Make your purchases while cooking and eating in Siemens’s alternative store !

Recent years have witnessed a robust expansion in China’s kitchen appliance market. According to mainland market surveys, the total value of China’s kitchen and bathroom appliance market exceeded 100 billion RMB in 2015. And the rapid urbanisation in China will drive the kitchen appliance market to expand steadily. However, the development of e-commerce market and the severe competition between Chinese offline retailers have made it difficult for conventional stores to boost foot traffic and business turnover.

Siemens this time chose to stand out by designing  new store concept, in the form of a restaurant with open kitchens, in order to invite customers to enjoy delicious meals or even cook by themselves (enjoy thus 50% discount on the meal). Customers can scan and buy cookers which have been used in the restaurant anytime they wish. Customers also have opportunities to attend cooking courses organized periodically by the restaurant.

In 15 days after the opening, even though the food traffic is smaller than traditional stores, but the business turnover is 20-30% higher.

Actually, most of household appliance brands have begun to shut down their conventional stores and build new experience stores or “Showroom” in Chinese big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. In almost all of these stores, shoppers can attend various activities, like cooking and tasting. The goal is to create a memorable customer experience.

Facing threat from e-commerce, brick-and-mortar stores should know how to display its strong points.

For Household Appliance Market, in most cases, shoppers choose to go to physical stores because they wish to see, touch and try electronic products before buying.

Therefore, retailers should find ways to anticipate these needs. Siemens has applied a right strategy as it knows to build scenarios that customers are already familiar with from their daily lives.

While cooking or just watching the cooking process, customers have enough time to inspect products, imagine possible usages in their own houses as well as to see if the “outcome” is what they are waiting for.

Besides, having a place like this, it will be easier for Siemens to build and manage its communities and tell the brand history, for example, through organizing different events such as cooking courses and tea ceremony.