\u3000\u3000
There is no trivial matter for people’s livelihood. The retail industry involves three meals a day for hundreds of millions of residents. Since April, under unconventional operating conditions, major retailers have assumed the responsibility of ensuring supply in Shanghai, and the pressure is not small.
With the efforts of many parties, Carrefour, RT mart, Bailian, HEMA, dingdong shopping, Wal Mart and other major retailers are also accelerating the orderly resumption of Wuxi Online Offline Communication Information Technology Co.Ltd(300959) in Shanghai.
On April 24, the relevant person in charge of Carrefour told the reporter of daily economic news through wechat that all Carrefour stores in Shanghai will resume online business before May 1. In addition, the reporter learned that of the 26 stores of Shanghai RT mart, 24 have resumed online business, and more than 500 communities can place orders online and deliver goods the next day.
It is worth mentioning that, as the main force of material supply guarantee, the ups and downs of the epidemic not only brought the responsibility of supply guarantee to the retail industry, but also gave birth to the major retailers who have become mature, racked their brains to “innovate” supply guarantee in an unconventional state, and then gave birth to a new retail model.
For example, in early April, in order to solve the problem of insufficient transportation capacity, community group buying became a “life-saving straw” for thousands of Shanghai residents, and the mode of centralized order and centralized distribution was also widely adopted by major retailers. Recently, mobile supermarkets have appeared in many districts in Shanghai.
On April 25, the relevant person in charge of HEMA told the reporter of daily economic news on wechat that due to the current limited transportation capacity, community group purchase has become the main way of HEMA supply and a more efficient way.
“HEMA’s group purchase orders are generally relatively large, and hundreds of orders from a group also occur from time to time. I am very grateful to the community, neighborhood committees and volunteers for their help and tolerance. In addition to the previous group purchase in Hequ, we also launched a ‘mobile supermarket’ to provide residents of the community with a richer variety of goods. On the first day of launch, we received applications from hundreds of communities, and we are stepping up contact.” The relevant person in charge of HEMA said.
To some extent, the unconventional operation under heavy pressure is also a “critical period” for retailers to play and prove their ability.
During the resumption of work and supply guarantee: the transportation capacity gap is narrowing
At present, Shanghai’s retail industry is returning to work in an orderly manner.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour said that more Carrefour stores in Shanghai, including Gubei store, Xuhui store, Yishan store and Caolu store, have resumed online business. As of April 23 last weekend, 80% – 90% of Carrefour stores in Shanghai will resume online business. At present, a few stores are waiting for environmental assessment or environmental assessment report.
In addition, the person in charge also revealed that Carrefour is planning and making progress for the offline resumption of business of its stores according to the situation of various districts in Shanghai, and will orderly promote the preparations for the resumption of work of its offline stores according to the progress.
In addition to Carrefour and RT mart, on April 25, the relevant person in charge of Wal Mart told the reporter of daily economic news through wechat that as of April 25, more than 80% of Wal Mart stores in Shanghai have resumed online business and provided community group buying services, including Tianlin store, Lingyun store, Yangxing store, Songjiang Songhui Road store and Shiwan store. Sam’s three stores in Shanghai, Qingpu store, Beicai store and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone Group Co.Ltd(600648) store, all carry out online order business and ensure community group purchase service.
Bailian Group’s relevant person also told reporters on the daily economic news on WeChat that the retail stores of Bailian Group, based on the requirements of comprehensive disinfection and sterilization, went all out to resume business. Disinfection and sterilization of 879 stores, including hypermarkets, standard supermarkets, convenience stores and drugstores, were completed in April 21st. Disinfection and sterilization after opening and opening up are all done.
The capacity gap is also narrowing.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour told reporters that the number of employees in Carrefour’s Shanghai stores is about 60% at present, with more sealed employees returning to their jobs and the arrival of reinforced employees from other places such as Wuhan to supplement their positions in sorting and distribution.
In addition, the reporter learned that RT Mart selected 600 employees to rush to Shanghai from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. The arrival of this group of employees accelerated the resumption efficiency.
In the process of gradually returning to work, how to provide accommodation for relevant staff and do a good job in epidemic prevention is also a test for these retailers who have been highly expected by the majority of residents.
In the front warehouse link closest to the community, the relevant person in charge of HEMA told reporters that HEMA strictly implements the “2 + 2” mode requirements of nucleic acid detection and antigen self-test, nucleic acid detection once a day and antigen self-test twice in the morning and evening. At the same time, all the younger brothers have opened the “electronic pass”, which will focus on displaying the negative nucleic acid test certificate of the distribution and delivery personnel, “Health Code” green code, negative antigen self-test and other information. Consumers can also query the relevant rider information in the order distribution details of HEMA app.
In addition, the reporter learned that in the early stage of the epidemic, a little brother’s food, accommodation and transportation care group was established within HEMA. At present, it has communicated with more than 40 hotels and arranged more than 2000 rooms for HEMA. These accommodation rooms not only have beds that meet the requirements of epidemic prevention, but also have “special nucleic acid detection channels” to provide “nucleic acid spot check and antigen spot check” services.
The reporter learned that at present, dingdong has adopted semi closed-loop management to buy vegetables, uniformly arrange hotel accommodation for employees, and prevent employees from leaving the front warehouse and the hotel without permission. A pre – storage specialist is set up in each pre – warehouse to control the environment and materials in the pre – storage warehouse regularly, and to supervise the disinfection and sterilization of the distribution before and after the return of each batch of materials.
According to Ding Dong’s requirements for buying vegetables, the site personnel must take 100% examination of “body temperature + antigen + nucleic acid” every day before taking the post. Each employee shall uniformly arrange nucleic acid test once a day, antigen test twice, and enter the front warehouse with negative certificate to carry out work.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour also told reporters that according to the requirements of epidemic prevention and control in Shanghai, the employees returning to work are under closed-loop management in the stores, and the company will give subsidies and rewards related to the employees in the stores.
Unconventional status: retailer’s “creative” guarantee
In addition to actively returning to work and production under strict prevention and control measures, many retailers reported to the reporter of daily economic news that their response ability under the epidemic has been improved after the baptism of the epidemic in Shanghai.
On April 14, Sam’s club store mentioned the situation it was facing in its open letter: “at present, our three member stores in Shanghai are closed offline, and many speeder front-end warehouses are closed. Most of our colleagues are isolated and can’t return to their posts normally. Only a few colleagues stick to the front line, work overload all night and carry several times the workload on weekdays.”
In this unconventional state, in order to ensure supply, retailers can only cheer up and respond urgently.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour told reporters that in order to ensure the material supply in Shanghai, Carrefour has urgently deployed materials in multiple regions, “Since the closure and control of the epidemic in Shanghai, Carrefour has allocated more than 7000 tons of livelihood guarantee materials to Shanghai, fulfilled the contract, completed the purchase demand of nearly 1.6 million orders, and provided more than 1 million fresh material packages for residents in more than 500 local communities in Shanghai.
”
In addition, the reporter found that in an unconventional state, retailers adjust their established working habits and processes and strive to improve efficiency in innovative ways.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour said that in order to improve the efficiency of goods organization and distribution, Carrefour specially launched a meal package for the daily food material distribution in the closed management community. The meat covered in a package can basically meet the food material demand of a family for 2-3 days.
In addition, the launch of community order collection business in Shanghai has become a common practice of major retailers under “special circumstances”.
In the early morning of April 1, HEMA’s official microblog released a message: HEMA’s Shanghai store will provide group purchase service from now on, covering all communities around 12 stores in the first batch. Group purchase adopts the mode of “package purchase and delivery the next day”.
HEMA said that according to the operation experience, the store efficiency of package group purchase is more than five times that of individual order distribution. In special periods, the richness of users’ choice and the timeliness of distribution are limited.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour told reporters that due to the shortage of transportation capacity during the epidemic, Carrefour adopted a variety of order collection methods to improve the supply efficiency. “At present, Carrefour mainly provides services for community residents through wechat applet online community order collection, community head order collection and platform order collection.”
The reporter learned that since April, Carrefour has innovatively cooperated with third-party logistics companies such as Volkswagen logistics to improve the performance capacity of terminal collection and distribution. Gradually, Carrefour has increased from 10 store vehicles and online performance from 15000 orders / day to 56 store vehicles. The performance of stores exceeds 100000 orders / day and serves more than 800 communities. This approach has been extended to other retail enterprises in Shanghai.
Guan Mingwu, general manager of Shanghai operation area of RT mart, told the reporter of daily economic news that the “group together” service of community centralized purchase business launched by RT Mart in conjunction with taoxianda is expected to be introduced to other cities after the Shanghai Runtong mode, so as to cope with the sudden increase of large demand and improve the efficiency of centralized purchase.
In addition, the reporter learned that in order to stabilize the “vegetable basket”, RT mart, HEMA and Carrefour enterprises have innovated the supply guarantee mode and opened a “mobile supermarket” at the door of the community.
In addition to collection and distribution, some special practices under unconventional conditions have also blossomed in Shanghai’s retail industry.
In order to improve the operation efficiency and collection and distribution efficiency of vegetables, Guan Mingwu revealed that under the Shanghai epidemic, RT Mart Zhongyuan store and Nanhui store were temporarily adjusted to “fresh warehouse”. As a fruit and vegetable transportation hub, employees were responsible for the sorting and packaging of vegetable packages in the warehouse, and then transported to stores in Shanghai.
The “shared employee” model, which once glowed in Wuhan, reappeared.
The reporter learned that since March 14, HEMA has opened the emergency measures of “shared employment” for three times and launched the community collection and distribution service in the suburbs of Shanghai; The “shared employment” model in Shenzhen and other places was launched at the same time. According to statistics, within one day, nearly 300 people signed up in Shanghai alone.
As of March 28, more than 10 enterprises (basically catering enterprises) and more than 300 people have participated in the shared employment emergency measures of HEMA, mainly responsible for the store operation of picking, tallying and putting on the shelf.
The emergence of mobile supermarkets: a new solution to the problem of insufficient transportation capacity?
In the history of China’s retail industry, Shanghai is a representative city.
Shanghai used to be an open source for China’s department store industry. Since the five storey store of Xianshi department store landed on Nanjing Road in 1917, Yongan department store, Xinxin Department store and Daxin department store have been established successively in ten years. At the moment of shouting “new retail”, new retail platforms such as dingdong shopping and HEMA also choose to start from Shanghai and radiate the whole country. In February this year, dingdong shopping announced that it would first realize the overall profit in Shanghai in December, and the whole Yangtze River Delta would realize the correction of UE in that quarter.
While the epidemic in Shanghai has brought unprecedented pressure to retailers, it has also brought the power to open up ideas and dismantle immediate problems.
Cui Lili, executive director of the E-commerce Research Institute of Shanghai University of Finance and economics, told the daily economic news through wechat that under the influence of the epidemic, the number of retail terminal ports has decreased, and the public’s expectation of uncertainty in the future has led to an increase in the demand for “hoarding goods”, which further exacerbated the demand for retail ports. The re operation of retail ports depends on the recovery process of manpower and transportation capacity. It takes time to gradually restore normal operation while meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention.
Therefore, a special period has emerged in Shanghai. Cui Lili believes that the biggest problem facing retailers in Shanghai under the epidemic is the lack of transport capacity. “Retailers have supply capacity and consumers have demand. It is a bit like dumbbells. Both ends are connected by a thin bar, which is the lack of transport capacity.” Cui Lili said that during this period, offline retail could not reach consumers, online retail could not reach consumers by express delivery, and online timely distribution could reach consumers, but the ability to perform the contract was very limited.
In this context, it is understandable that community single set distribution is widely used by retailers for the first time. “Centralized distribution is mainly to adapt to the insufficient supply of human resources, that is, it has become the original dealer or brand to meet residents’ consumption, rather than the original retail terminal. From the perspective of intensive use of human resources, from the 2B mode that dealers and brands are more accustomed to, both aspects can adapt to the current market environment.” Cui Lili said.
If the practice of community collection and distribution originates from the basis of community group purchase, the emergence of mobile supermarkets is obviously a “new species”.
The relevant person in charge of Carrefour told reporters that the bus “mobile supermarket” is one of many new measures taken by Carrefour to fully protect citizens’ dining tables under this round of epidemic. “With the support of relevant government departments, Carrefour’s” mobile supermarket “can efficiently and quickly solve the demand for centralized purchase in the community.”
The reporter learned that each mobile supermarket car is equipped with a “Shanghai living material guarantee” pass. The car is loaded with milk, eggs, vegetables, oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar, rice, instant noodles, self heating rice and other necessities for people’s livelihood. It provides adult diapers, children’s milk powder and other daily necessities for the elderly, children and other special groups in the area, and brings a new round of supplies to the community in the control area.
It is reported that this bus “mobile supermarket” delivery mode will radiate many surrounding communities and deliver goods 1-3 times a week, which can basically meet the daily shopping and replenishment needs of residents in the community.
The reporter learned that as of April 20, the average daily order volume of “mobile supermarket” launched by HEMA had exceeded 60000.
Do mobile supermarkets still have sustainable value after the impact of the epidemic is alleviated? Cui Lili said that in her opinion, the “mobile supermarket” model is also a mode of centralized purchase, but in the form of port, it transforms the community-based cluster form into the offline temporary retail format with the community as the unit. “To some extent, the mobile supermarket is just a concept, which is a form for retailers to carry out cluster and centralized purchase in the community.”
In any case, at this stage, with the efforts of retailers for nearly a month, the problem of “insufficient transportation capacity” in front of them is being gradually dismantled.
Lai Yang, the chief expert of the research base of Beijing International Trade Center, told the reporter of the daily economic news by telephone that the main reason for the supply problem during this period is the deficiency of the docking mechanism. “The docking drill of the emergency system at ordinary times should include all kinds of retail enterprises such as e-commerce and physical retail into the system and strengthen the drill.” He said that enterprises should be encouraged to carry out multi warehouse reserves and have a fault-tolerant mechanism to avoid special circumstances affecting the normal flow of goods.
Lai Yang believes that even in the abnormal state under the influence of the epidemic, the most important thing is to let “professional people do professional things” and let market players and enterprises give full play to their role.
