recommendation: I still remember that more than ten years ago, visiting large supermarkets was an essential way of life for urban residents. The existence of large supermarkets certainly provided great convenience for people to shop. At that time, every time after get off work, During this period, major supermarkets will be crowded with shoppers.
However, if you ask people how long it has been since they went to a supermarket, I believe many people may not be able to answer...
The development history of China's large supermarket industry
From the development history of large supermarkets in China Look, the 1980s was the enlightenment stage of the development of large supermarkets. At that time, large supermarkets were still called "supermarkets of your choice."
From 1995 to 1997, it was the peak period for foreign supermarket chains to enter the Chinese market. Carrefour , Metro, Wal-Mart , etc. were vying to enter China. With their strong capital strength, they soon became the leading players in the domestic supermarket industry. the main force.
However, after more than 30 years of development, the domestic large supermarket industry has now changed. Especially in recent years, more and more large supermarkets have announced closures and evacuations. This phenomenon is really sad. Data from
shows that in 2021, only 2 of the 13 listed supermarket companies increased both net profit and revenue, 11 saw net profits decline, and 13 supermarket companies closed more than 100 stores throughout the year.
So, what is the real reason that led to the collapse of large supermarkets? It can be mainly attributed to 3 aspects.
The first aspect: the operating costs of physical stores are too high.
One of the important reasons why large supermarkets have been so popular among the public is that large supermarkets bring a variety of shopping scenes to customers.
We found that wherever large supermarkets are located, various shops will be attracted to settle in. They are densely distributed on the only way to the entrance of the supermarket. Therefore, for a long time in the past, the business agglomeration brought by large supermarkets has been widely recognized as a good business model.
However, as physical store rental costs and labor costs continue to increase, large supermarket operations are facing increasing cost pressure. If there are problems with business strategies, it can easily lead to losses and bankruptcy.
The second reason: Online shopping has greatly changed the way people shop.
Before the rise of online shopping in China, urban residents basically had to go to wet markets or supermarkets for shopping, so large supermarkets at that time basically had sufficient customer flow every day.
However, with the popularity of online shopping in China, not only young people, but also the elderly have begun to use online shopping. After all, online shopping has now developed to the point of door-to-door delivery, which is really hard to refuse.
In addition, online shopping now has platform discounts and subsidies, and the products on various group buying platforms directly "crushed" large supermarkets in terms of price. Therefore, from an objective point of view, the large supermarket format has gradually been eliminated by the times.
In response to this phenomenon, many urban owners said: Online shopping brings a lot of convenience to consumers and saves many hassles of shopping in supermarkets. In addition, the quality of online shopping is now guaranteed, and everyone is willing to shop on e-commerce platforms. This is online shopping. An important reason to defeat the big supermarkets.
The third reason: suppliers no longer rely on large supermarkets.
In the past, large supermarkets relied on their leading and complete supply chain systems to obtain a large number of high-quality and low-price products. However, with the rapid development of the times, the supply chain systems of large supermarkets can no longer keep up with the times. Products without price advantages will naturally be disliked by customers.
In addition, in the past, many small retailers would purchase goods from large supermarkets to earn the price difference. However, as large supermarkets have lost their price advantages, there are fewer and fewer suppliers cooperating with supermarkets, resulting in supermarket profits continuing to decline.
To sum up, today’s domestic large supermarkets are on a “downhill slope”, and the reason behind this is also due to the rapid development of the times. Relevant experts analyze that if large supermarkets cannot optimize supply chains and improve management in the future, then this industry is likely to be gradually eliminated by the market in the increasingly fierce market competition.
I wonder what everyone thinks about this?
