The brand's doubt is whether to do e-commerce sales? What kind of e-commerce products should be developed? The doubt of the physical store lies in what goods to operate so as not to be impacted by e-commerce. The new e-commerce platform is also thinking about how to kill a bloody road. What products should entrepreneurs manage if they want to be e-commerce?
Nowadays, goods and shoppers have been diverted between physical stores and e-commerce.
We can divide commodities into commonly used low-value standard products, commonly used high-value standard products, nonstandard products, complex products with functions, small products and fresh products.
The standard here means that the color, style and size of the goods are uniform, or that a slight difference in color, style and size does not affect the normal use. For example, everyone will understand. The world's first home appliance company is Amazon, and the first kind of goods that Amazon manages are books. Why do books become the first commodity in the history of e-commerce? Because books are standard products, the thickness does not affect reading, the book size does not affect reading, the font size does not affect reading, and genuine piracy does not affect reading. In addition to being standard, books have two characteristics: low value and niche.
Commonly used low-value standard products are an important factor in the diversion of e-commerce sales and physical store sales. This is because in e-commerce sales, consumers can only see photos and text descriptions, and can't get physical objects. Standard products in e-commerce mean that consumers can use them, and errors in e-commerce pictures and objects do not affect their use. Low value means that even if you buy the wrong one from an e-commerce, the cost of trial and error is very low. For example, you buy a cup, toilet paper, keyboard, mouse, charger, books and so on. From an e-commerce, if you buy it wrong, you won't feel bad. Books are the first category of e-commerce, one of the reasons is low value, that is, consumers don't feel bad when they buy the wrong books online.
Many people buy high-value standard products in e-commerce, and many people buy them in physical stores. JD.COM Mall started out selling 3C (computer, communication and consumer electronics) products. 3C products are highly standardized and can be used normally after being bought. But the commonly used high-value standard products are expensive to a certain extent, so everyone still goes to the physical store to buy them. If you go to a third-tier city, you will find that OPPO mobile phone stores and VIVO mobile phone stores are very dense, and there are several in one street. If there is an e-commerce, why buy it in a physical store? Because the trial and error cost of high-value goods is high, what if you don't see it with your own eyes, touch it with your hands and try it out? Therefore, even if mobile phones are standard products, cars are standard products, and high-end furniture is standard products, people still have to go to physical stores, because the more detailed the choice, the deeper the experience, and the less likely it is to make mistakes.
It is difficult for novices to choose products with complex functions. If a beginner has enough time, for example, a person with low income has enough time, he is likely to spend a few days learning from the internet and become a self-taught person, and then buy from e-commerce and choose goods with low prices. If novices don't have enough time, for example, people with high incomes like to spend money to buy time, they are likely to go to physical stores, express their demands, let the shopping guide help them make decisions, and then pay to leave. The whole shopping time may be 1-2 hours. Of course, out of caution, high-value durable consumer goods such as furniture and home improvement need to be introduced in detail once every ten years, especially in physical stores, and the chances of buying from e-commerce are very small.
Non-standard products refer to subtle differences between similar products, which will affect normal use. In general, people are willing to buy non-standard products in physical stores, so what you see is what you get. If you buy non-standard products online, you will see something and get nothing.
There are several types of non-standard products:
1, handmade products. Such as works of art, precious stones, mahogany furniture, etc. , each product is slightly different. Only by seeing with your own eyes and touching with your own hands can you choose the most satisfactory one.
2, mass production but unable to unify the standard of goods. Such as shoes and clothes. The size of shoes is 6.6 mm, and the mold used in the shoemaking process is slightly different, so the feeling of wearing feet is very different. Different batches of shoes in the same factory are slightly different. Not to mention shoes made in different factories. In addition, people's feet are not standard. In the same size, Europeans and Americans have slender feet and Asians have fat feet. As Asians, some people have high arches, some have low arches, some have fat feet, and some have thin feet. Therefore, when buying shoes, only when you put them on yourself will you know whether the shoes are suitable or not. The way an American electronics subsidiary sells shoes is that customers buy shoes of one size and send three pairs of shoes of three adjacent sizes. After the customer is satisfied with one pair of shoes, he will send back the other two pairs. This is difficult to achieve in China. First, if the freight rate is high, the price of selling shoes will inevitably increase, and consumers will feel too expensive; Second, the e-commerce platform really sent three pairs of shoes at the price of 1 pair. What if the consumer doesn't return those two pairs? Isn't the e-commerce platform losing money? At present, the e-commerce platform selling shoes in China is half dead. Clothing sizes in different factories are slightly different. The fabric of clothing will be more close to the skin with elastic materials. How much elastic materials are added is the brand's own experience, and there is no certain rule. Only by trying on clothes can you feel good or bad.
3. The graphic description of e-commerce is not comprehensive. The picture has a color cast problem. E-commerce pictures are very nice. You actually get the goods, and the color is not what you want. E-commerce pictures can't reflect the comfort of products. You may feel uncomfortable when you get the goods, such as the difference between buyer's show and seller's show.
4. Second-hand goods of standard products. The standard product is produced by a standard, but after a period of use, the appearance and function of the second-hand goods are different. Idle fish is a very successful platform, but when people buy second-hand goods, they still like to meet and trade because they want to see the goods on the spot. Therefore, most of the e-commerce products of second-hand goods are traded in the same city. Typical is the second-hand car market, where most people go directly to the second-hand car physical transaction market. The e-commerce page of used cars is just an information exchange platform or endorsement, and ultimately it is necessary to trade in person.
Therefore, high-value non-standard products are an important business direction of physical stores. Because of non-standard products, customers need to try it in person to know whether it can be used. Because of the high price, they are even more afraid of buying the wrong product. They need to try it out for themselves to know whether the function of the product is satisfactory.
Minority goods are the great value of e-commerce platform.
Physical stores for daily necessities have two important shortcomings: the limited display area of commodities and the limited customer coverage area of the store. This is because the physical store pursues a large passenger flow at the door, and only when there is a large passenger flow at the door can someone enter the store for shopping. However, the rent of shops in places with large passenger flow is also high. Therefore, grocery stores can only display goods with limited storefront area. Also, due to the limited coverage area of a store, which is 20 kilometers around at most, the limited exhibition area makes the store only display goods that meet the needs of most people around it. However, a small number of products in demand are abandoned because of their low sales probability and occupying exhibition space and inventory space. Large supermarkets in the United States do not have this concern. They are set up in the suburbs and are big enough to display enough goods. However, every family in the United States has a car and can drive to the supermarket in the suburbs on weekends. In China, not every family has a car, but the supermarket died as soon as it opened in the suburbs of China.
E-commerce platform has two important advantages: unlimited product display area and unlimited store customer coverage. The goods of the e-commerce platform can be placed in any location, such as their own warehouses in the suburbs or the suppliers' own warehouses, so the warehouses of the e-commerce platform can be unlimited. The pages on the e-commerce platform are only related to the storage space of the website, so the products displayed on the e-commerce platform are also unlimited. If people all over the world know about an e-commerce platform (this is an important premise, many small websites have no money to advertise, so no one knows), then people all over the world can log on to the webpage of this e-commerce platform, so the customer area covered by this e-commerce platform is infinite.
This difference can be explained more intuitively by arithmetic. For the people around the physical store, the sales ratio of niche goods is low and they can give up sales. For example, there are 50,000 people around the physical store, and there is one tenth of the demand for niche goods, so the sales volume is five. However, for the e-commerce platform covering the whole country, the sales ratio of niche products is low, but the absolute sales volume is large, so it needs to be sold on the shelves. For example, there are 600 million e-commerce users and one-tenth of the demand for niche goods, so the sales volume is 60,000.
American Chris Anderson put forward the long tail theory. Due to the factors of cost and efficiency, when the places and channels for goods storage, circulation and display are wide enough (such as e-commerce platform), the production cost of goods drops sharply to the point where individuals can produce, and the sales cost of goods drops sharply. Almost any product that seems to have extremely low demand before will be bought as long as it is sold. These products with low demand and sales volume occupy the same market share as mainstream products or even more.
Long tail theory model
For the e-commerce platform, we should not only pay attention to the fullness of the main products, but also pay attention to the integrity of the long-tail products. Because if consumers can meet their strange needs in a shop, then this consumer will be highly dependent on this website. As the first category of e-commerce platform, books also conform to the long tail theory. Because there are many books for the minority, most people won't read them, but they can still be sold because the e-commerce crowd covers the whole country. The slogan of Taobao in recent years is "Universal Taobao", where you can find all kinds of strange goods. Most people have the following diversion: they want to get the goods quickly and go to JD.COM to find the goods of Jingdong Logistics; If you can't find what you want in JD.COM, go to Taobao. Of course, the price of rapid development of Jingdong Logistics is a loss of 2.3 billion yuan in 2065438+2008. I hope that Jingdong Logistics will continue to be fast but not lose money.
Fresh goods (including fruits, vegetables, meat, aquatic products, dry goods and daily necessities, cooked food and cakes) are new categories developed by e-commerce platforms, but at present, the main sales force of fresh goods is physical stores. Fresh goods have formed a complete industrial chain in the physical field. In the evening, fresh goods have been transported by truck from other places to large comprehensive wholesale markets in the city (for example, there is a new wholesale market in Beijing). In the early morning, merchants wholesale fresh goods in large-scale comprehensive wholesale markets, and consumers can buy fresh goods in the vegetable market near their homes during the day. In the whole physical circulation channel, freight is cheap because of bulk. If you move fresh food to e-commerce sales, you will encounter several difficulties: does e-commerce have a general warehouse in the local area? Can general warehouse refrigeration keep fresh? Is there a cold chain for small batch transportation delivered by local express to various consumers? Can it be delivered on the same day? At present, fresh goods are more suitable for physical store sales, while e-commerce sales costs are higher.
The above is the choice of the commodity itself to the sales channel, as well as the factors that consumers choose the sales channel. Consumers can be divided into old people and young people according to their age. Young and middle-aged people can be divided into low-consumption groups and high-consumption groups according to purchasing power. According to the general law, young people who have just joined the work have low incomes, so young people are low-consumption people; After working for several years, the purchasing power of some middle-aged people has improved, so some middle-aged people are high consumers.
The elderly have relatively little Internet experience, rarely shop on e-commerce websites, and prefer to shop in physical stores. Therefore, products aimed at the silver-haired economy should be mainly physical stores, supplemented by e-commerce websites. You can't give up the e-commerce website just because the children of the elderly will shop on the e-commerce website and give it to their parents in order to be filial.
Young people with weak purchasing power are more inclined to shop on e-commerce websites. They like famous brands and low-priced goods or low-priced goods. Young people like low-priced goods because of their low income. Because of vanity, young people like famous brands. Because of showing off, young people like goods with brighter colors and more fashionable styles. Because of the abundant time, young people are willing to spend time on self-study, compare prices and choose a product, and wait for 2-3 days for express delivery. Pinduoduo, a cheap website, attracts many people from third-and fourth-tier cities with weak purchasing power. Vipshop, a brand low-priced website, has also successfully achieved profitability.
Middle-aged people with strong purchasing power are more inclined to buy in physical stores, and they are willing to spend money to buy time. Middle-aged people prefer goods with better materials, workmanship and appearance because of their high income. Middle-aged people like products that are comfortable to use and cost-effective (not necessarily famous brands) because they want to raise a house. Middle-aged people like popular colors (such as black, gray and white) and goods with moderate styles because of their modesty. Because of less disposable time, middle-aged people prefer to go to physical stores to listen to the introduction of shopping guides, make quick decisions and shop quickly.
From the two categories of clothing and shoes, brands need to make a plate of goods for physical stores and e-commerce platforms to adapt to their respective consumers.
Finally answer the first question.
The brand's doubt is whether to do e-commerce sales? What kind of e-commerce products should be developed?
A: If the brand starts to make low-priced goods, then it is no problem to do e-commerce sales. If the brand starts to make high-priced goods, then don't be an e-commerce. It is best to wait until you become a well-known brand, and then do low-cost e-commerce on goods. There is an e-commerce market with famous brands and low prices.
The doubt of the physical store lies in what goods to operate so as not to be impacted by e-commerce.
A: High-value non-standard products.
The new e-commerce platform is also thinking about how to kill a bloody road.
A: First, the standard products of a certain category should be as comprehensive as possible. Open a shop with Taobao first and try the feedback from consumers. If consumers feel good, they will build their own websites and spend money on promotion.
What products should entrepreneurs manage if they want to be e-commerce?
A: The standard product of the minority.