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Liu Yi often travels between Shanghai and Wuhan due to work needs. Before returning to Shanghai every time, she always worries about one thing: which gifts are easy to use and give, and can let the recipients feel the local culture and characteristics of Wuhan?

Not long ago, Liu Yi was on a business trip and passed through Wuhan Tianhe Airport. By chance, she discovered that there was a time-honored brand collection store called Chuanglv Youpin in the T2 terminal building that was reopened on April 15 this year. Among them, the one that interested her the most was an 18-inch specialty suitcase, which brought together the flagship products of at least 6 Wuhan time-honored brands. "In the past, I had to go online to look for guides and search for what Wuhan specialties were and where they were, but time was tight and I could only buy one or two Wuhan time-honored brands each time. This specialty suitcase solved my need for convenient and worry-free gift giving."

(The Chuanglv Premium store located in Terminal T2 of Tianhe Airport)

This is one of the ways Wuhan City has empowered the transformation and upgrading of the traditional retail industry. Under the wave of digitalization and intelligence, the retail industry has changed with each passing day in recent years. Zhang Hanwei, head of the Wuhan Electronic Commerce Association, pointed out that personalized demand is the key to the new consumption trend. Discount retail and cost-effective consumption have become the choice of more and more consumers. The instant retail model of "online ordering, offline delivery within 30 minutes" has rapidly emerged, further improving the operational efficiency and service quality of the retail industry and reshaping the form and model of the retail industry.

In response to new trends, Wuhan is continuously exploring new consumption formats and models. It is not only seizing new formats such as discount retail and instant retail, but also empowering the renewal of traditional retail industry and shaping local characteristic consumer products based on traditional consumption and service consumption scenarios.

These innovative consumption model practices reflect Wuhan’s goal: to accelerate the development of an international consumption center city and create a bustling city that attracts people from near and far.

Seizing the new consumption formats

At present, with the change of consumer concepts, new consumption formats including discount retail, instant retail, live streaming e-commerce, etc. are booming.

Wang Yazhou used to work in a local finance bureau and had many encounters with discount retail, a new business model, during his work. "At that time, in pursuit of quality and cost-effectiveness, most consumers chose overseas purchasing agents, but there were many chaotic situations." He believes that in order to develop in a standardized manner, the cross-border e-commerce "1210" business will be a blue ocean, which will be nearly one-third cheaper than the price of specialty stores, and can also ensure authenticity, targeting consumers' demands for high-quality and low-priced goods.

Therefore, Wang Yazhou resolutely "went into business" and established Chumian (Hubei) Trading Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chumian Trading") in Wuhan in 2023. Its main business is "1210", which is the cross-border e-commerce online shopping bonded import model. Under this model, e-commerce companies deposit overseas imported goods in the customs special supervision area or bonded logistics center in the form of batch customs declaration. Consumers place orders and pay on the e-commerce platform, and the goods are delivered directly from the bonded warehouse to the consumers in the form of express parcels.

(CHUMSD imported goods zero-tariff experience store)

"Starting a business is not always a smooth journey. We used to be amazed at the convenience of e-commerce, but now the combination of 'e-commerce + store business + logistics' has become a new trend in retail," Wang Yazhou pointed out.

Wang Yazhou's team chose to solve the new problems that arose during the operation one by one. Wang Yazhou said that the first problem to be solved was online sales channels and traffic. "All major brands are directly sold on several major domestic e-commerce platforms, so the company had to develop an online platform, namely the CHUMSD applet, but the reality is that the public domain traffic has been eaten up by giants, and the company's sales are very poor."

After much consideration, Wang Yazhou's team decided to seize private domain traffic and build consumer community services. Wang Yazhou pointed out that in order to enhance user stickiness, no matter how online e-commerce develops, there is a problem: users cannot touch it and it is difficult to control product quality. Therefore, the company decided to open offline stores and use a combination of "online + offline" to attract traffic.

In October 2023, Chumian Trade opened a zero-tariff experience store for imported goods in Huayuan Road, Jianghan District, Wuhan, and successively opened CHUMSD duty-free warehouses in shopping districts such as Guojin Tiandi and International Fashion Center. "After users come to the offline store, we will set up a customer service center, actively increase interaction with member users, and distribute benefits from time to time. At the same time, we will dig out customer demands and provide empowerment and value-added services, thereby enhancing customer stickiness to the platform and realizing traffic conversion," said Wang Yazhou.

(CHUMSD duty-free warehouse)

At the same time, brand discount stores such as outlets and Vipshop have also been sought after by consumers both online and offline. According to incomplete statistics, as of now, there are seven outlets in Wuhan that are operating normally, including Bailian Outlets in Panlongcheng, Shouchuang Outlets in Optics Valley, Roma Spring Outlets in Jiangxia District, Wuhan Ouzhen Outlets in Hannan District, Wushang City Outlets in Qingshan District, Wuhan Fanyue City Outlets in Hongshan District, and Wuhan Fangyuanhui Outlets in Hanyang District; three more outlets will be built in the near future, namely Caidian Sino-French Outlets, Sasseur (Wuhan) Super Outlets Commercial Complex Project, and Shanshan Outlets in Wuhan Economic Development Zone.

(Wuhan Fangyuanhui Outlets)

Among them, Bailian Outlets has been ranked among the top 10 outlets in China for many consecutive years, has long been the first in the outlet industry in Central China, and has entered the top 5 of the national outlet industry. In 2022, as a leading commercial enterprise in Huangpi, Bailian Outlets' annual sales volume ranked among the top three in Wuhan's single businesses, creating a business scale of 2.7 billion yuan.

In addition to discount retail, in 2023, instant retail will make its debut in the Central Government's No. 1 document, and consumers' demand for "buy now, get now" needs to be met urgently. Wang Yazhou said that improving logistics and rapid delivery services has become a necessary task for all retail companies. Chumian Trade plans to use drones for product delivery in the next step. Fixed air routes can avoid traffic congestion, and customers can pick up products in stores within 20 minutes.

It is worth noting that the convenience store industry in Wuhan is also seizing the opportunity of instant retail. Wuhan Jimu Supermarket is positioned as a supermarket for online takeout. It does not need a prime store in a popular location or expensive decoration. "Saving the cost of store decoration, the variety of supermarket products is naturally richer. Now there are more than 5,000 kinds of goods in a store of more than 100 square meters, and the store is open 24 hours a day. As long as there is an Internet connection and there is demand, Jimu Supermarket uses Meituan's lightning warehouse model to buy and deliver immediately." Li Xing, founder of Jimu Supermarket, said.

At present, Jimu Supermarket has expanded more than 60 stores in 9 provinces and 15 cities across the country, with daily orders of about 16,000 orders and monthly orders of about 480,000 orders, with a month-on-month growth of more than 100%. "We hope that with the development of instant retail, the daily order volume of a single Jimu Supermarket store will exceed 1,000 orders in the future," said Li Xing.

By constantly pursuing new consumption formats, Wuhan's achievements in transforming consumption "flow" into "retention" are evident. In 2023, Wuhan's total retail sales of consumer goods will reach 753.19 billion yuan, an increase of 8.6% over 2022. After four years, it has reached the 700 billion yuan mark again, ranking third among the top ten cities at or above the provincial level. In the first half of this year, Wuhan achieved a total retail sales of consumer goods of 366.15 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.6%, maintaining its leading position among similar cities in the country.

Empowering traditional retail transformation

The modern business model is not only about “selling products”, but also about telling good product stories through business operations and promotion services, which is crucial to the transformation and upgrading of traditional retail.

"In the past, Wuhan's traditional retail industry focused more on selling products, and compared with coastal cities, its storytelling ability was not good enough." Jin Dizi, chairman of Hubei Chuanglv Youpin Cultural Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chuanglv Youpin"), pointed out that "tourists generally pursue a sense of foreignness, and need some cultural symbols to help them retain their memories of the city and make them feel that their trip is not in vain. To meet these demands, Wuhan needs to dig deep into local culture and tell good stories about its products."

(Chuanglvyoupin store image)

Taking the empowerment of time-honored brands as an example, Jin Dizi said, "In the current rapidly changing business and consumption environment, some time-honored brands are in a development dilemma, mainly manifested in the fragmented scenarios, unable to meet consumers' demands for efficient and fast acquisition; ignoring the sense of experience, product design and other aspects that do not match the current consumption trends; insufficient hardware support such as networks and talents, and slow online transformation and upgrading."

In this context, some cultural and creative companies rooted in Wuhan have emerged, and Chuanglv Youpin is one of them. Jin Dizi believes that "consumption today is no longer as simple as buying things and paying offline. Instead, we need to think about which stories to tell to which customers in different scenarios. When tourists come to Wuhan, they usually ask three questions: What are the specialties of Wuhan, where can they buy them, and how should they take them back? Chuanglv Youpin is promoting integrated product innovation based on the immediate needs of tourists."

On March 13, 2024, Chuanglv Youpin was established, mainly engaged in the sale of local time-honored brands and cultural and creative products. Its first store is located on the departure and boarding floors of Terminal T2 of Wuhan Tianhe Airport. There are 6 stores in total with a total exhibition area of ​​600 square meters.

(Internal display picture of Chuanglv Youpin)

"Chuanglv Youpin chose the T2 terminal of Wuhan Tianhe Airport as its location, mainly considering its high exposure. Its passenger flow is about 26,000 people per day. During holidays, the average daily throughput is expected to reach about 35,000 people. This will be an important scene to showcase Wuhan's time-honored brands. The company's ultimate goal is to open a 'time-honored brand collection store'. It is expected that in August, with the support of the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce and the Wuhan Time-honored Brand Association, Wuhan's first time-honored brand collection gift store will be opened at Wuhan Tianhe Airport." Jin Dizi pointed out.

At present, Chuanglv Youpin has taken the first step in serving the innovation of traditional retail models, that is, to integrate product innovation. Since its opening, the 18-inch specialty suitcases launched by Chuanglv Youpin have been selling well, and the suitcases contain the flagship products of at least 6 time-honored Wuhan brands. "This product solves the pain points of tourists and improves the consumption experience of tourists. They no longer need to spend time and energy searching for what and where the Wuhan specialties are, and the 18-inch suitcase is very portable." Jin Dizi pointed out, "Next, Chuanglv Youpin will also make targeted product combinations for specific groups of people, such as launching a health box for the elderly containing sugar-free and low-sugar Wuhan old flavors, and a children's box containing candies and snacks with Wuhan memories, etc."

(Chuanglvyoupin 18-inch specialty suitcase)

According to reports, in the next step, Chuanglv Youpin will use the company's supply chain advantages to help Wuhan's traditional retail brands develop cultural and creative derivatives. For example, it cooperated with Cao Xiangtai to develop cherry blossom-flavored mung bean cakes, and cooperated with Huanghelou Liquor to develop liquor-filled chocolate. "It not only makes the product design match the current consumption trend and expands the consumer group; it can also develop more diverse local symbols and help Wuhan's traditional retail industry tell a good story." Jin Dizi said.

Under the new consumption model and new business format, seeking online development has also become one of the paths for the transformation and upgrading of the traditional retail industry. In this regard, Zhang Hanwei believes that "due to their limited resources, many traditional retail companies are reluctant to transform online. Therefore, relevant government departments and associations should provide them with support in terms of network, personnel and other hardware."

At present, the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce has stepped up efforts to promote the e-commerce transformation of traditional commercial enterprises. On the one hand, it guides enterprises such as Huafang Chain, Zhuoer Zhilian, and Jiuzhoutong to provide one-stop comprehensive services such as smart transactions, digital factories, supply chain services, and smart warehousing and logistics to upstream and downstream enterprises in their industries through digital technologies such as big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence; on the other hand, it promotes the two-way cooperation and integrated development of e-commerce and physical retail. For example, through the Jiangtun.com All in project, Wushang Group successfully built an online mall with its own brand, integrated the full process modules of product display, sales, and after-sales, and realized the deep integration and application of online and offline general coupons, broadening the boundaries of the consumer market.

In addition, the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce also strongly supports the development of e-commerce live streaming in the traditional retail industry, organizing six key companies such as Liangpin Shop and Zhou Hei Ya to participate in the "Walking with Hui" special live streaming event, with a total sales of 230,000 orders and sales of 9.434 million yuan; helping Cai Linji to open live streaming e-commerce and video accounts, research e-commerce "strategies", and communicate with the "Z generation"; increasing the discovery and training of e-commerce talents, and holding the "I Am the Spokesperson for Hubei Good Products" live streaming e-commerce competition (Wuhan City preliminary round), with a total of 24 groups of contestants signing up for the competition, conducting a one and a half hour live streaming PK, with a total live streaming order amount of 128,000 yuan.

According to the monitoring of Wuhan Electronic Commerce Association, in the first half of 2024, the scale of e-commerce transactions in Wuhan reached 1013.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.47%. Among them, the scale of B2B transactions of large enterprises reached 366.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.06%; the scale of online retail transactions reached 181.836 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.95%.

"Next, Wuhan must continue to refine and implement various support policies to ensure that the policy dividends benefit more retail companies, and strengthen supervision and inspection of policy implementation to ensure that the policies are implemented and effective. In addition, it is also necessary to promote cross-border integration between the retail industry and other industries, such as integration and development with culture, tourism, sports and other industries, to form more consumer formats and business models, and build a high-level Wuhan consumer ecosystem." Zhang Hanwei suggested.