Recently, Carrefour's first Chinese member store officially opened in Shanghai, as the first battle of the "member store", the morale of Carrefour issued an "apology letter" that night, saying that on the opening day, competitors forced suppliers to "choose one of the two", involving unfair competition, and had reported to the relevant departments. For a time, the news rushed to the hot search, what is going on?
Pressured by suppliers on opening day Carrefour club said it was "one of the two"
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In Carrefour's first member store, two shelves have been completely emptied, these goods were purchased in large quantities on the first day of opening, for which carrefour member stores also issued purchase restriction measures, but these products were still sold out, and the Carrefour club also issued an apology letter to consumers that night.
Carrefour club store manager: the first day found that only one product was purchased in large quantities, three shopping carts were all purchased, in order to prevent this situation from happening again, we came out of the purchase limit, but after the purchase restriction appeared is the student-like people, each person with a limited number of goods, do not buy other goods, after the checkout to the membership office, the corresponding membership card is all returned, the goods in the periphery to a group of people who are specifically collecting this product.
In this regard, Carrefour Club also said in the apology letter that competitors continue to pressure some brands, and if the brand is supplied to Carrefour Club, it will remove the products that the brand is competing for.
Carrefour member store merchandise manager: Since the afternoon of the 15th, we have received more than a dozen suppliers with us requests, hoping that we will return the goods to them, or they will buy back the goods, hope that the goods will be removed from the shelves, we ask the reason, they said that there is some pressure, and they hope that these goods will not appear on the shelves of the member store.
Carrefour said suppliers were pressured to "choose one of the two", while another supermarket, Hema X, said it had encountered a similar situation.
Mr. Cai, General Manager of Hema X Club: To this day, we continue to bear these pressures, these categories often occur in the category of 3C home appliances to individual food categories, and our partners will be pressured by "two choices" and are required not to continue to supply Hema X member stores. This led us to re-find partners and re-establish our supply chain.
Carrefour said it has reported it to the relevant departments of the Shanghai Municipal Supervision Bureau.
Walmart responded to the "either/or" accusation: self-examination found no problems
The reporter also contacted a number of suppliers today, but the other party refused to accept an interview. At present, Neither Hema nor Carrefour has clearly pointed out the competitors who force suppliers to "choose one of the two", but according to some media reports, this reported competitor is Walmart's Sam's Club, how do they respond to this?
In response to Carrefour and Hema's joint rebuke of Sam's suspected "two choice one", Walmart issued a statement last night: So far, it has not seen any direct or indirect facts provided by the relevant parties, indicating that there is a so-called "two choice one" problem in Sam's Club. This afternoon, the reporter also exclusively interviewed the relevant person in charge of Sam's Club, who once again firmly denied this rumor.
Dong Yuguo, senior vice president of Walmart China: We attach great importance to this matter and launched an internal investigation at the first time. According to our findings, Sam's Club has never arranged for any supplier to do such a thing. There was a mention of "either-or" out there, "either-or" in Sam's business, not our option, Sam would not ask suppliers to refuse to do business with other retailers.
Industry insiders told reporters that behind carrefour and Hema encountering supplier out-of-stock and rumors that Sam's Club forced suppliers to "choose one of the two", is the fierce market competition faced by member-based supermarkets. At present, paid member stores have gradually become a new growth point for retail companies, allowing more and more retail companies to come together. High-quality and differentiated self-operated goods are the "magic weapon" that distinguishes member stores from traditional supermarkets. Therefore, the suppliers behind them have become the focus of contention.
Jiang Zhenwei, senior partner of Shanghai Xinchang Law Firm: If the member store restricts suppliers, it can only provide transactions or services to them, restrict specific suppliers, and carry out "two alternatives", which is suspected of violating the relevant provisions of the Anti-Monopoly Law. The Market Supervision administration has the authority to impose corresponding administrative penalties on them, including but not limited to ordering them to stop illegal acts, confiscating illegal gains, and imposing fines of between 1% and 10% of sales in the previous year.
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(Edited by Yu Ding)