In 2024, the convenience store track will usher in a major reshuffle, and convenience bees will be on the verge of "out".In the past year, Convenience Bee has closed more than 1,000 stores.
According to *** Retail Watch", as of now,According to the internal operation and management app "Bee Weapon", there are 1,326 stores nationwide. Among them, there are only four cities with more than 100 stores: 745 in Beijing, 227 in Tianjin, 114 in Nanjing, and 101 in Shanghai. 【1】
This is not the first time that Convenience Bee has reported the news of store closures, as early as the beginning of 2022, there was news of its large-scale store closure. At that time, the convenience bee proposed"Hibernation Plan".According to public reports, from April 2022, Convenience Bee has closed 800 stores nationwide.
In order to improve the situation, convenience bees have made a lot of efforts, such as:It has always been directly opened。However, judging from the results, the decline of store closures has not improved, and franchise may not be its lifesaver.
In order to save yourself, open to joining
The convenience store track, which doesn't seem to be hot, is actually extremely competitive.
A few days ago, the China Chain Store & Franchise Association released the "Overview of the Development of Convenience Store Formats in 2023", which shows that in 2023, sample convenience store enterprises will open 13,148 new stores, close 4,076 stores, and add 9,072 stores.
While the involution is intensifying, the head brands are still expanding, and they have begun to move from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities to seize more sinking markets.
Taking Lawson convenience stores as an example, it has already laid out more than 20 prefecture-level cities and county-level cities in Hubei and Hunan, and will set its sights on Henan in 2023, and the first batch of 6 stores in Xinyang and Nanyang will be officially opened at the end of the year.
In such a situation, there is less and less time left for convenience bee and other "waist" chain brands. However, brand expansion requires a certain amount of capital and strength, and for the convenience bee that is constantly closing stores, it can no longer support more new stores.
In September 2023, Convenience Bee, which has always been the main direct operation, will be officially opened to the outside world and launched across provinces and cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Nanjing"Partner Win-Win Program".。It is reported that the franchisee is only responsible for the daily operation, and the store leasing, decoration, product supply, brand promotion and operation management are all responsible for convenience bee. The conditions are very attractive, and the purpose of this wave of operations is very obvious:
Everything is for self-help .
However, the convenience bee, which bets on joining, has had frequent problems recently.
According to the "Retail Observation" report, some franchisees found that Convenience Bee did not have the ability to join and the store did not make money after applying for termination and stop loss after actually joining.
In addition, the "China Times" said that "according to the information given by Convenience Bee, the higher the gross profit, the lower the proportion of profits shared by franchisees." Interested parties objected to the sharing method of Convenience Bee, but the operator of Convenience Bee only said that this is how the company stipulated." 【2】
Reduced to the "outcast" of capital
It is somewhat embarrassing that Convenience Bee has come to this point, after all, it was also a rookie in the industry and a darling of capital.
In 2016, Zhuang Chenchao, CEO of Qunar.com, founded Convenience Bee, and the first Convenience Bee store opened in Beijing in February of the following year. Then the road of crazy expansion began, and the number of stores has been soaring all the way, and it is also favored by capitalIt has received three rounds of financing, totaling more than $2 billionThe investment institutions include Tencent Investment, Hillhouse Capital, Zebra Investment, etc.
In the early days of its establishment, Convenience Bee took "Internet + Circulation" as its development strategy, focusing on the Internet innovation and upgrading of the traditional retail industryIt is the first convenience store company in China to claim to use the "Internet model" to operate the retail industry。In the era of big data and the Internet, Convenience Bee stands out as a dark horse and becomes a "new star" in the convenience store track.
The capital is optimistic, the management model is novel, and the convenience bee does have a proud capital, and the senior management is also full of confidence in the future in those years.
At the end of 2020, Xue Enyuan, executive director of Convenience Bee, revealed at the "2021 Convenience Bee ** Business Conference".According to the plan, the number of convenience bee stores will exceed 4,000 in 2021; By 2023, the number of convenience bee stores will reach 10,000. In 2021, Convenience Bee also had the news that it was about to go public in the United States, but in the end, it didn't happen.
Convenience Bee 2021** Business Conference, film and television actor Tong Dawei was invited to attend).
Three years have passed, the goal of convenience bee has not been achieved, and it has long since lost its former glory, the store has been closed again and again, and the capital no longer seems to be optimistic, according to Tianyancha public information,Convenience Bee's last round of funding stayed in May 2020.
From the rookie in the industry to the "abandoned son" of capital, convenience stores have stubbornly smashed a good hand.
Algorithms are out of order, and it's no longer convenient
There are many reasons for the decline of convenience bees, such as too fierce competition in the industry, sudden epidemics, and management pressure caused by rapid expansion.
Among them, it is the proudestAlgorithmsThe most unexpected thing is that the purpose of the design is convenience, but I didn't expect that it was not only difficult for consumers, but also stabbed myself in the end.
The "algorithm" of convenience bee, including intelligent ordering system, big data selection system, self-service cash register system, dynamic pricing system, etc., in short, isAll decisions are determined by data and algorithms, and all employees in the business chain only need to follow the policies prompted by the software
How important are algorithms in convenience bees? It can be said that it is the core of Convenience Bee, and the founder Zhuang Chenchao is the most loyal "believer".
In an interview, he said"So far, except in exceptional circumstances, no one has been able to defeat the system for convenience bees.", as well"On the surface, Convenience Bee is a convenience store chain, but in fact we are a data technology company. ”
At first, this model was indeed favored by many people in the industry, and it also gave Convenience Bee a certain sweetness, but with the rapid growth of the number of stores, the problem of Convenience Bee, which relied too much on algorithms, was gradually exposed.
The biggest problem isAn irreconcilable contradiction between employees and algorithms
It is reported that relying on digital management, Convenience Bee maintains the number of clerks in each store at 2-3 people, which on the surface is an effective reduction in costs, but the workload of employees is greatly increased, and at the same time, they have to constantly perform the tasks assigned by the system, and if they cannot be completed or completed overtime, they will face fines.
In the long run, many employees are tired of coping with the choice to leave, and some employees who have not left have also begun to rot, and the black cat complaint platform has received 1963 investments, most of which have a bad service attitude.
In addition,"No longer convenient" has also become a straw that crushes it。Convenience Bee is a convenience store that uses self-checkout, customers can scan the *** on the product with their mobile phone or go to the self-checkout machine to self-check out and complete the payment without waiting for the cashier service.
Source: Convenience Bee official website).
Nowadays, although many large supermarkets also have self-checkout machines, the proportion is still manual checkout, which proves that there is still a long way to go for full self-service. As a pioneer in the industry, I admire the courage of the convenience bee, but I also feel sad that it is too aggressive, and countless consumers have complained that it is too chicken, inconvenient at all, and I don't understand it.
The data shows that most of the stores of convenience bee are in the first and second tier cities, and consumers in these areas are unable to "digest" this model well, and the difficulty of using it can be imagined for users in the third and fourth tiers and even counties, which is also an important reason why it has not been able to develop in the second and third tier cities.
Those who have to sink the market win the world. The convenience bee, which seems to be leading, may have strayed from the beginning.
Information**. 1] Convenience Bee: Algorithm Failure, Joining "Miscalculation" Retail Observation 2024-01-11
2] New Consumption Observation Unmanned Retail "Unmanned", After Capital Stays Away, Convenience Bee Shrinks and Opens to Join China Times 2024-01-03