Qian Dama's Third Ring New City has been renamed Snail Fresh The word Qian still remains on the front of the door
Text | Li Chunlian Liu Zhao Wang Jun
Recently, the news that the community fresh brand Qian Dama has closed its doors in Beijing has made headlines. On January 19, a reporter from Securities Daily visited Aunt Qian's shop to understand the current situation of Aunt Qian in the Beijing area.
Water and soil are not satisfied with "losing" the Beijing market
By visiting many stores such as Qian Dama's Third Ring New Town and Guang'an Kangxin Home, the reporter saw that some of the shops had changed their doors, and some people were going to the store to rent. Although the door has been replaced, the price tag and the basket in the store are all a reminder to consumers that this was once the money aunt.
Aunt Qian's Guang'an Kangxin Homestead Store has been empty
Aunt Qian is a community fresh food chain enterprise developed from South China, which entered the Beijing market for the first time in December 2020. However, the reason behind the "return of the feather" in only one year is thought-provoking.
On January 19, the official public account of Aunt Qian Fresh issued a statement saying that the adjustment in the process of the company's development is a normal business behavior. The company underestimated the difficulty of the Beijing market, and even more underestimated the operating pressure brought to us by the high rent of housing in the Beijing market. The single-day passenger flow of the store did not reach the expected level, and more investment was needed if the Beijing market continued to develop. After a comprehensive evaluation of the company, we plan to devote more resources to a relatively stable and mature market. At the same time, we will also increase the research and development and investment of prepared dishes in these mature markets.
The person in charge of the relevant business of Aunt Qian told the Securities Daily reporter that at present, Aunt Qian has more than 3,500 stores in more than 30 cities across the country, serving more than 10 million families and more than 17 million high-quality members.
The reporter found that there are many fresh shops of the same type distributed around the original Qian Dama store, and some of them have been operating for up to ten years. The chain community fresh e-commerce failed to impress the hearts of the old residents.
During the visit, the reporter randomly interviewed several residents who lived near the original Qian Dama store. Their answers also validated the reporter's observations. Some residents told reporters that they expressed regret that Aunt Qian had withdrawn from Beijing, but also said that the price of Aunt Qian's goods was not competitive with the surrounding stores, and they were more willing to go shopping in familiar stores.
In addition, Aunt Qian's model of "not selling overnight meat" is more suitable for coastal areas such as Guangzhou, and the consumption concept and lifestyle of various places are different, and the market expansion of Aunt Qian has not been adapted to local conditions. Some residents told reporters that they do not care much about whether the meat is overnight, after all, the northern winter is very cold, the goods are resistant to storage, and the storage conditions in the summer are convenient and will not easily deteriorate.
The reporter learned on apps such as Meituan and Dianping that some young consumers have complained about the operation model of Aunt Qian. Some office workers said, "Aunt Qian has a limited amount of stock, resulting in not many categories when entering the store at night, and sometimes you have to queue up with Uncle aunt to grab discounted dishes, and the experience is general." ”
The reporter also learned from the clerk who had worked in Aunt Qian before that due to the small number of stores in the Beijing area, there have always been problems in the supply of goods, and the scale has not gone, which directly affects the cost. Beijing's shop rents and labor costs are high, which aunt Qian did not expect to enter the Beijing market.
Regarding how to deal with the unspent amount of the consumer card recharge, the reporter called Aunt Qian on this matter, and Aunt Qian said that consumers who have recharged their membership cards can communicate about refunds through the company's official customer service.
This winter of fresh e-commerce is too difficult
This winter is a bit difficult for fresh e-commerce.
According to incomplete statistics from Tianyancha data, there are currently nearly 2600 fresh e-commerce brands in the mainland engaged in related businesses such as "fresh e-commerce, community fresh food, and community group buying". In addition, iResearch data shows that the scale of the mainland fresh e-commerce market is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan in 2023, and the penetration rate will be close to 20%. However, in this vast blue ocean, there have been repeated news of layoffs from enterprises.
Recently, there are rumors that "Dingdong buys vegetables has opened a large layoff", "the core department has cut up to 50%", "procurement is 50%, algorithm is 30%, operation is 30%, recruitment is 10%-20%", "forced to give employees of the front warehouse service station a break" and so on.
The "Securities Daily" reporter verified the above news with Dingdong to buy vegetables, and the relevant person in charge said that the news was untrue and a malicious speculation without factual basis and rigorous data sources. The Company reserves the right to pursue all false rumors. "Individual job changes are the company's normal organizational resource adjustment, and the recruitment needs of some positions are also being released normally, and the business is currently operating normally." At the same time, there is no situation where employees are forced to take unpaid leave in front-line positions, and they will be reasonably adjusted according to the work situation of the site, especially the willingness and work intensity of employees. ”
Dingdong's life of buying vegetables is also not good, and it is still losing money. So far in 2018, the company has lost a total of 11.726 billion yuan, and the loss margin is still expanding. In the third quarter of 2021, the net loss of Dingdong Grocery Was 2.01 billion yuan, an increase of 142% compared with the same period in 2020. At the same time, although the company's revenue is growing significantly, the growth rate of 111% still outperforms the growth of losses.
Coincidentally, the industry's leading enterprise Meicai has also been accused of large-scale layoffs. A user on a social platform who is suspected of being a former employee of Meicai said that Meicai is making large-scale layoffs. The last time the layoffs reached 50%, this time Meicai Beijing headquarters laid off 40% of the staff.
"Securities Daily" verified with Meicai on the above matters, and has not received a reply as of press time.
In addition, there are also departing Meicai employees who revealed that some of the company's basic business personnel are basically "talking on the same day and leaving on the same day".
According to public information, in just four years, Meicai has completed 8 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of nearly 10 billion, and the investors include well-known investment institutions such as Shunwei Capital, Zhen Fund, hillhouse Capital and so on. Its most recent funding round occurred in October 2018, when Meicai.com received a $600 million investment from Tiger Global & Hillhouse Capital, valuing it at more than $7 billion. Since then, however, there have been no new public financing matters in the United States.
As early as September 2021, meicai's Beijing headquarters was reported to be laying off 50% of its employees. Meicai plans to file a Hong Kong listing application in the first half of 2022, and the company has hired relevant agencies to take charge of the listing, planning to raise $300 million to US$500 million.
If the news of the layoffs of The American cuisine is solid, it will undoubtedly be worse for the next development of the American cuisine.