiamen" and expand a broader market.
【Observation】
The long-established e-commerce road
Early "touching the net" has sweetness, but the meager profit is difficult to support the cost of free shipping
It is understood that some of the city's long-established brands have long been "online" - Huang Zehe began to do e-commerce in 2012, that year, in order to attract the first wave of traffic, they did a half-price gift box activity on the "Juhuasuan" platform, and the single-day e-commerce turnover reached nearly 900,000 yuan. But since last year, Huang Zehe and Huang Shiwei, the head of e-commerce, have found that Huang Zehe's online sales have begun to decline.
"The competition is too fierce." Huang Shiwei said, "On the one hand, the online new brand low-price food market; on the other hand, there are many vertical brands, such as only selling pineapple crisp, only selling nougat, and stealing some customers." Yang Yi, secretary general of the Xiamen Time-honored Brands Association, believes that the marketing model cannot keep up and lacks the ability to attract traffic, which also makes the long-established brands inferior in the competition.
In Huang Shiwei's view, because the long-established brand focuses on "low price and affordable" and "small profits and high sales", its meager profits are difficult to support higher marketing costs and online shopping "free shipping" costs; its business model is essentially different from brand positioning and higher product pricing internet celebrity stores.
Try brand upgrades to optimize e-commerce sales
"Xiamen's time-honored brand is in transition, but the speed is not satisfactory. Simply opening a store online cannot solve the problem; we should use a young team to create star products and innovate marketing models. Yang Yi believes that the advantage of the long-established brand lies in the quality of products and cultural heritage, but the marketing and innovation capabilities are relatively lagging behind.
Located in eight cities, Xiamen's long-established Ajizai opened a brand renewal in 2015 - next to the narrow old store in eight cities, it operates a 5-story "Jizhi Department Store", upgrading product raw materials, increasing prices, using Weibo interaction, Internet celebrity promotion and other ways to sell the upgraded "Ajizai" products to young people; at the same time, using the literary and artistic decoration and cultural and creative products of "Jizhi Department Store" to create a new brand image, through new media channels to promote, attract young literary and artistic tourists.
This change has been quite effective - judging from the recent monthly sales of the e-commerce platform, Ajizai's single product sales are the best among the long-established brands in Xiamen. "To do a good job in e-commerce, the most important significance for the old brand is to go out of Xiamen." Li Dongni, brand director of Ajizai, said. Today, the old and new stores in Ajizai each have a group of customers with very different ages and purchasing preferences.
Other long-established brands are also eager to try. "Today's consumers like 'small and beautiful' things." Huang Shiwei said that they plan to make a young product line "Huang Xiaohe" online, hoping that this new series will attract customers aged 20 to 40 for Huang Zehe; at the same time, they are also constantly optimizing the sales of e-commerce platforms - Huang Zehe's product categories on the e-commerce platform have been optimized from the initial 120 to the current 30.
Behind the scenery of the net red shop
Marketing campaigns are more diverse
Engage more closely with consumers
In terms of online sales, although the internet celebrity store started later than the old brand, its sales are in a leading position because of the use of more Internet games. Taking Su Xiaocang as an example, on the Tmall platform, its main nougat products sell more than 20,000 boxes per month, far exceeding the monthly sales of most of the old brands with hundreds of digits and thousands of digits; through the e-commerce platform, Su Xiaocang also "went out of Xiamen" to attract some new customers who had never been to Xiamen but recognized its brand and were willing to buy their products online.
Behind this achievement is the unremitting efforts of the internet celebrity store in brand marketing. It is not difficult to find that on the "New Year Festival" of the e-commerce platform, the activities launched by the net red shop are more abundant - for example, the Sanwei Crispy House launched the free delivery products of the New Year, the limited hand-painted red packet bag, the Little Red Book Posting Gift Product, the New Year Festival coupon, etc., making this New Year promotion look both fun and affordable.
Nowadays, a common marketing method of internet celebrity shops is to invite food bloggers and Internet celebrities to do live broadcasts and reviews for their own products, "This is the most direct way to attract traffic, and the effect is very good." Wang Rui, manager of the e-commerce department of Liu Mang Deeds, revealed that they had cooperated with a food anchor to plan the tasting, interaction and coupon delivery links during the live broadcast, and as a result, the sales of single products during the live broadcast and in the days after the live broadcast increased by 30%-40% compared with usual. Now, they have this kind of live or short video collaboration almost every month.
Su Xiaocang did three offline pop-up store activities in 2018, selected in Chinatown and twin towers Shimao E-mall, combined with Valentine's Day, "Double Eleven" and other time nodes, set up balloons, mazes and other devices for offline consumers to "play", while combining real-time online live broadcasting - these marketing activities not only enhance brand awareness, but also bring sales growth. In addition, Su Xiaocang also made product packaging upgrades and store decoration upgrades, and the result of this new retail attempt to synchronize online and offline efforts was that e-commerce sales increased by 150% in 2018.
The single customer base has become a bottleneck in growth
Where to go after the traffic dividend
"The customer base of the internet celebrity shop is generally dominated by tourists, which is also the bottleneck of the net red shop. However, after we developed e-commerce and developed brand marketing, the brand began to attract local customers, and also attracted some young consumers online, and the customer base is no longer limited to tourists, which helps the brand to base itself in Xiamen and go out of Xiamen. Zheng Fuxiang said.
In addition to the scenery, the net red shop is also facing homogeneous competition: now in Zhongshan Road, every few steps can meet a "net red shop", the decoration style, product packaging design style is very similar. The relevant person in charge of the durian deeds admitted that the growth of product sales has slowed down. "Now that the homogenization competition is serious, the initial traffic dividend has passed, and the more it goes on, the harder it is to attract new fans."
The reporter learned that at present, only a small number of Internet celebrity brands have their own factories, individual Internet celebrity stores are still supplied by long-established factories, and some are taken from unknown small factories, and the limitations of product innovation have led to a shorter life cycle of some Internet celebrity stores.
"In the end, it's the product itself that wins." Zheng Fuxiang said that they plan to develop new product categories in 2019, and also consider more cross-border cooperation in 2019. (Text/Xiamen Daily reporter Huang Yuqing; photo/Zhang Pingyuan system)