Huang Guangyu is difficult to save the defeat of China and the United States: live broadcast brings goods into a dilemma, and the left-behind employees feel fish to get by

Focus:

• According to the 12022 half-year report, Gome Retail closed 562 stores and opened 192 new stores in the first half of last year, a net decrease of 370, and newly withdrew from 60 cities and towns.
• 2 Gome's financial situation also does not allow Huang Guangyu to continue to spend money like crazy, and he has said in public that Gome will no longer bear too much pressure on marketing expenses.
• 3Under the core tone of survival, Gome had to seek refuge from traffic platforms. The shift of the live broadcast position sounded the clarion call for Gome's transformation, but this is more like a footnote to Gome's decline.

Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Xu Xiaoqian

Source: Figureworm Creative

Coming out of the Changshou Road subway entrance in Shanghai's Putuo District, you can see a no longer bright orange signboard with the words "Yongle Electric Appliances" printed on it, a home appliance mall with a sense of age that has been in business for more than 20 years. As a private enterprise growing from Shanghai, for a long time, Yongle Electric Appliances occupied a prime location, opened its doors to welcome the endless crowd, and then changed owners after several twists and turns.

When night falls, the bustle of people flocks to the nearby Internet celebrity restaurants and food stalls, and few people stop in front of this old shop. The escalator leading to the major appliances on the second floor has been shut down, the refrigerator display area is labeled "Sample discount processing", and only one salesperson is left in the store.

"Business has been stagnant, and employees have left work from 9 p.m. to 6 p.m." The above-mentioned salesperson revealed that the store will be renovated at the end of the month, and he vaguely feels that this is a signal to withdraw the store.

The acquisition of Yongle was a beautiful battle in the career of Gome founder Huang Guangyu. In 2006, he personally dismantled the alliance of two other major appliance giants, Zhang Dazhong and Chen Xiao, and two years later, Gome's market share in first-tier cities exceeded 50%, becoming a well-deserved big brother in home appliance retail.

Time has passed, and the "middle-aged Gome" that is approaching its 35th anniversary has not lived very decently: store closures and evacuations have run through Gome's entire 2022. According to the 2022 half-year report, Gome Retail closed 562 stores and opened 192 new stores in the first half of last year, a net decrease of 370, and newly withdrew from 60 cities and towns.

A closed Gome electrical store. Source: Times Finance

The shrinking performance is only lightning when the storm hits, and the clouds of unpaid wages, arrears, and arrears of goods rub out a thunderous sound, and it is difficult for Gome, which is mired in a debt crisis, to turn the ship's bow. On January 31, Huang Xiuhong, chairman of Gome Appliances, said at an internal strategy implementation strategy seminar, "In this era of ubiquitous e-commerce and mobile Internet, the entity is no longer working, and Gome has lost its momentum."

Times Finance learned during the interview that the embattled Gome regards live streaming as the last straw and is preparing a live broadcast team, and the new team is no longer limited to the Gome APP, but will put the big stage on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.

Under the core tone of surviving, Gome had to seek refuge from traffic platforms. The shift of the live broadcast position sounded the clarion call for Gome's transformation, but this is more like a footnote to Gome's decline.

The store does not deliver goods, and uses debt-to-equity swaps to stabilize suppliers

One day in mid-March, Liu Hui rushed to the Guomei Cuizhu store in Shenzhen, where some electrical appliances on the counter were emptied, and the sound of her negotiation with the sales staff echoed in the deserted store. Just half an hour ago, she received a grapevine that a batch of electrical products can be picked up in the warehouse by herself, and the Haier washing machine she bought is also on the list, provided that she must pay a delivery fee of 500 yuan.

In May last year, Liu Hui bought refrigerators, dishwashers, dryers, washing machines and other major appliances worth 20,000 yuan in Gome offline stores. "At that time, there were more than 20 salespeople in the store, and two salespeople were standard at each counter to introduce products around customers, and the whole mall was not unusual at all." Liu Hui had a hard time connecting this scene with the rumors of bankruptcy afterwards.

First the store closed, the sales staff left one after another, and then the agreed delivery date was postponed again and again, the sales staff practiced a set of formatted coping strategies, and Liu Hui was always faced with an emotionless answer: "Wait."

In Liu Hui's rights protection group, nearly 100 consumers are tracking the latest developments of Gome, they are inquiring about which city is the first to deliver, which brand has ended the deadlock with Gome, and which warehouse can go to pull goods on its own...

Yu Qian, the store manager who is still struggling with Gome, confirmed this situation to Times Finance. "Individual brands are recovering little by little, and Fangtai and Boss Electric reported a few years ago that they had almost negotiated with Gome, and the debt-to-equity swap scheme was used to stabilize some suppliers."

The interior of the Gome electrical appliance store is deserted. Source: Times Finance

As a retail company that relies heavily on offline formats, store salespeople are often keenly aware of the company's ebb and flow.

In July 2021, Xiao Xiao became a shopping guide at Gome's Shanghai Minhang store, her career coincided with the rapid decline of Gome, the rapid decline of store customer flow, frequent bottoming out of performance, and wages could not be paid from time to time, store employees became the first line of defense to face the impact, and they had to be wrapped up by huge business goals.

Xiao Xiao's store is not large, and the regional manager gave a death order, and 6 people must support at least 500,000 yuan in sales every month. "I have been setting unrealistic goals, and during the epidemic, offline customer flow was already small, and we could barely maintain sales of 300,000 yuan per month." Xiao Xiao told Times Finance that she receives up to 20 users a day, and the probability of being willing to buy major appliances on the spot is less than 5%.

The operating pressure of the store is also manifested in the expression of the store manager, Xiao Xiao often hears the other party sighing, and hangs "can't stay up" every day. Gome's prevailing quacks and lakes infiltrate the company's management methods, and once an employee's performance does not meet expectations, the leader can point to the nose and scold for an hour.

Xiao Xiao's embarrassing situation is only a microcosm of Gome's revenue decline. According to the 2022 interim financial report released by Gome, the revenue in the first half of the year was 12.109 billion yuan, down 53.46% year-on-year; The loss was 2.966 billion yuan.

I went to Huang Guangyu, but I didn't expect to enter the "pit"

Back two years ago, most Gome people were waiting for a new starting point with conviction: in February 2021, Huang Guangyu officially returned to Gome and shouted the bold statement of "18 months to restore Gome's original market position" at the group executive meeting.

With the return of strongman Huang Guangyu, Gome carried out a drastic reform internally, and Gome Online changed its name to "True Happiness", playing a new concept of entertainment retail, expanding from the home appliance sector to all categories. In addition, Gome acquired Dressup Home, focusing on the home improvement field.

Li Wei, a dress-up programmer, was expectantly counting on Huang Guangyu to lead Gome to a comeback, so he rejected the "olive branches" thrown by many large factories. Looking back, a large part of Li Wei's impulse came from Huang Guangyu's personal charm and enthusiasm for the dressing home business, and Cui Jian, the founder of the dress-up house, has also emphasized many times that the reason why he joined Gome is because of his expectations for Huang Guangyu.

Huang Guangyu was active in the heyday of the commercial battlefield, and with Gome's outstanding performance, he entered the Hurun Report list three times in 2004, 2005 and 2008. Even in the more than ten years that Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, Gome still circulates his brilliant achievements in guiding the rivers and mountains.

In April 2021, Huang Guangyu's first public appearance after his return chose to be at the launch of the dressing home. The whole conference was full of mystery, the whole network was speculating whether Huang Guangyu would appear, and Huang Guangyu, who finally appeared, revealed the biggest mystery of the day, determined to work the performance of the dresser to 500 billion yuan in 3 years.

In the stage of rapid business development, Li Wei often heard the head of the department emphasize that dressing up is a project that Huang Guangyu attaches great importance to, and will undertake the second growth curve of Gome.

However, all of Li Wei's fantasies ended at a staff meeting in December, which did not impress him in three or four hours, and the expected Huang Guangyu was not good at producing witty words that drove the atmosphere and drum up energy, and lacked unique insights into the current retail industry.

After that, Li Wei experienced chaos for half a year, his salary was never paid normally, and he saw an indecisive and disorderly organization, and the work tasks of the technical team were constantly adjusted and overturned many times. At the end of 2021, the company moved from Shijingshan to the Gome headquarters building due to financial constraints, and the layoffs also kicked off.

According to Li Wei, at the beginning of last year, the dresser completely adjusted its direction, from the C-end market to the B-end market, which directly forced away some employees, and the team was directly reduced from more than 600 people at its peak to 100 people. In July, Dressup House founder Cui Jian and CEO Gao Fei left Gome. "It is equivalent to the more than 100,000 C-end users accumulated before, and they have to deal with real estate companies again."

At the same time, True Happiness also fell into the dilemma of traffic, and the 2021 data disclosed by Gome showed that True Happiness App had 440 million annual visits and 16.83 million annual active buyers, far from the top e-commerce platforms. Gome's finances also do not allow Huang Guangyu to continue to spend money like crazy, and he has said in public that Gome will no longer be under too much pressure on marketing expenses.

Huang Guangyu's "meticulous calculation" in marketing promotion has led to the decentralization of new and daily pressure to grassroots employees. Mu Hibiscus, a former employee of the marketing department, saw through the way Gome marketing promotion was left behind, and summed it up in one sentence to mobilize the entire circle of acquaintances, "Any new business is nothing more than sending a circle of friends, inviting seven aunts and eight aunts to come and sit down, creating false traffic, and simply cannot reach real consumers." ”

Mu Hibiscus gave examples to Times Finance several absurd ways to pull new ideas, such as making at least 30 phone calls a day during the event, sending mass advertisements to 50 WeChat friends, and the lack of trust in employees by top management, and taking screenshots of all behaviors.

A number of Gome employees interviewed by Times Finance pointed Gome's fall at Huang Guangyu's overly aggressive strategy. "In the past two years, Gome has been shrouded in Huang Guangyu's personal style, increasingly deviating from the normal line, and if the management does not change, it will be difficult for Gome to get out of the dark day." Mu Hibiscus sighed to Times Finance.

Live broadcast brings goods into a dilemma, all relying on employees to support the scene

Li Guoqing, Zhang Lan, Yu Minhong, etc. all ushered in the second spring of their careers in the live broadcast room, especially New Oriental under the leadership of Yu Minhong relied on the Oriental selection team to turn over the battle, and Gome, which fell to the bottom, naturally also eyed this cake.

On November 24 last year, Gome Electric announced that it would focus on live streaming goods, build a national store live broadcast network, and implement a private domain distribution system "national pusher", encouraging Gome employees and all kinds of people in society to use their own private domain channels to share platform goods and earn commissions.

However, unlike other entrepreneurs who rely on Douyin short videos, Gome put the first important live broadcast on its own position. On December 30 last year, Huang Xiuhong, who appeared in front of the live camera for the first time, looked a little nervous, she supported the 3-hour live broadcast with a not very fluent Mandarin, and the founder Huang Guangyu never appeared. This public appearance also attracted a group of "debt collectors", who once again put the negative public opinion of Gome "no refund, no delivery" and "arrears of wages" on the table.

Gome's official data shows that the live broadcast attracted a total of 126,000 onlookers that night, and the transaction volume increased by 47% compared with the highest live broadcast data in the same period, setting a new high in 2022, but did not disclose key data such as transaction volume and explosive sales.

The executive effect brought by Huang Xiuhong is disappearing, in the past month, Gome's official account has broadcast a total of 8 live broadcasts, the highest field view is only 24,000, which is far from the tens of millions of field views of the head anchor, the live broadcast has been staying in the APP, and Huang Xiuhong has only appeared once.

"Executives are always shouting loud slogans, but they are not heard when they are implemented." Vivie, an employee, expressed her concern about live streaming to Times Finance, although live streaming is the most viable business at present, but under the premise of lack of professionalism and word of mouth, it is difficult to make splashes.

"Live streaming is more like an internal team building, with employees and family and friends accounting for more than 70% of the live broadcast room traffic, making it difficult to attract young consumer groups to enter the venue, and people are reluctant to place orders in a live broadcast room where delivery is not guaranteed." Wei Wei said to Times Finance.

Times Finance opened the Gome APP in prime time and found that only 2-3 stores are live broadcasting, the live broadcast venue is generally selected in the mall, most of the on-camera personnel are local counter shopping guides, they do not have the basic literacy of the anchor with goods, the back of the chaotic back video around the store is heard from time to time outside the camera, and the number of online viewers in the live broadcast room remains at a fixed number. When Times Finance asked about product delivery and logistics in the interactive area, he did not get a response from the anchor.

"The inconsistency and non-standardization of the live broadcast business promoted by the store can already see the chaos of Gome's internal management." A consumer who tried to place an order in the live broadcast room complained to Times Finance.

Wu Run, the head of a regional market, has not yet left the battlefield of Gome, and he puts his greatest hope on live broadcast goods. A live broadcast sales of 500,000 once ignited Wu Run's fighting spirit, but in more time periods, the sales data of the live broadcast room is difficult to arouse the waves in the hearts of team members.

According to Wu Run, when Huang Xiuhong was vigorously promoting live streaming goods, the company issued corresponding live broadcast management rules internally, including that live broadcast promoters can get 1% commission; Provide corresponding venues and equipment; The monthly performance appraisal of employees is also tied to the live broadcast, and the corresponding bonus incentives are given to employees according to the score of each live broadcast, of which the actual payment amount accounts for up to 40%, and the remaining scoring points are composed of factors such as the number of viewers, the length of viewing, and the order rate.

"In a difficult situation for the company, the strength of the performance bonus is quite attractive." Wu Run said.

On the other hand, Gome is also intensively setting up a professional live broadcast team, hanging a number of positions related to live streaming on a recruitment website, and coordinates Beijing, including anchors, live streaming streamers, live streaming operation experts, and e-commerce live broadcast planning, with a monthly income of 15,000-30,000 yuan.

Times Finance learned from internal executives that Gome decided to jump out of the limitations of private domain apps and look for traffic breakthroughs on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. "Starting in April, Gome will establish a live broadcast matrix on Douyin and Kuaishou, and the rest of the store live broadcasts will also switch to the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms."

According to the current plan, Gome will create a "Gome Selection" IP, focusing on home appliance services and product evaluation. "We will plan the live broadcast content according to the life scene, such as how to develop the use function of the refrigerator to the extreme, and how to use home appliances to extend the shelf life of flowers." The above person said.

For Gome, switching from the private domain to the foreign domain means a wider range of traffic, but it also announces the failure of Gome's transformation in recent years. In the past two years, Gome's online has never wanted to bypass its own inherent territory, and shifting the focus of live broadcast to the back of the short video platform is also a compromise that Gome's management team has to make under traffic anxiety.

Huang Guangyu has not appeared for a long time, C&D will be the takeover man?

In mid-March, Gome electrical datamologist Wang Peng did not wait for the month's salary, which was already four consecutive months without pay. As a silent resistance, Wang Peng went to work at 9 o'clock every day and left his workstation at 6 o'clock on time, without contributing any output value to the company, and the effective workload only stopped at browsing the Gome APP for half an hour.

According to Wang Peng, since the irregular payroll, only one-third of the employees left in the Beijing headquarters, most of them more than five years old, have been ruthlessly stranded in place as the company's development has taken a sharp turn.

Employees who once planned to work with the company through thick and thin were also poured cold water. Every once in a while, a group of unfamiliar faces wander the company lobby, and you can often see court summons mailed to Gome by suppliers and consumers, "and there is no sign of improvement in the company." ”

"Some Gome employees are in the greenhouse and cannot see the dynamics of other industries on the Internet, and they used to rely on drawing pies and jianghu gas to mix internally, and they couldn't keep up with the pace of other retail companies." Wang Peng submitted a resume for four months and did not receive a decent offer, "Gome's experience is not worth learning, and it is no longer a competitor that other companies want to benchmark." ”

An employee of Gome Finance told Times Finance that the team's work rhythm is basically separated from the head company, and even enters the pension mode in advance. "The company does not have an atmosphere of overtime, and most of the time I can leave work on time at 6 o'clock after two years of employment."

For the employees who remained, the biggest uncertainty was whether Gome could survive the night, who could lead Gome to live, and whether there would be a white knight to take over.

A number of Gome employees revealed to Times Finance that since the outbreak of debt collection, Huang Guangyu has rarely been seen in the company, and the office elevator on the top floor of the 36th floor has also been closed, and Huang Xiuhong presides over the company's important affairs and business transformation, and the connection between this company and Huang Guangyu can only be detected from capital dynamics.

In order to save himself, Huang Guangyu disposed of the real estate project in his hands. Recently, Gome Holdings Group Co., Ltd. transferred 100% of the shares of Sanya Gome Tourism Co., Ltd. to Zhongrong International Trust Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongrong Trust"). Tianyan check information shows that Sanya Gome Tourism has completed the change of shareholders on March 17. Ningbo Haoyang Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., ultimately controlled by Huang Guangyu, transferred 100% of the shares of Changsha Pioneer Zendi Real Estate Development Co., Ltd., and Zhongrong Trust took over, which means that Gome completely withdrew from the Xiangjiang Jiu project in Changsha, Hunan Province.

In addition, since the end of 2021, Huang Guangyu and his wife Du Juan have reduced their holdings more than ten times, cashing out more than 2 billion yuan in total. Gome's internal employees revealed to Times Finance that Xiamen C&D Group will take over Gome's next stage of delivery issues to help Gome tide over the period of financial constraints. According to Prism, Huang Xiuhong personally flew to Xiamen, hoping to obtain about 3 billion yuan of financing from Xiamen C&D, however, some C&D insiders said that "the internal feedback was not good, and I felt that she did not understand business at all."

Pengrun Building, where Beijing Gome headquarters is located. Source: Times Finance

In mid-March, Times Finance visited Gome's headquarters in Beijing's Chaoyang District: Pengrun Building. The company remains ostensibly functional, once Asia's largest single office building, a title now surpassed by internet giant Tencent.

During work, a number of middle-aged men came down from the Gome office one after another, smoked cigarettes one after another, and then slowly disappeared at the end of the corridor. At least in them, there is no sense of urgency in business transformation. However, the security of the heavily guarded building is a reminder to the outside world that the crisis in Gome is far from over.

(The interviewees in this article are pseudonyms.) Li Ting also contributed to this article. ）