S1: Good operation of fresh food department

At present, the retail industry is a low-profit competitive industry, and its average net profit rate is only about 1%. The gross profit margin of a considerable number of commodities is only 2%-5%, which is not commensurate with the huge capital investment of the retail industry. However, fresh goods, especially meat, aquatic products, vegetables, fruits, cooked food, etc., all need to have certain technical conditions for production, processing, transportation and storage, and the requirements for hygiene and freshness of such goods make the operating costs of such goods vary greatly, and the gross profit margin is as high as 1%-4%. This is like a "gold mine" to be mined for the retail industry with an average industry net profit rate of only about 1%.

Why does Yichu Lotus have an advantage in freshness? This has to mention a unique competitive advantage of Yichu Lotus Supermarket-the blood relationship between Yichu Lotus Chain Supermarket and Zhengda Group. Zhengda Group was founded in 1921 by brothers Xie Yichu and Xie Shaofei, Chinese industrialists. The company started from the sales of crop seeds, and gradually developed and expanded, forming a complete modern agricultural and animal husbandry industrial chain consisting of seed improvement, planting, feed industry, aquaculture, processing of agricultural and animal husbandry products, product sales, import and export trade, etc., and became a model of modern agricultural and animal husbandry industrialization in the world. At present, Zhengda Group is involved in many fields, but agriculture is still the core industry of Zhengda. The large-scale farms, slaughterhouses and livestock and poultry products processing plants of the Group are almost all established according to international safety and hygiene standards, and the production of livestock and poultry products is the strength of Zhengda Group. Therefore, Zhengda can completely reduce the operating cost of supermarket fresh food and strengthen the sales network while expanding the food industry. With the support of Zhengda Group, Yichu Lotus has a solid foundation for developing fresh food. The difference between Lotus in Yichu and other supermarkets is that many fresh products are produced and sold by themselves, and their prices are relatively lower than those in RT Mart and Tesco, so they have a competitive advantage.

In addition, the orientation of the government is also one of the reasons why Lotus developed a fresh and enhanced supermarket. People in China are used to buying fresh food in bazaars. However, because the farmers' market affects the city appearance, the environment is poor, the sanitary condition is poor, and it is difficult to manage, the local government has been actively advocating "changing agriculture into supermarkets", hoping to improve the shopping environment.

S2: Good Reputation

Lotus supermarket chain in Yichu entered Shanghai in 1997. Compared with other large supermarket chains, entering Shanghai earlier has formed a certain reputation advantage. In Shanghai, almost everyone knows Yichu Lotus Supermarket, and its slogan is "low price every day". On the contrary, RT Mart was just born in Taiwan Province. Its reputation advantage is incomparable.

S3: Perfect human resources

Yichu Lotus has a relatively complete reserve plan for managers. Generally speaking, the personnel of Lotus in Yichu are Store Directing Manager, Assistant to Store Directing Manager, Section Manager, Team Leader and Associate.

when college graduates enter Lotus, they will be trained by operation trainee. After the training, they will receive on-the-job training for department managers. After completing the on-the-job training for department managers, they will be promoted to department managers. During the period of working as a department manager, those who have done a good job will receive a three-month training in the manager trainee program, and after the training, they will be promoted to assistant store manager.

After signing the new store agreement, the personnel department of Lotus at Yichu will recruit corresponding personnel for training according to the management personnel reserve plan. As Lotus at Yichu has been operating in the eastern coastal area for a long time and has been relatively successful, it chose Shanghai as the national training base.

S4: Yichu Lotus has established its own brand advantage

How Yichu Lotus develops its own brand Yichu Lotus has formed its own characteristics in developing its own brand goods.

First of all, Lotus Lotus is not registered with different trademarks for different categories of goods like Wal-Mart, but is registered as Lotus Lotus Lotus. On the one hand, it can save a considerable brand registration fee, and on the other hand, it can make it easier for customers to recognize their own brand products by taking advantage of the good social image of Lotus, and shorten the time for their acceptance, so as to promote each other's corporate image and product image.

Secondly, in the specific implementation, Lotus attaches great importance to the choice of commodity categories. To this end, Lotus has formulated several principles for selecting commodity categories: First, this kind of commodity should not be a commodity with high brand loyalty. For goods with high brand loyalty, customers have established a strong consumer awareness, which requires a lot of resources to change their views on the brand and establish a good impression on a new brand. Therefore, this kind of goods is not suitable for making their own brands; The second is that this kind of goods should be goods with high consumption quantity and high purchase frequency. Because of its fast turnover, this kind of goods can be ordered in large quantities, thus reducing the production cost and purchase cost and ensuring the realization of low price of its own brand. The third is goods with high price sensitivity. The supermarket has a great price advantage in developing its own brand goods because it omits the intermediate circulation link. Choosing to develop goods with high price sensitivity and using price leverage can form a great competitive advantage over similar products, and can also use consumers' price sensitivity to cultivate consumers' brand loyalty to their own brands.

S5: Yichu Lotus strictly controls the supply quality of products

Yichu Lotus will require the supplier to provide its factory quality control standards, which are generally higher than the national quality control standards for this product. In the text of the contract, Lotus will require the supplier to produce in accordance with the factory quality control standards.

The second level is the inspection of the quality of each order and each batch of goods from each supplier. At the beginning of Yichu Lotus, professional technicians are sent to the supplier to regularly check its production status and whether there are any illegal operations to ensure the normal production and the stability of product quality. At the same time, for each batch of orders, according to different product requirements, product characteristics, supplier status and product quality history, we will conduct random inspection or even full inspection at different rates. For products with stable performance, not particularly strict requirements on product quality and good historical records, less inspection or even exemption can be arranged. For the lack of stability of product performance, the quality is good and bad, especially for new products, it is necessary to arrange a large proportion of random inspection or even full inspection.

S6: Lotus logistics system in Yichu is perfect

Commodity distribution center is an efficient internal logistics system. The reason why chain commerce develops rapidly is that its advantage lies in achieving economies of scale through unified procurement, unified settlement and unified distribution. Through advanced management, technology and modern information network, the distribution center carries out unified and standardized management on the business processes of commodity purchase, purchase, storage, analysis, processing and distribution, so as to make the whole commodity movement process efficient, coordinated and orderly, thus improving efficiency, reducing costs and achieving the best economic benefits.

Yichu Lotus has established two giant distribution centers of 4, square meters to 5, square meters in Qingpu and Pudong, Shanghai. These two centers are responsible for distributing daily goods to stores in Greater Shanghai, including fresh goods and non-fresh goods, and all logistics operations are handled by Lotus.

Lotus at Yichu delivers goods through the fast and swift distribution center, which makes each branch rarely out of stock, and its fresh food is always kept in the freshest state, which effectively cooperates with Lotus at Yichu's commitment to "guarantee satisfaction" to customers. The most obvious example is that during the Spring Festival of 27 this year, no store in Yichu Lotus in Shanghai was out of stock, and all the goods were available anytime and anywhere.

S7: the service quality of Lotus in Yichu is relatively perfect

Good after-sales service extends the scope of creating value after the products are sold, which makes the consumer surplus continue to increase. At this time, the increased consumer surplus is beyond the expectations of consumers, which will make consumers more loyal. On the other hand, if the after-sales service is inferior, it will reduce the consumer surplus that consumers have obtained, make consumers feel regretful and worthless, and thus hit the company's competitive advantage.

Lotus in Yichu pursues the "ten-step principle". The so-called "ten-step principle" means that the company requires employees to make eye contact with employees or customers within ten steps and greet each other with a smile. "we care for you" is one of the most popular slogans in Lotus, which is a promise to customers. Yichu Lotus strives to provide cheap goods and let customers enjoy value-added services at the same time.

The most important thing is that Lotus at Yichu is equal to every customer, and the low price provided by Lotus at Yichu is the same for every customer. What RT Mart and Tesco have done is relatively lacking, because RT Mart and Tesco have to apply for membership cards to enjoy the discounts that only members can enjoy, thus losing potential customers who don't want to apply for membership cards. Lotus has done this very well.

second, analysis of Weaknesses

W1: the communication between the promotional information of Lotus and customers is asymmetric

Marketing promotion refers to various activities related to providing a way to buy and guiding consumers to buy, such as advertising, promotional activities, promotion teams, pricing strategies, sales channels, and public relations. Obviously, in this respect, Lotus is very imperfect.

Whenever Yichu Lotus wants to carry out promotional activities, the general beneficiaries are customers who are shopping at Yichu Lotus. Those customers who stay at home or don't come to shop can't know that what they are interested in is on sale. Lotus at the beginning of the month is only limited to customers who are shopping internally, and a promotional poster will be sent to cope with it. On the contrary, the practices of RT Mart and Tesco are very good. Once they have promotional activities, they will send posters or magazines with shopping information to customers' homes, so that customers will know the promotional information and go shopping in a targeted way.

from this aspect, we can see that this disadvantage is very fatal. Because this happens for a long time, the original customers of Yichu Lotus will also be taken away. From this point of view, it is reflected that Lotus is not perfect in customer information management, which will not only lose some customers, but also fail to know the real needs of customers.

W2: The infrastructure and services of Lotus in Yichu are not perfect

Compared with RT Mart and Tesco, the infrastructure and services of Lotus in Yichu are not perfect.

In the internal shopping environment of Lotus, there are not enough rest places, that is, places where customers can stop and rest. Under normal circumstances, when shopping, customers are usually tired after walking for a period of time. At this time, what is most needed is to have a chair to sit on. In this case, RT Mart and Tesco do better, because you can see that there are seats in these two supermarkets at any time. This situation is not realized by all Lotus supermarkets in Yichu. In addition, the most typical example is: Lotus in Yichu doesn't have enough parking spaces, and there is no underground parking lot. When too many customers drive to shop, they find that there is no parking space. This feeling is very bad. It is better to go to RT Mart and Tesco to buy things, because the other two have underground garages and enough parking spaces for customers.

Lotus's service is the most perfect among the three so far. But from a subtle point of view, some details still can't be done best. Take two examples. When customers buy clothes or trousers, they find that they are suitable but need to modify the length, which is more troublesome, because there is no such service in Lotus Store, which requires customers to adjust themselves. This is a kind of trouble for customers, and even there have been several disputes over the service of clothes modification, which will be solved anyway. The second thing is: shuttle bus service, suburban customers often take the shuttle bus back after shopping; However, at present, the shuttle bus service of Lotus in Yichu is like this. The shuttle bus service in suburban areas is often only two or three times a day, and some shuttle buses actually only come back and forth once a day. Compared with RT Mart and Tesco, the frequency is far behind. The shuttle bus service in suburban areas of RT Mart has to go back and forth at least six times a day, so RT Mart has grabbed more suburban customers.

W3: the location problem of Lotus in Yichu

In view of this problem, I think Lotus in Yichu is a little lacking, from my point of view.

The first principle of lotus location in Yichu is Jinjiao (Lujiaodian) Yinbian (Roadside Store), and it is generally selected in a remote place with development potential, which embodies the principle of low-cost operation.

Lujiao Store: Located at the intersection of two roads, the store bears the passenger flow from two roads in four directions and has a good display and advertising function.

roadside shops: shops are located on one side of a road, with roads and passenger flow in both directions, and their value is lower than that of Lujiao shops, which is the most common street-facing state in shops.

The second principle of Yichu Lotus, which is generally considered feasible by Yichu Lotus, should meet the following criteria: First, the store location should not be in the commercial center, and the urban-rural fringe should generally be chosen. On the one hand, this is because of low prices, on the other hand, considering the expansion of urban scale and the trend of urban hollowing out, these places will form new residential areas in the future.

From the site selection principle of Lotus in Yichu, the site selection principle of Lotus in Yichu is not the same as that in RT Mart. Considering the existing residents and communities, it is considered from the perspective of future residents. In doing so, it is obvious that the competitiveness of RT Mart and Tesco is obviously lower than that of RT Mart and Tesco, which are all surrounded by residential areas, but there is no residential area around Yichu Lotus. Customers find it more troublesome to go shopping in Yichu Lotus, despite the shuttle bus service.

W4: the customers of Yichu Lotus are aging

Yichu Lotus supermarket chain adopts the practice of attracting traffic with fresh food in its business strategy, and it is famous for its fresh food, and its customers tend to be aging. The competition between small and medium-sized supermarkets and vegetable markets has also greatly weakened profitability. In 23, Nielsen's survey report on Shanghai's retail industry showed that except Carrefour, all retail enterprises showed the phenomenon of aging customers and low average customer unit price. The implementation of Carrefour's differentiation strategy in China market has been far ahead of the enterprises in the industry.

Disadvantages in this respect. Whether it is RT Mart, Tesco or Lotus, we must really face the problem. We have to ask ourselves: Where are the customers of young people?

W5: Lotus in Yichu has not completely carried out public relations activities with consumers as the core

In order to win in the fierce market competition, besides the price advantage, a perfect marketing strategy is essential. Modern marketing theory emphasizes the organization of business activities centered on meeting customer needs, so as to achieve the goal of profit and development of enterprises.

RT Mart can truly proceed from the needs of consumers and has a strong sense of service. RT Mart often holds some related events.