Retail chain: slimming and sharing the economy's "mix and Match"

In the first half of this year, several supermarket chains in the United States have made new moves that is: to reinvent themselves more "thin", and to be among the less distant suburbs, including Wal-Mart stores, Target department stores, Wegmans (Wegmans) and hy-vee food chain supermarkets.

As stated by the Executive vice president of target Department for property development, as more young Americans now tend to live in urban areas (apartment buildings, or live with their parents) rather than suburbs (independent housing), chain retailers must make "bandwagon" decisions, at least geographically, to make their consumers feel more comfortable and less "alienated".

That, to a large extent, explains why the Wal-Mart alone plans to have 300 new stores in the U.S. in the US by the end of 2014. Of course, even "slim", these giant chains are still huge in the city's stores: for example, the total average of Hy-vee's traditional store area is about 9444 square meters, while the new store is about 1300 square meters and will still include deli, pharmacy and café facilities.

It is not hard to imagine that the "invasion" of the chain Giants will make the local small supermarkets difficult. Of course, it's not that small supermarkets have never experienced rivals before. For example, the Baza supermarket, the Boston area that sells Eastern European food, has been quite calm when it comes to the news that a giant chain of Wegmans such as this summer has opened a new store in downtown Boston. "To say the competition, early there!" before we had to compete with local Whole Foods and Shaw's stores for each client, "he said," and we strive to create ' different customer experiences ' Besides providing Eastern European food that other supermarkets find difficult to find. ”

Perhaps the consumer's individuality demand is also the local small supermarket another lifeline. "Some consumers now seem to be on a ' shopping trip ', would go to a store to buy the butter, and then pick bread in another favorite bakery shop and go to another place for the freshest vegetables ..." Mom ' s Organic, who specializes in selling organic food in northeastern U.S. Harsh supermarket bosses said, "Customers focus on each purchase to get the products, unique goods, so the chain of one-stop shopping for the Giants are not likely to defeat all opponents." ”

And the other side of the coin, at the end of the supply chain, what is the view of the supermarket supplier? In fact, it's not easy to really touch the shelves. Their dream is often to enter the regional supermarket chain, through unremitting efforts (lucky) eventually become a national chain of suppliers.

Take the Arctic zero, the frozen dessert maker, for example. Starting in Southern California, they started with natural food shops and grocery stores as their targets for low-fat, ice-cream-like frozen sweets. "We do have to run a shop and sell it in one district," chief executive Pandey recalls. "It often takes at least 2-3 visits to persuade a store manager to consider using your product," he said. "It took about a year for cool ice to get on the shelves of Whole Foods (about 250 stores) and then become a supplier of Kroger (Kroger) supermarket chains (into about 2,200 stores)." The success of the two stores has paved the ground for cool ice to eventually hit Wal-Mart (though it took four years to get to the Wal-Mart shelves!)., now cool ice has been able to see the sale of its products in Wal-Mart's 2,500 stores.

In the case of cool ice, who can say, small and medium-sized supermarkets are not the chain giant to tamp its supply chain quality control of an eco-ring components?—— and on the other hand, when the Giants "slimming" (in the urban stores) small-scale operation, not only in the supply chain management level, but in the employee employment, logistics control and so on many aspects, Will usher in a new series of challenges.

As we all know, Wal-Mart has the most advanced logistics system in the chain retailing industry, and its core suppliers, such as Procter and Gamble, have become the leader in automatic replenishment. Powerful programmers will ensure that everything from helping the diaper to the fresh potatoes is delivered to the Wal-Mart stores with astonishing efficiency, and even to the vans, there is programming to ensure that they use the shortest route, fuel, time, double savings ... But according to Bloomberg, the New York Times, and other media last year disclosed that Wal-Mart's powerful supply-chain computer technology also cannot replace manpower in the "last-mile" unloading area to carry the goods to the shelves themselves, while Wal-Mart is slashing staff hours to increase the profit margins of its stores, so that in pallet handling, trolleys moving goods, Fresh fruits and vegetables, such as labor-intensive aspects of the sluggish, and sometimes even a mountain of goods, customers have gone empty-handed, apparently in turnover caused a management gap.

Do not belittle such a gap: the nature of the retail industry is a circular economy, customers order goods, business delivery, and then customers have 30 days to pay (assuming universal use of credit card). So, theoretically, as long as every 30 days (or less time) to make the entire inventory "a comeback", means that all suppliers are working for you (you don't have to have any money for the entire inventory, even if you don't consider the pressure supplier), and the total stock of Wal-Mart in the United States is 25.8 billion dollars ( Very considerable number!). At present, globally, Wal-Mart's total inventory turnover is 8 times a year. It can be seen that the retailer's inventory turnover is closely related to its cost structure, just like tightening all the screws and can't make any link in the whole system stagnate. Thus, one of the most important tortures in the process of reducing the number of employees or working hours of the Giants in general is how to ensure that there is no gap in inventory turnover and even in management and service.

When it comes to the changes in retail business, there is a trend that cannot be ignored. A new Instacart, a so-called "share economy" in the retail sector, has recently become the darling of Silicon Valley. The business model, created in 2012 and funded by Sequoia Capital, which offers online ordering of supermarket goods and delivered quickly to home, does not appear to have been unprecedented – even in the late decades of the dotcom bubble, many well-known companies (including Amazon's AmazonFresh) have dabbled in the field is only a flash in the pan, presumably because of the challenge to the operators of the procurement, distribution and quality control of fresh groceries and food.

And the most Instacart pride of a reversal is that she does not build their own distribution center and logistics system, but fully with offline entity supermarkets, when customers through the Internet after the order, Instacart through their own intelligent application call and assign a "green shirt" The exclusive shopper "hurried to the nearest cooperative supermarket, according to the customer list to buy a item of merchandise, and then drive their own car to the fresh goods directly to the customer's hands."

So essentially, Instacart's business model is the sharing of idle labor, and intelligently avoids the cost of building warehouses and fleets, but also expands the range of customers ' choice of goods. Instacart "Exclusive shopper" can earn 15-30 dollars per hour, depending on the speed of delivery to customers; This is a part-time job that does not require a college degree but has a good income, and can be flexibly completed in free time.

The "mix" of physical retailing and Internet sharing platforms is an example of how new technologies can change the pattern of labour markets in the eyes of economists. "If you're looking for new niche opportunities for traditional middle-class jobs [rather than stifling traditional middle-class jobs] in the new technology era, I think that's one example," said Thelles Cohn, an economist at George Mason University and author of Average is over. "

What's more, Instacart does not face any trouble from the regulatory side, in the way that it does not face the harsh legal environment that Airbnb in the hospitality industry as a share of the players in the economy.

"This article is written by China International Writer, published on July 5, 2014, the world of IT manager." 】