Coffee In A Clothing Store: Can Experience Service Boost Sales?

"In recent years, clothing brands have been expanding rapidly, but the erosion of traditional stores has led to a continuous downturn in the clothing industry, a serious inventory backlog and homogenization, and the terminal entity stores have been hit."

Bain, chairman of China's consumer goods and retail business, told Han Weiwen Global Entrepreneur.

In this case, increasing the life experience service seems to be a new mode for clothing brands to attract customers to shop and increase sales volume of physical stores.

In fact, in life experience service, Metersbonwe clothing, which has always claimed that "no ordinary way" is the first brand to be tried in China.

As early as 2012, Metersbonwe opened a brand coffee shop TagCafe on the five floor of flagship store in Nanjing East Road, Shanghai, providing customers with preset fancy coffee and free WIFI service.

Customers can get a cup of Italy coffee free of charge by buying 300 yuan in the flagship store or 300 points in the membership card.

The United States hopes to provide consumers with a new shopping experience through this service, making shopping a kind of interaction between behavior and spirit.

The advantage is not only to enrich the connotation of the brand, to enhance the brand image, but also to increase the time for customers to stay in the store.

"Retailers can enhance their sales experience by integrating services such as cafes and restaurants, which play a more prominent role in flagship stores. These additional services have attracted more attention from retailers.

In addition, coffee and dining enable customers to rest in stores and continue shopping instead of leaving. "

Ashman Conde Ashma Kunde, a senior analyst in the global apparel and footwear industry, said to Global Entrepreneur.

Although the United States claims that TagCafe will be put into more flagship stores in the future, it is regrettable that with its closure at flagship store in East Nanjing, the coffee shop business will be lost.

"After all, the experience and consumption patterns of clothing retailers, unlike bars and coffee shops, can not bring much benefits to the United States.

The main business of its shops is to sell clothes. It is impossible to put the cart before the horse.

Cheng Weixiong, executive director of Yalu holdings director, told Global Entrepreneur. He served as vice president of the US state. He participated in such cross border attempts during his tenure. In his view, whether it was a coffee shop or a recreation area, Smith Barney also needed to assess whether the input and output were directly proportional to it.

And the flagship store in the prosperous area starts the coffee shop, obviously the manpower and the rent cost is higher, and occupies the clothing shop the bigger space.

"For the United States, more is just a display and promotion of brand image."

Cheng Weixiong said.

Compared with the domestic clothing brand, foreign brands are more mature in the experience mode.

In April 2014, the fast fashion brand UNIQLO introduced its coffee chain brand Starbucks to its flagship store in New York, becoming the first retailer in the United States to introduce Starbucks into the store.

UNIQLO also stores sofa, desks and chairs and a iPad station for customers to use.

In Ashman Conde's view, the introduction of brand equity (such as Starbucks coffee) experience service can not only increase the experience of the brand, but also achieve a double effect with the taste of the target population, for example, there may be a lot of people who love Starbucks in the crowd of UNIQLO.

Of course, these services are not limited to food and beverages.

The American fast fashion brand Gap sells magazines and books provided by third parties in the flagship store. The clothing brand Club Monaco of Ralph Lauren group has invited the famous cafe Toby 's Estate and The Strand bookstore to its flagship store; in the UK, the fast fashion brand Topshop is located in the flagship store of Oxford Street in London, and there is also a salon and Tattoo Salon.

Ashma Kunde says that the most important part of these experience services is its synchronization with the target audience.

Prospect

At present, foreign brands that provide life experience services in China are all luxury brands, such as Louis Weedon (LV) and Armani (Armani). Their stores will provide consumers with coffee, music and other leisure experience services.

Luxury brands provide leisure experience service, its purpose is to improve consumers' shopping experience, highlight the level of service and brand image.

Foreign brands such as UNIQLO have not yet tried to provide this service in Chinese stores.

although

Opening life experience shop is an innovation, but there is no case to prove how much this pattern will bring to the performance of clothing.

Therefore, many industry insiders say that the life experience service of domestic clothing brands is just a marketing tool to attract consumers' eyeballs.

"When a company achieves a certain scale, it must make breakthroughs and attempts in brand marketing. If you don't try it, you will not be able to embody the value of the brand."

Cheng Weixiong said.

Zhu Qinghua, a light industry researcher at CIC, pointed out that "the cross border integration of clothing retailers and life experience is not long lasting, and it can only play a small number of large-scale clothing brands."

Of course, it is far from enough to rely on increasing experience services to really reverse the trend of the downturn in the garment industry.

"It is necessary to return to the nature of the retail industry, such as the quality of goods, cost-effective, brand reputation and user stickiness, and at the same time cultivate their own skills."

Han Weiwen thinks.

It is foreseeable that online shopping channels will continue to develop. Regardless of whether clothing brands provide life experience service mode is an opportunity or a flash in the pan, clothing brand entities will make more articles on the function of image presentation and marketing media.