Aunt Qian responded to the closure of all stores in Beijing

Aunt Qian responded to the closure of all stores in Beijing. The Aunt Qian brand was founded in 2012. On January 18, a Beijing Business Daily reporter learned from a Qian The Auntie Franchisee Office learned that all Auntie Qian stores in Beijing have been closed. Aunt Qian responded that all stores in Beijing were closed. Aunt Qian responded to the closure of all stores in Beijing 1

Recently, the news that Aunt Qian, a community fresh food brand, has closed its stores in Beijing has made headlines. On January 19, a reporter from Securities Daily visited Aunt Qian’s store to learn about Aunt Qian’s current situation in Beijing.

Unaccustomed to the local environment, "lost" the Beijing market

By visiting many stores such as Aunt Qian's Third Ring New City and Guang'an Kangxin Homeland, the reporter saw that some of the shops have changed their door names. , some are empty shops that are looking for rent. Although the door has been replaced, the price tags and goods baskets in the store remind consumers that this place used to be Aunt Qian.

Aunt Qian’s Third Ring New Town has been renamed Snail Fresh Food. The words Aunt Qian still remain in front of the door where Wang Jun was photographed

Aunt Qian People have gone to Guang'an Kangxinjiayuan store to take photos of Liu Zhao from the store

Aunt Qian is a community fresh food chain enterprise developed in South China. It entered the Beijing market for the first time in December 2020. However, the reason behind the failure of the company in just one year is thought-provoking.

On January 19, the official WeChat account of Aunt Qian Fresh issued a statement stating: Adjustments during the company’s development process are normal business operations. The company underestimated the difficulty of the Beijing market, and even more underestimated the operating pressure that high housing rents in the Beijing market would bring to us. The store's single-day customer flow has not reached the expected level. If we continue to develop the Beijing market, more investment will be needed. After a comprehensive evaluation by the company, we plan to invest more resources in relatively stable and mature markets. At the same time, we will also increase research and development and investment in prepared dishes in these mature markets.

The person in charge of Aunt Qian’s related business told a reporter from Securities Daily that Aunt Qian currently has more than 3,500 stores in more than 30 cities across the country, serving more than 10 million households and more than 17 million high-quality members.

The reporter found that there are many fresh food shops of the same type scattered around the Yuanqian Aunt store, some of which have been operating for as long as ten years. Chain community fresh food e-commerce has failed to impress the old residents.

During the visit, the reporter randomly interviewed several residents living near the Yuanqian Aunt store. Their answers also verified the reporter's observations. Some residents told reporters that they regretted Aunt Qian's withdrawal from Beijing, but also said that the prices of Aunt Qian's products were not competitive with those of surrounding stores, and they preferred to shop at stores they were familiar with.

In addition, Aunt Qian’s “no selling overnight meat” model is more suitable for coastal areas such as Guangzhou, where consumption concepts and lifestyles are different, so Aunt Qian’s market expansion has not been adapted to local conditions. Some residents told reporters that they are not very concerned about whether the meat has been stored overnight. After all, winters in the north are very cold and the products are durable. Storage conditions are convenient in summer and will not spoil easily.

Reporters learned from apps such as Meituan and Dianping that some young consumers have many complaints about Aunt Qian’s operating model. Some office workers said, “Aunt Qian’s stocking capacity is limited, so when I go into the store after work in the evening, there are not many categories left. Sometimes I have to queue up with uncles and aunts to grab discounted dishes, and the experience is average.”

The reporter also learned from a clerk who had worked at Aunt Qian before that due to the small number of stores in Beijing, there has always been a problem with the supply of goods, and the scale cannot be increased, which directly affects the cost. Store rents and labor costs in Beijing are relatively high, which Aunt Qian never expected when she entered the Beijing market.

Regarding how to handle the unspent amount that has been recharged in consumers’ cards, the reporter called Aunt Qian about this matter. Aunt Qian said that consumers who have recharged their membership cards can communicate with the company’s official customer service about refund matters.

This winter is too difficult for fresh food e-commerce companies.

This winter is a bit difficult for fresh food e-commerce companies.

According to incomplete statistics from Tianyancha, there are currently nearly 2,600 fresh food e-commerce brands in my country engaged in "fresh food e-commerce, community fresh food, community group buying" and other related businesses. In addition, iResearch data shows that my country’s fresh food e-commerce market is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan in 2023, with a penetration rate close to 20. However, in this vast blue ocean, there have been repeated reports of corporate layoffs.

Recently there are rumors saying that "Dingdong Maicai has started large-scale layoffs", "Core departments can lay off up to 50%", "Procurement 50%, Algorithm 30%, Operation 30%, Recruitment 10-20%", "Forced employees to be laid off before employees" Arrangement of holidays for warehouse service station employees, etc.

A reporter from "Securities Daily" verified the above news with Dingdong Grocery. The relevant person in charge said that the news was untrue and was a malicious speculation without factual basis and rigorous data sources. The company reserves the right to pursue any false rumors. "Individual job changes are part of the company's normal organizational resource adjustments. Recruitment needs for some positions are also being released normally, and the business is currently operating normally. At the same time, front-line positions do not force employees to take unpaid leave, and will usually be based on the work situation of the site. , especially the employees’ willingness and work intensity should be reasonably adjusted.”

Dingdong’s grocery shopping life is not easy, and it is still losing money. So far in 2018, the company has suffered a total loss of 11.726 billion yuan, and the loss is still expanding. In the third quarter of 2021, Dingdong Maicai’s net loss was 2.01 billion yuan, an increase of 142% compared to the same period in 2020. At the same time, although the company's revenue is growing significantly, 111's growth rate still lags behind its loss-making growth.

Coincidentally, Meicai, the leading company in the industry, has also been accused of large-scale layoffs. A user on a social platform who is suspected of being a resigned employee of Meicai said that Meicai is undergoing large-scale layoffs. The last time the number of layoffs reached 50, this time Meicai’s Beijing headquarters laid off another 40 employees.

"Securities Daily" verified the above-mentioned matters with Meicai, but had not received a reply as of press time.

In addition, some Meicai employees who have resigned have revealed that some of the company’s basic business personnel basically “talk on the same day and leave on the same day.”

Public information shows that in just four years, Meicai has completed 8 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of nearly 10 billion. Investors include well-known investment institutions such as Shunwei Capital, Zhen Fund, and Hillhouse Capital. Its most recent financing occurred in October 2018, when Meicai received US$600 million in investment from Tiger Global and Hillhouse Capital, with a valuation of over US$7 billion. However, Meicai has not seen any new public financing matters since then.

As early as September 2021, there was news that Meicai’s Beijing headquarters would lay off 50 employees. Meicai.com plans to submit an application for listing in Hong Kong in the first half of 2022, and the company has hired relevant institutions to be responsible for listing matters and plans to raise US$300-500 million in funds.

If the news of Meicai’s layoffs is confirmed, it will undoubtedly make things worse for Meicai’s next development. Aunt Qian responded that all stores in Beijing have been closed 2

On January 18, a Beijing Business Daily reporter learned from an Aunt Qian franchisee that all Aunt Qian stores in Beijing have been closed.

Subsequently, the reporter called Aunt Qian’s Beijing Huishengyuan store as a consumer. The person in charge of the store said that the store had been renamed “Snail Fresh” and would no longer operate under Aunt Qian’s brand. At the same time, the person in charge also revealed that due to poor management, all Aunt Qian’s stores in Beijing have indeed been closed. The reporter called Aunt Qian's Qianhe Home Store in Beijing and found that the phone was down.

At the same time, the Tianyancha App also shows that Beijing Qian Auntie Fresh Food Chain Co., Ltd. has been included in the list of abnormal operations because it cannot be contacted through the registered residence or business premises.

On the morning of the 19th, Aunt Qian issued an official statement confirming the news that all stores in Beijing were closed. Aunt Qian said: "We underestimated the difficulty of the Beijing market, and even more underestimated the operating pressure that high housing rents in the Beijing market would bring to us... We plan to invest more resources in relatively stable and mature markets."

Tianyancha shows that Beijing Qian Aunt Fresh Food Chain Co., Ltd. was established in July 2020. Its legal representative is Feng Weihua and it is wholly owned by Guangzhou Qian Aunt Fresh Food Chain Co., Ltd.

Public information shows that the Aunt Qian brand was founded in 2012. It pioneered the business philosophy of "not selling overnight meat" and adopted a franchise and direct operation model. In terms of product management, it covers eight fresh food categories such as vegetables, fruits, and meat, and more than 500 kinds of products.

In December 2019, after completing the D round of financing, Aunt Qian accelerated its expansion across the country. As of October 2021, Aunt Qian has deployed in more than 30 cities across the country, with the total number of stores exceeding 3,700.

Aunt Qian’s stores in Beijing are mainly located in Chaoyang, Tongzhou, Daxing and Yanjiao. Aunt Qian was once full of confidence in the Beijing market. In August last year, Aunt Qian insiders revealed that starting from 2021, they planned to deploy 500 physical stores in Beijing. Currently, 23 stores have been opened and 32 have been signed (including the number of stores already opened), of which franchise stores will account for 90%, and the rest are directly operated stores.

Some people believe that Aunt Qian’s failure in the Beijing market was mainly due to the slow pace of opening stores, the small number of stores opened within a year, the inability to increase the scale, rent, manpower, etc. The cost remains high and it faces fierce competition from its peers.

Tianyancha shows that there are currently more than 7.49 million businesses in my country whose names or business scope include "fresh food, fruits, vegetables, fruits and vegetables, fresh food group buying" and the status is active, existing, moving in, or moving out. of enterprises. Among them, about 75 have registered capital of less than 1 million yuan, and about 22 have been established within one year.

Aunt Qian’s iconic clearance time every day starts with a 10% discount promotion at 7pm, with another 10% off discount every half hour until 23:30 for free delivery.

The reporter saw on Dianping that some consumers complained that Aunt Qian offered various discounts and promotions at night, and the store was crowded with uncles and aunties waiting to check out during the discount period. Although the store had posted There are notices prohibiting this kind of behavior, but there is nothing the store clerk can do. Basically, the shelves are empty around 8:30 pm, and the rest are only dishes of average quality.

For office workers, this sales model often results in not many categories in the store when they get off work in the evening. Sometimes they have to queue up with uncles and aunts to grab discounted dishes, which is hard to say. experience.

This problem does not only exist in Beijing, but also in other cities such as Shanghai. Previously, CCTV Finance reported that many Shanghai Qian Aunt franchisees had lost money and switched to other stores. Franchisees believed that the model of selling everything from 10% off to 10% off or even giving it away for free after 7 o'clock every night attracted customers and earned enough popularity. It also caused the stores to fall into a vicious cycle of selling more and losing more. Some franchise stores suffered losses of up to 400,000 yuan a year. In response to this, Aunt Qian issued a statement saying that there is usually a "climbing period" in the first 3-6 months of opening a new store. Stores that have gone through the "climbing period" have a profit rate of over 90% in South China and over 80% in other regions.

After the epidemic, community consumption scenarios that are closer to consumers and have higher repurchase rates have become the layout goals of retail companies. Although all parties are eyeing the community cake, how to implement community fresh food chain is still an issue that the retail industry, including fresh food retail companies, has been thinking about and paying attention to.

According to research statistics from the E-commerce Center, in the fresh food e-commerce industry, only 1% of companies are profitable, 88% of companies are losing money, and 7% of companies are suffering huge losses.

Financial commentator Wang Chikun pointed out that as a segmented industry, the fresh food retail market cycle is roughly in the second stage of growth.

During this period, the industry's supply scale expanded rapidly, industry investment increased rapidly, and industry consumption increased rapidly. At the same time, the industry's gross profit was very high, and the industry's net profit was very low.

According to Wen Zhihong, partner of Hejun Consulting and head of chain operations, Aunt Qian previously focused on the southern market. Whether this model and gameplay can be recognized in the Beijing market still needs to be tested. "These include the structure of goods and supply chain capabilities, because after all, there are differences between the north and south markets, and the differences are relatively large. At the same time, whether the back-end supply chain capabilities can keep up with the speed of its expansion is also a challenge that Aunt Qian needs to face. ." Aunt Qian responded to the closure of all stores in Beijing 3

A year after entering the Beijing market, Aunt Qian failed.

Recently, Aunt Qian has closed many stores in Beijing. According to Jiemian News, the relevant person in charge of Aunt Qian said that all Aunt Qian stores in Beijing will be closed.

In response, Aunt Qian responded to 36Kr-Future Consumption that the current development of the Beijing market failed to meet expectations. After discussions and evaluations with franchisees, we decided to suspend the business of the Beijing store first. At this stage, we will first focus on developing mature markets.

Aunt Qian, whose slogan is “no overnight meat sold”, uses self-cultured black pork as its driving category. It started in the Pearl River Delta region and now has nearly 2,000 stores in Guangdong, Shenzhen and other places. .

From 2015 to 2019, Aunt Qian was favored by capital and completed 5 rounds of financing, with a total amount exceeding 1 billion yuan. As one of the few brick-and-mortar fresh food retail companies that receive venture capital, Aunt Qian’s end goal is obviously to go public.

In order to increase the listing valuation, starting from entering Shanghai in April 2019, Aunt Qian started a nationwide accelerated expansion and quickly entered Changsha, Suzhou, Wuhan, and Chongqing. etc., and opened an average of 100 stores in the first month after entering the city.

The Beijing market that was withdrawn this time was officially entered by Aunt Qian at the end of 2020. As of the end of 2021, Aunt Qian has more than 4,000 stores nationwide and has expanded to more than 30 cities.

Previously, investors close to Aunt Qian revealed to 36Kr-Future Consumption that Aunt Qian originally planned to go public in 2021. But now, it seems that it has been difficult for Aunt Qian to start the listing process in the past two years; a few months ago, Aunt Qian was named and exposed by CCTV news because of the huge losses of franchisees in some areas, which made the company even further away from being listed.

Emphasizing on the back-end and neglecting the front-end, Aunt Qian uses the model that has been used in the Pearl River Delta region to replicate nationwide, which is a high-risk gamble in exchange for high returns. Looking at it now, Aunt Qian has failed for the time being.

Model duplication, adaptability

According to Aunt Qian’s response to 36 Krypton-Future Consumption, the living habits and consumption behaviors of consumers in the north and south are very different. In the north, the days are short and the nights are long, and consumers She is used to buying a large amount of fresh vegetables at one time, but Aunt Qian’s Nissin model requires sufficient customer flow every day to ensure the normal operation of the store.

Not only is the climate in the north unaccustomed, but in fact, since the series of thunderstorms among franchisees in September last year, Aunt Qian has begun to shrink, lay off employees, close down areas with poor business, or cooperate with other large companies. District merger. The "Aunt Qian Model" has shown a tendency to be difficult to get out of Guangzhou since then.

As we all know, fresh food is a business of "picking up steel with your butt stuck out", and the gross profit margin is extremely low. Any physical fresh food retail enterprise needs to subtly change user consumption habits. Through the superposition of repurchase rate and brand power, it is possible to achieve a certain penetration rate in a single region to achieve regional profitability.

Aunt Qian adopts this intensive lock-in strategy. In the Pearl River Delta region, the number of its stores has reached almost 2,000. When expanding nationwide, Aunt Qian also pursued high strategy, opening new stores every month. More than 100 stores.

The reason why such a radical expansion strategy is adopted is that on the one hand, it needs to prove to investors that its model can be copied and has the possibility of scale; on the other hand, the South China model copied by Aunt Qian, The requirements for the back-end supply chain are extremely high. In newly-entered places such as East China and North China, exclusive supply chains need to be built from scratch, and Aunt Qian can only dilute costs through the number of front-end stores.

If you want to expand to new areas, you must open a large number of stores. This means that before entering a new market and opening stores crazily, Aunt Qian has almost no way to verify whether her existing product structure and operating model can work in the region. She can only adjust step by step after the store opens, which makes franchisees The payback time has been extended indefinitely. Even if there are enough funds to support the operation of the store, whether it can achieve profitability in the end is still a question mark.

According to Aunt Qian’s investment staff, the ideal return time for franchisees is about three years. But in fact, many franchisees cannot last more than a year. According to CCTV news reports, some netizens accused themselves of selling their houses to join Aunt Qian and investing 1.7 million yuan. However, in the past year of operation, their monthly losses averaged 3-5 Ten thousand yuan.

Another reason why Aunt Qian is a big gamble is that Aunt Qian is a brand with strong regional characteristics. During its nationwide expansion, it has not made enough adjustments to its products in different regions. .

Aunt Qian’s signature product is black pork. In its base of Guangdong, pork is a fresh food category with a low degree of industrialization. In Guangdong more than 10 years ago, there was always a mismatch between supply and demand in terms of the supply level of meat, a highly industrialized fresh food category, and the people's high requirements for ingredients when cooking Cantonese cuisine.

Aunt Qian has seen exactly this. It is one of the few local fresh food companies in Guangdong that can breed high-quality black pork. Meat is the driving category, supplemented by other fresh food categories. In Aunt Qian’s category structure, pork accounts for 40%, vegetables account for 30%, aquatic products account for 15%, and fruits account for less than 10%.

This product selection logic works in Guangdong, but the same product is not suitable for Beijing and Shanghai. Take the Beijing market as an example. This inland city already has supermarket brands covering various consumer groups. Aunt Qian’s signature black pork does not have any advantages here. As for the aquatic products and seafood categories that better reflect the commodity power in Beijing, Aunt Qian has not been involved in it much before, which is equivalent to building a supply chain from scratch.

Aunt Qian, who relied on the black pork supply chain in the Pearl River Delta, lost her supply chain advantage after leaving Guangzhou, and had almost no brand awareness, and there was no star product to attract young people. with new users. Only relying on its gimmick of selling discounted vegetables at night to attract middle-aged and elderly people who are struggling to make money, Aunt Qian's failure to go north is not unexpected.

In addition, Aunt Qian’s model itself also has certain flaws. The model that focuses on community-to-store experience is highly dependent on store radius. The ceiling of single store revenue is too low, so it is limited by single store revenue. The bottleneck is Aunt Qian, who has to rely on expanding franchise stores to expand the overall business. But now, this strategy has not worked.

The expansion has stopped and the existing market has been stabilized

It can be seen from some of the adjustments made by Aunt Qian in the past few years that Aunt Qian itself has realized that it is difficult for franchisees in its new regions to make profits. Problems such as weak product competitiveness.

At the end of last year, Aunt Qian began to test new store types with lower franchise fees in Jiangmen, Zhuhai, Zhongshan and other places. Previously, the franchise fee for Aunt Qian's regular stores was more than 300,000 yuan, while the franchise fee for its new store type "simple decoration store" was around 150,000 yuan. The target locations are rural markets and places in cities that cannot support the opening of regular stores.

From an outside perspective, Aunt Qian’s Simple Decoration Store seems to be another new way of “harvesting” franchisees. After CCTV exposed the franchisee scandal in September last year, people's willingness to join was sluggish. Aunt Qian may hope to maintain a certain store growth rate by reducing the initial investment costs.

However, the sinking market targeted by simple decoration stores is misaligned with Aunt Qian’s previous main profit point.

In Guangdong, some of Aunt Qian's old stores are profitable because their signature black pork has captured a group of non-price-sensitive customers.

Compared with conventional pork, black pork has higher quality and price. By using this traffic-draining product as the main product, the store can maintain a higher gross profit. As for the discounted dishes after seven o'clock, it is more like a gimmick and a benefit in Guangdong's Qian Auntie's old store, and it is not the main profit point.

In sinking markets, more consumers are grabbing free food, which is inconsistent with the "consumption upgrade" that Aunt Qian wants to do. This directly leads to lower gross profits for simple decoration stores and a longer profit cycle.

At the product level, at the end of last year, Aunt Qian officially entered the prepared vegetable market with higher gross profit, introduced cooperation with catering brands such as Nonggenji, Laotanzi, and Guangzhou Restaurant, and launched online small The program has also launched pre-made dishes, which are sold through online booking and offline pick-up mode. Currently, some stores in southern China have added cured meat products such as brine and barbecued pork.

Prepared dishes may become a new gross profit growth point for Aunt Qian, but the point of actual results may not come until one or two years later. More importantly, prepared dishes themselves are also a very regional category. Even if South China has achieved outstanding results, it cannot be directly copied to other cities.

It can be seen that Aunt Qian’s current several new attempts are aimed at holding on to the South China market, and the pace of national expansion has basically come to an end.

Between 2017 and 2020, offline fresh food retail, represented by community fresh food stores, once became a hot spot for capital, and many star companies with financing amounts of billions of yuan were born. Driven by capital, various regional brands have begun to expand nationwide. Everyone thinks that whoever runs fast can seize China's trillion-dollar fresh food market and complete the listing like a carp leaping through the dragon's gate.

Although the stages and expected listing periods of each star fresh food company are different, what is the same is that in 2021, they will all begin to shrink their territory and deepen their efforts in the local market.

On the one hand, in the current downturn of the real economy, survival has become the new and unique goal of all fresh food retail companies; on the other hand, with the retreat of capital, fresh food stores are destined to be a new business. In retail business, the Internet strategy of exchanging profits for scale will not work.

The nationwide expansion of this group of community fresh food stores has failed so far.