Brand legend-show a century-old style
About 1828 An Englishman named A.SWaston opened a western pharmacy in Guangzhou, named Guangdong Pharmacy. 184 1 year, the pharmacy moved to Hong Kong, and the company name was translated as "Watsons Pharmacy" in Cantonese (A. Swastones &; Company), this is the origin of Watsons. This company, which started as a pharmacy, still retains this feature. After 198 1 became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Li Ka-shing, Watson's brand covered a wide range and rose rapidly in Asia, becoming a well-known retail brand with Hutchison Whampoa's strong economic strength and flexible business philosophy.
Watsons Personal Care Store is the first flagship retail brand established by the Group. With accurate market positioning, its identity as a "personal care expert" is deeply rooted in people's hearts, so that people think of "personal care expert" when they mention Watsons, and its brand influence can be seen.
Business strategy-highlighting professional identity
(A) accurate market positioning
As we all know, today's domestic retail industry can be described as a raging fire, competing with each other, local brands should develop, and foreign brands should also come in to share a piece of the action. Effective procurement, low-cost logistics and powerful terminals are the three magic weapons for retail industry to win. In the face of fierce competition, Watsons bypassed the trap of price war. Based on years of observation and analysis of the Asian market and a hundred years of marketing experience, it is found that the Asian economy has grown rapidly in recent years, and people's requirements for quality of life are getting higher and higher. Traditional sales only stay at the stage of letting consumers buy, and only pay attention to goods. In the increasingly mature commodity economy, consumers not only buy goods, but also enjoy shopping, pursue intangible values of goods, such as brands and services, and finally reach the highest level of consumption, that is, generate brand loyalty through the recognition of corporate culture.
Undoubtedly, Watson pursues the latter. Its personal care shop takes "exploration" as the theme and puts forward three concepts of "health, beauty and fun" to help people who love life and pay attention to quality shape the unity of inner beauty and outer beauty. In China, Watsons is the first store with "personal care" as its business philosophy, and its unique and accurate market positioning is refreshing. The target customers of the store are women aged 18-35. They pay attention to individuality and have strong spending power, but because of time constraints, they don't like to go shopping in big supermarkets and pursue a comfortable shopping environment. "This is very in line with our positioning." Tan Lixian, director of Watsons Group and general manager of China, said.
(B) product strategy
Watson's personal care stores are all-encompassing, with 25,000 kinds of cosmetics, medicines, personal care products, fashion accessories, candy, heart cards and gifts from more than 20 countries, which are mainly divided into two parts: one is Watson's own brand, including cosmetics and personal care products; Secondly, there are many other brands of care products, such as Procter & Gamble, Maybelline and Avon, which also have counters in their stores. Of course, the products are not only for women, but also all kinds of foreign-made foods are enough for male diners to feast their eyes on.
The biggest feature of Watson's products is to convey three business ideas everywhere. Medicines and health products retain the characteristics since they opened the store and advocate "health"; Beauty salons and nursing products account for the largest proportion and the most types, expressing the concept of "beauty"; Unique fun dolls and candy products convey an optimistic attitude towards life. In order to match these three concepts, there will be some lovely signs on the company's shelves, checkout counters and shopping bags, such as "heart", "lips" and "smiling face", which give people a warm, happy and interesting feeling.
(3) Price strategy
Watsons promotes brand value through differentiation and personalization, and its pricing is generally high. Ni Wenling, general manager of public relations of Watsons Group, explained that it is "I hope to make the price consistent with the market demand" rather than "competitive price". Even so, according to a survey of more than 600 female customers in personal care stores, more than 85% people think that the richness and exquisiteness of Watson's products are the primary factors that attract them to shop here. Therefore, for the increasingly homogeneous retail industry, price is not the primary factor to attract customers. "You can buy things here that other shopping places can't." A customer of Watsons said this.
(D) Marketing strategy
1, professional guidance Watsons now has a strong team of health consultants, including 80 full-time pharmacists and 150 "health and vitality ambassadors". They are all professionally trained to provide customers with free advice and suggestions to maintain a healthy life.
2. Special services Each Watsons personal care store has clearly divided different sales areas, and the products are neatly arranged for customers to choose; Display various personal care information manuals such as "Skin Care Easy" in the store, and provide various skin care consultations for free; The "health confidant" information display shelf at the drug counter provides various health care and nutrition distribution and disease prevention methods; Actively carry out computerized plan and adopt advanced retail management system, which improves the efficiency of ordering and delivery. It can be seen that Watsons is not only concerned with the sale of goods, but also pays attention to the considerate care of customers, which fully shows its "personal" characteristic service.
3. Social marketing enterprises are social enterprises, "take it from the people and use it for the people", and Watson knows it well. In 2002, Watsons Personal Care Store and Hong Kong Cancer Foundation launched the "Pink Revolution" to convey the information of breast cancer prevention to the public and raise money for breast cancer research. At the end of 2003, we successfully supported the China Children's and Teenagers' Foundation to implement the "Spring Bud Plan". Through love shopping activities, donations of 235,800 yuan were raised to enable 500 out-of-school girls to return to school. These activities fully reflected Watson's sense of social responsibility and achieved great social repercussions. In that year, the turnover of the store increased by 80%, and more importantly, it established a good social image for the enterprise.
Watson's Thoughts on Domestic Retail Industry
Watson's successful experience is worth learning and learning from the domestic retail industry. The author believes that we should establish the following concepts:
(A) the retail competition is no longer just price competition.
At present, many supermarkets and shopping malls in China have begun to publicize under the banner of "parity" and "low price". It is true that low price is a factor to attract customers, but behind the price reduction promotion is a vicious circle of customers who are easily lost, damaged brands and price competition, which is unfavorable to the long-term development of enterprises. As can be seen from Watsons, the retail industry also needs brands and has demands for brands. The long-term development plan of the enterprise is only to accurately determine its own position in the market and its service target, and make efforts at all levels such as product quality, category and service level.
(2) Professional and personalized development is the general trend.
The homogenization of retail industry urges prescient enterprises to pay more attention to the importance of market segmentation. Watsons first put forward the concept of "private nursing expert" in China, which can be described as "killing many birds with one stone". It not only established the leading position of experts, but also catered to the individual needs of target customers. The greater innovation is to advocate a brand-new shopping concept and attitude towards life, to help people make positive improvements in health and beauty, so as to enjoy life happily. On the other hand, most domestic retail enterprises lack clear and accurate business ideas, the products are homogeneous, the target customer orientation is vague, and the promotion method is single, which all restrict the rapid development of enterprises.
(3) Retailers should be highly sensitive to the market and foresee the consumption trend.
Through the investigation of Asian consumption, Watsons accurately predicted the changes of consumers' psychology and buying behavior, found a brand-new breakthrough point of "personal care" and achieved success. Domestic retail operators should strengthen their ability to observe and control the overall situation and give accurate guidance to the future development trend of enterprises from a higher level.
"By 2007, Watsons will become the first personal care store in the world." Shi Ruibo, CEO of Watsons Personal Care Store, is ambitious. It is said that in the next three years, Watsons will open 65,438+0,000 personal care stores in China, with an investment of nearly 6,543.8+billion RMB. The wolf is coming, which is both an opportunity and a challenge for domestic retail enterprises. Are you ready?
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