- Chief Business Intelligence
- Chief Business Intelligence
Fat Donglai
Introduction: Everyone learns from Fat Donglai, but few people know that Fat Donglai learns from Ito-Yokado. Yu Donglai wanted an ideal supermarket, which had the retail management technology of Costco, Sam's Club, and Ito-Yokado, plus Fat Donglai's "unique" culture.
In the 90s, Ito-Yokado Mall was very different from other department stores. It is no exaggeration that most of the retail industry of Fat Donglai and other brands is learning its retail management method, that is, the format model of supermarkets + department stores.
Ito Yokudo
On the signboard of Fat Donglai's store, the list of companies worth learning from is Ito-Yokado, not only learning, as early as more than ten years ago, Fat Donglai also went to Chengdu Ito-Yokado headquarters to visit and study, and even went to Japan to investigate.
I don't know much about Ito Kayodo, but do you know about 7-Eleven convenience stores?
The "Master" supermarket fell, and the "Internet celebrity supermarket" rose
7-Eleven convenience store
7-Eleven Convenience Store and Ito Huayodo are "brothers in the same class" and both belong to Qiheyi Holdings. Qiheyi Holding Company is also a century-old enterprise, since its establishment in 1830, it has been nearly 200 years, and it is a century-old brand.
According to Deloitte's "2022 Global Retail Power" report, Qiheyi's revenue in 2022 was US$52.317 billion, ranking 19th among global retailers.
It can be said that the products sold in the "7-Eleven" convenience store, especially the classic bento box, can basically be bought at Ito-Yokado. However, Ito-Yokado is larger, with stores of more than 20,000 square meters, and is said to be a large-scale GMS comprehensive supermarket.
In fact, it's like the relationship between Walmart and Sam's Club.
It's just that now it is the "Internet celebrity" supermarket Fat Donglai is booming, and Ito-Yokado is in dire straits.
It is easy to directly "copy homework" between the sales products between the various floors and areas of Ito-Yokado, but it is still Fat Donglai who learns the essence, that is, Ito-Yokado's customer-oriented service concept.
For example, Ito-Yokado has been around for a long time, such as bowing to customers, providing rest rooms, dressers, and nursing rooms for customers, as well as providing tables and chairs for eating, and water dispensers.
It can be said that many convenient services from Fat Donglai now are all "leftovers" of Ito-Yokado back then. Ito-Yokado is not only the "master" of Fat Donglai, but also the enlightenment object of global retail learning.
In terms of products, it is purchased directly from suppliers, and some cold chains can be traced back to the source, so that food and use are safe.
These Fat Donglai are also like mathematics, but the blue is better than the blue, and the Fat Donglai is better, that is, "the employees are quite good", which is rare in other retail industries and even other industries, and they have to learn from Fat Donglai.
Just in order to pursue the ultimate service, there will inevitably be limitations, the most obvious is that the number of stores is difficult to expand, after all, you can't join at will, you can't let a bad store smash the signboard that is hard to knock down.
Fat Donglai
Why are they limited in opening a store? One Fat Donglai can only be opened in "Henan" at present, and the other is Ito-Yokado basically opened in "Sichuan", and there is only one Beijing store outside Sichuan.
The flow of people is discounted all year round, which is out of touch with profits
In November 1997, Ito Kayodo opened its first store in Chengdu.
It is worth mentioning that at that time, it was planned to open the first store in Beijing, but Chengdu seemed to be more enthusiastic? Therefore, the store opening plan has been changed from a first-tier city to a second-tier city.
In the early 90s, the domestic market provided a fertile ground for foreign investment, so Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Metro rushed to open stores in first-tier cities.
However, on the contrary, it caused a scene of "10,000 empty alleys" in the second-tier city of Ito Kayodo.
Since 1997, Ito-Yokado has 11 stores in Sichuan and 1 in Beijing.
It is no exaggeration to say that some netizens in Chengdu said that the lives of workers in Chengdu were given by Ito after eight o'clock.
It's just that I didn't expect the store to close after 25 years of opening, and in 2022, Ito Huayangtang on Chunxi Road in Chengdu will stop operating.
As for why it closed for business? The Ito-Yokado Chunxi store is also the same as many juniors over the years.
When the revenue profit is not enough to support other costs such as rent and labor, the waiting day may be to choose a day to close the store.
Ito-Yokado Chunxi Store also enjoyed the benefits of low rent at that time, and now Chunxi Road is a high-end business district in Chengdu, and Ito-Yokado can't afford to climb high.
It is also strange to say that in 2019, Qiheyi Holdings opened the Ito-Yokado Asia flagship store in Chengdu, which should be opened in their own city, not Tokyo or Osaka, but Chengdu.
Just like the people of Xuchang have a complex for Fat Donglai, the people of Chengdu also have a complex for Ito Huayangtang.
However, Ito Kayodo has become popular because of discounted products, and also because of the discount products that can't earn much.
On weekdays, whether it is a supermarket or a shopping mall, the flow of people does not start until after 7:30 p.m., because the customers who come at this time are buying discounted goods.
The area of the day is generally sold at about 8 o'clock will begin to paste the 20% off label, around 9 o'clock part will become 7 off, 6 off, like seafood products, after 8 and a half after some direct 5 discount, but also fast hands and slow hands.
For decades, discounts have been used to create "explosive models", and over time, the problem has been exposed.
Just like Qian's mother, in fact, you don't need to open a store during the day, and you don't open until 8 o'clock in the evening, so everyone saves worry and effort.
The loss was 11.9 billion, and a total of 32 stores were closed
According to the financial report data released by Qiheyi Holding Company, from 2014 to 2018, Ito Huayodo actually lost money for 5 consecutive years, and finally began to turn losses into profits in 2019, but in recent years, it has encountered the impact of the epidemic, which is simply worse.
By the end of 2023, the cumulative total loss reached 11.9 billion yuan.
On March 9 this year, Qiheyi Holdings announced that it would close nearly 26% of Ito-Yokado stores, and by February 2026, the number of stores will be reduced from 125 to 93, that is, a total of 32 stores!
Last year, it was rumored that the Ito-Yokado supermarket business was going to be restructured and sold to an investment fund, and the parent company quickly came out to deny it, and at the beginning of this year, it was rumored again, and the parent company came out to deny it.
It's embarrassing, if it weren't for the getting weaker, it wouldn't have been rumored to be sold all the time.
Due to missing the opportunity to expand stores in second- and third-tier cities, Ito Huayodo has only 10 stores in China so far.
On the other hand, its "junior brother" 7-Eleven convenience store has more than 7,000 stores around the world, and 3,936 in China.
But even if there are so many of them, they still can't squeeze into the top five of the TOP100 convenience stores. It is conceivable that Ito Kayodo was thrown off more than a dozen streets.
Convenience stores have changed, and traditional large-scale supermarkets are still confused
Image source: China Chain Store & Franchise Association
According to the "2023 China Convenience Store TOP100" public list released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, the first place is Meiyijia, the second place is Sinopec Yijie, the third place is PetroChina Kunlun Hospitality, the fourth place is Tianfu Convenience, the fifth place is Lawson, Lawson has 6330, and the top 5 after Lawson are Furong Xingsheng, 7-11, Shizu, Hongqi Chain, Shenzhen Yizhan and so on.
Let's ask, the shops that contemporary young people want to open are a bubble tea shop, a coffee shop, and a convenience store. The shop is small and easy to take care of, and customers also take the initiative to come to the door.
It's just that the business that used to only guard the storefront or the neighborhood is about to change! I have to say that compared with traditional large-scale supermarkets, convenience stores have a faster online "fancy revitalization" brain.
For example, "instant retail" is now popular in convenience stores.
I really can't imagine how lazy people are now? Even if the convenience store is opened downstairs at home, you don't want to move, after all, with your mobile phone in hand, the distance between you and the convenience store is the few steps from the living room to the door.
Meiyijia, 7-11, FamilyMart and other convenience stores have already laid out "instant retail" online in order to meet this group of "lazy people", just wait for the "lazy" to place an order, and the rider will knock on the door!
The trend of the times, take the initiative to change
In fact, not only Ito Huayangtang has the problem of old brand image, limited operation capacity, and lack of progress, but also many supermarkets are conservative and unchanged, and when the daylily is cold, the store is not enough to close!
With the rise of the e-commerce industry, coupled with the rise of live streaming now. Traditional retailers have missed the rise of traditional e-commerce without changing, such as Tmall Supermarket, Jingdong Daojia, and then missed the new retail track, such as the rise of community group buying forces such as Meituan, Pinduoduo, Taocaicai, etc., and now it is live broadcasting, such as Dongfang Selection, Yuhui Peer, which seizes the market share of fresh food, rice, flour, grain and oil.
Hema will play "Fresh Outlet" in 2021 to "Moving Mountain Price" in the second half of 2023, in fact, it is also a price war, and you will roll Sam too, this method is temporarily beneficial to consumers, but it is not a long-term way.
Sam, who was originally high on the top, should have been a consumer paradise for the middle class and the pseudo-middle class, and its positioning began to sink and refine, and the location of the store began to land in county-level towns.
In the past, the main one was a tall one, with a variety of check-in strategies, such as "Sam's must-buy list" and "Sam's poor ghost package", and other tricks emerged in an endless stream, focusing on Sam's wool.
Of course, the business war between Hema and Wal-Mart seems to be tearing each other apart, but in fact, there is no lack of marketing, after all, black and red are also red.
When it comes to Sam's Club, we have to mention Wal-Mart Supermarket, both of which are supermarkets owned by Wal-Mart, a Fortune 500 company.
However, the difference lies in market segmentation. Sam keeps opening stores and Wal-Mart keeps closing stores, does that mean that Sam who goes to third- and fourth-tier cities to expand stores is nothing more than Wal-Mart's "makeover"?
Sam's Club has obvious ambitions, but there is another competitor, and that is Costco, which is also a warehouse-based membership shopping.
Costco's latest one is in Shenzhen, and the grand occasion on the day of the opening of the store is no less than Sam's opening the store, the key is that only 6 stores have been opened at present, and there is a lot of room for improvement in the number of stores in the future, Sam is trembling!
In addition to foreign brands, in fact, local retail brands have long been "warming up" each other, Fat Donglai has been better than blue, and now Dafang is "helping" other local retail brands, such as Hunan's BBK, Jiangxi's Jiabaile, etc.
Yonghui supermarket has also been bullish recently, and even invited Yu Donglai, who moved to the east, to bring people to help rectify the pilot store, and this wave of traffic has brought new hope to Yonghui supermarkets, which have closed more than 400 supermarkets in five years.
The Internet meme of "I have been killing fish in RT-Mart for ten years, and my heart is already as cold as my knife" made RT-Mart "Ye Qing Hui", focusing on a summary of the "work mental state" of contemporary young people.
RT-Mart, which should have been a favorite visit for uncles and aunts, has now begun to see the phenomenon of young consumers checking in.
Therefore, even as the master of major retailers, if there is no innovation and does not cater to young consumers, it is difficult for the winner to be Ito-Yokado, who used to be one step ahead, but now it is one step slower.
All walks of life can dominate the innovators, not followers, copying homework may be able to solve the problem for a while, but can not solve a lifetime, adhere to the essence of business, that is, employees, customers, products are fully optimized on the basis of the foundation of evergreen.
Why did Ito Kayodo, as the object of supermarket learning, still come to this point? Please leave your opinion and leave a comment.
#头条创作挑战赛#
The earliest financial self-media in China, a must-have book for millions of business elites, focusing on daily hot events, financial figures, venture capital stories, wealth business opportunities and other content! To provide you with more authentic and professional business reports every day, welcome to follow @Chief Business Wisdom