As one of the leaders in the domestic retail industry, RT-Mart, which was once prosperous, is now difficult to continue the myth of zero store closures in 19 years. Just after the Spring Festival,RT-Mart was exposed to the closure of a number of stores, and Lin Xiaohai, executive director and CEO of the parent company Sun Art Retail, responded that the "wave of store closures" was inevitable during the painful period. What happened to RT-Mart?
At the end of February this year, RT-Mart's stores in Zhenjiang, Deyang, Zhuzhou and other places were exposed to store closures, according to incomplete statisticsFrom 2023 to February 2024, RT-Mart has closed a total of about 13 stores. That's not a lot, but it's not a small thing for RT-Mart, which has set a record of 19 years of zero store closures.
For RT-Mart to close a number of stores one after another, many netizens expressed regret because "it is very easy to shop". So why did RT-Mart close many stores? RT-Mart insiders told "Southern ***On the one hand, because of the property, some of the stores that are closed are due to the expiration of the lease period, and some are because of ** planning; On the other hand, due to the renovation, some stores will be upgraded to new stores or M membership stores.
A few days after the Weibo screenshot, Lin Xiaohai, executive director and CEO of Sun Art Retail, added to RT-Mart's successive store closuressaid that in recent years, it has been a "painful transition period" for hypermarkets, and store closures are inevitable. However, RT-Mart is still opening new stores while closing stores, and is expected to open 5 new stores in FY2025 and 15 stores in 3 years. In the future, RT-Mart may try the method of "surrounding the city from the countryside", from the second and third-tier cities to the first-tier cities. From this point of view, although RT-Mart's situation is not as bad as the outside world thinks, it is indeed time for transformation.
Many people may not know that RT-Mart was founded by Taiwan's Runtai Group. In 1997, RT-Mart opened its first store in Shanghai, marking the beginning of its expansion in mainland China. From its first store to today's 513 stores, RT-Mart has not only gained a name in the mainland retail industry, but also set a record of 19 years of zero store closures, which is a glorious achievement of RT-Mart. However, there will always be an end to glory, and in 2016, RT-Mart announced the closure of its store in Weifang, Shandong Province, which was the first store that RT-Mart closed.
On the other hand, RT-Mart's performance also began to decline, and the financial report showedFrom fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2023, the total revenue of Sun Art Retail, the parent company of RT-Mart, has been decreasing, and in fiscal year 2022, Sun Art Retail has also turned from profit to loss, with a loss of up to 73.9 billion yuan. So why did RT-Mart start to go downhill?
ScreenshotOn the one hand, it is related to the epidemicIt can be seen that RT-Mart's total revenue fell precisely in the years of the epidemic. The epidemic has had a big impact on offline consumption, and some offline stores have closed their doors because they can't hold on. Although RT-Mart has not been "defeated" by the epidemic, its performance has also been greatly affected.
On the other hand, it is because of online consumption. Convenient and fast e-commerce allows consumers to buy the goods they want without leaving home, with everything they need for food, clothing, housing and transportation, in contrast, the attractiveness of offline stores to consumers is weakening. To this end, RT-Mart has also launched an online shopping platform, combining online and offline to make up for the gap in its own **, and has also "sold" itself to Alibaba, but with little success.
From the comments of netizens, the reason may be seen. There has been a discussion on the Internet about "why fewer and fewer people visit RT-Mart".Some netizens said that it was "expensive", and some netizens said: "* is not as good as online, and the service is not as good as the same type of supermarket". This may be the reason why RT-Mart is unable to gain more consumers' favor today, in fact, RT-Mart is not the only one facing such a dilemma.
Renrenle, which was once known as the "three giants of Guangdong supermarkets" together with China Resources Vanguard and Xinyijia, is also going downhill. Decline in total revenue, losses, store closures, insolvency,Who would have thought that the "first share of private supermarkets" would come to this situation. As a veteran local brand, BBK's development is far worse than before, and its revenue has declined year after year to face delisting and then bankruptcy and reorganization. In addition, Yonghui Supermarket and Carrefour China are also losing money and closing stores.
Xiaohongshu's traditional supermarkets in China seem to have a hard time, in addition to the impact of the epidemic and e-commerce mentioned above, but also because the competition in the domestic retail industry is too fierce. Last year, Hema and Sam started a "** war", and this year, Fat Donglai, who served "volume", frequently appeared on the hot searchThe transformation of traditional supermarkets is imminent. So where should traditional supermarkets go?
Just when traditional supermarkets are worried about the transformation, the warehouse-style membership stores represented by Sam's are making great progress. According to ** statistics, as of August last year, the number of Sam's stores in China reached 45, and Costco's stores in Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places have also caused discussions due to overcrowding. In addition, RT-Mart, China Resources Vanguard and others are also experimenting with membership stores and community stores.
At present, the transformation of traditional supermarkets has a new direction, but whether it can develop in the long term still needs to be tried. In addition, for traditional supermarkets that have formed a business model, it is not an overnight thing to change. Yonghui once closed a warehousing store to test the waters, which shows that traditional supermarkets still need to overcome many difficulties if they want to transform successfully.
RT-Mart's parent company responds to the wave of store closures