First of all, congratulate the AliExpress team for the great impact that their opening of the first physical store in Europe in the Xanadú shopping center in Madrid has had. Dozens of articles have been written, with an enormous impact on social networks and with an enormous impact on televised media. About 5,000 people crowded into the store. A complete success.
If I ask myself the following questions, I believe the answers will generate debate.
Does this have anything to do with the retail world in a pure way? No
Can we talk about omnichannel? No
Is it a first experience in a physical store? Yeah
I know it sounds like swimming against the current, but it seems like a perfectly designed PR strategy to me. A guaranteed gift to the first 500 people, with this we generate the traffic and the desired photo. In addition to the “fan” impact of the brand, the first, David, had been sleeping in a sack in front of the store for two days in order to get the desired new generation “smartphone”. Gifts of electric scooters, drones, phones, cameras, etc. were provided to the following clients.
It is a full-fledged brand campaign, more similar to a Street Marketing strategy than a retail strategy, it has nothing to do with offline or online, at least for now.
When AliExpress has some more stores in Europe, then we will be able to talk about the brand's On and Off strategy and omnichannel in a precise way. We can talk about the non-existent borders between off and on.
In my humble opinion, this applies to any flagship that opens on a large shopping street in a large city. Brands that only have a physical store, but very impressive, with sublime decoration and a spectacular visiting experience, I consider that we cannot be talking about retail but about brand in pure terms of positioning, image, public relations and communication.
Logically, it also represents a new step as a driving element of a shopping center, brands that can make a difference and pull the car of influx to it, a new interesting environment opens up and an opportunity for other centers to join the success that it represents for the Commercial “mix” a brand like AliExpress. Just like a MediaMarkt was at the time as a “category killer”.
And in a similar way it happens with Amazon, at the moment it has 9 physical Amazon GO stores in the USA but its planned plan is to open 3,000 by 2021. I think it is not confirmed in its strategic plan and honestly, it seems to me that going from 9 to 3,000 is Something that remains between us will not happen in the short or medium term.
Alea jacta est, we will see where the commercial strategy of these e-commerce giants goes.
Jordi Crespo
