Men's clothing brand Masamasuo: 4 reasons for physical closing

Two years ago, online menswear brand Masamasuo opened its first physical store in Beijing's high-end shopping district World Trade Plaza. Just last year, Masamarso CEO Sun Hong also announced that Masamasuo will open more physical stores for cities with concentrated customers in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. However, after only adhering to less than two years, Masamasuo's offline shop was low-key.


In this regard, Masamasuo told the state billion power network, shut down the offline store for four considerations.

Remarks: World Trade Plaza was put into use in 2006. It consists of two north-south leisure shopping malls and two 5A office buildings. It is positioned as a full-sensory leisure shopping venue with smell, taste and touch. It is equipped with a canopy 250 meters long and 30 meters wide, elegant The luxurious Ladder Plaza and the semi-closed pedestrian street are high-end integrated fashion and fashion centers in the Beijing CBD. The brand settled in the World Trade Plaza, and the store rent was about 1,000 yuan/square meter/month.

1. Experience shop is difficult to cover wide area users


Masamasuo’s physical store has only opened one store. Masanmaso’s vice president, Mei Shan, told Yibang Power Network that opening a store is a strategic attempt of the brand.


The positioning of online brand stores is very different from that of traditional brands. Masamasuo’s offline store is an “experience” when it is initially set up, to compensate for the lack of users’ online experience.


From the online consumer feedback information, although consumers’ awareness and recognition of online shopping are increasing year by year, users will still try on high-end clothing products with high unit prices and low standardization. The need for experience. Mei Shan said that Masamasuo is very focused on listening to the voice of consumers. After understanding the needs of users, the company decided to open an offline store for the purpose of enhancing the consumer experience.


“We will use physical stores to examine consumer acceptance of Masamasuo's products and brands. From the point of view of operating data for more than a year, this store has effectively increased the customer’s initial purchase price per unit,” Mesa said.


However, the other real problems that Masamasso had to face also gradually emerged.


Wide area is an important feature of e-commerce. As a network brand, Masamasuo has users all over the country. Only an experiential store in Beijing can only meet the needs of a small number of local users. However, it involves a lot of energy in site selection, decoration, product display, marketing planning, and sales training. This led Masamasso to reflect on how the value of this experience shop should be measured. For e-commerce brands, how many stores do they need to experience?


In response, industry insiders have given the answer: “Online brands, especially high-end network brands, open stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, first-tier cities, and at least four in each place in order to satisfy the user’s experience. demand."


Masamasuo CEO Sun Hong expressed to Yibang Power Network that if you want to cover more users and meet their experience needs, Masamasuo will have to keep the store open: “This will make the already very light e-commerce company become More and more important, the road is not unattainable, but if you continue to lay down entities, it will be a departure from the strategic direction of the company."


It is reported that Masamaso has closed its physical store in Beijing World Trade Plaza in March 2012. Sun Hong revealed that the closure of this physical store is partly due to the fact that its sales growth rate is much lower than that of e-commerce. Continuing to spend high costs to maintain operations will be inconsistent with the company's strategic direction of “Internet” as its purpose. On the other hand, Masamasuo's main purpose of opening offline stores is to enhance the consumer experience, but the function of this experience is difficult to cover a wide range of situations where the financial strength is still insufficient to support the nationwide large-scale laying of physical stores. The consumer groups lose their value.

Masamaso is located at the World Trade Experience Store

2. Online pricing is difficult to support offline costs


Yibang Power Network learned that the increase rate of traditional clothing brands is as high as 8-15 times. In contrast, online clothing brands use the e-commerce model to shorten the supply chain and save a lot of intermediate costs. Taking Masamasuo as an example, although it is positioned as a high-end men's brand, the price increase rate is only 1.5-2.5 times.


Mei Shanmaso's vice president, Mei Shan, told Yibang Power Network that even though Masamasuo's price is lower than that of traditional high-end men's clothing brands, it is not sloppy in the product manufacturing process. Mei Shan said: "The men's shirts of Masamasuo have 9 stitches for each centimeter, and there are 128 procedures for the production of a shirt. There can be no less than one link."


Masamasuo's brand slogan is "the most cost-effective men's wear", but from online to offline, Masamasuo maintains unity in both the goods and the price, which makes the original markup rate lower than that of the traditional brand Martha. Marcelo is faced with great cost pressures in the offline competition.


According to Masamasso’s vice president Mei Shan, the cost of renting, decoration, property, utilities, taxes, display, and employee salaries of the physical stores can account for 60%-70% of sales, accounting for The biggest is the cost of rent, which will cost about 1 million yuan each year. Masamasuo also strives to deliver “high-end” brand tones online. The initial renovation cost exceeds RMB 400,000. It also puts higher requirements on the quality level of sales staff. It is not only necessary to understand and explain the brand to consumers. To make an image design report for consumers, their employees' wages are also higher than traditional brands. Mei Shan told the state billion power network: "World Trade Tianjie shop has six employees, the monthly personnel costs about 30,000 yuan, almost twice the number of traditional brands."


Although Sun Hong has emphasized that his more than ten years of physical experience has given Masamasuo considerable advantages in cost control, there are also people in the industry who quipped: “In the WTO, we must realize the profit of selling 10 pieces of traditional men’s clothing next door to the brand. Samosa must sell 100 pieces."


This comparison figure may be somewhat exaggerated, but the importance of traffic and customer price for the landing of online brands is also evident. Masamasuo entered the high-end business district on the premise of high-end positioning, which intensified the contradiction between high cost and low markup rate. Corporate capital and energy are scattered, and it seems wise to choose to close the store.


3. Mistakes in site selection


Masamasuo chose to open a physical store at the Beijing World Trade Plaza, in addition to satisfying consumers' needs for try-out experience, it also played a role in delivering the brand's high-end positioning. It is understood that the Masamasuo store is located in the business district of the World Trade Plaza in Beijing is a high-end shopping district, the rent is close to Joy City and other two types of shopping malls, traffic is not as good as Joy City high, but the quality of the passenger group is relatively high. According to industry insiders, "This high-end shopping district of the World Trade Plaza has a very positive effect on upgrading the brand image."


Mei Xiaomao, vice president of Masamarso, said that the selection of business districts will have different needs at different stages of brand development. Previously, Massa Marso’s physical store opened in the World Trade Plaza, the goal of its operation is to collect the high-end image of the offline consumer feedback and delivery brand, in this context, from the store location, store decoration, product display and sales Personnel image and other aspects must be consistent with high-end positioning.


Mesa said: "This store really helped to promote the brand in the early stages. On the other hand, it serves as a test field that allows Massamaso to use physical stores to examine the sales of various categories of products and customer acceptance. In order to optimize the structure of goods through the feedback from consumers under the line."


However, comparisons with Masamasuo and other brands in the same business district will find that the sale price of World Trade Plaza is between 500-3,000 yuan, while Masamasuo's price is between 300-500 yuan. In the brand's growth phase, the World Trade Plaza's physical stores allow more consumers to have a certain degree of awareness of Masamasuo's high-end positioning, but when the brand enters a stable development period, Masamasuo has to consider The contradiction between the traffic volume of the World Trade Plaza and the brand's own pricing needs.


Mei Shan told Yibang Power Network: “Unlike the initial positioning of physical stores, at this stage, we need to let more consumers know, understand, and contact Masamasuo. In addition, Masamasuo’s products The pricing also determines that the demand for passenger traffic at this stage is more urgent.The difference in the unit price between the World Trade Center and the Masamaso brand and the flow restrictions in the high-end business district let Masamasso start thinking Whether this positioning and site selection is still suitable for Masamasuo's needs at this stage."


Since the site selection and brand demand no longer match, after careful consideration and discussion, Masamasuo announced in March 2012 that it would close its only physical store in Beijing World Trade Plaza. However, Masamasso’s vice president Mei Shan also revealed information that the re-opening of the experience shop may be re-opened: “Masamaso will not rule out reopening the experience shop in the future, and will choose those that match the brand positioning and target consumer groups. Highly coincident shopping district."


4. Return to the line


For the closing of the shop, Masamasso Vice President Mei Shan once emphasized to the media that Masamaso shut down the experience store because this year will focus its development and capital investment on the online business.


Masamasuo CEO Sun Hong tells Yibang Power Network that the closure of the Masamaso physical store, partly because Masamasuo's main purpose of opening offline stores is to enhance the consumer experience, but the financial strength is still insufficient Supporting the nationwide large-scale laying of physical stores, the function of this experience is difficult to cover a wide range of consumer groups, and it loses its value because it does not contribute to online consumption. On the other hand, offline expansion is also It is inconsistent with the company's strategic direction of "Internet".


For Masamasuo, online is still the main business, and the role of the entity is only to listen to consumer feedback, enhance consumer experience, and assist online sales. Masamasuo did not use the offline channel as a channel. Because the online and offline sales are in the same stock, a unified pricing strategy also determines that Masamasuo is still difficult to expand the offline channel. path of.


Sun Hong said: “The experience shop of Masamaso opened in May 2010. The strategic goal and direction at that time was to make a consumer experience, build consumer confidence in the Masamasuo brand, and let consumers Masamasuo products are more thorough."


In the past two years, the experience shop of Masamasuo has basically achieved "break-even, slightly profitable" operations, but the growth rate of offline sales is much lower than that of e-commerce. In the case of low profit levels, continuing to spend high costs to maintain operations will be inconsistent with the company's strategic direction of "Internet" as its purpose. “If the main business is not competitive and the subsidiary business is not growing, it will be very difficult for the company to survive. Therefore Masamasuo will concentrate on improving the main business – the competitiveness of e-commerce.”


For the brand's future in the offline world, Masamasso’s vice president, Mei Shan, told Yibang Power Network that Masamasuo will not consider direct chain management in the short term: “It will take too much manpower and material resources to do direct business. The chain is too long. It takes at least a year to open a store for a warm-up period."


However, the integration of the online and offline channels of the brand is a major trend. With online brands currently experiencing high marketing costs and severe competition for homogenization, offline channels will become a new profit growth point and a new way to acquire new users. Masamasuo also once claimed that in the future, it does not rule out the expansion of the line through the way of joining.


From the current point of view, the landing of online brands still does not have the mature environment and talent advantages. Although Masham indexed talents with Li Ning and other traditional big-name work experience, Mei Shanma said that Masamasuo is still trying the next stage online: “If Masamasuo has enough advantages to develop the second production line in the future, The funding status can also carry the development of the second business model. We will operate the entity into a new profit model - not just a new sales channel.