Fat Donglai Angel City store.
Xuchang, a fourth-tier city in China located in central Henan, is home to a top local brand supermarket - Fat Donglai, which is popular all over the country. There are quite a few tourists, who take the high-speed train for four or five hours, dragging a suitcase, just to see the so-called "ceiling" of Chinese supermarkets.
According to the data released by Xuchang, during the Spring Festival this year, Fat Donglai Angel City, Times Square, and Life Square 3 supermarkets were extremely popular, and they received 116 tourists in only 3 days330,000 person-times. According to the data of the Xuchang Culture and Tourism Bureau, during the Spring Festival holiday (8 days), the city's 11 4A scenic spots received a total of about 127 tourists30,000 people, Fat Donglai's tourist reception volume in only 3 days is almost the same as the 8-day reception volume of other 11 4A scenic spots, and it is nicknamed by netizens as a "6A-level scenic spot" without an off-season.
In the past few days after the opening of the New Year, the customer flow of each store has increased several times, and Fat Donglai had to issue an apology, saying that he would limit the flow management.
Fat Donglai Douyin account.
Of course, Fat Donglai is not only so popular during the Spring Festival. Fat Donglai is currently in a monopoly position in Xuchang and Xinxiang area, according to the query of China brand network, Fat Donglai's market share has accounted for more than 60% of the market share of Xuchang and Xinxiang supermarkets. It is said that there are no shops in a kilometer radius of the place where it is located, and on weekends when there are so many people that the entire street is closed, everyone recognizes Fat Donglai. Not only did Carrefour fail in front of it and flee in embarrassment, but even Wal-Mart, which had been preparing for several years to open, stopped because of it and did not dare to act rashly.
Mr. Ma once praised it as "a new mindset for Chinese retailers and a flag for Chinese companies." Lei Jun once went to Xuchang's Fat Donglai Times Square to experience its products and services, and praised Fat Donglai on Weibo as a "god-like existence" in China's retail industry.
The "noodle tasting incident" was full of twists and turns
There are many popular stores, and Fat Donglai has recently rushed to the hot search because of "negative" information.
The cause of the incident originated from the noodle tasting incident of Fat Donglai's employees a few days ago.
When a fat Donglai employee was cooking noodles, he picked up a noodle from the pot with chopsticks and tasted it, and then continued to cook without changing the chopsticks. However, this scene was photographed by a netizen and posted on the Internet. As a result, there are various reports of 90 ** participating in the "overturning" of Fat Donglai.
On February 16, Fat Donglai responded to "the employees of the Food City did not try the staff meals according to the standards": the labor contract was terminated for the employees concerned. The results of this treatment have aroused heated discussions among netizens, and some people think that such a small mistake and a big punishment are too cold. At the same time, some experts pointed out that the pressure exerted by consumers on companies is often passed on to workers.
Fat Donglai focuses on listening to persuasion. In the early morning of February 19, Fat Donglai Trading Group released a 13-page report late at night to investigate the employee tasting incident, and announced the results of the re-resolution of the incident, that is, the employee was reduced to a three-month study period, transferred from his position, and transferred to a non-food processing position.
Fat Donglai Douyin account.
originally thought it was a top-notch "overturn", but Fat Donglai's set of operations was smooth, which can be called the ceiling of crisis public relations, and once again reflected his humanistic care.
Grocery stores are transformed into hypermarkets
In 1995, Yu Donglai, who opened a grocery store in Xuchang, Henan Province, was 29 years old, and his store name was "Wangyuelou Fat Shop", which was the predecessor of Fat Donglai. At that time, no one thought that this store would be able to sweep the Xuchang supermarket in the future and sit firmly in the lead.
At that time, Yu Donglai was deceived into illegally selling tobacco and was burdened with a huge debt of 300,000 yuan. Yu Donglai learned from the pain, and applied the results of his reflection to his new store, and he assured customers that "he will never sell fakes", and also provided benefits for no reason to return and exchange goods in advance.
Therefore, in that era when fakes were rampant, Yu Donglai's sincere and simple way of doing business soon gained the praise and trust of a large number of customers, and the business became more and more prosperous, and he soon paid off all the debts.
In 1997, as the business became bigger and bigger, Yu Donglai directly founded "Fat Donglai Tobacco and Liquor*** Yu Donglai also opened his own branch in October of that year.
However, there are unforeseen circumstances, and the good future of "Fat Donglai" has just started, and it was tripped upon. On March 15, 1998, a fire destroyed the entire Fat Donglai supermarket and killed eight people.
It turned out that a group of gangsters wanted to collect protection money but was rejected by Yu Donglai, so they retaliated.
This incident made Yu Donglai feel disheartened, and even blamed himself, he thought that these innocent lives were inseparable from him, and even gave up opening a supermarket.
But after the arson, many people reached out to him, including regular customers who bought goods from him for many years, and people who admired him for donating money to the Ministry of Defense.
In the end, with the support of all walks of life and the people, Fat Donglai was reopened on May 1 of the same year. As a result, Yu Donglai embarked on a brilliant entrepreneurial road. In just six months after opening the store, the net income reached a staggering 6 million. In this way, Fat Donglai's rapid expansion is getting bigger and bigger, and now the annual supermarket turnover has reached 1.7 billion, and many international giants have stopped in front of it.
Haidilao in the supermarket industry, the "dream intelligence division" of workers
For more than 20 years, Fat Donglai has always been welcomed by the general public. In 2023, Fat Donglai will be fully "popular" on multiple social platforms and is known as "Haidilao in the supermarket industry", which is due to Fat Donglai's meticulous service and high-quality and low-cost products.
While almost every major supermarket has free lockers, Fat Donglai's lockers even have freezers for customers who need to be kept at low temperatures.
Even guests who like to go shopping with their pets don't have to worry, because Fat Donglai also has a pet storage place, and there are even people who take care of it and feed them with water.
When you enter the supermarket, you will first have seven types of shopping tools alone: a hand-held shopping basket, a children's shopping cart, and a double-decker shopping cart. The seven shopping tools are for different genders and age groups, with the elderly equipped with magnifying glasses and a sign next to the shopping tool indicating the age and capacity to prevent guests from making the wrong choice.
Internet.
The products in the supermarket are also clearly marked with information such as origin, storage method, cooking usage, and the expiration date of the product, so that consumers can feel more at ease when purchasing.
If the guest is not satisfied with the product, or even just because the taste is different from the description in the "commentary card", you can choose to return the product, and even the movie ticket can be refunded within 20 minutes after the movie is shown due to dissatisfaction**.
Fat Donglai is also frequently searched because of various unimaginable services. This winter, there was a sudden snowstorm in Henan, and a "Fat Donglai swept the snow on the customer at the door"** circulated on the Internet, and the staff in the picture were smiling throughout the whole process, and this heartwarming scene was on the hot search again.
Fat Donglai not only spoils customers, but also especially spoils his employees, and has previously been given the reputation of "dream intelligence division" by many netizens because of the generous treatment provided to employees.
At the 2023 China Supermarket President Summit, Yu Donglai once said, "Overtime is immoral in Fat Donglai". Later, Yu Donglai also said that if employees don't want to go to work and want to ask for leave, it is not allowed not to approve leave, and employees are not allowed to find reasons to make up reasons for leave, so as to guide people to live a real life.
Yu Donglai once said at the sharing meeting: "Now Fat Donglai's working time is 7 hours, and the weekly work is calculated according to the 8-hour work system, in fact, our working time is to achieve double holidays, double days off is 104 days, we have 30 to 40 days of annual leave, plus 5 days of closed stores during the Spring Festival, our vacation is basically 140 days." In addition, the management of Fat Donglai has achieved 190 days of vacation, and the income is not low, just like the middle management is equipped with Mercedes-Benz, and the executives are equipped with more than 3 million cars. ”
As for employee salaries, Yu Donglai also revealed the secret at this sharing meeting, "As of last month, our employees' income is basically above 7,000, and the average minimum may be 6,500, just like Angel City's salary last month was 8,400, and this is not the best department, the best department is higher than this."
Although the salary of seven or eight thousand may not be a high salary for first-tier cities, compared with the average salary in Henan, Fat Donglai's salary level is very competitive. You must know that the salary of township civil servants in Henan is only 1,800 yuan.
In March 2023, Fat Donglai will be on the hot search again because of the "Grievance Award". The office of Fat Donglai Supermarket responded that the company does have a "grievance award" for employees, which is intended to encourage employees to do the right thing, but the current reward standard is not 5,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan as reported on the Internet, but according to different situations, the bonus ranges from 500 yuan to 5,000 yuan.
Not only customers, but also employees can feel at home. All this stems from Fat Donglai's unique corporate culture and values, freedom and love. Yu Donglai said at the 2023 China Supermarket President Summit that Fat Donglai wants to be a happy enterprise. "Only by knowing life can we create life", from the perspective of the East, a business boss who does not love himself, does not understand life, and does not know the distribution of interests will not love his employees.
This is also the reason why Fat Donglai can stand out in the fierce market competition and become the first choice in the hearts of consumers.
Can't get out of Henan, can't replicate the myth
However, it is such a mythical supermarket, but it only has 13 stores in Xuchang and Xinxiang, and there are no branches of Fat Donglai even in Zhengzhou.
Yu Donglai said that there are no plans to open a store in Zhengzhou, which may also be because this business model cannot be replicated.
First of all, in terms of product supply, Fat Donglai has improved its bargaining and pricing power through the high self-procurement rate of commodities. According to Southern Weekly, most of the goods in Fat Donglai's Golden Triangle store are self-picked, accounting for about 80%. The average gross profit margin of Fat Donglai has been reported many times to be about 30%, which is considered to be a very high level in the industry.
In addition, Fat Donglai has also made its own brand "DL", covering categories including disposable plastic cups, garbage bags, condiments, liquor, cakes, water, juice, laundry detergent and so on. These products tend to have higher gross margins.
In terms of the first chain, in 1999, Fat Donglai established a distribution center to facilitate the transit of directly purchased goods and the distribution of goods to various stores. In order to reduce the cost of the first chain, in 2001, Fat Donglai also established a "four-party joint mining" with three other regional supermarket chains in Xinyang, Nanyang and Luoyang, and exchanged price for volume.
In Xuchang, Fat Donglai has established its market position and has a very loyal customer base. And if you come to Zhengzhou, you need to face competition from strong supermarket brands such as Yonghui, Walmart and RT-Mart to Costco and Sam's, which have often established themselves in their respective territories. Out of Xuchang and Xinxiang, the differentiation of Fat Donglai may not be as prominent as it is now.
Although Fat Donglai's stores have not been able to go out of Henan, and even in Henan, they have not achieved full coverage of all cities, but Fat Donglai DL Online** has already been opened on October 28, 2022, and the WeChat applet can be purchased by scanning the code, with rich products, and the price is the same as that of the physical store, but you need to pay for the mailing fee yourself. At the same time, Fat Donglai also opened a Douyin franchise store to sell its own products. At present, the sales volume has also reached 5680 thousand.
The hidden crisis behind the apotheosis
Even if it is rumored to be good for Fat Donglai, there are some opposite voices, and Fat Donglai's "perfect character" is also questioned.
On February 19, an article on the financial network criticized Fat Donglai for being a "fancy pet customer", the goods were expensive, and the shopping experience was not good, citing examples such as "the dishwasher of the same brand and model is more than 1,000 yuan more expensive than that of the home and Red Star Macalline", "the sour jujube cake is more expensive than more than 10 yuan a catty" and other examples. However, the comments of netizens overwhelmingly praised Fat Donglai, is the description in the article true? I'm afraid that hundreds of thousands of customers flock to the store are more convincing. Even the 2024 Henan Provincial ** Work Report proposes to support the development of traffic supermarkets such as Fat Donglai.
Weibo screenshot The above article also reported that former employees said that Fat Donglai was overly deified: a daughter who claimed to be a cleaning staff of Fat Donglai said that Fat Donglai asked the employee in charge of cleaning to write a PPT report, and her mother would not do it, she did it for her every time, and it was annoying every time. "I don't understand, so I have to drag the floor and have to do the whole ppt, it's outrageous. ”
Some netizens commented that this is the cake that moved the capitalists. Just like this "noodle tasting turmoil", even Fat Donglai, who is known as the national "supermarket benchmark", will always be targeted by some red-eyed people.
However, judging from the grand occasion of Fat Donglai during the Spring Festival this year, the scene is crowded, the water is impassable, and the queue needs to wait for 2-3 hours, and it is estimated that the shopping experience will drop a lot. Boss Yu should be worried, how to do a good job of meticulous service if the business is too good? ■