Omega: When a Luxury Brand in China

The sales staff of luxury goods need self-confidence and affinity. The sales personnel of high-end consumer goods in Europe and America are often senior, with rich experience and mild attitude. But the scale of affection is very important, not excessively humble...

For security, the passwords and keys for the store door and watch vault are controlled by different staff members. At Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, in addition to infrared alarm systems and other series of anti-theft measures, here insist that all on-duty employees must be in and out of shops at the same time to ensure that the watches worth tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in the store are safely lying on them before they are purchased. In the place.

And at 9:30 am every day, the Grand Hyatt Beijing is located on the first floor, which is thousands of kilometers away. In Omega’s flagship store in Greater China, Huang Ying carefully helps employees Only the watch is placed on the counter. At this point, the three clerk who had changed his clothes began to carefully wipe every corner of the shop again.

Huang Ying sometimes stopped and figured out whether the position of each watch was appropriate. Until 10:00 in the morning, the 117-square-meter space began its 11-hour operation. One hour later, No. 12 Canton Road opened the door to the guests after the end of the daily "morning meeting."

“Never speculate on whether your guests are wealthy”

Huang Ying looks very thin, and therefore looks even taller. Very short hair set off a little serious face, fashion glasses with black frame and yellow lenses, strong Zhu lipstick, black dress shirt, and flaxen dress skirt. This capable and elegant middle-aged woman has been working in the watch industry for nearly 20 years, counting from losing her chance of attending university and entering the Hendry watch shop in Wangfujing, Beijing, as an intern salesperson. In the early 1980s, when Beijing’s most expensive watch was only concentrated in the hundred-year-old shop in Wangfujing’s place called “Golden Street”, she had become a limited number of people dealing with luxury goods overnight. One member.

"Hendley has represented many brands. At that time, I faced more brands and some were more expensive than Omega," she said. Huang Ying still remembers the decoration of Hendry’s employees’ locker rooms. The details of changing clothes and changing shoes every morning are still repeated by her employees in Omega’s flagship store. The only difference seems to be the transformation of time and space. In Hendry’s store with more than 60 employees, Huang Ying had sold at least 6 employees to complete the share. The “Capital Labor Medal” and “Beijing Worker Model” were particularly honorable during the year and made her Get the opportunity to enter the university. After the training, Huang Ying gradually entered the management team from the ordinary sales staff until Hendry’s Swiss watch shop manager and the deputy sales manager in Beijing.

In January this year, Beijing's first Omega flagship store opened in Oriental Grand Hyatt. Omega dealer Hendry watch shop appointed Huang Ying as store manager.

Compared with Hengdeli, where festivals are overwhelming, the shop is located in a super five-star hotel in Beijing. Sometimes even on a Sunday morning, the shop has no more than 5 passengers, which is too low compared to Omega's specialty stores and counters such as Lufthansa and contemporary. Huang Ying no longer needs to stand at the counter all day long. She has time to return to the “back square” (place the vault, and the person responsible for the handle) to view various information transmitted by the office and upload the report.

If there is no running water (sales), the monthly property management fee that the Grand Hyatt (first tenant) took out from this shop tenant is US$2,000. If there is water, in addition to the delivery of the property fee, Dongfang Building (owner) will also charge a fee. "Withdraw" (withdrawn by the sale of the proposed pricing). In fact, apart from earning rent, almost all luxury stores have their own monthly tasks.

“Wangfu Hotel was very deserted when it was just opened, but perhaps everything needs to have the first person to eat crabs. Once the climate is formed, it will be fine,” Huang Ying said.

“You should never speculate whether or not people come to be rich and whether you have intention to buy. If you do that, you will not be able to adapt to such an environment. You must put your mind in order.” 28-year-old Zhai Jiechun, who has already sold 4 years of high-end watches, said . She has a baby face, shawls and curls, and she sells high-end skincare products before selling watches. Under normal circumstances, this type of flagship store will have 6 to 7 store employees, two team leaders, and a manager. During Huang Ying's rest, Yan Jiechun assisted with in-store management.

However, Huang Ying admitted that after accumulating 20 years of high-end watch sales experience, she can almost accurately determine the general identity of each customer entering the store. “This kind of judgment is accurate enough to make my staff sometimes not believe it. This is actually an intuition. However, you should never expect that they will come to the store for the first time, because these tables are expensive. After all, don’t rush To be successful, we must strive to provide enough thoughtful services, help them to choose from the perspective of customers, provide sincere advice, and often these guests will come back to buy from you.”

The small details of the sales are very important, even the distance to the guests is very critical, "1.2 meters is appropriate," Huang Ying said, "the sales of luxury goods need confidence, affinity, sales staff in Europe and the United States is often high-end consumer goods Older people are experienced and gentle, but the kind of scale is very important and not overly humility."

When a guest enters the store, the salesperson will inevitably take the initiative to say hello to him, but it will not follow closely unless the guest actively asks for help. “Generally speaking, the guests who buy this kind of goods like to watch it themselves. To keep up with them will make them have a conflict of mind.” Yanjie Jie said. Speaking of the knowledge of the watch, the young she said, "The clock is quite complicated. There are too few people who really know. I am not a person who is a watchman." She said, "The more I have identity and knowledge, The more customers choose to choose complex watches, the more they like to tell the sales staff about the clocks at the time of purchase, and sometimes even more than the professionals know. Only by understanding this knowledge can you really understand the value of these watches." Idle At the time, he likes to ponder these things, but after selling these watches with prices above 10,000 yuan, she no longer wears any watches.

"Even if the customer does not buy, the sales staff should still feel satisfied."

Since April 11 last year as the first flagship store manager of Omega Hong Kong in Guangdong Canton Road, PERCYMAK has worked hard all the way and is now the retail manager of Omega Greater China. These days, he is preparing for the Omega Macau flagship store.

Canton Road is a distribution center for Hong Kong luxury goods. The Omega flagship store on the 12th is facing LV, neighboring GUCCI, and is the only watch shop on the street. At the same time, because it owns the most styles in Asia, business is extremely hot. According to PERCY, "The vast majority of Omega buyers in Hong Kong are mainlanders because there are no customs duties and VAT."

Another Omega store in Causeway Bay is also the beginning of Omega's attempt to sell by his company's staff instead of commissioning middlemen. But the situation there is relatively complicated, because there will be other watch shops competing every few times, in addition there are many agents also sell the same brand watches.

“We strictly prohibit employees from smashing their peers in order to rob a business,” PERCY said. “Sometimes introducing a watch may take a long time. Even if the customer does not buy it, the sales staff should still feel satisfied because the guests can extract 20 from their busy schedule. Minutes of listening to us introduce the product, so that we exercised eloquence and promoted the brand.”

PERCY also said that, in fact, as an Omega company, whether the watch is sold by an agent or an outlet is not a critical issue. The involvement of flagship stores and specialty stores is equivalent to providing local agents with direct brand maintenance services. Complete product display, more comprehensive product introduction, and some agents have a greater degree of freedom in terms of price, so, starting from the flagship store, sales throughout the region have been rising.

“Professional watch masters are the places where Omega’s flagship stores and specialty stores are different from other brands,” he said. “Some of the designer watches can only be repaired in Switzerland. It takes a lot of time for a round trip.”

PERCY believes that recruitment of employees is the most difficult part of the entire management process. "We don't necessarily require employees to have experience in selling high-end watches, but they must be very good at learning." But in his view, some basic conditions are still necessary. "For example, Mandarin and English are spoken because the vast majority of buyers are not Hong Kong people. The second is that they have a good appearance, not necessarily very beautiful, but they should be generous and confident. Also, they will use computers and make English-language reports. This is also critical, as every employee must always be in touch with office buildings, and this connection is conducted in English. In addition, employees also need to read a lot of information, so learning is very critical. Finally, employees also need to have sales of high-end Consumer goods experience."

Service is the most important, and service must also vary from person to person. In the 125-square-foot store on the 12th Canton Road, a bar, information, a computer with a wide band, and a leisure corner of an antique showcase are set up. “We want to provide a more casual and relaxing corner.” PERCY said, “The flagship store’s most important function is communication, and we are also responsible for answering all questions raised by customer calls or emails.”

"Don't expect a $5 hat to reflect a $2,500 grade"

According to Huang Ying, some customers may not wear such expensive watches at all, but there are many occasions where these things are necessary. “For example, some well-established couples regularly go to high-end hotels to eat bird's nest shark fins. This kind of consumption may not be what they really need, but if some day they do not go, maybe outsiders will guess whether their business is out. The problem, or are they broken?”

PERCY feels that it is not appropriate to define high-priced products as luxury goods. “A lot of things are very necessary from the perspective of demand. For example, a diving watch from Omega may be as many as 100,000, but for those who specialize in special systems For the craftsman, this price may not be expensive."

Su Mang, editor-in-chief of China's fashion magazine, admits that she loves luxury goods. “I understand the branding process, so I understand the value of these brands more. For example, Hermès needs to play more than 90 editions with a one-meter square headscarf. Dressing is a person’s symbol and using luxury goods is one of many ways to prove yourself. This is not a vanity but an instinct for excellence.Remember the movie star Sarah said, you never expect a $5 hat to reflect a $2,500 taste..."

Located on the first, second and basement floors of the Palace Hotel, SHOPPING MALL is the most famous luxury goods distribution center in Beijing, as well as Fenglian Plaza, Lufthansa and Dorset. According to Fenglian’s sales of Meikai’s discount stores, “The monthly turnover of 300,000 in these stores is not considered to be exceptional, and the monthly turnover of China’s LV is approximately 3 million yuan.”

“Luxury products will have a particularly large market in China in the future. Although they are just starting out, the current autonomy of many luxury goods stores in the Mainland is still relatively small. From decoration to business details are determined by the brand, but more power will gradually Decentralization to accommodate more kinds of purchases," said Huang Ying.

A recent report by Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, pointed out that currently 10% of people in China have the ability to consume high-end luxury goods, and this number is still growing.