Author｜Lin Dan, Xue Li
Original first release｜The frontline of entrepreneurship
The new retail wave is emerging, Alibaba, Xiaomi , JD are all making crazy layouts, but there is such a supermarket, which is known as "Haidilao of the department store industry", Lei Jun says it is a god-like existence in the retail industry.
2008, this company ranked first in China's private commercial enterprises in human and evaluation of retail enterprises. Guo Geping, president of the China Chain Association, said after visiting: " is definitely the best store in China. "
It is known for its anti-traditional business logic. It is famous for its high salary, high welfare, freedom and happiness. It is determined by countless experts that it will not live long, but today it has become a local myth. Not only did it defeat traditional supermarkets such as , Walmart, , Century Hualian, etc. within more than ten years, it also achieved annual sales of 5 billion yuan in third- and fourth-tier cities!
01, Pangdonglai's "devil details"
On September 8, 2016, Pangdonglai·Da Pang returned to Xinxiang , and received a large-scale crowd on the day of opening, resulting in only one hour of opening the store. It was forced to suspend business because the number of people entering the store exceeded the maximum reception.
It is said that the founder is a clean erotic: Pangdonglai Any trash can will always remain clean as new. There are 14 cleaning standards for a trash can, and there are not even a drop of water stains in the floor and sink of the seafood pool, and even a shopping mall cleaner requires 500!
As the "Haidilao in the retail industry", this supermarket not only has maternal and child rooms, barrier-free bathrooms, direct drinking water, smoking rooms, free rental power bank machines and other facilities, but also has seats and magnifying glasses on the trolley. The passage between the shelves is twice that of ordinary supermarkets, and cartoon pictures are also posted in front of the baby chair...
alone has strollers, water purifiers, hot water, microwave ovens, changing tables, sofas, etc. Its service quality is not inferior to Haidilao.
For a customer who is urgently needed to treat the disease, he specially went to the countryside to purchase 4 taels of soba noodles, which are urgently needed for the treatment of illness. He puts plastic bags on the bicycle seats of customers on rainy and snowy days, and replaced the aluminum pipes of the air-conditioning manufacturer with copper pipes at his own expense, cleansing and repairing any jewelry for free for customers, and provides free trimming, sewing and ironing of clothes...
It is a strange thing in the industry, which is so good to employees that it creates a management "myth" of "the lowest cost when the salary is the highest":
employee average salary was 30% higher than his peers in the early stage. A cleaner, after being rated as a Samsung employee, received a year-end bonus of 100,000 yuan;
also exclusively stipulated that the store was closed on Tuesday before 2016, and set it as an employee's rest day. However, in Xinxiang, there is another version. The "Tuesday Day" is because when Pangdonglai was the most prosperous, almost monopolizing all consumption of local citizens, leaving other department stores with little income and jointly requesting relevant departments to mediate. In the end, Pangdonglai made a concession and released a day for his peers to do business.
In 2013, the company's net profit reached 500 million yuan. The boss distributed 50% to grassroots employees and 40% to management, leaving only 10% himself.
The owner of this weird supermarket is called Yu Donglai.
02, From a 40-square-meter tobacco hotel to 5 billion annual sales
In 1995, Ma Yundong pieced together to found the "China Yellow Pages", Ding Lei quit his job at the Telecommunications Bureau, Zhang Chaoyang got investment and returned to China to start a business, Zhou Hongyi and Jia Yueting had just entered society... A laid-off worker led three employees to open a 40-square-meter tobacco hotel in Xuchang, Henan, and Pang Donglai was born.
Today, BAT has created countless industry myths, and Pang Donglai has also become the most legendary supermarket in the domestic department store industry. It is regarded as a classic case in business schools and is talked about by people.
Yu Donglai, who was born in the countryside, entered society at the age of 16. He laughed at himself for not having a certificate in his seven years of reading. He dropped out of school in his early years, sold popsicles, sugar cane, melon seeds, and reselled movie tickets, and wholesale cigarettes and alcohol with his brother and sister-in-law... Later, because of his eagerness for quick success and instant benefits, he owed a lot of debts and had to go away for a few times but achieved nothing. He was in debt to 300,000 yuan in 1992, and was once desperate.
After going around in circles, Yu Donglai returned to Xuchang. In 1995, with the help of his brother, he opened the Fatty Shop on Wangyuelou.
In the era when fake goods were everywhere, Yu Donglai insisted on not selling fake goods and treated customers sincerely, which soon made the store prosperous. Originally, only selling sugar, tobacco and alcohol, customers insisted on giving them money to help them get goods such as electrical appliances and furniture. Yu Donglai led a dozen employees to work for more than ten hours a day, and everyone was tired and happy.
In August 1997, Donglai renamed the "Wangyuelou Fatty Store" to "Pangdonglai Tobacco and Wine Co., Ltd.", and determined to be a famous Chinese store and a model for Xuchang. In October, he opened his first branch.
Seeing that Pang Donglai was already famous throughout Xuchang, he was in a strong momentum, but unexpectedly came suddenly.
On March 15, 1998, because someone teased and scolded the employees in Wangyue Store, everyone couldn't swallow this and called the police. Unexpectedly, in the evening, the group of people set fire directly in order to retaliate, and Pang Donglai turned into ashes overnight, and 8 employees died in the sea of fire.
is afraid that Yu Donglai will be in a slump. Not only relatives and friends, but many strangers who don’t know each other will come to comfort him and give him money and goods. An unknown aunt directly took Yu Donglai's hand and said, "Boy, don't lie down. If you don't have money, your uncle and you saved more than 20,000 yuan. Please use it for you." Yu Donglai was so moved that he burst into tears on the spot and vowed to continue working.
htmlOn May 1, Yu Donglai’s Wangyue store reopened and continued to open its chain supermarket branch. Pang Donglai continued to move from tobacco hotels to supermarkets and other retail forms.On September 19, 1999, Pangdonglai's famous brand clothing mass sales opened, launching value-added services such as "free dry cleaning, ironing, and sewing"; on November 24, Pangdonglai's seven chain stores simultaneously developed a new business philosophy of "returning goods if you are not satisfied". At this point, all the content of Pangdonglai's promise is to exchange authentic products for sincerity, and return goods if you are not satisfied.
In 2005, Pangdong LaiQingxin Development opened at the end of the year. Yudong looked at its position and was caught among them by three large supermarkets: one is the number one in Henan business Dennis , the other is the leader of Chinese commercial enterprises, and there is also Wal-Mart preparing.
In less than a year, Dennis closed down and moved the store, the Century Lianhua Xinxiang store was sold directly to Pangdonglai to make a comeback, and Walmart announced its withdrawal after 6 years of preparation. Less than three years after opening.
In 2008, the president of Dalian Dashang said at the 30th anniversary of the reform and opening up of the Communist Party of China in Zhengzhou: Today I don’t want to talk about Dashang Dashang, I just want to talk about the phenomenon of Fat Donglai . Over the years, I have never seen such a good business as Pang Donglai. Have you ever seen people queuing up? Have you ever seen cars line up? Have you ever seen electric cars queuing up? Under the scorching sun, the woman was holding a sunshade, holding a parasol, and queuing for 15 minutes. One car was out in front and one car could only get in here. There was no shop within a radius of . They were hanging on this tree. The same is true for cars. The entire street is closed on weekends, whether it is Xuchang or Xinxiang. This was the case in the past few years, but it is still the case now. You can’t accept it!
This is the terrible thing about Fat Donglai. We are not afraid of comparing, because we not only have products, but also have excellent services. In the local area, it can be said that Yu Donglai can be called an industry killer. Whatever he does, it will be difficult for others in this industry to continue.
On December 21, 2015, Xinxiang Pangdonglai Department Store officially closed after the contract expired. Xinxiang people described their mood as follows: "Since Dapang closed the store, every day has become Tuesday." (Dapang is the nickname that ordinary people have agreed to for Pangdonglai Department Store located on Pingyuan Road, Xinxiang, .)
An aunt came over and handed a letter to the Pangdonglai salesperson, held their hands tightly, said, "Child, I want to say something to you, but I don't know what to say," and then left crying. Open the letter and said in the corner of the letter, "Thank you for your hard work, kids!"
A year later, Dapang returned to Xinxiang. Local people got up early in the morning and lined up in a long queue. The "East phenomenon" came again, completely breaking the rumors of bankruptcy.
03, JD Supermarket challenged Pangdonglai
From August 14 to 20, 2017, JD Supermarket launched the "199 100 cut" activity in Xuchang, using the price war to bombard the physical store market in Xuchang. Since Xuchang is the inherent territory of Pangdonglai (basically a market monopoly), this move of has also been interpreted by the outside world as JD Supermarket challenged Pangdonglai.
Many people are paying attention to how Pang Donglai responds. , but Pang Donglai performed plainly in the big attack on JD Supermarket. As early as a week ago, the company had paid attention to JD.com's promotion, but there was no response plan. Pang Donglai just wants to do his own thing. Any friendly businessmen are welcome to develop in Xuchang and serve consumers together.
Price war is always superficial competition, and the competition in the retail industry is always competition in the supply chain and service system. The advantage of Pangdonglai is to provide the market with a leading domestic store shopping experience and a strong enough regional differentiated product through continuous innovation.
Pangdonglai is not afraid of any competitors because of its strong innovation system, rapid repair ability and standardization ability. To this day, the entire system innovation model generated by Pangdonglai based on customer needs is still a mystery to his peers.
, the "full system innovation model" runs through Pangdonglai's product procurement, store product structure, service content and architecture. With this, Pang Donglai silently defeated powerful opponents such as Walmart and Carrefour in the past decade, which made domestic and foreign peers feel awe. In today's online shopping and consumption fanatic, it can still survive and maintain rapid growth.
04, Pangdonglai Business Apocalypse
It can be said that Pangdonglai has made higher quality than third-tier cities in a fourth-tier city like Xuchang and won performance comparable to second-tier cities.
As the founder of Pang Donglai, Yu Donglai has always appeared in the Henan business circle as an "evangelist". Being a passionate businessman seems to have always been one of his goals. He has always called his employees "brothers and sisters" and hopes that employees can "work and live happily." Pang Donglai, led by such a boss, has sample significance in the Chinese business community.
Revelation 1 Employee Benefits: When the salary is the highest, the cost is the lowest
The reason why Pang Donglai can have a culture of execution is not only the boss Yu Donglai himself, but also the "sharing culture" with the boss' ability to fulfill his promises to employees as the core. The material commitment is written into the employee manual , such as: the employee or management level corresponds to the ability to purchase a house in the corresponding area. The direct result is that the boss fulfills the promises to employees and the employees fulfill their promises to customers.
Yu Donglai exchanged his generous interests for employees' loyalty to the company and service attitude to customers. Faced with the company's salary system that he formulated was "far beyond the average level", his peers all felt inferior.
In a sense, Yu Donglai's success is the success of "non-commercial thinking". He regards "human nature" as the essence of management, so he can simplify complex things. For him, management is about how to better mobilize employees' enthusiasm.
Therefore, when he "heart-to-heart" is good to his employees, this "humanity" power gives him huge rewards. It is undeniable that this simple and even primitive concept makes him closer to success.
For many years, we have always advocated Western management thinking: "28 Rules", "Six Sigma Theorem", etc., pursuing efficiency and interests first, thus ignoring "human nature"; , but came from the East, did the opposite, starting from the management of "human nature", advocated truth, goodness and beauty. , a management concept driven by "humanity" is of reference significance for other Chinese retail companies.
Under this corporate culture, employees can only be well reflected in their dedication, love, happiness and professionalism, rather than just short incentives carried by words. Such benign incentives and cycles will make Pangdonglai’s advantages stronger and stronger.
Inspiration 2 Customer experience: caring about human nature, details win
In a mature business environment, when the difference between goods and prices becomes smaller and smaller, details will become more and more important, especially in the service industry. Low prices are by no means Pang Donglai's core competitiveness. Walmart and Carrefour's product coordination capabilities are far better than it. The most important thing about is that the added value brought by its services allows customers to experience a sense of pleasure during shopping.
Yu Donglai believes in small and beautiful, and must do the ultimate service, and always say happiness, happiness and freedom. In fact, "extreme and subtraction" is Yu Donglai's thinking on the Pang Donglai model in the past 10 years, and it has profoundly influenced the company's development plan.
It is precisely because Pangdonglai has a unique company culture, salary and assessment mechanism that every employee can make customers feel warm and caring, and even touched in the details. For example, the security guard will lead every customer who asks or purchases shopping coupons to the 8th floor and affectionately call him the elder brother and sister.
Myanmar trouser side, clothes change charges, parking check car charges, we are used to these small charging details, but Pangdonglai is all free, I believe users can feel such a warm experience. When all the details are displayed in full and detailed to customers, it is inevitable that Pang Donglai will become bigger and stronger.
Because customers who arrive in the store obtain two kinds of values, one is the value of the product, and the other is humanistic care. The latter value even greatly increases customer loyalty, while also reducing customer price sensitivity.
Revelation 3 Word of mouth communication: Goodwill generates commercial value
Pangdonglai has proved with practice that goodwill can generate commercial value: Pangdonglai monopolizes the service capabilities of 60% of consumers in Xuchang's reputation, which not only shows that it is indeed a company with marketing capabilities and management of consumer reputation, but more importantly, Pangdonglai's business model has its founder's strong cultural values: to be kind.
In the Internet era, enterprises can achieve win-win and sustainable operations only by fully considering the harmony of the entire ecological chain. Those private enterprises that have been operating for 20 or 30 years and have been calm often take into account the interests of all parties in the social and economic value chains, and ultimately achieve stable and long-term development.
Yu Donglai not only regards employees and consumers as friends, but also said, "I am a very emotional person. Because I don't have feelings, I feel like life is like death. There are many people in Pangdonglai just feel that they are working, but I am different. I regard it as a kind of fate. Since we are walking together, our hearts must go together."
05, The three major hidden worries of Pangdonglai
Analyzing Pangdonglai rationally from an objective perspective. In fact, there are three problems that restrict Pangdong's development:
First of all, Pangdonglai's high-paying policy is too radical. Pangdonglai is far higher than the level of the same industry, which to some extent disrupted the original market order and led to market competition, from competition and cooperation to expand the market size, and turned into a jungle state that is to the death. Under such high salary pressure, how should competitors do it? If it is all high-paying policies, how much profit and resources can the company share and develop? In Xinxiang and Xuchang, Pangdonglai can give salary comparable to the provincial capital. So when you go to the provincial capital or Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, can you still offer salary comparable to first-tier cities?
Secondly, the market capacity and profit margin are limited after all. If the salary level eventually becomes labor cost pressure, it is very likely to lead to the failure of the company's operations. Employees have the characteristics of "can be promoted but not down". As long as the salary is increased in a company, it will be difficult to reduce it, unless the company goes bankrupt. When Pangdonglai devotes himself to the mature service retail industry and encounters development bottlenecks in the future, how can he achieve industrial upgrading and transfer? Now the costs are increasing year by year, and there are too many expenditures. Pang Donglai's high salary and excessive customer spending can easily cause an imbalance in profit and loss.
With the development of the Internet era, JD.com and Alibaba have worked together to make e-commerce, prompting the acceleration of "new retail". Online fresh food and supermarket stores have absolute advantages in supply, delivery, discounts, etc. When competition intensifies, various models and business formats will erode the market of Pangdonglai.
Finally, Pangdonglai has distinct industry and personnel characteristics. The high welfare of Pang Donglai has caused the employee turnover rate to be low, but the cadre level has not been high for a long time, especially the store manager level is basically high school and below. A mature physical store requires a qualified senior consultant or project manager. Their knowledge, ability, experience and literacy need to be gradually accumulated and trained. As for the current personnel level of Pang Donglai, even if Yu Donglai immediately raises his salary by three times, his performance will not change significantly. In addition to the increase in costs of the company, the company's operations will not have any good impact.
06, Yu Donglai: Win the Battle of New Retail
In recent years, the industry has predicted that new retail will gradually subvert traditional retail. As a traditional retail enterprise, although Pang Donglai has giants in front and pursuers in the new retail industry, Yu Donglai has the confidence to win.
In the past, retail was to go to the wholesale market to sell wholesale goods. They sold whatever goods were available in the market, and sold them according to the trend. New retail was based on big data, users, and multi-platform cooperation, using various online channels to connect consumers, merchants and retail places, integrate online and offline to understand customers' true preferences, and connect customers through pictures, texts, videos, TVs, VR, etc. from various channels such as e-commerce platforms and physical stores to meet customers' real needs for goods or services.
In the future, no matter how new retail development develops and evolves, its trend will still be quality. and Yu Donglai has achieved "quality management" for both enterprises and employees. In Donglai's eyes, "KPI indicators" and "performance appraisals" are superficial, and only "human nature" is the most fundamental.
His explanation of "humanity" is also very simple: When you are sincerely good to your employees, your employees will also sincerely repay you.
In the 22 years since its founding, various trends in China have come and go, and the industry market has fluctuated, but Yu Donglai has not been hijacked. In an era when money overwhelms everything, Yu Dong said that he was unwilling to be a slave to money. When other bosses try every means to advocate employees to work hard, he asked his employees to live happily.
