The mid-year financial report is mixed. How do traditional supermarkets "increase inventory"?

August is the semi-annual season of traditional supermarkets in China. Judging from several national supermarket chains that I often pay attention to, revenue and profits have declined to varying degrees.

Fujian Yonghui Supermarket even suffered the first loss in 1 1 year, which was-10.83 million yuan, down158% year-on-year; Renrenle's net profit in Shenzhen was-365 million yuan, down 157.84% year-on-year, second only to Yonghui Supermarket!

Why are the revenues and profits of these well-known old listed companies under pressure in the past two years? In the era of multi-formats, how will they transform and upgrade and gain increment?

Through careful analysis of the financial reports released by traditional supermarkets, although some supermarkets think that "community group buying" is the main reason for the decline in performance, most supermarkets still look for reasons from inside and outside.

After in-depth comprehensive analysis, I think there are three main reasons for the decline in the performance of traditional supermarkets:

External reasons, with the acceleration of urbanization in China, the trend of consumption upgrading is obvious.

In order to cope with the change of consumption and the continuous development of online pre-warehouse and community group buying, the online rate of the core categories of traditional supermarkets: fresh and fast-moving consumer goods has been increasing.

In addition, with the rapid development of box horses and convenience bees, COSTCO has entered China with high profile, and these new community stores, convenience stores and membership-based storage supermarkets are also competing with traditional businesses for overproduction.

In China, a multi-format pattern of offline traditional supermarkets, convenience stores, community stores, membership warehouse supermarkets and online home-to-home, pre-warehouse and community group purchase has been formed, which mainly focuses on fresh and fast-moving goods.

From August 2065438 to August 2009, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating Circulation Development and Promoting Commercial Consumption. The first article clearly stated: innovate circulation development and form more new circulation platforms, new formats and new models.

The normal control of epidemic situation makes traditional supermarkets need to be more flexible in management and promotion.

For internal reasons, in order to face the competition, traditional supermarkets began to adjust the category structure and internal organizational structure, which will also lead to the increase of inventory pressure and labor costs, which will affect the normal operation and management to varying degrees.

Many traditional supermarkets have been established for more than 20 years. Some stores are aging, rents are rising seriously, and the population is migrating. It is necessary to adjust the store by closing or redecorating.

Sichuan Hongqi Chain Store 202 1 closed stores in the first half of the year 10, and upgraded 58 old stores!

It can be seen that the competition faced by traditional supermarkets is obviously not as simple as "low-cost expansion of community group buying"; The decline of traditional Shang Chao net profit is caused by comprehensive factors. Community group buying is just one of the reasons.

After all, in such a changeable competitive environment and pressure, although the loss-making traditional supermarkets account for the majority, there are still supermarkets with a substantial increase in income and profits, which shows that they already know how to deal with internal and external competition:

Whether it is a loss or a profit, it will eventually face the same consumer market and competitive market, as well as the same competitive model and competitors.

The problem to be solved is how to do increment in the multi-format era: is it to optimize and upgrade through stock? Or try the transformation of a new business model? Or do both?

In order to achieve new growth, traditional supermarkets need to face up to competition and change their attitudes.

I have seen from the financial reports of many retail listed companies that many have started or will soon start community group buying projects: "We will speed up the transformation and vigorously expand the new business field of community group buying to enhance the company's market competitiveness."

The attitude towards "community group buying" has changed from opposition to integration, and this change in traditional supermarkets is a good start for change.

According to the inside news of Yonghui Supermarket, Super Species is exploring the community group buying business, which has been launched in Shanghai, Beijing, Fuzhou, Hefei, Chongqing and other cities. BBK's financial report shows that the company's group buying business income will increase by 42.5% in 2020 compared with 20 19, and the promotion of group buying business is expected to become the company's performance growth point. It is understood that my old club, Wal-Mart, also tested the community group buying business through community stores nationwide, and exhibited more than 10,000 heads.

Zhong Bai Supermarket in Hubei Province is also actively exploring new sales models such as community group buying in 2020, and developing home furnishing business to Taiwan. A total of 962 stores have launched community group buying applets, and launched new services such as online group buying and solitaire. In 20021year, Zhong Bai focused on expanding community group buying business, promoting the rapid growth of online ordering, self-promotion of stores and group buying business, further improving the group buying business functions of small programs and other platforms, increasing the ability of stores to attract customers and steadily increasing the proportion of online sales.

Based on the perspective of "how fast to save", the focus of community group buying is "province" and "fast".

However, the goods that traditional supermarkets carry out community group buying come directly from stores, and the commodity channels and supply chains do not need much change.

Therefore, traditional supermarkets can make up for the shortcomings of community group buying and compete with other community group buying in terms of quality, size and brand of some goods.

More importantly, traditional supermarkets have a strong and mature supply chain, and brand merchants and suppliers are partners for many years and can get greater support.

Through private communication with many brand merchants and analysis of their financial reports and public materials, I found that after 202 1, like most traditional supermarkets, many brand merchants explicitly embraced community group buying:

Arowana told investors that the company's attitude towards community group buying is a positive embrace, and it also hopes to achieve a win-win situation through cooperation with community group buying platforms. Arowana executives expressed their attitude towards community group buying: "The company's business in the community group buying channel is progressing well." In their view, the real advantage of the community group buying model is that it is more efficient to deliver products to consumers quickly with a shorter supply chain. At present, the cooperation mode between Arowana and community group purchase is to provide customized products.

In the first half of this year, Lion's net profit increased by 777%. As for the reasons for the sharp increase in net profit in the first half of the year, Lion suggested in the performance forecast that in 20021year, combined with the advantages of community stores, the business of "community group gathering to the store" and "take-away delivery to the home in time" should be created to promote the construction of enterprise WeChat community. In the first half of the year, the operating income of Iraqi community group buying business exceeded 654.38+0.6 billion yuan, an increase of 80% year-on-year.

The financial report of COFCO Coca-Cola in the first half of 20021shows that its revenue broke the record of 10 billion yuan, reaching 1 122 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.3%. The net profit was 746 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.2%. Among them, community group buying, as a new business, contributed 654.38+0.6 billion yuan to COFCO Coca-Cola.

This means that as one of the new formats, the attitude of traditional supermarkets and brands has been very clear: firm embrace and common development.

The change of attitude towards new formats, especially community group buying, can make traditional supermarkets and brand businesses reduce their psychological burden and go into battle lightly. Next is the specific practice and the corresponding effect.

In May this year, Zhang Xuansong, chairman of Yonghui Supermarket, once said that the retail market has entered the stage of stock competition, and Yonghui will return to the origin of the user-centered Minsheng Supermarket, strengthen its scientific and technological capabilities and supply chain capabilities through innovative business models, and let mainstream family customers return to Yonghui's stores, and increase the stock.

In fact, most traditional supermarkets hold the same view as Zhang Xuansong. Whether it is community group buying, home-to-home mode and pre-warehouse, or warehouse member stores and new community stores and convenience stores, the coordinated development of traditional supermarkets and new formats has become the mainstream of "incremental inventory".

I summed up the "four tricks" for the coordinated development of traditional supermarkets and new formats for reference and discussion:

The first measure: the new format layout of warehouse supermarkets, new community stores and convenience stores.

In May, 20021,Yonghui Supermarket opened the first warehouse in Fuzhou to locate people's livelihood. By the end of June, 20021,Yonghui had changed stores and opened 20 warehouses all over the country.

During the reporting period, the sales of warehouse stores increased by 139% year-on-year, and the average daily passenger flow of a single store increased by 136% year-on-year.

The mode of "integration of stores and warehouses" is an important mode for the coordinated development of traditional supermarkets and community group buying. It is also of strategic significance for Wal-Mart to open new community stores to carry out community group buying business, and to adjust the traditional supermarket stores into warehouse stores, so as to develop in harmony with the community group buying model.

Renrenle forms a multi-format development pattern of online and offline integration, combining new supermarkets, boutique supermarkets, community life supermarkets, community fresh supermarkets, department stores, shopping centers, Renrenle micro-stores, Renrenle Yundian and third-party platforms.

Zhong Bai Group revealed in the semi-annual report that its chain outlets increased by 58; Accelerate the innovative development of storage supermarkets, build the first "Zhongbaiyun Store" and add two hypermarkets; There are 78 new convenience stores, a total of 556.

The second measure: accelerate the combination of online and offline.

Judging from the financial data of major supermarkets, the combination of online and offline is accelerating and has achieved remarkable growth.

The financial report shows that in the first half of 20021,Yonghui's online sales reached 6.865438 billion yuan, up 49.3% year-on-year, accounting for 14. 1% of its main income. By the end of June, 20021,the "Yonghui Life" APP had covered nearly 1,000 stores with 72.2 million members.

According to the data of BBK's semi-annual report, by the end of June, BBK digital members had reached 277 1 0,000, and contributed sales accounted for 7 1.5% of the total sales. In the first half of the year, the online GMV was 3.037 billion yuan, exceeding the 2.33 billion yuan in 2065438+2009 before the epidemic.

According to the data of Wumart's prospectus, as of June 65438+February 3, 20201,Wumart had 80.9 million APP users, and the retail sales generated by APP users accounted for more than 70% of Wumart's retail sales.

In 2020, Zhong Bai Group's O2O home furnishing business accumulated 1056 stores, with sales increasing by 133.44% and total orders increasing by 95.92%. The multi-point platform launched the top 100 kitchen products, and the total number of online fresh varieties reached 1240.

At present, the combination of online and offline of traditional supermarkets is basically based on self-built platforms, combined with third-party social platforms and content platforms. With the continuous investment in online business, the final combination of online and offline in traditional supermarkets must be a two-way combination mode of "top-down and bottom-up, inside-out, outside-in".

The third measure: the development and sales of private brand goods.

With the continuous development of the member warehouse supermarket model and the growth pressure brought by the decline in profits, private brand business will become the "profit increment" of major traditional supermarkets, as well as traditional e-commerce platforms and emerging formats.

In fact, as early as a decade ago, the proportion of foreign supermarkets such as Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Watsons reached 15%-20%.

In 2020, the sales volume of Liqun Group's own brand products was 230 million yuan, accounting for 6% of its total supermarket sales, up 15% year-on-year.

According to the data of Jiajiayue 202 1 semi-annual report, the operating income of private brand increased by 10.42% year-on-year, and the private brand income accounted for more than 12%.

Data from Box Horse's fresh life show that since 2020, Box Horse has launched more than 20,000 new products, of which more than 6,000 are box horse's own brand products, and the iteration speed of new products is 3 to 4 times faster than that of the industry.

In Yonghui Supermarket, there are also self-owned brands such as Youzi, Chunyi, Meizhizhi, Yousong and Miaoweisi, covering furniture, tea sets, household paper, hairdressing tools and other daily necessities.

Although independent brands have developed for a long time, they still account for a relatively small proportion in traditional supermarkets. This is because compared with brand merchants, the product development efficiency of traditional supermarkets is low and the update is slow. Previously, they lacked the support of digital tools, making it difficult to grasp the latest market trends and consumer preferences. It is difficult for even independent brands to have bright products.

With the increase of technology investment in traditional supermarkets and the application of big data, the integration and development of traditional supermarkets and supply chain channels will inevitably give birth to personalized innovation genes, which will be the core of traditional supermarkets to develop their own brands.

The fourth measure: increase technical input and realize digital upgrade.

According to public information, in the first half of 20021,Yonghui Science and Technology invested nearly 300 million yuan. By the end of June of 20021,the number of Yonghui Science and Technology had exceeded 1000.

At the beginning of August this year, Yonghui Supermarket announced the appointment of senior executives-Li, the former CTO, was appointed as the CEO of the company, whose main responsibility was to establish an organizational system of technology-driven operations.

Yonghui Supermarket will achieve the "three 30%" goals of improving floor efficiency by 30%, personnel efficiency by 30% and product efficiency by 30% through the integration, refinement and intelligence of procurement, transaction and performance.

On 2002 1 June 1 day, Zhong Bai Group announced that it planned to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary Wuhan Baishuzhi Technology Co., Ltd. (tentative name) with its own funds of1billion yuan to promote the transformation of new retail, expand online business of new retail, and realize the "digital" operation and accurate access of efficient marketing links.

Although I can't get more information about traditional supermarkets' investment in technology from public information, according to my understanding of the industry, more and more traditional supermarkets have realized the importance of technology and the relationship between technology investment and revenue and profit growth, which makes traditional supermarkets more confident and confident in technology investment.

For traditional supermarkets, the stage of multi-format era is bound to experience pain, and there are always methods suitable for their own enterprises to successfully pass this stage. The key lies in whether they can realize the law and essence of development and then make up their minds to move on.

Whether it is a traditional supermarket, e-commerce platform, community group purchase or warehouse member store, as a member of the retail industry, as long as it is on the road, competition will always follow.

Fortunately, the industry has been constantly standardized and consumers are becoming more and more mature. Traditional supermarkets should not be pessimistic, afraid and complain during the painful period. As long as we constantly meet the needs of consumers, we will continue to make profits and grow, and will not be eliminated by the times.