Guoan Community business covers ten services such as laundry and libraries. At peak, there are thousands of specific types, and "mixed but not refined" distracts too much energy. Photo by Zhang Xiaorong, reporter of Beijing News,
, store closures, wage arrears, operating costs are high and profitable. Where will the Guoan community go in the future?
(Continued from D01 version)
has high operating costs and difficult profits
According to the information of the official website of Guoan Community, it is affiliated to Guoan Community (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. and was generated with the support of the dual brand endorsement of CITIC Group and Guoan Group. Tianyan Check shows that CITIC Guoan Urban Development Holdings Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CITIC Guoan Group, is the largest shareholder of Guoan Community Beijing Technology Co., Ltd., with a 46.01% stake.
is backed by CITIC Guoan Group. The Guoan community is also considered a project born with a "gold spoon in it" and has also received financial support from relevant departments in Beijing. However, the Guoan community does not seem to satisfy all parties who support it. Since its first store was opened in 2015, it has expanded rapidly to now shrinking sharply. What is wrong with the Guoan community? According to many employees, the store involves a wide variety of businesses, which disperses too much energy and has too high operating costs, but many businesses are not profitable. Once Guoan Group's funds are not available, it can only close the store.
Zhou Lei, the manager of a store in Beijing (pseudonym), did some calculations with the Beijing News reporter: Taking the store he is in as an example, there were 21 employees before, with a monthly salary of at least 6,000 yuan per person per month, and the expenses for salary alone exceeded 120,000 yuan. In addition, there are various expenses such as rent, water and electricity, and the operating costs are very high. Zhou Lei also said that after the layoffs, there are only 4 employees left in each store. Even if the monthly salary is at least 5,000 yuan per person, the employee salary will be 20,000 yuan, and the rent will be 80,000 yuan per month. In addition, various expenses such as water and electricity, the monthly income will be at least 150,000 yuan to break even. Few stores can achieve it, let alone support more than 20 employees. According to Zhou Lei, almost no stores make profits.
is not profitable and expands rapidly, and the Guoan community has high requirements for fund reserves. At the same time, the Guoan community's "new recruitment" method is also "burning money". Guoan Community once obtained members by free membership and gifts and coupons. If the coupon of 25 yuan/month is given for one year for free, each member will need a subsidy of 300 yuan/year.
But in fact, this method did not bring high sticky customers to the Guoan community. Wang Li (pseudonym) told the Beijing News reporter that she had two mobile phones to register as a member. She and her husband could get a coupon of 75 yuan a month, but they would only come to consume when they could use the coupons, and they could hardly remember it. On May 13, due to the closure of nearby stores, Wang Li, who lives in Tongzhou, went to several stores and finally went to the Hujialou store in Guoan Community to spend. It is worth noting that she got the product priced at more than 100 yuan without spending a penny. In the Shuangjing store that was clearing the stock on that day, there were basically customers who came to clear the coupons like Wang Li.
■ Consumption Observation
Guoan Community is questioned about "not understanding" Community Retail
Why not go to Guoan Community to consume? Wang Li told the Beijing News reporter, "There are no vegetables and fruits, I have to buy rice, flour and oil for a long time, so I can only buy some snacks and drinks, and the supermarket downstairs will solve it."
Beijing News reporter visited many stores such as Hujialou Store in Guoan Community, Shilibao , Shuangjing, etc., mostly selling rice, flour, grain, oil, wine, beverages and some frozen products. However, fruits, vegetables and other products that have higher consumption by community residents have not been launched. According to employees of Guoan Community, many stores do not have vegetables and fruits, and some stores have it before, but there are relatively few. Wen Zhihong, partner and leader of chain operations of Hejun Consulting, told the Beijing News reporter that community service is a good direction and retail is not wrong, but Guoan Community does not understand community retail and services, and the specific operation is not in place. In Wen Zhihong's view, Guoan Community does not have fresh food products with high frequency consumption in the community, nor does it have its own unique products. It does not have its own advantages in product combinations, nor can it attract customers to form high-stick users. Using coupons to attract new products is considered "birth-driven" and does not meet the real needs of consumers.At the same time, Guoan Community also lacks product differentiation and service details, without user thinking and customer orientation. A reporter from the Beijing News noticed that even if you spend in a store, you can only pay through the Guoan Community APP, and many community residents are elderly people and need the help of clerks to operate.
In addition, the "all-inclusive" service also disperses too much energy for the Guoan community, which is not conducive to the focus of its main business and gives consumers a "chaotic" but "unsophisticated" feeling. Guoan Community includes 10 services including laundry, cleaning, elderly care, home repair, and tourism. However, according to Zhou Lei, at the peak, its specific types of services are as high as thousands, including massage, queuing in the hospital, buying medicine, etc. Too many services have dispersed too much energy in the Guoan Community.
Take elderly meals and home delivery of dry-cleaned clothes as an example. Zhou Lei said that before, a store had to deliver 60 meals during the peak meal ordering period, and at least 4 delivery staff, namely "Guoan Xia", is divided into four directions: southeast, west and north, which is difficult to complete. The laundry business requires home delivery, with each person reaching a maximum of 15 customers a day. After the delivery is heavy, the store cannot afford it, so Dada is hired, and the other party needs to pay 6 yuan per order. At the same time, it is also facing the risk of complaints about inadequate service. Li Gang, a resigned employee, also told the Beijing News reporter that the elderly care meal in Guoan Community is 25 yuan per serving, "three meats and one vegetable". In the early stage, it cooperated with Lihua Fast Food. The portion and quality of the dishes are higher than similar products on the market. Yogurt or fruit will be given away, and there is no high profit.
In February this year, Zhao Chenxi said in an interview with Leju Finance that the idea of Guoan Community was very simple when it was established. I am determined to serve community residents, so I have done services related to community residents, and I once thought that as long as I cover the stores in various communities in Beijing, I could serve better. But this is not the case. Zhao Chenxi admitted frankly: "We walked too fast and too hurry. At that time, we only thought about opening Guoan Community stores to various communities, as long as we were in the community, and we did not carefully study the store location, store structure, and product placement. Now closing the store is to correct these mistakes at that time. When the initial location is poor and the internal structure is unreasonable, we will gradually close it."
■ Business roads
0,000 stores are shattered. Where will we go in the future? After the large-scale online and offline shrinkage, how many cities and stores will be retained will be retained. How to develop in the future will become the primary problem faced by the Guoan community.
Zhou Lei told the Beijing News reporter that the current internal rumor is that Beijing will retain 30 stores within the Third Ring Road, focusing on community services, and conducting them in the form of merchants' settlement and joint ventures. The products are mainly used for community group purchase , and ship directly from the direct procurement base of the company's cooperation to meet the needs of community residents for rice, flour, grain, oil, fruit and other products.
It is worth noting that the community group buying market is fiercely competitive. Not only emerging "stars" entrepreneurship including Shixiangjia and Squirrel Pinpin, but also retail giants such as Hema Fresh and Suning Store are targeting this market. In the face of large-scale procurement and sales, how will Guoan Community have an advantage in product quality and price?
htmlOn the evening of May 16, a reporter from the Beijing News called Guoan Community CEO Zhao Chenxi to verify the above statement and tried to understand the future development direction of Guoan Community, but the other party hung up the phone on the grounds that he could not accept the interview. Since then, the Beijing News reporter was unable to call him.In February this year, Zhao Chenxi said in an interview with Leju Finance that after the adjustment, the positioning of the Guoan community will be clearer and the service group will be more accurate. According to his description, the positioning of the Guoan community is to serve the community, with family services as the entry point and the elderly should enter the family service method. In terms of goods and services, it mainly focuses on the four major sectors of fresh food, housekeeping, health and financial management, and complex product categories will be cut off. At the same time, the Guoan community’s self-built terminal distribution system - "Guoan Xia" - will be re-activated. He also said that opening a store will still be carried out, but the location selection will be more cautious and strive to achieve balance between income and expenditure within one year.
According to Zhao Chenxi at that time, "We are not guiding traffic from online to offline, but guiding methods from outside to home are correct, and adjustments are carried out under this principle.It can be basically adjusted by the end of March this year. "It is not yet known whether the adjustments of Guoan Community have been completed. Whether it will develop in the future according to the model of "four major sectors" mentioned by Zhao Chenxi, and whether it will really open a store still needs to be seen. But it is obvious that Guoan Community has given up the goal of "opening 10,000 stores by 2020" and plans to "keep 150 community stores in 2019".
The interviewees involved in Guoan Community employees in the article are all pseudonyms
D01-D02 version edited/Beijing News reporter Zhang Xiaorong
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