As the soul figure of the No. 1 soul who created the RT-Mart legend, Huang Mingduan still insists on participating in the public activities, probably only the retail conference held by Lianshang.com every spring. The theme of this year's Lianshang.com's retail conference is to pay tribute to China's retail for 20 years. Huang Mingduan is the unscrupulous leader in 20 years. On April 8, Huang Mingduan, as executive director and CEO of Gao Xin Retail, joined forces with Lin Xiaohai, executive director and CEO of RT-Mart China, who officially took over on December 1, 2020, to discuss with Gu Guojian, director of Shanghai Chain Management Research Institute, why RT-Mart resolutely devoted himself to the Internet, insisted on choosing a overall self-transformation, as well as the progress achieved, and the next ideas and plans.
The picture shows a panoramic view of the three-person conversation (Picture source: Lianshang.com)
Huang Mingduan first emphasizes the loss of customer flow in offline stores of traditional hypermarkets, which is an irreversible process. Moreover, this irreversible process and facts are far less important than discussing the essential reasons for passenger flow loss, as well as taking immediate action to change the current situation of loss, and exploring practical ways to compensate for the performance lost due to loss.
Huang Mingduan specifically shared that because of the early layout of online business, that is, providing store-based instant fresh food delivery business: B2Ch RT-Mart Youxian, RT-Mart still achieved an online performance share (revolution reached 24% of the store performance in fiscal year 2020 (revolution reached 20 billion+). In addition, Huang Mingduan also emphasized that not only does the proportion and performance meet expectations, but the online business is also a rare profit in the entire industry. B2B business engaged in store distribution wholesale business: RT-Mart eLufa, currently has both revenue and profits meeting expectations.
This is a pragmatic and reasonable logic of action. If you have a wound on your body, the first thing you have to do is to stop the bleeding, then gradually recover, and even eventually you will be healthier and stronger than before. As for the cause of blood loss, it is a long-term synchronous behavior of thinking while recovering, rather than a empty talk of misleading things by sitting and discussing.
Huang Mingduan was very moved by his ability to change his mind in time and actively participate in the Internet before the changes in the tide of the times, so that he could achieve the results of today's online retail era based on Internet innovation. To this end, he even mentioned that the RT-Mart online mall, Feiniu.com, which he first devoted himself to the Internet in 2012, cannot be considered a failure. Without Feiniu.com personally going to experience the ups and downs of e-commerce, there was no resolute determination to transform into the Internet later. Including the best choice for introducing Alibaba investment and integrating into Alibaba's business ecosystem.
In this regard, after Huang Mingduan’s definition of RT-Mart’s participation in the Internet sharing, Lin Xiaohai also specially added the real returns RT-Mart has obtained at the current stage. Lin Xiaohai said that the peak of the epidemic in Q1 2020 will suddenly decline by 5-10% of visitors every year, reaching a 20% decline rate. If RT-Mart does not make online layouts in a timely manner and integrates into Alibaba's ecosystem, it is obvious that even the results of 24% of RT-Mart's online performance in fiscal 2020 will be difficult to guarantee.
According to Huang Mingduan's original words: We resolutely entered e-commerce in 2013 and began to explore online retail in 2017, so that we can overcome the changes in the entire era.
era, this word is a high-frequency keyword that media public opinion has been discussed around Huang Mingduan in the past four years. However, Huang Mingduan has only one attitude towards the changes brought about by the times: overcome.
RT-Mart constantly transforming
achieves a certain proportion of online performance supplement, which is obviously only the first step for RT-Mart's long-term transformation. Following the valuable performance topics of online business contributions during the epidemic, Lin Xiaohai continued to talk about the current achievements and future plans of RT-Mart’s transformation. Lin Xiaohai said that RT-Mart's store renovation is a transformation in the scope of hypermarket business reconstruction, and has completed the transformation of 50 stores among nearly 500 stores across RT-Mart nationwide. Shanghai Yangpu store is the first systematic sample of the first generation of RT-Mart’s modified version.Subsequently, the first systematic sample of the second-generation renovated version of RT-Mart has selected the Changjiang Road store of Jiangsu Wuxi , and the original Oushang hypermarket was transformed (Aushang China stores were merged into RT-Mart three years ago and will gradually flip into the RT-Mart brand). It is expected that Wuxi Oushang Store will launch the results of the second generation of transformation by the end of this year.
Wuxi Oushang Store’s transformation ideas, Lin Xiaohai introduced that the focus will be on upgrading the core categories, that is, those categories that are difficult to e-commerce (fulfil the contract in express delivery) and can give full play to the advantages of store processing and inventory management, strengthen category proportion, increase performance weight, and deepen operational capabilities. Naturally, those heavy goods and cold chain foods suitable for short radius instant delivery, and fresh hot foods that reflect the processing capabilities of stores are the main parts of these core categories. In order to increase these categories that particularly reflect the advantages of RT-Mart stores, Lin Xiaohai used the following paragraph to emphasize his determination: "Which categories cannot be replaced online, I will entrust heavily to give larger areas, more products, and more interaction."
The picture shows Lin Xiaohai (Picture source: Lianshang.com)
RT-Mart is a leading brand in traditional retail. The internal transformation of RT-Mart is also a sample case of the renovation of the retail industry as a hypermarket. Any transformation or change that is ranked first in the industry is regarded as a change that can represent the industry's risk target. The big logic of the industry and the big will of the times have given RT-Mart too many and heavy tasks, which is an expectation that is too heavy on RT-Mart.
For RT-Mart, one of the main changes of RT-Mart today is actually to become smaller and more specific. The smaller here does not mean that it becomes a small store in a narrow sense, but that the category capabilities also have strong competitiveness in terms of single products, and also have independent and horizontal abilities of different categories. That is, fresh food cannot just attract traffic to department stores and groceries in the store. Fresh food itself is a profitable category, which is a one-stop shopping mall to meet customers' needs for "eating".
According to Lin Xiaohai's words, fresh food, which naturally has no backend gross profit, must be the first to break through. Fast consumer goods and department stores that used to rely on backend gross profit will gradually be iteratively adjusted. Then, when it comes to the overall upgrade of RT-Mart, multiple business formats and omni-channels are the only way to go. Zhongrunfa and Xiaorunfa, which have more than
business formats, have all been launched quickly, reflecting the strength of RT-Mart as a leading industry company that is still good at opening stores. To this end, Lin Xiaohai even directly called on the scene that Zhongrunfa would like to have a nationwide store exhibition. Business owners with property assets, whether it is 3 million square meters or 20,000 square meters, can contact him directly. Lin Xiaohai also said: "Online, miniaturization, convenience and communityization are the general trend of physical retail. Small business formats are difficult to do, because after the smaller the stores, there must be fresh food processing centers. But the more difficult the things are, the more worth it. And relying on RT-Mart may be the key to Xiaorunfa's success." RT-Mart judged that RT-Mart has already been completed. It will continue to expand in the future. With the help of Huang Mingduan's original words, RT-Mart is already exploring the store-store function ratio. B2C is a store that takes into account online warehouses. B2B is also discussing internally with the help of some warehouses in the store, and it is not even ruled out that other business formats will be negotiated as B2B's supply centers in the future.
During the conversation between the three, Gu Jianguo proposed a transformation assumption similar to Hema X membership (or similar to Costco model). In this regard, Huang Mingduan's thinking is also open and unlimited. He said directly that during the shopping tour of Aushang store in Zhejiang Ningbo on April 7, he also felt that Aushang store area was too large. If it was a membership store similar to X membership on the first floor, a supermarket on the second floor, and one store integrates two business formats at the same time, is it feasible?
In other words, Huang Mingduan and Lin Xiaohai have considered all the transformation plans for RT-Mart & Auchan. However, the implementation of each plan is not about the implementation of the plan. Let’s go back to similar Hema X membership store or Costco model. The essence of the transformation of this membership store model is not the transformation of the front-end store of the store, but the super supply chain capability of the back-end layout of the global super supply chain. Supply chain and product development capabilities are the essence of the Costco model.Because the store is large, we decided to build a membership store, which is putting the cart before the horse. The degree of mistake in this kind of thinking is no less than that of a housewife who cooks delicious food, and it is equivalent to being able to run a restaurant.
Huang Mingduan himself said that the Auchan store in Ningbo, Zhejiang is not only large in area, but also has a shopping center in the property category (because Auchan has always had strong commercial real estate capabilities). Whether to enlarge the shopping center in the shopping street is perhaps a feasible renovation plan. In short, the possibility of various renovation plans around the existing RT-Mart stores must have been under the daily discussion between Huang Mingduan and Lin Xiaohai.
Speaking of Auchan’s shopping center functions, Lin Xiaohai also talked about the transformation of RT-Mart Shopping Street (the commercial real estate part outside the store). In a sentence, Lin Xiaohai’s decision to RT-Mart Shopping Street: The shopping street no longer uses the traffic of the store, but instead needs to form its own traffic to attract traffic to the store. Specifically, the positioning of the shopping street should be upgraded from a category supplementary function that is not sold in hypermarkets to a community life center that is highly integrated with catering, leisure, parent-child, beauty and hairdressing, and entertainment. Our 36Kr - Future Consumption. The summary of this is: RT-Mart's shopping street will be transformed into a mini version of the shopping center.
: Four Tips for Hypermarket
upgrade to a future version of the hypermarket model, and you have to return to why the original version of the hypermarket model is successful. Huang Mingduan revealed the essence of RT-Mart's internal thoughts on the successful model of hypermarkets - four-character tips: quality, price, service, and efficiency.
Quality: Determines whether the customer comes or not. "What the hypermarket is doing is a repeat customer business that stabilizes the household customer flow around the surrounding area. It pays attention to the customer repurchase rate. Customer satisfaction is the most important thing. If customers are not satisfied with the quality, they will not come again next time. We put quality first."
price: Decide whether customers buy it or not. "Is the price of the goods in the hypermarket suitable? Or is the price and applicability of the goods highly cost-effective, which directly affects whether the customers will pay or not."
service: determines whether the customers want to. "If the service in pre-sales, during-sales and after-sales stores is not done well, the customer experience and mental feelings will become worse, the customer will not like you, will not think of you when he leaves, and will not say good things to you when he meets others."
efficiency: decide whether you are there or not. "Many of hypermarkets and their retail industries are talking about costs. Cost is a means of efficiency, and efficiency is the result of costs. Cost and efficiency are two sides of the same. Without efficiency, it affects whether we can still live in this industry."
The picture is Huang Mingduan (Photo source: Lianshang.com)
Huang Mingduan also quoted Xu Chongren (currently CEO of Taiwan Quanlian Welfare Center), a key sentence for the success of the retail industry: 20 years ago, the retail industry paid attention to location, location, and location (that is, physical retail pays great attention to store location); 10 years ago, the retail industry paid attention to differentiation, differentiation, and differentiation (that is, retail enterprises should structure their retail capabilities to the forefront of business).
"This question has different answers at different times. Of course, it is very important to choose a location. Even gods cannot do it. Differentiation is whether they can make enough differences with their opponents; innovation is to find more differentiation. We must keep pace with the times now, and we must understand how customer needs change." Huang Mingduan added.
Lin Xiaohai also expressed his thoughts on RT-Mart's system transformation and the nature of the development of the retail industry. RT-Mart's development is essentially still a construction of RT-Mart's own independent development of "people, goods, and places".
Moreover, Lin Xiaohai highly believes that RT-Mart has the outstanding ability of the team. Lin Xiaohai made it clear that he would never lead his own team from Alibaba to RT-Mart. Except for the job talents that did not exist before, all the others were discovered from RT-Mart to explore and train them from the team to create the power of talents from within.
This is the latest conversation between Huang Mingduan and Lin Xiaohai on RT-Mart’s transformation and hypermarket transformation.As mentioned above, the outside world is very concerned about every move of RT-Mart's transformation, which comes from the outside world treating RT-Mart as a weather vane for the transformation of hypermarkets. Although this is to increase the external expectations of RT-Mart, only RT-Mart can shoulder this expectation of the industry.
The outside world also gave the highest praise to Huang Mingduan's historical achievements in creating RT-Mart. The sentence that has been widely revolved around Huang Mingduan’s historical assessment in the past four years: “I won everything and lost to the times.” . In response, Huang Mingduan also used the venue of Lianshang.com to clearly state: "This sentence has a great influence, not what I said." At the same time, Huang Mingduan also clearly expressed his gratitude to the original author of this sentence. Huang Mingduan said: "This sentence is written very well and has increased my popularity. Otherwise, there will be many people who don't know me."
Of course, Huang Mingduan himself does not think he lost to the times. We believe that Huang Mingduan is: "the warrior of the times, the hero of retail."
