Successful examples of retail formats

Although old capitalist countries like Britain and France are usually considered as "lacking in vitality" compared with the United States, this cannot hide the positive enterprising spirit of some individuals and organizations in their society. When Margaret Thatcher was running for the British Prime Minister, she went straight into the office of the Prime Minister on duty and said to the latter, "I want to run for the post of Prime Minister with you!" " "1999, Daniel Bernafd, the CEO of a French company, publicly declared to the world that the company under his leadership would beat the American retail giant Wal-Mart in the global market in 10 and become the largest retailer in the world, thus occupying the leading position in the retail industry in 2 1 century.

This French company is Carrefour, and we are already familiar with it. When people used to exclaim "How about Wal-Mart" in China, they didn't notice that Carrefour had become the best foreign brand in China retail market. In any retail training course, you will find that the management of Carrefour has always been admired and imitated by the industry. "One-time purchase; Ultra-low price; Fresh commodities; Automatic purchase; Free parking. " This is the business philosophy of Carrefour. Read this concept carefully, and you will find that these five points are formulated for the benefit of customers. Carrefour not only pays attention to instilling this concept into employees in daily operations, but also enables employees to fully and profoundly understand this concept. More importantly, the company's business philosophy will be put into practice, so that employees can make good use of these concepts in practical work and provide better and more satisfactory services to customers, thus winning the trust of customers and bringing good reputation and huge returns to the company. In order to better integrate the business philosophy into the operation, Carrefour recruits local employees and conducts special business philosophy training for employees, and often verifies employees' understanding and application of the business philosophy through assessment.

Managing fresh food is a major feature of Carrefour. In order to maintain the freshness of fresh food provided to customers, Carrefour has a special quality inspection department to strictly inspect the fresh food provided by suppliers, including appearance, shelf life date and label content. In addition, you need a health inspection certificate to sell it in Carrefour. Carrefour attaches great importance to the management of fresh food. In order to sell fresh food to customers in a fresh state and reduce the loss, Carrefour strives to ensure that fresh food is in a constant temperature from the manufacturer to the backcourt and then to the store. This is the way of Carrefour's fresh management, and it is also the concrete implementation of the company's business philosophy of "fresh goods".

Carrefour, the first supermarket in the world was born in France. 1On June 5th, 963, when Marcel Fu Niai, a Frenchman, opened a big shop called Carrefour 25km south of Paris, with a business area of 2,500m2 and 500 parking spaces, many retailers thought that Mr. Fu Niai was whimsical and could not succeed. Long-term experience has taught the retail industry that supermarkets should not be too big. Because if the scale of target customers can't meet the scale requirements of supermarkets, it will be difficult to maintain normal operation, let alone profit. In addition, the investment is large, and the risk is naturally large. Once there is a problem in operation, investors will lose a lot. However, Fu Niai has achieved great success unexpectedly. By 1967, five Carrefour supermarkets have opened. The success of Fu Niai has also led to the large-scale development of supermarkets in the world.

Carrefour's large-scale importance is reflected in:

First, the store area is large. A Carrefour store in Toulouse, France, covers an area of 24,400 square meters, and customers can shop on roller skates.

Second, the parking lot is big. Carrefour is located in the shopping center, with 20 parking spaces per 100 square meter, which is prepared by Carrefour for customers who come to the shopping center.

Third, there are many checkout counters. In order to reduce the time for customers to queue up for payment, Carrefour has set up an export cashier every 200 square meters;

Fourth, the scope of services is large. Carrefour provides customers with a package of services. Entering Carrefour, you can not only buy satisfactory products, but also have haircuts, meals and entertainment. You can stay in the store as long as you want. Don't worry even if you take care of the children. When shopping, you can put them in the temporary nursery in the shop. In addition, the store also provides bank deposits, credit card payment and other services;

Fifth, the development space is constantly expanding, and the fierce competition in the French local retail industry has prompted Carrefour to continuously extend its reach to the whole world in order to seek new growth points.

Carrefour has benefited a lot from its large-scale development. Large-scale sales can make Carrefour enjoy preferential price discounts for large-scale procurement, thus reducing procurement costs. Compared with other stores, Carrefour, a giant supermarket, also has advantages in using staff, facilities and space, thus reducing costs. In addition, Carrefour operates large-scale and diverse commodities, including food, ingredients, daily groceries, daily medicines and even flowers. Carrefour's low price and wide variety of goods greatly attracted customers.

From the perspective of economies of scale, a large supermarket can "generate" more benefits than a small supermarket with an ordinary employee and a one-meter shelf. In China, the trend of building hypermarkets really started from Carrefour.

Retail format In France, the retail competition is quite fierce. On the one hand, this is due to the limited domestic market space in France, and on the other hand, the domestic market in France is saturated. In order to protect the small and medium-sized retail industry in China, the French government has imposed strict restrictions on the opening of large retail stores, stipulating that their floor space should not exceed 1 000 square meters. All new retail stores with an area of more than 300 square meters must be approved by the 7-member Commercial Facilities Committee. In France, it is becoming more and more difficult to build a huge supermarket. There are data to prove it: the number of newly-built supermarkets in France 195 was 12,196 dropped to 7, and197 was 6. To 1998, none of them were approved.

Facing the limited domestic market space, fierce market competition and various government restrictions, Carrefour has to reach out to the world to seek new growth points in order to survive and develop.

In addition, Wal-Mart is a leading retailer in the United States and even the world, and this giant retailer is actively extending and expanding to the world. Carrefour dare not take this lightly. In order to enhance its competitiveness with Wal-Mart, Carrefour has to increase its transnational operations.

In transnational operation, Carrefour has made considerable achievements. Now it has grown to a huge scale with more than 9,000 branches around the world. In order to reduce the obstacles of transnational operation, Carrefour first entered Spain, Portugal, Italy and other southern European countries, because these countries are adjacent to France and close to France in geography, culture and customs, which is relatively easy to enter. Subsequently, Carrefour expanded to Europe, Central and South America and Asia.

Carrefour's global outlets are reasonably distributed, forming a strategic layout of "growth branches+cash flow branches". In China, Thailand, India, Brazil, Argentina and other markets with huge sales potential, Carrefour has taken the lead in grabbing the beach, occupying the commanding heights, and has broad development prospects. However, its branches in France, Belgium, Spain and southern Europe have strong and stable sales revenue, which enables Carrefour to withstand regional economic fluctuations and has strong market expansion capabilities. Carrefour has become the largest retailer in France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy. At the same time, Carrefour also benefits from its cross-regional and cross-cultural management model and experience. For example, Carrefour's rich operating experience in Taiwan Province Province of China laid the foundation for its further expansion in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Singapore and Chinese mainland. Low price has always been the magic weapon of Carrefour's success. Carrefour has been trying to control and reduce costs through various channels.

First of all, Carrefour's large-scale business strategy enables it to obtain the scale effect of modern big business, which can be transformed into the company's low-cost advantage through large-scale and wide-ranging procurement and quantity discount. Carrefour's powerful scale can also greatly reduce its distribution costs.

Secondly, Carrefour can be said to be good at "borrowing chickens and laying eggs" from suppliers. The payment term of the contract it signed with the supplier is "60 days per month", and 60 days is not a short time. Especially, the faster the goods are sold, the more money the supplier will invest in Carrefour, and Carrefour will devour the liquidity of the supplier like a whale. Using the supplier's capital turnover, correspondingly, Carrefour's own working capital will be less occupied, thus greatly saving Carrefour's capital cost. And suppliers can only watch their "hens" give their "eggs" away. Carrefour, on the other hand, has a large sales volume, good payment reputation and many acceptable varieties, which is an unparalleled advantage for others. In addition, Carrefour also provides many preferential conditions and sponsorship to suppliers. Therefore, even if the payment is delayed for 60 days, the throughput is as high as the tiger's mouth, plus the lowest supply price, the supplier must "know that there are tigers in the mountains and favor the tiger's trip" to make money.

Carrefour has a fast turnover of goods. Carrefour has a strong purchasing ability and the ability to negotiate with suppliers, which ensures the rapid turnover of its goods. Commodity turnover is fast, occupying less working capital, which can greatly reduce the cost of capital. In addition, Carrefour tends to be localized in the choice of goods. Its commodity structure will be adjusted according to the consumption habits and psychology of different countries or regions. For example, in China, in order to meet the principle of cheapness and applicability, more than 90% of its goods are purchased from local suppliers. In order to meet the "selection" demand of Chinese people, Carrefour has increased the supply of similar goods on the shelves. The localization of goods has also saved Carrefour a lot of transportation and distribution costs. In addition, in order to reduce circulation and operating costs, Carrefour has also developed its own brand of goods.

These are the strong backing of Carrefour's low-price strategy. With all this, Carrefour can always keep the price very low, so low that customers' hearts beat. With all this, Carrefour will have many special products below the wholesale price, which is irresistible to customers.

Of course, Carrefour is also said to be the "originator" of China supermarkets' admission fees. Although manufacturers are outraged by this, from the general understanding of the retail industry, in the era of buyer's market, "paid limited shelves" is part of fair trade.

1, localization

Localization strategy has become an important strategy for multinational companies to extend to the world. Coca-Cola Company once claimed that it was more localized than local enterprises. It can be seen that the localization of multinational corporations, as a strategy, has become a trend. Carrefour pays special attention to the localization of its branches. From employees to goods to the display of shelves, it is localized. Zhan Weishi, the manager of Carrefour maliandao Store, believes that it is easier to integrate the company's business philosophy into the operation because local employees know more about local culture, habits and customs. Every time Carrefour decides to open a branch, it must make a careful and rigorous investigation and demonstration on local culture, living habits, purchasing power and other factors. Bernard, CEO of Carrefour, said: "Retail branches are the epitome of the country where they are located, and branches must adapt to the local cultural scope." In China, the cutting method of Carrefour's vegetables is by no means the cross-cutting method in Europe, but the oblique cutting method or vertical cutting method in China.

More than 90% of Carrefour's goods are purchased from local suppliers, and its display is also based on local consumption habits and psychology. For example, in China, consumers like to choose their favorite goods from a large number of goods and then buy them. In order to cater to the "picky" habit of China consumers, Carrefour has increased the supply of similar goods on the shelves to facilitate customers to buy.

2. Alliance

When entering a new country or region, multinational retail industry often adopts alliance strategy and chooses to form a strategic partnership with local experienced retailers in order to obtain the support of purchasing goods and human resources and become familiar with the local market in a short time. Carrefour is an expert in choosing partners. Wherever we go, we will actively look for local experienced retailers and establish good cooperative relations with them. 1989, when Carrefour entered Taiwan Province province, it set up a joint venture with Uni-President, opened Carrefour Taipei Store and Kaohsiung Store, and the two sides formed a strategic alliance. Uni-President is the largest commodity manufacturer in Taiwan Province Province, which has benefited Carrefour a lot. Even if Carrefour enters Chinese mainland cities such as Beijing, Han and Cheng in the future, Uni-President will give Carrefour various forms of strong support in publicity, supply and promotion.