“Beginning in 2016 and 2017, both local and foreign retail companies began to think about how to maximize retail efficiency, and as a result, many innovations emerged. What kind of retail companies can stay in the future? The most important thing is efficiency. ”

Note from Titanium Media: “Pathfinder 2022” is a year-end planning topic of Titanium Media, inviting TOP entrepreneurial leaders from various industries to review the industry changes and corporate growth in the past year, and discuss new logic and look forward to 2022.

n 2021, the decline in performance has become the main theme of the supermarket industry. There are not a few losers, and there are frequent store closures under operating pressure. Having worked in the retail industry for more than ten years, Zheng Feng, President of JD Qixian, has witnessed the decline of traditional retail from the “golden decade” to recent years. He believes that the era of high passenger flow has passed, and the “pan-crowd model” is facing challenges. .

In the past, passenger flow was concentrated offline, and hypermarkets often had tens of thousands of SKUs, serving everyone from different classes and earning a lot of income. With the rise of online retail, the outbreak of innovative offline formats, and the impact of the epidemic, the offline passenger flow has dropped sharply. “If you are still doing a general crowd and taking a very wide SKU, you will inevitably fail to focus on the needs of users.”

From the perspective of supply chain, Zheng Feng said that the development of retail to today is all about efficiency. “Looking back at China’s retail history, from the mid-1990s to the beginning of this century, it was the period when the entire chain of retail supermarkets developed the fastest; from 2005 to 2006 to 2015, with the outbreak of e-commerce, traditional retail entered a period of adjustment, and the speed of opening stores slowed down. , began to emphasize efficiency; since 2016 and 2017, both local and foreign retail companies have begun to think about how to maximize retail efficiency, and many innovations have emerged as a result. What kind of retail companies can stay in the future? The most important thing It’s efficiency.”

Against this background, in 2021, Qihuahua spent some time researching strategies, managing the team, and reorganizing the supply chain. Zheng Feng admitted that doing these things objectively affects the speed, but a clear strategy, solid layout, stable supply chain and team are the foundation of rapid development. “If you want to run, you must squat down when you start. Qixian squatted down first.”

According to Zheng Feng, in the past year, the three “most correct” things Qixian has done are the strategic “focusing”. He said that Qixian not only needs to accurately focus on users, but also accurately recommend products, that is, in the face of most people who can’t make a choice, Qixian will provide 1-2 products for different functions, different brands, and different price bands. The limited number of listings meets the different needs of more people.

“‘Efficiency’ revolves around people and goods yard, usually personnel efficiency, per floor efficiency, and product efficiency; ‘rate’ includes indicators such as turnover rate, growth rate, gross profit margin, and favorable rate.” Zheng Feng said that in the past year, Qixian has also made a lot of useful explorations on how to improve efficiency.

For omni-channel supermarkets, from the online order placed by the consumer to the delivery of the order by the courier, it is very important for the store to pick up the goods. In the past, Qixian used the hanging chain to pick up the goods in the store, and then put the goods in the backyard, and then distribute them to the distribution box. In the process, they relied on many employees and walked tens of thousands of steps every day. With the rapid growth of orders, Qixian has opened the store-warehouse integration mode. Tests have shown that picking can be completed within five minutes. It is expected that 60%-70% of the picking will be achieved on a 30-meter-long aisle in the backyard in the future. goods.

As a gourmet fresh food supermarket, Qixian’s product categories are mainly fresh food + gourmet food, but many users are transferred from the previous generation of hypermarkets, and there are still expectations for wider categories and more family life needs. . Zheng Feng pointed out that the area of ​​Qixian is only about 3,000 square meters. While improving the floor efficiency and human efficiency, the supply of goods cannot be increased indefinitely. Therefore, the concept of a store-in-shop is proposed. category, etc.

Through a similar series of improvements and innovations, the bad experience rate of Qixian has been optimized by 43.1% year-on-year, and the APP out-of-stock rate has also been optimized by 42% year-on-year. Single shipment – optimized by 52%, and the fulfillment rate was optimized by 1 minute year-on-year.

In Zheng Feng’s view, another thing worth remembering for the team is the opening of 20 new stores a year. Up to now, Qixian has 42 Qixian supermarkets and 16 Qixian life stores in 13 cities across the country.

From the performance point of view, since April 2021, Qixian’s monthly sales have achieved double-digit growth year-on-year; among them, the growth of stores that have been open for one year is even more obvious, and the growth in September has even been close to 50%. In terms of profitability, stores that have been operating for three consecutive years have achieved profitability, and stores that have been operating for two years are also close to profitability.

“We see today that many supermarkets have begun to self-reflect and iterate.” Looking forward to the future, Zheng Feng firmly believes that offline physical retail, whether at the policy level, the consumer level, or the supply chain level, will still be the absolute source of commodity circulation. The main force, e-commerce cannot completely replace.

As a result, Qixian will continue to expand. “The long-term goal for the next 5-7 years is to become the first camp in China’s chain retail industry.”

Under this long-term goal, Zheng Feng recently announced the latest development strategy of Qixian, which will focus on the two core areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Greater Bay Area, “one south and one north”, to create two growth poles. He said that as long as the site selection criteria of Qixian are met, and the number of stores opened is not capped, it is expected that the number of stores opened in Qixian in 2022 will not be lower than that in 2021, and it may speed up.

(This article first published Titanium Media App, author | Liu Mengmeng)