1. Fundamental changes in sales methods
Department store is the first modern mass sales organization to implement new sales methods in the world business history. Its new sales method can be summarized as follows:
(1), customers can freely enter and leave the store without any scruples;
(2) Commodity sales shall be marked with "plain code", and all commodities shall be priced and sold to any customer at the same price;
(3) Display a large number of goods for customers to choose at will;
(4) The goods purchased by customers can be returned if they are not satisfied.
Although these sales methods are very common now, they are all derived from the birth of department stores and the changes in retail.
2. Fundamental changes in operation
The biggest feature of department stores at that time was that there were several different commodity departments, just like a "store group" under one roof, which divided many commodities into departments according to commodity categories, and the departments were responsible for organizing the purchase and sales. Moreover, department stores mainly focus on daily necessities and implement a large number of comprehensive sales organizations. They operate according to different commodities and different sales parts, although the operation scale of each part is not large. However, because it is gathered in a business entity, the scale of this comprehensive operation is very huge compared with the previous grocery stores and specialty stores. Therefore, the comprehensive management of department stores is also one of the fundamental changes to adapt to mass production and mass consumption.
3. Fundamental changes in organization and management
Compared with the traditional urban retail stores and rural grocery stores, shopkeepers not only manage themselves, but also manage their own people, finances and goods. Department stores operate several series of goods at the same time, and their enterprises are huge. Therefore, their business activities are divided into relatively independent professional departments, which implement division of labor and cooperation; Management work is carried out at different levels. Enterprises have unified planning and organizational management principles, and then several functional management departments implement them respectively. Therefore, under the planning and control of a capital, department stores are organized and managed by departments and levels according to commodity series.
Second, the second retail revolution: the birth of supermarkets 1. Revolutionary change
Supermarket marks the outbreak of a retail revolution, which has brought the following effects on the innovation and development of retail industry and the transformation of the whole society:
(1), the open-shelf selling method is popular. Although it was not initiated by supermarkets, it developed because of supermarkets. As an important means of competition, supermarket self-help shopping not only impacts the original retail form, but also affects the new retail format. Later discount stores, warehouse stores, convenience stores, etc. all adopted the way of open-shelf self-selection or complete self-help.
(2) People save a lot of shopping time. With the increase of women's working hours and the decrease of leisure time, people no longer regard shopping as a leisure way, and demand that shopping is more convenient and faster. Supermarkets just meet people's new requirements, and concentrate all kinds of scattered goods together, which greatly saves people's shopping time, enables people to use their limited leisure time for activities such as tourism, entertainment and fitness, and creates a brand-new modern lifestyle. supermarket
(3) Comfortable shopping environment is popular. The neat, clean and comfortable shopping environment created by the supermarket has replaced the original messy and noisy fresh market, which makes people believe that they can enjoy shopping when buying any goods.
(4) Promoted the transformation of commodity packaging. Open-shelf self-selection forces manufacturers to carry out brand-new commodity packaging design, compete in packaging and labeling, and many brands with complete packaging, exquisite decoration and prominent logo have emerged, which also makes the shopping mall cleaner and more beautiful and creates a good shopping environment.
Create background
The emergence and development of supermarkets now seems to have its historical inevitability, and its background is:
(1), the economic crisis is the trigger for the emergence of supermarkets. The economic crisis that swept the world in the 1930s made residents' purchasing power seriously insufficient, retailers closed down one after another, production shrank a lot, and store rents were greatly reduced. Supermarkets made use of these idle buildings with low rents and adopted the management principles of saving labor costs, self-help shopping and small profits but quick turnover, which achieved low prices and was welcomed by consumers who were troubled by the economic crisis at that time.
(2) The change of lifestyle has contributed to the supermarket. After World War II, more and more women took part in the work, and the pace of people's life and work accelerated. In addition, the urban traffic is congested, and the parking facilities of the original retail stores are backward. Many consumers want to go to the shopping center to buy all the food and daily necessities they need for a week. Supermarkets were born to meet this demand of consumers.
(3) Technological progress has created conditions for supermarkets. The development of refrigeration equipment provides the necessary conditions for supermarkets to store all kinds of fresh food, and the perfection of packaging technology provides great convenience for supermarket customers to choose. Later, the popularization and application of electronic technology in the commercial field promoted the use of electronic equipment in supermarkets and improved the mechanization of sales. In addition, the popularity of refrigerators and cars in western families makes it possible for consumers to buy in large quantities from a distance.
Third, the third retail revolution: the rise of chain stores is the product of the development of modern large industries, which has adapted to the production requirements of large industries. Its essence is to apply the basic principles of socialized mass production to the circulation field, so as to improve the cooperative operation ability and scale operation efficiency. The basic characteristics of chain stores are shown in four aspects:
(1), standardized management. In chain stores, each branch has a unified store name, uses a unified logo, carries out unified decoration, and maintains consistency in employee clothing, business hours, advertising, commodity prices, etc., thus standardizing the overall image of chain stores.
(2) Specialized division of labor. The function of chain store headquarters is chain, and the function of stores is sales. On the surface, this is not much different from a single store, but actually it is qualitatively different. The function of the headquarters is to study the business skills of the enterprise, directly guide the operation of the branch, make the branch get rid of the influence of past experience management and greatly improve the management level of the enterprise.
(3) Centralized procurement. Chain headquarters centralized procurement, large quantities of goods, from manufacturers can get lower purchase prices, thereby reducing procurement costs and gaining price competitive advantage. Because the store is organized, it overcomes the blindness of purchasing, ensures the needs of sales, does not have too much commodity inventory, and reduces the inventory cost. Each store is responsible for sales, so there is more time and means to organize sales, thus accelerating the turnover of goods.
(4) simplify the operation. The business process of chain stores and the business activities in the workplace should be as simple as possible to reduce the influence of experience factors on business. Because of the huge chain system, there is a set of specific operation procedures in the control of each link, and unnecessary procedures need to be streamlined to achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Iv. The fourth revolution of information technology incubating the retail industry In the information age, the development of network technology has a great impact on the retail industry, and its depth and breadth are no less than the impact of the previous three technological innovations on production. Network technology triggered the fourth revolution of retail industry, and even changed the whole retail industry. This influence is reflected in the following aspects:
1. Network technology has broken the time and space boundaries of the retail market, and store selection is no longer important. Store selection once occupied an extremely important position in the operation of traditional retailers. Some people even attribute the primary factor of the success of traditional retail enterprises to "place" (location, location or location), because there is no business flow without passenger flow, and the number of passenger flow has become a crucial factor in retail operation. The rapid rise of chain stores has broken the space limitation of single stores and won a larger business circle. In the information age, network technology has broken through this geographical limitation, and any retailer can expand its target market to the whole country or even the whole world through certain efforts. The market is truly international, and the retail competition is more intense. For traditional stores, the importance of geographical location will be greatly reduced, and more management is needed to gain a firm foothold in the market.
2. Sales methods have changed, and new formats have emerged. In the information age, people's shopping style will change greatly. Consumers will evolve from "shopping in the store" to "shopping at home", and they can easily complete the online shopping process that used to take a lot of time and energy without leaving home. The change of shopping mode will inevitably lead to the change of store sales mode, and a brand-new retail organization form-online store came into being. Its unparalleled advantage will become the mainstream mode of global commerce, and it will compete with traditional store commerce in all directions. In order to adapt to the new situation, traditional retailers will also introduce new business models and new organizational forms to transform traditional business models, and try to carry out e-commerce on the Internet, combining the business flow advantages of online stores with the logistics advantages of traditional merchants to maximize their effects. The reform of retail industry is no longer a partial innovation, but a real revolution.
3. The internal organization of retailers is facing reorganization. In the information age, not only will there be a new retail organization-online store, but also the traditional retail organization will face reorganization. No matter inside the enterprise or between the enterprise and the outside world, network technology will replace some original channels and information sources of retailers. It also has a great influence on the enterprise organization of retailers. These influences include: the decrease of business personnel and sales personnel, the decrease of enterprise organization level, the increase of enterprise management, the decrease of the number of retail stores, and the prevalence of virtual organizations inside and outside the enterprise, such as virtual stores and virtual departments. These influences and changes urge retailers to realize the urgent need for organizational reengineering. In particular, the rise of the network has changed the internal operation mode of enterprises, the learning and growth mode of employees, and the independence and professionalism of individual workers have been further improved.
4. Operating expenses are greatly reduced, and retail profits are further reduced. In the information age, the networked operation of retailers is actually the formation process of new trading tools and new trading methods. In the networked operation of retailers, both internal and external transaction costs will decrease. For a retailer, if the network operation is fully realized, the costs that can be saved include: the internal contact and communication costs of the enterprise; Enterprise labor cost; Avoid the occupation fee, storage fee and site fee of a large number of purchases; Rental fees for shops sold through virtual shops or virtual shop streets; Marketing expenses for publicity through the Internet and investigation expenses for obtaining consumer information, etc. In addition, because network technology has greatly overcome the obstacles of information exchange, people can roam and search on the network until the best price is displayed, which will make the market competition more intense and lead to further reduction of retail profits.
In the past 20 years, foreign retail industry has produced:
1.CATEGORYSPECIALIST is a discount store, covering an area of 8,000 square feet, selling several commodities, such as Toys "R" US toy franchise store.
2. Home improvement centers are franchisees that integrate traditional hardware stores and timber yards, such as HOMEDEPOT in the United States.
3.WAREHOUSECLUB is a general merchandise retailer, which provides limited kinds of goods to customers and small businesses, with low prices and no services, such as Sam Club.
Retailers sell fashionable textiles at low prices, but they are not always a brand. Like Marshall.
5.CATALOGSHOWROOM refers to the retailer whose showroom is adjacent to the futures warehouse.