Recently, three stores of the well-known early education institution Gymboree in Nanjing closed the store at the same time, and the amount involved was as high as 28 million yuan.
After the incident, it instantly rushed to the hot search.
According to the official website, Gymboree is a professional childcare service company, which has been deeply involved in the Chinese market since 2003 and is the first choice for many post-80s parents.
However, it is such a company that carries the trust of the majority of parents, but it has made a move to close its doors and run away!
What's even more infuriating is that before the store closed, Gymboree was still promoting and encouraging parents to recharge their cards.
Some parents recharged more than 20,000 yuan, only to experience 1 class, and the store ran away. What's even worse is that a pregnant mother charged 100,000 yuan and took ten classes, and the remaining 90,000 yuan was instantly lost.
As a leader in the early education industry, Gymboree's appearance this time is a little too ugly.
"My child was still in class yesterday and was closed today. ”
"I only renewed the fee a few days ago, paid more than 40,000 yuan, and I didn't even take a class. ”
On March 19, parents in Nanjing successively received the "Letter to Parents" from Gymboree, an early education institution. To the effect that due to the rupture of the capital chain, Nanjing Gymboree decided to suspend operations and look for new funds to settle in.
Regarding the later arrangement, a WeChat group will be set up for parents to consult.
This sudden news caught a group of parents off guard. Obviously, the day before was still selling classes, why did they close today? These are the only three stores left in Nanjing, what should I do if I don't finish the courses?
Some parents found that Gymboree's legal person was replaced by an elderly person.
Many parents said that Nanjing Gymboree is estimated to have found a professional store closure team to operate.
In other words, Nanjing Gymboree knew that it was unable to continue operating due to insufficient funds, so it paid a professional store closure person to deal with the aftermath.
The usual method of professional store closures is to change the legal person to the elderly or cancer patients, and then make a golden cicada out of the shell after a wave of money.
The parents who were cheated had no choice but to join the rights protection group set up by Nanjing Gymboree and wait for the notice. At present, the number of people in the three groups has reached the upper limit, and there are still many parents who are unable to join the rights protection group.
According to incomplete statistics, Nanjing Gymboree currently owes about 28 million yuan in arrears of shopping mall rent, parents' prepaid class fees and other debts.
On March 20, in the face of angry parents, the "Gymboree" side gave three solutions.
The first option is a refund for up to 30 years, the second option is to reopen classes, but parents need to crowdfund the rehiring of teachers, and the third option is to transfer to other early education institutions.
These three schemes are really more scoundrels than the other.
Let's talk about refunds first, of course, this is the way that parents are most looking forward to, but what is the concept of 30 years? After 30 years, the babies have reached the age of early education classes, and whether the legal person of Gymboree can live to that day is two, and then let the parents find whom?
Besides, crowdfunding to rehire teachers is a very unreasonable plan, and parents have already paid for the lesson when they buy it, and there is no reason to pay again.
In this way, the only reliable point is to change classes. However, the diversion may seem reliable, but it is actually difficult. This time it was closed to the only three remaining stores in Nanjing, and the transfer of classes could only be transferred to other institutions. Each class needs to make up the difference between 30 and 200 yuan, and it is no wonder that parents can agree.
In fact, strictly speaking, Gymboree closed its doors without warning.
Since the late night of August 11, 2022, 7 stores in Chongqing have been closed at the same time, and the situation has been out of control like a domino, and Gymboree in Shanghai, Hebei, Ningbo, Zhengzhou and other places has thundered.
As early as December last year, Nanjing Gymboree experienced a major change, many stores were closed, and students were transferred to the only three remaining stores.
Now, these three stores are also closed, which means that Gymboree will completely withdraw from the Nanjing market.
It is worth mentioning that they even pit their own employees.
It is said that many Gymboree teachers have not received their salaries for several months, and are facing the embarrassment of being unable to join other units due to the loss of social security contributions.
Gymboree, the name sounds very affectionate, many people think it is a native Chinese brand, but in fact it is an outsider who has crossed the sea.
About the establishment of Gymboree, there is a touching story of a stay-at-home mother who is inspirational to start a business.
In 1974, Gymboree's founder, Joan Burns, welcomed her first daughter. Like all working mothers, Joan has to choose between her career and her children.
Out of love, Joan did not hesitate to choose the child.
When her daughter was a few months old, Joan often took her children out to play, and she found that many mothers had the same confusion as her: everyone wanted to take their children out to play, but there was nowhere to go, so they could only gather downstairs in the community to bask in the sun.
So Joan had a whim, why not start a children's activity center?
She immediately applied for an activity room from the community, customized a lot of equipment suitable for children to play, and designed a lot of games that are very popular with children for children in the neighborhood to play.
Unexpectedly, the response was very good, and some authoritative media even began to report on them. After that, more and more mothers approached Joan and wanted to join in, and some even drove from other states.
In 1976, Joan founded the first Gymboree Early Education Center in San Francisco, USA.
After more than 40 years of development, Gymboree has become the leader of the global early childhood education industry, with more than 700 early education centers in more than 40 countries and regions.
Its business mode is divided into two forms: direct sales and franchise, each center operates independently, and the brand is a franchise legal relationship.
In 2003, Gymboree came to China and opened its first store in Gubei, Shanghai.
At that time, China was entering a stage of rapid economic development, and Shanghai was one of the most economically developed cities in China.
And Gymboree is also very powerful, and did not simply copy those things abroad, but combined and processed China's unique national music and dance, and developed a music and dance course with Chinese characteristics, which is deeply loved by Chinese parents and babies, and even has a hot situation where it is difficult to find a lesson.
Although it was opened at the beginning, Gymboree did not rest on its laurels, but continued to explore and learn, capturing the hearts of Chinese parents and babies with better courses and more intimate services.
In 2014, Gymboree grandly launched Gymboree Private Offering. This is an open communication and learning platform, where parents can share every little happiness and parenting insights in the process of their children's growth, which is sought after by many parents.
In 2018, Gymboree launched the "3S" development concept that represents self-confidence, optimism, health, flexibility, intelligence and wisdom, so that children can achieve diversified development in language thinking, personality and emotional intelligence, learning ability and other aspects.
In 2019, Gymboree took the lead in launching the first "global children" family companionship education online platform - Gymboree APP, which perfectly combines technology and tradition.
All this is a super endorsement of Gymboree's rapid occupation of the Chinese market.
According to the data, at the peak of Gymboree's glory, it had more than 400 franchise stores in more than 150 cities in China, serving more than one million Chinese customers, and becoming a pioneer and leader in China's early education industry.
Nowadays, even the head institution of the industry such as Gymboree has broken the capital chain and closed the store and ran away.
As we all know, the early education industry is a business for infants and toddlers.
Ten years ago, there was a consensus in the business circle that children's money is best earned, because parents spend money for their children, which is without blinking their eyes, and children eat the best.
Therefore, the maternal and infant industry at that time was a sunrise industry, full of early education institutions and maternal and infant stores, and everyone made a lot of money.
But at this time and at that time, the entire maternal and infant industry is not having a good time now, because everyone is not having children.
According to authoritative statistics, in 2023, the number of births in the country will be only 9.02 million, compared with 17.76 million in 2013, a decrease of nearly half in just ten years.
If there are fewer children, the early education industry with children as a customer group will become a source of water.
Blind expansion in the past few years, and now there are too few children to recruit students, which is the fundamental reason why Gymboree cannot maintain its operations.
Of course, there is also a big reason for the downgrading of people's consumption.
According to the 2023 Hurun Wealth Statistics Report, the total number of "wealthy families" with assets of 6 million in Nanjing is 43,500, a year-on-year decrease of 0.9%.
It is worth mentioning that this asset is not only a deposit, but also a property.
As soon as this report came out, netizens were fried. There are only 43,500 "wealthy families" with 6 million assets in the metropolis of Nanjing? What about other small and medium-sized cities? What about the 18th-tier small counties?
Lack of money means that consumption will be downgraded, open source and reduce expenditure, if you can't buy it, you won't buy it, and the expensive and time-consuming early education classes will be cut first.
Moreover, there are too many free public resources and affordable resources. There are free ones, and who wants to pay a high price for them?
Gymboree and other early education institutions were the first to conquer large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and then gradually expanded to provincial capitals, first- and second-tier medium-sized cities, and rarely appeared in third- and fourth-tier cities and eighteenth-tier small counties.
Because the consumption power of big cities is obviously stronger.
But in return, these large cities have better infrastructure and more free public services. There are many activities in museums, art galleries, and libraries, and they are all free, so you can have a fulfilling time just running them every weekend.
Another strong competitor of early education institutions such as Gymboree is the free resources on the web.
Parents find that as long as you want to learn, you will definitely be able to find affordable or free courses online. This is true even for advanced courses.
From learning powerhouse to station B, from ear-grinding music in early childhood to professional courses for masters and doctors, they can all be found online.
At the same time, in the process of raising their children, parents have found that some courses are better than paying professional institutions.
In the past, children had to go to the swimming pool for swimming, go to the gym for internal training, and go to the picture book hall for reading.
Today's children, 200 yuan can buy a baby pool, dozens of dollars can buy a bunch of picture books, physical training is simpler, take the child to climb the mountain for a walk or something, the effect is the same, parents can do it all by hand.
Although it is a little tiring, it can save money and enhance the parent-child relationship, so why not do it?
In fact, in recent years, the early education industry has been frequently thundered, and early education institutions such as Meijim and Qitian Zhen have left the scene in embarrassment. Meijim has lost 1 billion in three years, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stores have been closed, and the Guangzhou stores have closed their doors and run away.
It can be seen that although the early education industry will not completely withdraw from the market, it is impossible to recover from its previous peak state.
A few years ago, the early education industry was still a red sea, and many early education institutions blindly expanded and opened stores everywhere, but now with the downgrading of education consumption and the disappearance of the demographic dividend, the mines that were once planted have exploded.
Early education institutions are thundering, but it is consumers who suffer.
Early education institutions mostly take the form of prepayment, and once the institution goes bankrupt, consumers are faced with difficulties in protecting their rights and refunds.
There are hundreds of parents in the Nanjing Gymboree Parents Rights Protection Group, anxiously waiting for the results of their rights protection.
According to the plan given by Gymboree, parents will have to wait twenty or thirty years to get back the arrears they originally recharged.
If you take the road of litigation, according to the liquidation plan, even if the debt is settled, the parents' refund will be the last. Not to mention the complicated litigation procedures, how many ordinary consumers can afford it?
Two months before the Nanjing Gymboree store ran away, Shanghai Gymboree closed the store and ran away, although the parents reported the case as soon as possible, but the refund problem has not been solved so far.
I hope that this time Gymboree can really do what he said in the "Letter to Parents": "Keep the last dignity".
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Resources:
Tianxiang Finance: The early education giant has become a "fan run", how to repay the money owed to parents
E-commerce Magazine: Well-known early education institutions ran away overnight, and some parents said that their children did not attend a single class
Gymboree public account
New Oriental Family Education: Piano and early education collapsed, and a group of 8,000 parents told you: The downgrade of education consumption is silent, but it is really coming
Sunshine City Forum: Why did Nanjing's rich disappear en masse?
Author: Rui Xin
Editor: Willow Leaf chatter