CHINA. China Duty Free Group (CDFG), the country’s leading travel retailer, is stepping up its omnichannel activities to drive penetration and sales and to boost consumer convenience.
Speaking during a wide-ranging interview with The Moodie Davitt Report for our special Hainan-focused Magazine to be published (in Mandarin and English) right after the Chinese New Year holidays, President Charles Chen said: “We have jumped out of the brick-and-mortar box to diversify our services and promote the convergence of ‘online + offline’ business.”
He said that CDFG is drawing on its 10 million-plus membership base to shape more precise user portraits. “By leveraging on precise marketing for big membership and big data analytics, we have developed a range of marketing strategies and tactics for different market segments in order to enhance our marketing effectiveness across various areas,” Chen commented.
“These precise user portraits allow us to offer an additional purchasing service, allowing tourists to take their time shopping online for what they have missed in our stores – it is a good example of consumer satisfaction.”
Asked how he sees the CDFG mix of physical v digital retail evolving, Chen replied: “I believe that the online business will represent the ‘overarching direction’ of travel retail in the future, which will thrive beyond the pandemic.
“The pandemic is an accelerator of the convergence between online and offline business. The reason I say this is that people who cannot afford the time to visit a bricks-and-mortar store shop online instead, as technological progress combined with an increasingly busy lifestyle is becoming a reality, and the portion of online shopping is growing.
“In this context, CDFG has been exploring duty free service innovation with regards to the new retail consumer habits since last year. We are connecting online and offline services and providing consumers with multi-dimensional shopping services before, during and after travelling to continuously enhance the customer experience.”
Having reviewed an extensive analysis of CDFG’s online v offline mix in 2020, Chen said. “The online business has outperformed our expectations.” It could soon climb to roughly 50% of the business, he said.
Digital communication as well as digital communication is also key to the evolving CDFG approach. The pandemic has spurred changes in both the consumption environment and the marketing context, Chen said. In order to cater to the preferences and needs of Millennials and Generation Z, the company has launched a series of video and livestreaming programmes on high-traffic platforms with great success.
In the future, CDFG plans to go deeper in online marketing via such top-tier online platforms, thus attracting greater consumer focus and enhancing customer loyalty, Chen noted.
Note: Look out for the full interview in English and Mandarin next week.
