Written by / Shao Lanjie
Edited by / Ji Guohua
<h5 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the most familiar stranger</h5>
This may be Lao Li's busiest Spring Festival, every morning at three or four o'clock, he has to drive the painted Wuling Hongguang van to the Xinfadi wholesale market to get goods. In addition to entering vegetables and fruits, you also need to carry some 84 disinfectant, alcohol, and hand sanitizer, which are all hot commodities at the moment.
Lao Li's grocery store, on the edge of Beijing's West Third Ring Road, the surrounding community is basically built in the 90s of the last century, in this 25㎡ small shop, come and go are acquaintances and repeat customers, but this year's Spring Festival came a lot of "new people".
As in previous years, Old Li did not close until Chinese New Year's Eve to go home for the New Year, and returned in the afternoon of the third day of the first year to prepare to open a shop. Although the epidemic information constantly popping up on the mobile phone screen made him feel a little nervous, the nature of businessmen to do business still prevailed, "It is not that I am not afraid, but I think that there are still some goods left years ago, and I have to hurry out." Everyone has to eat dumplings and sell leeks and fennel. ”
After opening the door on the fourth day of the first year, Lao Li suddenly found that "this year is better than in previous years." He roughly calculated that although the flow of people is small now, he also has to sell thousands of yuan a day, which is not only better than in previous years, but also better than when it was normally open.
"It's not a good calculation yet, the turnover is at least 20%more." The result of Lao Li's own thinking was, "Since the restaurant has not been opened, our business here is better, and we all cook at home, and that's it." ”
But now cooking at home, the first step is difficult for many people, where the dish comes from. The generation that has been transformed by the mobile Internet has long been accustomed to takeaway delivery to the door, and is accustomed to vegetables and fruits opening the door.
As the fight against the pandemic progresses, everything returns to its original state.
Citizen Qi Cheng lives on the upper floor of the house across the road from Lao Li, and he can't remember when he last went to the supermarket to buy vegetables. In order to avoid sitting on the mountain and eating the air, Qi Cheng decided to take the initiative to attack.
This is a mature community, the left 700 meters of the south gate of the community is an old community supermarket, because it is located on the basement level, considering the air flow problem in the special period, it was crossed out; the right side of the south gate 1500 meters is Yonghui supermarket, went once, Qi Cheng saw the largest number of people in the past week, for safety reasons, also no longer go; across the road from the south gate is a vegetable market, has not yet been officially opened.
Qi Cheng quickly noticed that Lao Li's store, from the sixth day of the first year to now, Qi Cheng bought eggs, vegetables and fruits three times a day in Lao Li every morning, from preparing to go downstairs to buying upstairs, 10 minutes can be completed, the store is narrow, up to two or three people, but everyone is very tacitly queuing up to go in.
In contrast, the community supermarket "Fresh Food Life" in Beijing's Changying National Homeland is a little larger, with a business area of nearly 200 square meters. Because of the normal operation during the New Year, the owner Sun Qingqing witnessed the drastic changes in the consumption of surrounding residents before and after the epidemic, "During that period of time a few years ago, the sales of instant noodles have gone down, and the New Year is significantly higher, the goods that were originally more than half a month old, two or three days of goods are almost sold out, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, and baking powder are sold out very fast." ”
Sun Qingqing recalled that before the Chinese New Year's Eve, there was no particularly obvious change in sales. Since the second year of junior high school, there have been news one after another, the number of confirmed cases has increased, requiring everyone to wear masks, when the tide of departure from Beijing is basically over, and the demand for dishes for the rest of the people has suddenly risen.
"We also try to do some guarantees as much as possible, basically affordable in and out, reduce panic, and do some help as much as we can." Sun Qingqing said that this Spring Festival, fresh and delicious life sells thousands of kilograms of vegetables and fruits every day, and the single purchase amount of each resident who comes to the store has also risen to two or three times before.
<h5 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the silent majority</h5>
Old Lee's grocery store is obviously not the only supply point for residents. Around the neighborhood, there are two wet markets, four supermarkets, and a number of small grocery shops, which are regarded by the relevant government departments as "convenient living outlets".
According to the "Electronic Map of Beijing Life Service Outlets" released by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce in 2019, there are about 274,000 life service outlets in the city, including vegetable retail, convenience stores, breakfast shops, washing and dyeing, beauty salons, housekeeping services, convenient maintenance, express delivery, etc. Among the more than 270,000 stores, the chain brand stores are only a very small number, and the vast majority are small husband and wife shops throughout the streets and alleys.
In February of that year, the State Council approved the first report on the development of the individual economy: "According to the needs of the market, after obtaining the consent of the relevant business authorities, some idle laborers with formal household registrations are approved to engage in repair, service and handicraft individual labor." ”
By the end of 1979, there were about 100,000 individual industrial and commercial households approved to open nationwide. With the continuous increase of incentive policies, the number of self-employed households in the country quickly exceeded 1 million in 1982. In the same year, "the state protects the legitimate rights and interests of the individual economy" is written into the Constitution.
This group of self-employed households that began at the end of the 70s and the end of the 1980s, most of them were small businesses in the streets and alleys, tailor shops, small restaurants, sharpening scissors and repairing umbrellas, selling snacks, etc., it is difficult to be considered glamorous, but the operation is flexible and the vitality is extremely strong, which gave birth to the birth of the "ten thousand yuan household" at that time, and this group of people has had a huge impact on the changes in China's social and economic life and social structure, and further promoted the in-depth development of reform and opening up.
Photo/Visual China
The husband-and-wife grocery store, which can be said to be the enlightenment place for many people to contact the concept of retail, was once the most frequented shopping place for people. With the entry of hypermarkets into China in 1995, grocery stores began to enter the cold palace step by step. With a rich and diverse range of products, good product freshness and good quality, open shelves can be purchased at one time, and the price is still low, it stands out at once, opening the eyes of the people. At that time, as long as the hypermarket was opened, there was no grass around it, and the mom-and-pop shop was almost destroyed.
Entering the Internet era, various new shopping forms such as convenience stores, fresh supermarkets, B2C, O2O one-hour home, and community group buying have emerged, and the sense of existence of husband and wife grocery stores has become weaker and weaker. But the total amount is still not to be underestimated.
Nationwide, according to the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, the number of branded convenience store stores in China was close to 100,000 in 2017, while Kantar Consulting mentioned in a report that there were 6.8 million grocery stores in the Chinese market in 2016.
Some insiders have calculated that according to the division of first, second, third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities, the more they go to lower-tier cities, the greater the number of small shops distributed, and the first-tier cities in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have accommodated 530,000 small shops, accounting for 7% of the total; to county-level cities and counties, there are 1.51 million small shops, accounting for 21% of the total, and there are a total of 2.16 million small shops in the township and rural markets, accounting for 30% of the total data.
From the perspective of the FMCG channel, these mom-and-pop shops distributed in all corners of large and small cities are also known as traditional channels. Even if the development of domestic e-commerce is improving day by day, the relatively primitive traditional channel still occupies half of the C-end. According to Kantar's survey data, in 2016, the proportion of mainstream FMCG brands in the sales of mom-and-pop stores in traditional channels is still as high as nearly 50%.
This little-known aspect of mom-and-pop shops has also been identified as a business opportunity in recent years. The FMCG B2B industry gradually emerged in 2013, and some Internet platforms focusing on the FMCG field began to focus on traditional channels, wanting to use Internet thinking to reshape channels, reduce distribution levels, and upgrade small stores. Simply put, the FMCG B2B platform is intended to have mom-and-pop shops order from their own platforms and guide their operations from the accumulated data.
This trend reached its climax with 2016. With the influx of capital, as of November 2016, there were more than 70 FMCG B2B platforms in the market, which received a total investment of more than 5 billion yuan in 2016.
Of course, this is indispensable to the layout of e-commerce giants. In July 2014, Alibaba's retail platform was officially launched; at the end of 2015, JD.com set up a new channel business unit; in April 2017, Liu Qiangdong announced through his personal headline number that he would open more than 1 million Jingdong convenience stores across the country in the next five years. Subsequently, Wangfujing, RT-Mart and other enterprises that originally had supply chain resources began to join the competition for couples small shops, and the originally unknown small shops instantly became hot resources.
At the same time, this has also spawned another way of thinking, B2B purchase price comparison. "If the price difference between a tank of water is only 1 yuan, you may think it doesn't matter, but when a small shop enters hundreds of tanks of water a month, the difference is enough to highlight the value." A small shop that makes a few hundred dollars more a month is still very important to them. In 2016, Zhang Ze, the founder of Qunar's hotel business, founded the cargo circle quan, defining it as a "purchase price comparison tool", and in 2019, the goods circle will change the name of the app from the price to the three prices, which is more clear at a glance, and more than 300,000 husband and wife shops have been connected to the current price comparison platform.
<h5 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > when the epidemic is over</h5>
The main products sold by the husband and wife shop are snacks, beverages, alcohol, and daily necessities, and the brand competition corresponding to these categories is the most intense, which also leads to the fact that there is not much difference in the selection of small shops around the world, but consumers do not have too high expectations.
The key factor that maintains the long-term operation of the husband and wife shop is not the low price or the large number of new products, but the trust relationship formed by the long-term coexistence of the last mile. Chinese people are accustomed to living in groups, in the county towns, in the middle of the rows of houses, small shops not only provide oil, salt, sauce and vinegar tea, but also a short public space for surrounding residents to communicate with parents, they are earlier than the most advanced AR face recognition technology to achieve "brush face" shopping.
With the advancement of urbanization, the planning of supporting commercial facilities under the concept of "community" has quietly excluded small shops for husband and wife, and chain supermarkets and chain convenience stores have become standard, and the level of the introduction of brands and community grades is directly linked. Especially in first- and second-tier cities, chain stores with a surge in the number of stores have directly squeezed the living space of couple stores.
Taking Beijing as an example, since 2015, the growth rate of the number of chain convenience store stores has exceeded 20%, and the number of stores opened by various brands has continuously refreshed the historical peak, and two or three hundred new stores appear every year. This has led to fewer and fewer suitable store locations, and at the same time, rents have been raised to extremely high levels.
In the evolution of the format, chain stores are a more advanced and modern way, and city managers are more inclined to uniform signboards and standardized processes under signboards, at the expense of heavy support, and husband and wife stores once became the object of regulation.
In fact, the mom-and-pop shop has been evolving on its own, but it has never taken shape. From the front-end purchase point of view, the B2B platform has been appearing for five or six years, and the store owner is convenient to order, but the real degree of informatization may only be in the moment of clicking the purchase button. In the most primitive industry, the idea of the Internet transforming everything obviously did not work.
Zhang Qianglin's small shop opened in Shijingshan an old residential area, he will inquire on the B2B platform every day, and will also go to the wholesale market to buy goods, "like bread and pastries, instant noodles, biscuits and other goods, we still go to the wholesale market to pull goods, because their shelf life is relatively short, online booking may not necessarily send you the freshest date, if you can't sell it, it will be wasted." ”
However, beverage mineral water will consider ordering online, "around the summer, drinks sell more, sell faster, and online drinks are often discounted, more cost-effective." "If there is no discount, Zhang Qianglin may hesitate, because in the FMCG industry, especially in the summer beverage mineral water, in the face of retail terminals, there will often be hidden subsidies, such as making a brand pile in a conspicuous position in the store, which is a common trick to attract consumer attention."
Mom-and-pop shops once had many service functions, and at first, almost every store had the words "mobile phone recharge" at the door, and later it was replaced by "sending and receiving couriers". Today, a single smartphone can already solve all the local life services. Small shops have returned to the original commodity trading, and chain supermarkets can not compare with the goods are large and complete, convenience stores of fast food rice balls can not be done, husband and wife small shops pay attention to the lowest threshold and the most primitive needs of community residents: fresh.
In Zhang Qianglin's shop, at the entrance, it was originally a five-story shelf dedicated to the express delivery of the surrounding community. Vegetables, fruits and eggs are now on display. Before Old Li panned his small shop, here was a hardware store, "selling badly, now who often buys a screw, nails." ”
"Now the demand for fresh fruits and vegetables is relatively large, everyone is used to a convenient day, you can sell when you go out, and it is rare to buy vegetables for two or three kilometers." Sun Qingqing believes that fresh food is in obvious demand in the community and the priority is relatively high.
But selling vegetables is a hard job. Every summer, Lao Li will go to Xinfadi at one o'clock in the morning to buy vegetables, toss for two or three hours, return to the store to shelves, write price tags, and the first batch of customers will arrive at the store at five o'clock. Every year, every day, thunder does not move, from the earliest stall to sell vegetables to now rent a small door face, old Li has not slept well for more than ten years, "go late no good dishes, and come back late, do not rush, in the morning should buy vegetables have been bought." “
Under normal circumstances, Old Li's day is busy until twelve o'clock in the evening, and basically no one comes to close the stall. In April 2017, more than 60% of the grocery stores started at 6 p.m. and 61.4% of the business was conducted at night.
Sun Qingqing's shop is open for up to seventeen or eight hours a day, "six in the morning and twelve in the evening, because the location of our store, close to the subway entrance, there are many people renting, many people come back late at night, most of the customers are after work to 12 o'clock before this time period." ”
Long business hours, such as with delivery orders, there will be a good sales increase. But Sun Qingqing refused the invitation to settle in after careful consideration, "The amount of single entry platform will increase, but the platform deduction point is too high, we add more than a dozen points and there is no profit, if the online and offline prices are inconsistent, there will be customer complaints, and now the platform management is very strict." In her store, the surrounding consumers make a phone call, usually the store staff delivers the goods themselves.
Old Li and his son are responsible for store delivery, and 100 yuan can be delivered to home. On weekdays, there are three or five orders a day, but this year's Spring Festival, when the delivery is the highest, there are one or two thousand pieces a day. "Now less than 100 yuan is also sent, the least one is five yuan also sent, a regular customer, the old man can not walk the road, they WeChat or phone to say, I sent to the community doorman."
As the epidemic stabilizes and life gradually returns to normal, Lao Li expects sales to fall back to the usual peak. He has a clear understanding of his store, "Compared with the big supermarket, this store is a supplement." Although a family of three pounced on this small shop, Lao Li "does not have any big ideals, selling some food can maintain his life." ”
This may also be one of the factors restricting the expansion of the scale of mom-and-pop shops, small wealth is safe, well-off can be.
(Sun Qingqing and Zhang Qianglin are pseudonyms)