Guangzhou Department Store: The Longest Off-Season In Twenty Years, "Cold Winter" Approaching

The average sales growth of more than 20% of the 9 department stores has increased, and the traditional department stores in Guangzhou have been swept away since last September. Sale The dull and dull atmosphere made a good start for 2012. However, this achievement is costly.

After the Spring Festival to May 1, it is the traditional off-season of business sales, and the Spring Festival in 2012 is ahead of January 23rd. This means that in the next three months, businesses will face the longest off-season in twenty years. Under the impact of online shopping and high cost, Guangzhou department stores The "cold winter" is about to approach.

Unprecedented scale Promotion war

Because of the shorter interval of new year's day and the Spring Festival this year, coupled with the cooling of the weather, the traffic volume and sales volume of Guangzhou businessmen on New Year's day are both blowout. Nandu reporters learned from the statistics of 9 department stores in Guangzhou, including 9 stores, including Guang Bai department store, Guangzhou friendship, Tianhe City department store, new Daxin, modern, Xinguang department store, Mei Dong department store, Zhonghua department store and Dongshan Department store, with sales of 453 million 300 thousand yuan for three days. Among them, friendship grew by 40% over the same period last year, and Tianhe City Department Store grew by 30%. Apart from the Eastern Department store and the Chinese department store, it was not comparable, and the rest increased by an average of 20% over the same period last year.

However, reporters found that during the new year's day, 1-3 of the individual shopping centers were folded. Even the new products also offered 20 percent off discount, which hardly appeared in previous years. "Because this year is a warm winter, manufacturers are pressing more goods than ever before." Dou Huaishan, general manager of China general merchandise department, said that the discount was decided by various manufacturers themselves. According to the survey, on the day of Guangzhou friendship new year's day, most goods were half off times, VIP5 times integral; modern department stores launched 3-4 fold, while new light department store 1-3, winter clothes most of 380 yuan in cash for 1000 yuan cash coupons. Nandu reporters learned that only in 2010, the promotion of individual stores remained at 30 percent off.

"In fact, from last November, the promotion campaign at the end of the year has already started. Guangzhou friendship ring city east store held VIP deep winter promotional activities, resulting in heavy traffic jam on the east ring road. During the same period, the Beijing Road store of Guangzhou hundred stores wore 50 percent off of the goods, so that the clothes on the counters were too crowded to be covered with quilts. A department store business planning department told reporters that not only the promotion time was ahead, but also the number and duration of promotion were lengthened. "Guangzhou friendship store" and "Guang Bai Department Store" in the past year's "full half off" promotions were arranged for only one day, but in the early December 2011, the friendship store east city store and the good Plaza store did three days.

Online shopping bombing adds disaster

According to Monita's November 2011 consumer industry research report, more than half of department stores sold less than expected in October last year, and Monita's grassroots index dropped from -10% in September to -30%. In November, although it rose to -8%, about 31% of department stores still sell less than expected. According to a number of high-level department stores in Guangzhou revealed that the fourth quarter, sales growth, but the growth rate slowed down significantly in the first three quarters.

At the same time, traditional department stores also suffered heavy losses from Internet traders. Last year coincided with the "singles Singles Day", including Taobao mall, Jingdong mall, suning.com, Gome online shopping mall, Coba network, van gesso, No. 1 store, Mcglaughlin and other well-known business operators in the fourth quarter set off a collective sales promotion.

According to the data of Taobao mall, the 1 hour trading volume after November 11, 2011 zero is almost the same as the total sales volume of three new days in 9 department stores in Guangzhou.

Hidden dangers for off season sales

At the same time, this year's new year's day, the festival must promote online business traffic declined. Reporters in Taobao mall, Jingdong mall, van customer service, Dangdang network and other e-commerce sites found that although there are cross year promotional activities, but promotion and publicity are not as strong as before the "double 11" and "double 12". Some Taobao sellers even announced a notice of suspension during the holidays. "Some logistics enterprises have increased their prices, reduced the volume of goods received, and restricted the sale of new year's day for network operators." First commercial network president Huang Huajun said, this also makes entity stores and online stores form a peak sales promotion.

However, "such a large-scale promotion, cost increase, reflected in the final performance will inevitably lead to a significant reduction in profits, which has already destroyed the internal force of the business." According to informed businessmen, after the Spring Festival, the longest commercial off-season is coming to the end of the twenty years, and the sales promotion at the expense of gross profit will not be sustainable. At that time, the "cold winter" of the real department stores will really come.