In the current retail environment, the consumption of fast consumer goods has shown an upward trend for the first time after 5 consecutive years of decline. According to the data reported in the third quarter of 2018 by the Kaidu Consumer Index, the business growth of the whole consumer goods has increased by 6 points year on year. Judging from the sales growth rate, the year-on-year growth in 2017 is only 0.2%, a slight change. However, the average selling price increased by 4% year on year (as shown in Figure 1). Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that the main driving force for the growth of fast consumer goods comes from the increase in the average selling price.


When it comes to price increases, it is estimated that many people will think of consumption upgrading. But personally, this phenomenon should be called consumption escalation, because many products we use are actually the same. However, due to the rise in raw materials, tax rates and operating costs, products have to adjust their prices, but for businesses, their profits have not increased. The real consumption upgrade also needs to correspond to the improvement of living standards. One of the more interesting points is that in many families with two children, the two treasures may be mixed with the old and the new. Some are newly bought products of better quality, and some are second-hand goods used by Dabao before.

According to statistics, we found that among the fast-growing categories of consumer goods, there are several key words: high quality, improved health and improved lifestyle (Figure 2). This is closely related to the change of consumers' consumption concept. For enterprises, we need to grasp these key words in the daily operation process.

In the pregnancy and infant industry, from the market share changes of foreign brands from 2015 to 2017, we can find that the situation is different in the two categories of infant milk powder and diapers. Foreign brands of infant milk powder have kept their market share unchanged. However, in the diaper category, the market share of foreign brands is still declining obviously (Figure 3). From this point of view, it may not be appropriate to judge the consumption trend of the pregnant and infant industry by using consumption upgrade or consumption downgrade too early. In today's era, when we talk about retail consumption, we all have to grade it from the perspective of channels and consumers. Personally, everything is still based on data.

At the same time, the purchasing path of consumers is integrated by multi-contacts. Before the emergence of new retail driven by big data, our products had fewer contacts on the way to purchase, and they were only explored, explored, interacted and purchased. But now, the consumer's purchasing path will go through the superposition of multiple contacts such as viewing comments, asking friends' opinions, viewing social media, commodity functions, multi-party comparison, etc. In this process, improper handling or too low efficiency of our merchants will directly affect the conversion rate and re-purchase rate.


02


As far as our observation is concerned, there are roughly four development trends in the current consumer market, namely, new formats based on consumption and powder absorption, new technology application in line with consumer behavior, data sharing to create commercial value and expanding consumer experience.
1. New formats based on consumer segmentation. When opening the first store, every retail entrepreneur will consider many things in his mind, especially people, goods and market. Take box of fresh horse as an example. Its signboard is King Crab, which is more expensive. The corresponding consumer group is relatively wealthy consumer group, and pays more attention to product quality. However, this will also bring some problems. When it reaches a certain level, the market will be saturated. Therefore, in order to obtain more markets, Box Horse Fresh Life began to target different consumer groups. On the one hand, it cooperated with RT Mart to open Box Horse, on the other hand, it also had a new convenience store F2. From this case, we can see that box Ma Xiansheng, as a representative of the new retail format, is continuously trying in the area of consumption classification. Therefore, as retailers, we also need to arrange appropriate shopping Place, provide appropriate Product at appropriate Price, and Promotion consumption with appropriate marketing methods according to the shopping needs of different consumer segments. These 4Ps need to keep pace with the times and be adjusted according to the actual situation.

2. Application of new technologies in line with consumer behavior. The first is the willingness to accept, taking e-payment and face recognition technology as an example, because our post-80s and post-90s generation have no obstacles to the use of these technologies in order to bring about a good development momentum of this technology. In fact, electronic label technology similar to EPC has existed for more than ten years, but it has not been commercialized until now, which is also due to the improvement of the use will. Personally, as retailers, we need to improve efficiency, comply with consumer behavior preferences, promote technological innovation in commercial applications, and stick to rules is not desirable. Especially for the pregnant and infant industry practitioners, our consumer group is always the youngest generation. Their adaptation to new technologies is very high. If they cannot satisfy their shopping experience, it is definitely an obstacle to our development.

3. Data sharing to create commercial value. Personally, I think data sharing is a very important thing. In the whole large retail industry, data sharing includes four types: data sharing of retailers and brand dealers, data sharing of brand dealers, dealers and retailers, data sharing online and offline, and data sharing within and outside the scene. In this process, we need to actively and effectively share business data, share and act to seize the business opportunities, which will be the key for our enterprises to form differentiated competition. In today's era, the timeliness of data is very short. Do not turn " big data" into " big data". Take child Wang as an example, it can internalize the data, and at the same time, it can combine with external brands to explore more development opportunities.

4. Extended consumption experience. In today's society, there is a word called " retail entertainment", behind which are continuously extending products and services, which will become the key to the drainage of retail stores. For example, the store has evolved into " shopping+dining+socializing"; Another example is the bookstore, which has become " reading+coffee+socializing"; Another example is convenience stores, which have long been developed into " shopping+working meal+tasting" ... For pregnant and infant children's enterprises, it is very important whether the stores can be turned into retail entertainment and the new generation of mothers can enter the stores. After all, today's post-80s and post-90s mothers, while taking care of their babies, have also reserved some freedom and space for themselves. How to explore their needs has become a great opportunity and challenge for us.



03


In today's society, we need to use the retail shopping experience formula to analyze the development of maternal and infant retail. What is the retail shopping experience formula, i.e. shopping experience = (function × emotion) ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ø (cost × time). In the four aspects of function, emotion, cost and time, we have the opportunity to occupy a more favorable position in the market as long as there are two places that are more prominent.
At the same time, we can also provide consumers with one-to-one counterpart services, especially in small cities and small mother and infant shops, which is a very good way to do it. Of course, in the process, we need to get some data support.

Finally, the establishment of a social platform and a true word of mouth, as well as the provision of in-store retail entertainment facilities help attract passenger flow. As long as customers have fun, the development of stores will naturally get better and better.