2023 marks the 45th anniversary of reform and opening up. Today, the strength of our country and the beauty of our people's lives have benefited from the magnificent reforms and innovations in the past 45 years.
Standing at a new historical node, "reform and restart" has become a new mission for all walks of life. In particular, those basic livelihood industries that are closely related to people's better life are also facing an unprecedented change.
In the new era of consumption, traditional supermarkets represented by supermarkets and hypermarkets have to face intensified competition in the industry and "close combat" with new channels such as online e-commerce and community fresh foodOn the other hand, due to its own business model, it can no longer better meet the new needs of mass consumption.
In recent years, the traditional supermarket industry has frequently heard the regret of "old store closure", which also shows that the development and reform of the supermarket industry has long been the general trend. At this new inflection point in the industry, China Resources Vanguard, as a local retail giant in China, has entered the market and actively sought change - recently, China Resources Vanguard has been fully upgraded and transformed into a BLT format, covering nine stores in eight cities across the country. At the same time, Wanjia will start a new strategy of upgrading the store format in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places, launch an experience revolution with consumer demand as the core, and continue to lead a new life.
1. In the past 40 years of retail, supermarkets have changed from "just needed" to "high-quality".
The upcoming year 2024 is the 40th birthday of CR Vanguard. A supermarket that has been open for 40 years means that Vanguard is one of the very few people who has fully participated in the budding and mature of China's retail industry and witnessed the increasingly better life of the people.
More than 40 years ago, the emergence of a new species of "supermarket" catered to the needs of urban consumers and greatly improved the material level of people's lives by virtue of novel experience methods such as self-selection, complete goods, and one-stop shopping.
Under the pressure of the early foreign retail giants, China's local supermarkets represented by China Resources Vanguard have risen rapidly, and supermarkets have sprung up all over the country. Chain supermarkets that have seized the dividends of the times have become the main channel for family consumption. Visiting large supermarkets has once become a trendy lifestyle.
In recent years, with the emergence and popularization of the Internet and mobile Internet, the domestic retail industry has begun to show a trend of a hundred flowers, with more and more new retail models such as online shopping, O2O, community fresh food, and live broadcast e-commerce beginning to rise, consumers' consumption Xi has begun to change, and the advantages of traditional supermarkets have gradually been lost.
In recent years, traditional supermarkets in cities are disappearing from our field of vision at an alarming rate, and news of "supermarket closure" is not uncommon. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2011 to 2020, the number of supermarket stores in China dropped from a high of 38,554 to 24,082. Among them, the number of large supermarket chain stores is declining much faster than the entire industry.
In fact, it's not just traditional supermarkets that are closing. Last year, a new retail chain brand closed all its stores in Beijing due to high costs and other problemsIn recent years, some international retail giants have closed more than a dozen stores for the same reason.
Although many people attribute the decline of traditional supermarkets and hypermarkets to the encroachment by Internet e-commerce and the rise of the younger generation of "stay-at-home economy". In fact, this is not that "young people don't like to go to the supermarket anymore", but that the supermarket urgently needs an upgrade that meets the needs of the times.
According to the "2022 China Supermarket TOP100" released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA), the total sales scale of the top 100 supermarket enterprises in 2022 is 9,368 in the context of the first decline in the number of traditional stores8.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 29.2 billion yuan.
Why is the number of supermarket stores declining, but the scale of sales is growing steadily?This shows that despite the strong rise of online e-commerce, offline supermarkets are still an irreplaceable retail format. In particular, with the increasing demand of consumers for high-quality goods, traditional supermarkets cannot meet their increasing consumption expectations in many aspects, thus promoting the rapid development of new formats such as boutique supermarkets.
The supermarket has not disappeared, it has just changed. For example, boutique supermarkets, as a form of retail that provides high-quality, personalized goods and services, have been widely developed and welcomed around the world in recent years. As early as 20 years ago, CR Vanguard had insight into the needs of Chinese consumers for a high-quality life.
In 2004, the MixC in Shenzhen was the first olé boutique supermarket in China. As a high-end boutique supermarket under CR Vanguard, Olé is now known as the "ceiling of domestic chain boutique supermarkets", and more importantly, from 2004 to the present, even in the so-called "industry winter", Olé boutique supermarket has achieved sales growth for more than ten consecutive years.
New technologies are always iterating, but the underlying needs of consumers are unchanged. Insight into consumer demand and leading lifestyle is an important secret for Vanguard to maintain its leading position in the industry in the past 40 years. In addition to Olé, the "BLT Supermarket", which is composed of the initials of CR Vanguard's concept "Better Life Together", has recently launched a comprehensive upgrade plan in nine stores in eight cities across the country to provide more consumers with high-quality products and exquisite life.
2. The "breaking" and "standing" of China Resources Vanguard
If it is said that the decline of traditional supermarkets has become an unstoppable trend;Then, only the timely transformation of traditional supermarkets and the introduction of formats more suitable for current consumption Xi are the long-term way of development.
Transformation means "breaking" and "standing".
"Breaking" means adjusting, adjusting new formats, adjusting business structure, adjusting store distribution, and so on. In the past decade, despite the emergence of new technologies, the essence of the retail industry has remained the same, and the three elements of "cost, efficiency and experience" are still the same.
Taking "cost" as an example, the mountain that traditional supermarkets cannot get around is the high cost of store rent. Because the hard demand of traditional supermarkets is often to have a large site, a good location, and a high customer flow, which also means that there is a high rental cost to be paid behind it. In contrast, e-commerce platforms do not need to consider the rent of stores in commercial areas, which directly leads to the difficulty of traditional hypermarkets to compete with e-commerce platforms**.
Therefore, why we have frequently heard the news of "supermarket closure" in recent years, on the one hand, in addition to the natural advantage of online shopping e-commerce on supermarkets, on the other hand, the lease period of supermarket hypermarkets is generally between 10-20 years, and supermarkets that have experienced 20 years of China's retail industry have been gradually expiring in recent years.
If you want to renew the contract, the current rent level must be much higher than more than ten years ago, especially the rent in the core business district of the city, which has soared. In the supermarket industry, which attaches the most importance to "ping efficiency", in the face of such a greatly increased cost expectation, it may be the best choice to close the store when the lease expires.
Taking the first-tier city of Guangzhou as an example, Vanguard has been doing neighborhood business in Yangcheng for more than 10 years, but as more and more store leases expire and the changes in Guangzhou's urban area are caused, CR Vanguard will gradually close or upgrade a number of Guangzhou stores.
Unlike other supermarkets that "close their stores", CR Vanguard's "closing stores" does not mean leaving, but adapting to the relayout of changes. In the next 1-2 years, CR Vanguard will have a more suitable address in Guangzhou, and will bring more upgraded new business formats, and continue to be the companion of the new life of the Guangzhou neighborhood.
"Entering the game" is only the first step in the transformation of supermarkets, and "breaking the game" also requires the ultimate improvement of user experience and quality-to-price ratio. Today's consumers have a strong demand for all categories, high-quality, cost-effective products and high-quality service experience, supermarkets should pay attention to the experience of consumers in the entire chain, accelerate store upgrades, and focus on improving user experience.
As a first-tier city, Shanghai's consumption power and freshness are second to none in China, and naturally, Shanghai has become the main battlefield in the consumer field and the experimental field of new life. Based on the in-depth exploration and painstaking research on the level of Shanghai's consumer market, CR Vanguard plans to carry out a strategic upgrade of its Shanghai stores in the near future. In particular, in line with the characteristics of the Shanghai market, more boutique supermarkets are laid out to meet the needs of local high-end customers through the selection of world goods.
3. Careful insight, pragmatic improvement, action is the best certainty.
As the "new species" such as online shopping e-commerce and boutique supermarkets continue to change the traditional business competition, the moat established by the traditional supermarket industry with channel advantages has been broken.
However, the traditional supermarket is not "useless", as one of the most important livelihood facilities, the supermarket is the embodiment of the strength of the chain under the coat of dazzling commodity shelves. In this regard, CR Vanguard, which has been precipitated for nearly 40 years, has more powerful experience in chain management, inventory management and refined operation in the industrial chain.
What has also been precipitated is the ability to perceive customers: taking the supermarket as a round point, the daily consumption structure of users within a few kilometers of the surrounding area, what they often buy, what are the local seasonal goods, and which range is the price range that the surrounding users can afford, these careful insights into consumers are the "foundation of life and life" of CR Vanguard.
On the occasion of transformation and upgrading, insight into user needs and maintaining pragmatic action will allow you to find needs more calmly and create value in the noise of the times.
With the insight into the new era and new consumer demand, CR Vanguard has set up boutique formats, comprehensive formats and community formats respectively. In the future, CR Vanguard will "run into the market" and successively upgrade some stores that do not meet the new strategic direction to high-end supermarkets that are more in line with the business district, such as OLE and BLT, so as to provide consumers with more diverse choices and better meet the upgrading needs of consumers in the business district, and at the same time further expand the service radius of the stores and allow consumers to return to offline stores.
When any industry encounters an inflection point, it is the time when the thinking is the most brilliant.
Today's Chinese retail industry is undergoing a new reshuffle, with the rise of new brands and new forces, as well as traditional star supermarkets upgrading and breaking through. Blending the old with the new, retail in China has become more complex and diverse than ever before, but it is also full of imagination that has never been seen before.
After nearly 40 years of deep involvement in China's retail development, CR Vanguard is well aware that the pains of transformation are unavoidable, but the experience and achievements of the past 45 years of reform and opening up have made us deeply understand that only by "breaking" and "establishing" can we open up a new world of the times.
In the face of hustle and bustle, action is the best answer;In the face of uncertainty, action is the best certainty.
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Original text**: Hebei Internet Radio and Television Station.