Research On Development Strategy Of Traditional Integrated Retail Enterprises In New Normal

In early 21st century, as the rapid development of real estate indusry, retailing enterprises grew significantly by taking the advantage of the constructions of business and shopping centers brought in and expanded their market all over the country. For example, Wanda Plaza, Dashang Group and Plaza 66 targeted their market in almost every single city of China. In contrast, those local retail enterprises, such as Parkson Group and Yantai ZH Group had been striving to protect their market shares in terms of creating new demands and competing in both service and price with new entries. In addition, smaller firms in country level cities survived temporarily. Due to the economy slowing down in recent years, retail industry was affected and encountered a new situation, in which unpredictable opportunities and risks awaited. Meanwhile, the problems of the previous over speed expanding restricted retailing enterprises’ growth in terms of impact from internet business, unstable equilibrium of demand and supply, bottleneck of employees’talent, monopoly in supply chain and cost increasing. Fortunately, trend of urbanization, integration of urban and rural development, population structure adjustment and peaceful and stable business environment provided time and opportunities for retailing enterprises to adjust their business. Therefore, since both internal and external elements of retailing industry have been changed, an appropriate strategy decision of marketing is required to maintain sustainable development in long term.The research object of the paper is Yantai ZH Group-a Yantai local retailing enterprise integrated from supermarket to appliance store. ZH Group has achieved great success with operating 23 shopping plazas,48 supermarkets and 21 appliance stores in seven cities of Shandong province. However, issues of retailing industry also chanllage against ZH from reaching a new level, such as competition from other retailers, impact from potential competitors and substitute products, and increasing bargaining power of both suppliers and customers. Moreover, internal problems of the organization makes the situation worse including inappropriate management, unblanced cash flow, failure of culture integration, lack of brand building.After document research and personal investigating, this paper analyses ZH Group’s marketing strategy through the clue of "a comprehensive analysis-strategy making-risk control". PEST analysis method is adopted to analyze macro economy situation, retailing industry characteristics and resources and capabilities of ZH Group. Then, SWOT model is used to find out the current opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses that ZH Group is facing. Based on the results, the paper recommends a market strategy for ZH Group:integrating supply chain to a break point where creating its own brand is feasible in order to increase self-promotion proportion; adopt diversification strategy through the layout of the community, service format introduction and e-commerce; through mergers and acquisitions of county township enterprises and rural convenience stores to form strategic alliances. To implement the market strategy, ZH Group is suggested to improve in organizational structure, personnel management, information technology, cultural integration and brand management and other aspects. At last the strategy is control by examining the potential strategic environment, sell performance and adjustment measures.