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In the fourth year of financial turbulence, some market participants continue to talk about a "life and death war" for the buyer, in which everyone has now joined, from the owners of the shopping center to the cleaners, while others, on the contrary, argue that "people have calmed down and they started spending without looking back.

Let's talk about a new special way of goods and service, with the help of which brands win customers at the end of the era of demonstrative consumption.

Nielsen research conducted in 2017 shows that 70% of Russians live in austerity mode, and shopping malls have to adapt to thrifty buyers and stock hunters. "Living on a grand scale is no longer in fashion," the market is dealing with a thoughtful and economical consumer, the emphasis of proposals is shifting towards millennials, whose values no longer include spending without looking back," says Ekaterina Gress, chairman of the Committee on Commercial Real estate of the Russian Guild managers and developers, CEO of the company «IDEM – retail real estate consultants». – ​According to research, we noticed that about 60% of people save on clothes, 50% on FMCG.

According to Fashion Consulting Group estimates, already in 2016, 34% of the population (30% in 2015) began to buy clothes and shoes less often, in a smaller volume, cheaper brands or in a cheaper place. During the year, the share of retail chains' revenue from promotions increased from 30% to 35%, and in hypermarkets to 45%. Considering that more than half of all Russians' expenses still fall on food, many network operators, supported by Cushman & Wakefield, have decided to refresh customer relations in the conditions of the ongoing decline in purchasing power in all possible and impossible ways.

"We note three important trends in behavior that have become a priority when choosing and making purchases and are fundamentally changing retail," lists Anna Lebsak-Kleimans, CEO of Fashion Consulting Group. – ​Firstly, self-development through shopping, through the applied development of new technologies, the pleasure of rapid development. Retail reaction – the speed of introduction of new technologies, changes as an opportunity to attract «curious» young buyers.

The second is the independence of choice as the preferred path to the "right" solution. As a result, the market has convenient access to complete product information from anywhere and at any time. Next «augmented reality» – integration into real shopping of virtual possibilities. Then the individualization of the offer, the expectation of the most accurate match to the needs. Retailers' reaction to all this is investment in new CRM systems, new methods of analyzing the target audience through big data, an interactive format of communication with customers and promotion.

Offline is now too closely intertwined with online, and traditional offline stores have long sought to go online, while online services are increasingly thinking about the transformation of pickup points, the opening of offline stores and pop-up stores. For example, Farfetch, the leading online sales platform for luxury brands, recently announced its new operating system for retail. The project allows you to integrate offline and online channels of interaction with customers as conveniently and efficiently as possible. The company named it the "store of the future".

The future of online and offline communications with the buyer lies in the maximum individualization of the offer, FCG is convinced. The technologies that will serve this in the first place are big data. So, in 2017, Fashion Consulting Group and Double Data conducted a joint market research. As an example, the 25 largest clothing and footwear chains were selected for analysis. In the process, the presence of brands in social networks and localization of their pages for Russia were analyzed, audience activity on the example of the social network VKontakte, the distribution of brand audiences by gender and age, brand leaders in terms of audience activity and engagement, and much more. 

DIGITAL FORMAT

Digitalization of the economy has become one of the main and most discussed topics of the outgoing year, Dassault Systèmes experts agree. The state, and with it almost all the major players in the Russian market, have announced programs for the digital transformation of business.

According to McKinsey, digitalization is really going at a high pace in Russia: in the period from 2011 to 2015, the total volume of the Russian digital economy increased by 59%. The main share of the digital economy in Russia is trade and the B2C segment, but it is precisely such areas as manufacturing and cities that have the greatest growth potential.

"The key trend of recent times, I would call the fine-tuning of content on the site and communication with the buyer in general," thinks Alexey Salychev, curator of the Fashion E-commerce program at the HSE. Services have developed significantly, which, based on the analysis of data on the interests of buyers and their behavior, build offers on the site as relevant as possible for a particular user. The channel of "web push" notifications that pop up in the browser and inform customers about any activities has become very popular. Some online stores are experimenting with setting up their marketing activities depending on the weather outside, and I know several very successful cases. In the end, it's all about one thing: we stopped trying to sell everything to everyone and began to carefully analyze the purchase data in order to try to offer the buyer exactly what he needs at the moment. The growing average conversion rate for online stores shows that this path is the right one.

Nikolay Goslavsky, CEO of the company "Initium", supports: the new buyer is constantly online. "It's safe to say that show-rooming has penetrated into the fashion segment," says the expert. Running around for a family wardrobe can be replaced by a relatively comfortable delivery of everything you need in several variants and sizes home. Instagram Facebook, Pinterest, Facebook, and even a simple Google image search, I think the most interesting way appeared at the junction of offline and online sales channels. – this is visual marketing, product promotion using Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and even a simple Google image search. In general, the most interesting case, of course, is in a technically more savvy online: just look at how the WildBerries online hypermarket works with prices! I would call this a great example of gamification of working with prices.

Although large offline brands continue to try to create and promote their own e-commerce solutions, however, in practice everything is deplorable, Nikolai Goslavsky believes. "Most of the major successful offline players have not been able to offer anything decent online," states Mr. Goslavsky. – Try to order something for children with a fitting to choose from and return the goods in the online store H&M. No, "fashionable aggregators" like KupiVIP, Lamoda and, of course, WildBerries remain the leaders in terms of service and adequate modern reality of working with the buyer."

To be continued.

Text: Evgeny Arsenin

Photo: shutterstock.com