At the end of the day, it's about learning to be honest and share: at a time when "long-termism" is a cliché, there are very few companies that can actually do it.
Author Tomato Sauce.
Produced by New Pick Business Review.
The only supermarket 5A-level scenic spot in the country" "Fat Donglai ** is good, the only drawback is that it is not opened in my house". Recently, Fat Donglai, the top in the supermarket industry, rushed to the hot search again, although it started with negative public opinion, but it was quickly reversed by Fat Donglai's operation**, ending with a positive word-of-mouth, giving his peers a textbook-level public relations lesson.
On February 15th, some netizens broke the news that in the Xuchang Fat Donglai Times Square store, a fat Donglai chef was cooking noodles in a large bucket, during which she directly used chopsticks to take out a noodle from the bucket and tasted it, and then directly used the chopsticks she used to continue to stir noodles in the pot.
Subsequently, Fat Donglai issued a statement on the situation, saying that the tasting staff in ** was making the day's staff meal fried sauce noodles in the hot pot roundabout operating table, and the employees did not taste in accordance with the tasting standards and made corresponding rectifications. Different from the painless "self-punishment of three cups" by some enterprises, Fat Donglai repeatedly emphasized that "food safety is the most basic bottom line", and accepted the price to be paid: according to Fat Donglai's catering management system, it was decided to terminate the labor contract of the employee concerned and close the hot pot stall.
Different from the "happy heart" painting style in the previous comment area, in the comment area of the Fat Donglai incident, almost all netizens spontaneously defended Fat Donglai and his employees: "Strongly oppose the dismissal of this little girl!" "At the family dinner, I tasted it with a spoon, and the whole village came to lift my table. "This problem is more serious, it is recommended to come to Hangzhou to open one, be sure to bring this little girl, I like the noodles she makes." ”
In the early morning of February 19, Fat Donglai Trading Group released a 13-page report late at night to investigate, and reviewed the employee's "taste" incident again, and at the same time jointly discussed 2 voting plans from the four groups of treatment plans. The supervisor maintained the original processing result, and the hot pot stall was closed.
At this point, this "noodle tasting drama" has officially come to an end. Previously, many ** and industry insiders were worried that Fat Donglai would fall off the altar after being over-deified, but now, a fuse that is most likely to make Fat Donglai fall off the altar has appeared, but there was no expected overturn, but in the process of processing the incident layer by layer, it has reversely strengthened Fat Donglai's good reputation. The attitude of Fat Donglai in this process is worth learning repeatedly in the industry.
Compared with the public relations skills of recruiting and powerful, the sincerity of "no tricks and no power" will always be more popular.
In fact, not only the handling of negative public opinion, but also in today's e-commerce, O2O, and offline supermarkets are worried about the future, the existence of Fat Donglai has undoubtedly reassured the industry, and has played a good example in the first chain, service and management.
First, the way to divide money: Zhang Songwen in the supermarket industry.
In Chinese enterprises, Fat Donglai has long become a phenomenon-level existence, and even made many bigwigs worship him: Ma Yun praised it as a mirror, saying that it "can reflect the shortcomings of other companies", and Lei Jun called it "the god-like existence of China's retail industry", and went to study.
However, the simplicity of the avenue, the lowest logic of Fat Donglai is still sincere: at the moment of the economic downturn, the narrative of "inspirational" and "changing one's life against the sky" in the past few years is no longer popular, compared with social Darwinism, people have begun to pay attention to the joys and sorrows of ordinary people, and prefer sincere, empathetic and even compassionate people, who are called "too sincere" by fans and "write prose poems in Vanity Fair" Zhang Songwen's explosion is a major embodiment. In the supermarket world, Fat Donglai is a Zhang Songwen-style existence to some extent.
Yu Donglai, the founder of Fat Donglai, once said that there are too many people who interpret Fat Donglai, but no one understands it so far. After working all his life, he thinks that it is a sadness for Fat Donglai to be deified, "It's nothing more than being kind and sincere." In fact, everyone should live with sincerity."
This is inseparable from Yu Donglai's early bumpy experience, he once wrote on Weibo: "In my life, I have done too many wrong things, suffered too many punishments, knelt down countless times, been beaten and scolded, insulted by personality, lost dignity, lost freedom, and only then did I have today's understanding!" So I know how precious dignity and freedom are! ”
Because of this, when he founded Fat Donglai and became a "master and entrepreneur" in a sense, Yu Donglai achieved both "treating customers as people" and "treating himself as people".
At the end of June last year, Fat Donglai was on a hot search, the cause was a dispute between the customer and the staff of Fat Donglai, the customer spoke badly to the waiter throughout the process, and reprimanded, ** After being transmitted to the Internet, Fat Donglai officially released an 8-page investigation report, and announced that all management personnel were demoted for three months, requiring them to apologize to customers, and at the same time, give the employees concerned 5000 yuan of moral compensation.
In this regard, Fat Donglai said: "When the rights and interests of customers are damaged or dissatisfied, (customers) can give feedback through the complaint channel and solve the problem rationally!" However, you can't shout and blame employees on the spot, this is a serious act that hurts your personality and dignity! It is also a bad social orientation! ”
Perhaps for onlookers, they see more possibilities in Fat Donglai: the respect, equality and care that an ordinary person can get. In fact, from a child who grew up in a Chinese-style family to a groveling 996 migrant worker, who has not suffered this kind of grievance? Only the managers of Fat Donglai are empathizing with them with their hearts.
At the same time, not only humanistic care, but also money, Fat Donglai is really sent to employees: a person familiar with the matter said that Fat Donglai implements a unique profit distribution system, that is, 95% of the profits are distributed to employees. 50% of this is a salary and 45% is a bonus. At the same time, Yu Donglai said that the average income of Fat Donglai's employees is basically more than 7,000 yuan, far exceeding the average level of the third and fourth-tier cities where Fat Donglai is located, and for the management, there will be additional cars, which can be said to be the ceiling level in the industry.
What is rare is that this high salary is not based on 996 and "wolf culture": Yu Donglai once said that Fat Donglai's management has achieved 190 days of vacation throughout the year. In addition to 40 days of ultra-long paid annual leave, ordinary employees also have 57 days of closed stores and rest throughout the year, plus other holidays.
As the old saying goes, the economic foundation determines the superstructure, and the premise of generously sharing money and distributing wealth is that there is money to share: the data shows that in 2020, the average gross profit margin of Fat Donglai Supermarket is about 30%, which is at a high level in the industry. So, what does Fat Donglai rely on to make money?
Second, the way to make money: cost-effective Haidilao.
In fact, like Haidilao, Fat Donglai is also selling services to a large extent. One of the main reasons why many consumers are willing to go to Fat Donglai to check in is its ultimate service experience, and on Xiaohongshu, more and more consumers have begun to show their fairy experience in Fat Donglai.
There are free direct drinking water and disposable raincoats at the entrance of the mall; The mall is equipped with luxury toilets, equipped with Dyson's hand-washing and drying machines, combs, cotton swabs, hand cream, and hairpins; Set up a temporary storage place for pets and put food for furry children; When customers pick fruits, but their hands are dry and slippery and can't open the bag, they can easily open the bag by pressing the ping pong ball with their fingers to get some water on their hands, and they can easily open the bag ......
Some consumers shared that they accidentally knocked over the fruit cut in Fat Donglai, and the staff not only did not let her clean it, but also resolutely refused to let her pay compensation for it; Some consumers said that in other supermarkets, they often look at the faces of the cashiers, and only when Fat Donglai enters in winter, the staff will even help him dust off the snow.
All kinds of operations make consumers shout: "Civilized, too civilized!" "Who still treats me as a child when I leave Fat Donglai? ”
However, the difference of Fat Donglai is that compared with Haidilao's "first-class selling service", Fat Donglai is more cost-effective. Not long ago, there was a "Fat Donglai made a profit of only 3 cents for a down jacket?" In this regard, Fat Donglai also responded quickly.
After implementation, the goods involved in ** are indeed the goods sold in the Fat Donglai Xinxiang Life Plaza store, the product name is "Aiyan color goose down jacket", the price tag is yellow, and the purchase price is 4987 yuan, the price is 499 yuan (gross profit margin 0.).06%), profit 0$3. The "Aiyan color goose down jacket" sold in the Xinxiang Life Plaza store is a broken code product at the end of the season, so the shopping mall sells this product with low gross profit.
Although it is a first-class product, it can still be seen that there are many low gross margin products in Fat Donglai. So, what does Fat Donglai rely on to make money?
This has to be reviewed to the industry once talked about, Fat Donglai's "four-party joint mining" model, which can be called the Pinduoduo of the supermarket industry: that is, Xinyang West Asia, Nanyang Wandelong, Luoyang Dazhang and other three retail enterprises formed a business alliance, gathered the order needs of the four enterprises, and formed a group to reduce the price of the upstream procurement link and kill the Quartet. In 2008, the relevant person in charge of Fat Donglai said in an interview that due to the large demand of the four companies, the procurement of many commodities decreased by 30%-50% year-on-year during joint procurement.
According to the management of Fat Donglai, today, although the Sifang Liancai has completed its historical mission, but with Fat Donglai's huge sales volume and ultra-high turnover rate, it still maintains a strong bargaining power in procurement.
In addition, the self-operated model of heavy infrastructure is also one of the profit tools of Fat Donglai. Not long ago, in an interview with "People", industry insiders summarized a major underlying logic of Fat Donglai to make money.
For a long time, Fat Donglai has been actively developing its own brand, and Fat Donglai is attracting customers through self-operated products with low gross profit margins, making small profits but quick turnover, but driving the purchasing power of other goods with normal gross profit margins, so as to make money. According to the "People" report, in addition to products other than self-operated, other goods here are normal gross profit margins, and even after comparing Jingdong's**, it was found that some commodities are even higher than Fat Donglai's.
Coincidentally, some analysis reports show that due to the establishment of its own self-operated brand system, Fat Donglai's fresh cooked food has basically reached more than 60% of the self-procurement rate, and this part will reach 80% in the future, and the cost of procurement will be further reduced, and this self-procurement ratio has exceeded that of Wal-Mart, Carrefour and other giants.
It can be found that each link of Fat Donglai's layout seems to be isolated, but it is interlocking, and finally forms a virtuous circle: sincere service + low-price self-operated brand occupies the minds of customers - a huge amount of ** is established - the first chain to obtain bargaining power - profit margins are established - high salary mechanism to build a better service system - and finally establish a deep link with customers, becoming a phenomenon-level existence.
And this is a textbook-level lesson for domestic supermarkets and even e-commerce platforms.
3. Fat Donglai is in the present:
It can't be expanded, but it can be "proofed".
Fat Donglai is not suitable for expansion in the country" has become an indisputable fact, and even Yu Donglai himself is quite sober: "Zhengzhou's store costs, employee benefits and other comprehensive costs are much higher, Zhengzhou's housing prices are high, and the salary given by Fat Donglai is not competitive in Zhengzhou, so it is not suitable for replication." ”
As said, in Xuchang and Xinxiang, Henan, Fat Donglai can benchmark the target groups such as "county ladies", play the whole system, and become "the most cost-effective in good service" and "the best service in cost-effective". Consumers from all over the country can come to Fat Donglai to check in like last year's "coming to Zibo to Beijing to catch up with the barbecue", but after Fat Donglai really expands, not too many people may be converted into stable customer flow.
At the same time, Fat Donglai's very humane corporate culture is also destined to be diluted with the hierarchical management after the expansion. When the time comes, Fat Donglai, who is "ineffective in sincerity", will inevitably disappoint consumers, sigh that "Fat Donglai has changed", and be eaten up by the traffic at this time.
Haidilao is a counter-example: Haidilao, which opened more than 800 new stores from 2020 to the first half of 2021, has seen its revenue decline with its expansion, and its net profit has increased from 23 in 2019400 million to 3. in 20200.9 billion, and then it was hit fatally by the impact of the epidemic. In 2021, Haidilao suffered its first loss after listing, and the founder woke up: "I was wrong about the trend!" And gradually close 300 stores, with it, the market value evaporated by 350 billion.
However, Fat Donglai, which cannot expand, can be learned and partially relocated: Yu Donglai once said that the main problem restricting the development of large or small and medium-sized enterprises such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart is the company's salary income policy, which focuses too much on short-term shareholder returns, ignores the healthy development of the team, and the income of managers and employees cannot keep up with the pace of the times.
At the end of the day, it's about learning to be honest and share: at a time when "long-termism" is a cliché, there are very few companies that can actually do it.
Perhaps, it is time for each place to have its own fat east.