There are more than 6 million neighborhood supermarkets in China, most of which exist in the form of self-employed people, and rarely or even never hire people. The employees are basically family members. Not-so-rich profits are often achieved by long business hours. If you buy a wrong batch of goods, you will have to feel distressed for a long time. Once the landlord raises the rent, the store will be ready to close at any time.
Behind the more than 6 million small stores are more than 10 million jobs
For such "Chinese-style small supermarkets", they cannot operate normally at the beginning of the epidemic, or the traffic of customers is scarce, and customers will buy and leave when they enter the store, which will not form a joint consumption; some livelihood supplies are difficult to re-arrival after being bought in the early stage; the stockpiled Spring Festival gift boxes have become a burden that cannot be handled; unsold goods are facing expiration; capital turnover problems occur...
These small stores need to be rescued. They appear outdated in the entire retail industry, but their flexible position and style make it difficult for them to be replaced. Statistics show that they contribute 40% of the shipments of the entire fast-moving consumer goods industry and serve 120 million consumers every day. Behind the more than 6 million small shops are more than 10 million direct jobs. Helping a small shop is often helping a home.
Savior Alliance
On the afternoon of April 15, in a special online live broadcast, Lin Xiaohai, vice president of Alibaba Group and general manager of the retail business department, raised a banner to save Chinese-style small supermarkets. Retail Connect has joined hands with 50 brands to establish a brand alliance of "Protect small shops and stabilize employment" to call on brands and dealers upstream of convenience small shops to jointly take the oath to help millions of small shops. In the future, this alliance will continue to expand.
Retail Tong initiated the "Protecting Small Stores and Stabilizing Employment" initiative
This is part of the recent vigorous Alibaba "Spring Thunder Plan". 11 years ago, in response to the global economic crisis, Alibaba successively launched three major "winter aid" plans to help small and medium-sized enterprises in response to the global economic crisis, allowing 40 million small and medium-sized enterprises to feel the "warm spring" of e-commerce. Today, in the face of the epidemic, Alibaba restarted its Spring Thunder Plan, which is not only aid, but also a reconstruction for various fields. It can be seen from the "assistance plan" of Retail Network for millions of stores that it is a logically rigorous new retail business system. Retail Connect has been pushing it steadily, and the sudden outbreak is more like a catalyst.
Morality and Business
April 15th "Oath Conference" is itself the JBP cooperation conference for Retail Connect's fiscal year 2021.
The so-called JBP is the English abbreviation of "Joint Business Plan". It refers to a customer management model in which manufacturers, dealers, retailers and other service providers jointly establish close and stable cooperative relationships, formulate sales activity plans for a certain period of time and implement them, thereby increasing channel investment.
In the context of the epidemic and spring thunder, Retail Tong has turned this multi-party cooperation into an alliance - upstream large enterprises, and jointly supported downstream small and medium-sized dealers, which is both moral and business-oriented. Only by paying a lot can you gain more. Lin Xiaohai introduced that during the epidemic, Retail Tong has supplied nearly 2 billion to small stores across the country, including nearly 200 million anti-epidemic materials (disinfectant/mask/hand sanitizer, etc.) and nearly 1 billion people's daily necessities (instant noodles/biscuits/pastry, etc.). The national warehouse distribution network of Retail Connect resumed work on January 30. During the entire epidemic, Retail Connect's logistics supply chain has always steadily covered 193 cities and 13,370 townships).
At the same time, the epidemic has also caused a surge in delivery. "Last year, only 10,000 small stores opened Ele.me services. During this wave of epidemic, 50,000 were added. Next, we will expand to 100,000, which will also expand the scenario of small stores operating." Lin Xiaohai said. There is also a surge in real warehouse free credit purchase service launched by Retail Twin Line. "At present, more than 100,000 stores have opened this service, and hope to reach 200,000 in the future. This is very important for small stores in difficulties and one of our core services in the future."
Last year, Tmall Double 11, in order to ensure on-time arrival, Retail Connect organized Chongqing Bangbangjun to deliver goods to small stores
In addition, Retail Connect's food led by all the food is worry-free: throughout February, 50,000 stores, through "expired compensation" and "unsalable compensation", the total claim settlement reached 25 million yuan.Lin Xiaohai said, "This is all the capabilities we have accumulated during the epidemic. We play these cards now to help our future business development and help small shops overcome the crisis." The support of
brand owners is also indispensable. 9 brands including Jinlongyu, Mengniu, Tongyi, Fulinmen, Yinlu, Hengshun, Shuanghui, Budweiser, and Qingdao have signed a joint initiative with Retail Tong to "stabilize prices and ensure supply"; Blue Moon provides 1,200 bottles of hand sanitizer and 1,200 bottles of disinfectant for free to Wuhan stores, and freight drivers have gone through hardships because delivery requires 28 days of quarantine in two cities!
Who is supporting the small shop
earthy "Chinese-style small supermarket" is also very successful, showing extraordinary tenacity. Data from Retail Pass shows that during the epidemic, 50% of small stores nationwide have not closed, and 20% of small stores in Hubei are also insisting on business.
In fact, there are indeed some small supermarkets that have found a way out of life and even better opportunities in the epidemic. According to data disclosed by Lin Xiaohai during the live broadcast, during the epidemic, the proportion of online purchases of small stores increased by 30%, gradually forming habits; small stores have increased their demand for funds, after-sales services; at the same time, near-store consumption and out-of-store consumption have also promoted small stores to use POS and takeaway, and small stores are also accelerating their move towards convenience stores. Data from the terminal return of retail outlets shows that 26% of the small stores opened even rose 30% against the trend in February.
6% of the stores opened have expanded the business categories in the store, and the store category structure is also undergoing drastic changes. The sales of instant noodles, self-heating pots, popcorn, etc. have increased by more than 3 times in Hubei. The sales of fast-food hot dry noodles and vacuum-packed duck necks have increased by 200% month-on-month. To achieve these, in addition to the owner's agility, the support of the entire system is also indispensable.
This is an alliance, division of labor and cooperation, and the interests of each link must be reasonably distributed; the power of each link must be fully utilized. In the case where the epidemic may cause a recession, achieving this goal cannot be achieved by traditional enclosure expansion, but should be driven by new ideas. Retail Connect should work with brand owners to create value for common customers - million stores. Small stores can use this to overcome difficulties and complete transformation, and brands and retail outlets can also benefit from it.
Retail Network initiated an initiative to thousands of brands through online live broadcasts to
The value created by the system for small stores is mainly classified as good products, good prices and good services:
First of all, brands design and provide differentiated good products with high appearance, high quality and high gross profit for small stores, promote more new products to be first released in small stores, and enhance value through channels de-intermediation and marketing precision. Retail Network provides scenarios and capabilities to cultivate differentiated good products, and jointly help small stores reconstruct product categories and make more money. Lin Xiaohai made a simple example: "Help a small shop, you should not just focus on a bottle of mineral water being 20 cents cheaper, but find a way to help them sell 5 yuan a bottle of mineral water."
. Basic inventory products should be given the most reasonable price. Lin Xiaohai said, "It is not the lowest price, and of course it is not acceptable for the highest price." In this regard, Retail Connect can build a price operation position based on the data returned and calculate the reasonable price, help small stores improve procurement efficiency, stabilize replenishment, and reduce pressure on goods; and help brands carry out accurate and reasonable price operations. This is also the practical significance of JBP.
On this basis, it also needs to provide logistics, capital, after-sales service, store digitalization and other services based on trust and credit. This value comes from the credit system, credit purchase, worry-free purchase, urban distribution system, POS and other infrastructure created by Retail Tong for many years. Small stores can use this to reduce capital operation costs and improve profitability. "We need to know Xiaodian better than Xiaodian. We hope to take the initiative to serve and become the core capability of retail communication in the new year." Lin Xiaohai said.
The trump card behind the value of
In turn, this series of "altruistic" measures to support small stores are also creating value for brand owners.Lin Xiaohai said that under the premise that brand channel + supply chain efficiency is higher than traditional channels, in the new year, Retail Connect will help brands achieve a series of goals, such as double the penetration rate of ka/ska brand store, creating new L100 products, further breaking through county and township channels, cloud belts to effectively connect cloud warehouse traffic and real warehouse distribution, expanding from B2B to B2B2C, and jointly building an intelligent distribution network.
Starting this month, the actual warehouse of retail will be further expanded, and the urban warehouse SKU will be increased by 50%. This will further help small stores, increase the richness of products, and lay the foundation for further reconstructing small store product categories. At the same time, the channels are also expanding, not only reaching more small stores, but also deepening more small stores, from simply "selling goods and selling" to slowly teach store owners to "place orders independently". The logistics experience is also being greatly optimized, and a multi-level system is becoming more and more mature.
store launches marketing activities to consumers through Ruyi POS
In terms of digital operations, in 2019, the number of stores that install Ruyi POS machines has soared from 15,000 to more than 100,000. "This year, at the slowest to the second quarter, we will expand to 200,000 POS machines." Lin Xiaohai said that this will promote the further "convenience storeization" of small stores, enable more digital operations, and connect the originally isolated small stores into the huge business system.
plus the surge in Ruyi POS takeaway, credit purchase and worry-free purchase services, the retail communication system is becoming more and more perfect. With these "trump cards", Retail Connect has greatly improved its product strength, channel strength, supply chain capabilities, and full-scale digitalization capabilities. In turn, these abilities can help them better serve brand owners, lend a helping hand to small stores in distress, and form a virtuous cycle system. During the live broadcast to brand owners, Lin Xiaohai mentioned many times: "This is our common cause, and the store is our common customer."
