A community fresh food shop that opens and closes quickly

▲This is the 1380th original article of the spirit beast

Many people find that the fresh food business is very hot and have joined in, but how to achieve profitability has become a big problem.

Author/Haruyama 

ID/lingshouke

1

A small closed fresh food shop

At noon in early autumn, the yellow leaves have begun to fall, as if to remind people passing by that winter is not far away.

40-year-old Xiao Zhang shuttled back and forth between his small shop and the van parked at the door, carrying the equipment in the store, a nearby resident passing by the door, glanced at Xiao Zhang's already empty store, and asked Xiao Zhang, "Why is the store closed?" ”

Xiao Zhang stopped, wiped the beads of sweat oozing on his forehead with his cuffs, and replied with a helpless smile, "It's due." ”

"How long has it been, so soon it expires?" Residents passing by asked.

"Ahem, exactly one year." After answering, Xiao Zhang began to hurriedly pack up the things he could take away from the store.

In September 2022, after discussing with two friends, the three planned to open a small community fresh food store together.

Xiao Zhang told "Spirit Beast", "The two partners have participated in the community group buying business before, I have been opening a fruit store before, there are some purchase channels, and the cost of the small shop model at that time was relatively small, and the community fresh shop track was also more optimistic during the epidemic, the rent was somewhat subsidized, and the cost of each person was not large." ”

"Before opening the store, we did an inspection on this street, there was already a community fresh store that had been open for five or six years, the business was very good, except for this store, there were no other community fresh shops on this street, and the choice to open a store in the form of a community fresh discount store was mainly to think that in recent years everyone is reducing expenses, discount stores are relatively popular, if you open a store in the form of a fresh discount store, the business will definitely not be bad." Xiao Zhang said.

At the end of October 2022, Xiaozhang's fresh food outlet store in Beijing's South 5th Ring Road officially opened.

A large QR code is posted on a wall in front of the store, "Scan the code to join the group, more discounts." ”

"When doing community group buying, friends have accumulated a lot of experience and consciously accumulated their own user base. A total of 9 groups were established, probably less than 2,000 people. Xiao Zhang explains.

The words "vegetables and fruits, affordable seafood, dairy products, community group purchase, 1~3% off throughout the year" were printed on the door.

In the first two months of opening, the flow of people entering the store is indeed very large, and the turnover can reach 8,000-9,000 yuan a few days before opening, "In just a few days of hard work, this street opened a small community fresh shop and a fruit store, in December 2022, several nearby communities began to be closed again, fewer and fewer people came to the store, and the goods did not dare to enter more, and the fresh category would definitely lose money if it entered more." ”

After the control was relaxed, Xiao Zhang told "Spirit Beast" that in order to attract surrounding residents to the store, they began to push special dishes at ultra-low prices, "Consumers mainly buy ultra-low-priced special dishes when they come to the store, and almost will not buy other goods in the store." The more ultra-low-priced dishes are sold, the more they lose. ”

"Spirit Beast" found through a map search that within 3 kilometers of Xiaozhang's store, there are supermarkets such as Wumart, Yonghui, RT-Mart, and there are no less than 20 small fresh food shops in the community.

"It's a busy job at the end of the year, and it's most important to simply close the store and stop the loss in time. The store that opened a few days later than us is also not doing well, and it is estimated that it will also close. Xiao Zhang did not reveal to "Spirit Beast" how much money he lost this year, but he summed up his experience with certainty, "Although it is easy to open a small community fresh store, it is actually more difficult to operate well than a large supermarket. ”

2

After "shopping around"

Aunt Wang, who is in her 60s and a resident near Xiaozhang's fresh food outlet, goes out early in the morning to the community store to buy vegetables and fruits for the day.

Getting up early for a stroll and then going to the small shop to buy vegetables has been her habit for many years. "Usually I buy vegetables in this store that has been open for five or six years, vegetables and fruits are relatively fresh, meat is also on the same day, as well as fresh aquatic products, steamed buns, etc. Compared with the fresh food store next to it, the price of this store is relatively stable and affordable. Aunt Wang told "Spirit Beast" that in addition to vegetables and meat, fruits, flowers, etc. can be "one-stop" on this community commercial street.

According to "Spirit Beast", in addition to selling fixed categories and goods, at some special time nodes, the fresh food store that Aunt Wang frequented will also launch various seasonal goods, such as rice dumplings sold during the Dragon Boat Festival, sausages and bacon sold during the Spring Festival.

"Spirit Beast" visited the store to observe, the store was full of vegetables, rice noodles, poultry, soy products, dairy products, etc. Even if the customer flow is low at noon, there are still five or six consumers in the store, which is not deserted.

"At the beginning, this store sold fruits and vegetables, and later added a fresh meat area, marinated vegetables, noodles, etc., more and more rich categories, which can be convenient for one store to buy without having to run more." Aunt Wang said that she would choose three or four kinds of vegetables every day, and then buy a small piece of fresh meat, or buy a fresh fish, eggs and eggs regularly, and the rest was also replenished regularly. "A day is about 50~70 yuan of food consumption, usually the two children are not at home, Saturday and Sunday back will go to the big business supermarket to buy more, they will also bring some food."

Aunt Wang said that in the past two years, there have been several more fresh food stores near their home, and she has also visited Xiao Zhang's fresh food discount store, "At first, the vegetables were sold very cheaply, but then I felt that there was no freshness in the old store next to it, Xiao Zhang's store has more frozen food, such as prepared dishes, frozen meat, etc., which are not very suitable for people of our age, and their store does not pay attention to details, the boss often smokes in the store, and then does not go." ”

Compared with the single vegetable shops, butcher shops and grocery stores in the past wet market, the current community fresh shops have a richer category, such as flowers, green plants, marinated vegetables, bread, etc. are also within the scope of sales, and customers can basically achieve "one-stop shopping".

According to the "Chinese mainland Fresh Category Shopper Trend Research" report released by Nielsen, the scale of the fresh market has increased in recent years, and fresh consumption has entered a new era of development. New retail, O2O platforms, community fresh stores and other emerging channels, relying on the advantages of the Internet, logistics and cold chain technology, have "stood out" in the fresh food track.

This has also made the community with relatively concentrated residents, fresh food stores have blossomed, but how to achieve profitability has become a major problem.

3

Profitability difficulties become stumbling blocks

The epidemic has had a great impact on many retail formats, but community fresh food stores, as the community formats closest to consumers, have been the least affected.

Community stores are more convenient because they are close to the community, which has proved the importance of convenience to customers' daily needs during the epidemic.

From providing "full" agricultural products to providing services with "more colors" and "more convenient shopping", community fresh food stores directly feel the people's continuous pursuit of a better life.

However, community fresh food stores still face many challenges. To meet new consumer demand is not to seize the market at low prices, nor to burn money to expand, but to better capture market changes and meet market demand.

Industry insiders told "Spirit Beast" that there is room for improvement in the selection and display of community fresh food stores, "The store area of community fresh food stores is limited, and the more product types are not better." To achieve high efficiency, product selection and display methods are key, and must be constantly adjusted according to the consumption characteristics of the community. ”

As for how to adjust, this is undoubtedly the brand's unique business secret.

"In fact, the most important thing is to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The discount rate is the key to determining whether fresh stores can make money. Especially in the past two years, many people have found that the fresh food business is very hot and have joined in, many of them are individual mom-and-pop stores, but many people have not figured out that fresh food business actually has high requirements for management, and controlling the discount rate is the key to making money. The person said.

From the perspective of the entire market in recent years, more convenient small formats are becoming an important trend in the retail market, the hypermarket model has declined significantly, in addition to fresh e-commerce, the small store model is also an important track for rapid development, and many fresh supermarkets or community fresh chain formats have emerged. In the past few years, traditional supermarkets have also launched a mini store model, combining "to store" with "home".

For small stores, high efficiency, appropriate gross profit margin and cost control capabilities are the prerequisites for large-scale replication. In the future development process, it is also a dispute between commodity supply chains and channels, "single fresh stores do not have the advantage of large-scale procurement as chains, and in the future competition, large-scale procurement will have more advantages." ”

As fresh food legend Wang Wei said, "Fresh self-owned branding is more popular, we must standardize fresh food from the perspective of consumers, and we must open up the supply chain to reduce cost input." Over the years, I have also taken capital money, others have taken money to open 800 stores, and I have opened 100 stores 8 times. Looking back, we finished the entire supply chain and got through, which was worth it. (Original work by Spirit Beast Media)