Marsha Opens Flagship Store To Beijing. Young People Like It Very Much.

Marsha general store is opening up shop in China again.

But this time, the location of the expansion from Shanghai to Beijing is at the entrance of the shopping mall.

The new shop is being renovated. The opening time is selected this winter.

Here is a LED screen with a sky screen. Someone will rent it to play games, and someone will ask him to marry him.

The brands you often see, such as UNIQLO, ZARA and H&M, are quite numerous. There are also some Street bars.

The shopping center, which is called "Qiao Fu grass shopping mall" in the shopping mall, is just one street away from here.

It can be thought that Marsha is going to get into a place where young people get together.

By virtue of the superior quality of clothing and food and its own hundred years of history, Marsha, who specializes in its own brand, has surrounded a group of middle-class and housewives with a steady income and a stable life, and has also become a symbol of the quality of life and social classes of the British people.

In 2008, the British department store entered China, and also caught up with the wave of middle-income people's awareness of consumption.

"The middle class in China is not interested in products that are not brand or too popular, nor does it buy top brands, but they can afford Martha."

James Roy, a senior analyst at China Market Research Group, was optimistic about the future of Martha.

The company focuses on developing strategies for foreign companies in China.

"They could have done better, but now they are not successful."

Roy said.

Marsha's costumes are often perceived by customers as lacking in design and fashion.

A former employee of Xinguang Tiandi said that compared to the more emphasis on service in Taiwan department store, Marsha's temperament from Britain was too "cold" and not enough to care about the shopping experience.

When she discussed with her former colleagues about the competitive environment, she mentioned lawn grass and high island house. Martha was never in the discussion.

The recession is not just happening in China.

Before this year's black Friday comes, Martha once again released a not very good financial report.

From March to September this year, its revenue grew by only 1%, while its pre tax profit decreased by 22.7%. General Merchandise, including clothing and home, continued to slide.

It seems that a young flagship store in Beijing does not give Marsha the chance to break through any difficulties.

"The real problem they want to solve is not to store where they are, but products and positioning. You must always be excited about your brand."

James Roy said.

"If you buy food, you will love it, but if you buy clothes, no one will deal with it."

Zoe William is a British journalist. She holds a completely different attitude towards Marsha's food and clothing, which is a norm among the middle class in Britain.

Bermingham, who works in England, will go to Marsha for the one or two time a month. She loves Marsha's fruits, vegetables, chocolate and cheese cake.

They were exquisite and tasty, and she was also drying a bottle of pale blue Marsha lemonade on micro-blog.

In a Martha's advertisement, food was set as a leading actor in black background, and slow motion recorded their production process. This advertisement Hits 2 million 660 thousand on YouTube.

Martha's independent food supermarket, Simply Food, sells a wide variety of boxes, salads, sandwiches and pasta. It is one of the luncheon choices of many young British companies.

Compared with Topshop, ZARA and other fast fashion brands, Marsha is even too simple and low-key in packaging.

As for clothes, Wei Lai will only buy a commuter suit at Marsha. After all, the office wears no need for too much tide.

But for non commuting clothes, she prefers to go to Topshop, designer shops, second-hand stores and charity shops.

Every time I went to Martha and Wei Lai, I could see many middle-aged and old people.

"My Chinese friends also think Marsha's style is more middle-aged than old, because there are too many old ladies to go around."

Marsha's departing employee, Chen Xuan, has a deep memory of one thing.

A few years ago, he and his colleagues watched the company's shareholders' meeting with remote video.

The current CEO Marc Bolland said in the video that the main consumer of the company is still over 45 years old, which makes Chinese workers sitting in front of the computer laugh loudly.

This strategy, which Chen Xuan and his colleagues puzzled, also gave young people a sense of distance from Martha.

Look at the clothes it put in the shop. It's not cute at all. It makes people feel the pink color, the long miniskirt, the striped stripes and the very loose jeans.

"Ordinary, simple, slightly old-fashioned, I think this is Marsha's biggest mistake."

James Roy said he never bought clothes in Martha.

"UNIQLO is much better than it. Every year, there are so many new products, and cooperate with designer, although they are all basic, but they are also fashionable."

There are quite a few people holding similar ideas with Wei Lai and Roy.

In the past 17 quarters, the revenue of general merchandise department of Marsha has been declining for 16 quarters.

"This is not the problem of Martha's own brand mode. You see UNIQLO, ZARA and H&M. They buy their own products and sell them themselves. They just do not sell food. The problem is Marsha's clothing style and location."

Rui Yong (Shanghai) CEO Wu Ziheng of Cci Capital Ltd said.

After visiting the Marsha shop in Shanghai last time, Wu Ziheng only bought a bag of cookies, "I have no interest in anything else."

At least

Marsha began to try to cope with this decline.

Belinda Earl, who founded the clothing brand Jaeger, became the creative director of Marsha in 2013. She told the media that in the spring and summer new products from 2015 to 2016, the design team reduced the number of sweaters and highlighted the waist shape of some shirts and sweaters, in order to embody the sense of line.

Belinda Earl also plans to compete with ZARA to speed up the new frequency from 6 to 2 weeks.

However, whether these measures can reverse the trend of the sinking of Marsha clothing business is not yet known. At least according to previous performance, many consumers have chosen to leave Martha.

Under the pressure of performance, Martha also began to adjust his overseas.

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It proposed in 2014 that 250 stores should be opened outside the UK in 3 years.

In 2015, it changed the strategy.

In China, which focuses on developing markets, it has turned off 1/3's existing stores, instead of flagship stores in key cities, such as Guangzhou, and the street shops in Beijing's world trade scale, which will open at the end of the year.

"We are located in the" first tier city "of China, where there is a better consumer base for the middle class. Even if the economic environment is bad, you can make achievements.

After announcing the adjustment of overseas strategy, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, executive director of Marsha's market and international business, responded.

"Can it be too late?" Chen did not believe that the big cities could give Martha a new chance.

After Marsha opened second stores in China, he discussed with his colleagues that the third should be in Beijing or Guangzhou, but the final choice of the company's top executives is Changzhou, a three tier city that does not have many high-end retailers.

Many employees did not understand the decision. "We were all shocked, but foreigners decided."

The drawbacks of being rigid and not following the laws of local market are not only reflected in site selection.

In the supply chain department where Chen Xuan worked, employees had suggested to a British buyer that a shoe was too old to sell, and whether it could be changed; how could a technology be improved to achieve a higher cost performance.

"They will say," no, the company's procedure is so. You have to follow this procedure.

We have foreseen that such a procedure will not work, but we have to follow the process. "

Chen Xuan summed up communication with buyers as a typical British process that only focuses on process and pays no attention to results.

Not only that, this family

It also stubbornly shipped its M codes and L code clothes sold in England to China, which is the most needed localization problem for all global fashion brands.

Many Chinese customers complain that Marsha doesn't buy the right size and type at all.

As for the food business that has been well received abroad, it has also encountered a bottleneck in China.

At the Marsha flagship store in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, there are not many customers either on weekdays or weekends. Many people go straight to the top floor food area after they enter the shop and pick out those tea, chocolate, biscuits and coffee imported from England.

However, because of the restrictions on China's import food regulations, the products on Marsha rack are not very advantageous compared with BHG and other high quality supermarkets. High tariffs also push up prices.

"There are not many foreign 1/3 sold here."

Chen Xuan said.

Even though Martha later wants to replicate its popular Simply Food in Europe, it is also facing difficulties in logistics.

In Europe, all Simply Food is pported locally from England, fresh food.

Last year, it opened a Simply Food in Hongkong, China, and pported materials from Britain every day.

But Hongkong's clearance policy is much more friendly than mainland China.