We decided to compare the French department store Les Galleries
Lafayette with a Finnish one: Stockmann. The both gather really different kinds
of services and products as bakery, restaurants, super market or stores but
with the same particularity: offer luxury brands.
The group of Stockmann created in
1862, had in 2013, a turnover of 2037,1 million. This is divided in two sections:
the first is a fashion chain with two stores Lindex and Seppälä and the second
gather all the department stores. They are several kinds of stores, Stockmann
department stores, online stores, Hobby Hall, Academic Bookstore, Stockmann
Beauty and the last one is the Nevksy Centre Shopping in Saint Petersburg.
These department stores are located
in sixteen countries, in Russia, in two African's and in the Northern and
Eastern Europe.
Stockmann creates its specificity by
the experience it offers: the architecture, the gourmet food, the luxury brand.
People really like to have all this refinement. It is famous for the all luxury
brand, and the store is known as the first high-end store of Finland. With a
more general view, it is the bigger (about the areas and sales) department
store in the Nordic countries.
The stores can be really big as the
one of Helsinki which was of 50 000 square meters in 2010. In this the products
are separated by family and by brand.
We can summarize the strategy of the
Stockman Department Store Group in some points. First of all, the main strategy
is to have long term and profitable actions. Also they want to plan an
international growth, create competitive concepts and brands, have strong
customer loyalty and professional and efficient organization.
This is based on some values: have the
costumer in center of each project, to be efficient, to gather the team of the
company to reach a goal, respect the employees and be responsible according to
the ethic and the environment.
Even if these departments store a
really well-known, the digitization of commerce and migration of customers to
the internet changes the purchase experience. Indeed, the customers do not have
to go anymore to the Stockmann stores because they can find the same products
on the website of the brands. But this department store, still succeed to make
come visitors by the experience it offers.
Established in 1894, the Galleries Lafayette group is a leader in high
street retail in France in the areas of fashion, luxury goods, beauty, watches
and jewelries, leisure and interiors, gourmet food.
It has an international notoriety due to its different brands:
- The Galleries Lafayette
- BHV
- Royal Quartz-Louis Pion
- Didier Guérin
- Citynove
The Galleries Lafayette is a leading and upmarket French department
store which is a symbol of French lifestyle. The first big store Paris
Haussmann was inaugurated in 1912 and is the symbol of the group for its
“luxury style” and its design. The department store sizes 70,000m² spread
across 3 buildings.
Outcomes
Galleries Lafayette Group currently employs over 11,000 people, sells
2,500 brands and welcomes on average one million visitors per day. In 2011, it
made 2.957 million euros from retail sales.
In France, Galleries Lafayette Haussmann welcomes 800,000 visitors per
day and is the first department store in Europe.
International and national market
Galleries Lafayette is mainly implanted in France with 59 stores located
in the largest town of the country. But the group pursues its international
expansion buy opening new stores in the world:
- Berlin in 1996
- Dubai in 2009
- Casablanca in
2011
- Jakarta and
Beijing in 2013
This new stores have sales areas of 3,000m² (Dubai) and 18,000m²
(Beijing).
The Group plans to continue this expansion in Turkey and Qatar in 2015.
Strategy of the Galleries Lafayette Group and value
At the beginning, the vocation of Galleries Lafayette is to serve up
fashion and innovation. Théophile Bader, the creator, wanted to make sure that
the latest fashions would be available to all. So, he set up and acquired
production facilities to make clothing exclusively for Galleries Lafayette
under its own private label.
The Galleries Lafayette expands its product range with the creation of
many sub-brands which support the strengths of the original brand:
- Lafayette Homme (2001):
men’s apparel
- Lafayette Gourmet (2002): Food
- Lafayette Maison (2004):
decoration and home improvement
- Lafayette V.O.
(2004): children and teenagers
- Lafayette Shoes
(2009): women’s shoe department
This allows reaching many people by proposing a wide choice of products
which are selling in the same place. Indeed, Galleries Lafayette is trying to
evolve from a department store into a multi-concept store which proposes
different specialized concepts under one roof.
The Galleries Lafayette creates different shopping worlds in a real-life
experience instead of traditional departments. It consists in having many
corners arranged as shops with a specific family of product and brand. This
marketing concept is based on three pillars:
- Offering
comprehensive “shopping worlds” revolving around a central theme including a
large number of brands, instead of conventional departments,
- Events to enhance
the shopping experience,
- A high level of
dynamics in terms of new products and short-term offers.
This allows Galleries Lafayette to offer an attractive purchase
experience to the customers who are more likely to stay longer than in a
traditional department.
Galleries Lafayette uses many tools to further the purchase experience
of the customer as the shopfitting or the lighting. This is crucial to creating
the appropriate atmosphere for the respective clientele.
The floors beneath Galleries Lafayette’s dome are equipped with colored
lighting that continually shifts in tone and adds to the visual effect.
Moreover, customers shopping in the departments facing the atrium can see
colorful LED-illuminated visual creations. With the daylight, the customers can
examine their selections and purchases in both natural and artificial lights.
Galleries Lafayette has always been a “house of brands” and a “temple of
fashion” but has also always been perceived as a place for the high end
shopper. This is reinforced by it architecture such as the famous neo-Byzantine
dome built in the 19th atop the building on Boulevard Haussmann or
the glass-front architecture on Berlin Friedrichstraβe. In Paris, the flagship
store’s architecture leads to the impression of Galleries Lafayette being the
“grande dame of Paris retailing”. Indeed, the Haussmann department store is the
second top tourist attraction, after the Eiffel Tower. It has become one of the
must-see “greats” in the world. Moreover, Galleries Lafayette has long enjoyed
strong links with the worlds of fashion and contemporary design. The Haussmann
department store regularly hosts prestigious events, showcasing key designers
of the moment as well as introducing its customers to artists whose work has
endured the test of time.
E-commerce
The Galleries Lafayette is also investing
heavily in a cross-channel approach for the benefit and the loyalty of its
customers, involving in particular the constant development of its web shop.
The website
offers more than 80,000 references and there are 27,5 million of visitor in
2012.
The aim of this website is to improve and enrich
the purchase experience of the customers. In 2013, the Galleries Lafayette has
launched the “Click and Collect” in thirty stores. Now, the customers can order
the product he wants on the website or on the mobile app and it delivers in the
store for free.
Comparisons between Stockmann and the Galleries Lafayette
Stockmann and the Galleries Lafayette are on the same market of the
luxury product concerning fashion, food and decoration and home improvement.
The main differences between
Stockmann and the Galleries Lafayette are the concept itself. The Galleries
Lafayette tries to sell and export in other country an upmarket fashion
department but also, an image of the France. Indeed, the Galleries Lafayette is
the symbol of French lifestyle and luxury since its launching. On the contrary,
Stockmann does not have this branding strategy and sells more a company than a
real “country”. Moreover, the Galleries Lafayette has an international
notoriety while the notoriety of Stockmann has more a local notoriety.
The both department stores developed
themselves in many foreign countries and export their products internationally.
However, Stockmann is more based in the Northern and Eastern Europe but also in
Russia, in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emirates. Concerning the
Galleries Lafayette, it exports its concept in Berlin, Casablanca, Dubai,
Beijing, Jakarta and plans to continue its expansion in Qatar and Turkey in
2015. So, the Galleries Lafayette’s strategy consists in being everywhere in
the world and in places where it is interesting to export the French brand image.
Nevertheless, the two department
stores get the same shopfitting. Indeed, the products are brought together by
family but also by brand. The customers have the feeling to be in different
stores at the same time because they can found a lot of product under the same
roof. Moreover, Stockmann and the Galleries Lafayette are on the upmarket
market and offer the same kind of products around fashion, food and home
decoration.
Finally, the two department stores
chose to extend their cross-channel by using the e-commerce with the creation
of their own website. On these, customers can find many references: 200,000
products in the Stockmann Group’s website and 80,000 references for the
Galleries Lafayette’s website. The articles present on the website are according
to the expectation of the customers.
For the two department stores, the
website is an important part of the revenue. Indeed, the Galleries Lafayette’s
website represents 10% of its revenue and the online purchase in Stockmann
website represents 9% of the group’s revenue.
Sources:
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