Asia's largest supermarket, officially closed.

"Thank you for your company for 18 years" is an eye-catching slogan everywhere in Carrefour stores in Zhongguancun, Beijing.

As the largest Carrefour hypermarket in Asia, the announcement of Zhongguancun Carrefour on February 28th showed that the store was closed on March 31st to cooperate with the overall upgrading of Zhongguancun Plaza, and then the shelves of Carrefour were basically emptied.

Source: Caijing Tianxia Weekly

It is understood that Carrefour closed more than 2 stores last year, including 7 hypermarkets, 8 convenience stores and 3 selected stores in the second half of the year.

The reasons are similar to those of many large supermarkets, such as substandard performance, expiration of lease, changes in regional consumption, etc. Obviously, many regions can no longer support the existence of offline large supermarkets.

According to the data, in 221, about 7% of Shangchao enterprises saw a year-on-year decline in sales and net profit.

Especially at the moment when the epidemic situation and e-commerce are under double attack, hypermarkets are struggling.

More than 8 stores closed in four years

Obviously, Beijing Zhongguancun flagship store is not the first store closed by Carrefour, and it will definitely not be the last one.

Back in 1995, Carrefour officially entered the China market. As one of the first foreign-funded retail enterprises to start business in China, Carrefour ushered in a bright moment in 21, with 249 stores nationwide, and Carrefour can be seen in almost every big city.

And in the same year, according to the data released by China Chain Association, Carrefour ranked second among supermarket chains with a sales scale of 33.8 billion. However, ten years later, this ranking has fallen to the eighth place, and sales have shrunk by more than 2%.

Carrefour reached its peak in 21, and it also closed its store for the first time in 21. The store that was closed at that time was located in Xi 'an, and it only survived for three years from opening to closing. The reason behind it was that the store had been losing money and its income failed to meet expectations.

Also in 21, Carrefour closed a total of four stores in mainland China, which was mostly due to commercial considerations. Although some stores are closed, new stores are constantly being set up, and the number of new stores is more than that of closed stores.

This trend continued into 217, but then the closure of Carrefour stores was a "helpless move".

With the mutual addition of online shopping and logistics, China's retail online shopping market has become the first in the world, accounting for 4% of the global market share. It was also in 217 that the number of Carrefour stores in China changed from expansion to contraction.

Source: Daxue

According to public information, from 218 to 221, Carrefour closed 2 stores, 17 stores, 2 stores and more than 2 stores each year. In just four years, Carrefour closed more than 8 stores in China mainland market.

Obviously, the reason for the continuous reduction of stores has a lot to do with the fact that the revenue is not up to expectations. It can be said that the profitability of almost every Carrefour store is declining.

Even after it was acquired by Suning.cn in 219, Carrefour's situation in China has not been further improved. The financial report shows that Carrefour still lost more than 3 million yuan at the end of the acquisition.

As the "Whampoa Military Academy" that used to retail, Carrefour can't go back.

People don't like shopping in supermarkets

In fact, it's not just Carrefour, but many large supermarkets all over the country have ushered in a "store closing tide".

In 221, the number of Wal-Mart stores closed in China reached double digits, mostly because the lease expired.

In particular, the epidemic situation and the development of online e-commerce have completely changed people's consumption habits, and it seems that people have become less fond of shopping in supermarkets overnight.

Before the closure of Carrefour flagship store in Zhongguancun, Beijing, some netizens tried to "find out" some discounted goods, but they were disappointed in the face of empty shelves.

Source: Beijing News

"It's better to get here online at home than to go there for nothing," netizens said.

It is normal for a large supermarket to own 1, kinds of goods, while a store of the size like Zhongguancun Carrefour can reach more than 3, kinds. However, compared with online shopping platforms, this amount is only nine Niu Yi cents.

Nowadays, almost everyone has learned to take photos of goods in the supermarket online, and then compare the prices online. As a result, goods with high gross profit margin are more difficult for large supermarkets to sell, and sales will obviously be greatly affected.

In addition, the rent advantage once firmly grasped by large supermarkets has also been exhausted.

From 1995 to 25, foreign retail enterprises concentrated on entering the China market and won many core lots at the daily price of .5-1 yuan per square meter.

However, as the lease term approaches, many old stores are about to expire. The closure of Guangzhou Wanguo Store is directly related to the expiration of the lease term and the difficulty in renewing the lease.

Now, the "defeat" of large-scale stores has become a reality. As early as March 219, CR Vanguard withdrew from five hypermarkets in Beijing; In August last year, Shenzhen local supermarket Renrenle also announced that it would close 19 stores within six months.

The "cold winter" of offline supermarkets has arrived, and the giants obviously need to seek transformation. Yonghui Supermarket has started to be a warehousing supermarket, and RT Mart is also making efforts to buy in the community.

For Carrefour, it is planned to open 1 paid membership supermarkets in the next three years to "compete" with Sam.

Can member stores "save" Carrefour?

Although Wal-Mart's large-scale stores in China are also in the closing stage, its Sam member stores are still expanding steadily, which makes many retail giants ready to move.

Source: Wal-Mart China

According to the plan of CEO of Carrefour in China, Carrefour will also enter the member stores.

Unlike Sam's member stores, Carrefour's member stores are located in the family, but they are not in the warehouse mode, but still maintain their familiar hypermarket format. The core is to sort out the supply chain based on the target group, establish an independent purchasing team, and reduce the centralized hot-selling categories of SKUs.

At the end of October last year, Carrefour officially opened its first member store in Shanghai. There are about 3, SKUs, and the overlap with the goods in large-scale stores does not exceed 1%.

Source: Carrefour member stores

In fact, since last year, all major traditional supermarket chains have started to regard member stores as their "second growth curve".

In June, 221, Box Horse X Member Store officially entered the national replication stage; In November, Sam member store announced that it has opened nearly 4 stores in China mainland market; At the same time, Yonghui Supermarket, whose performance is under pressure, also "bets" on the transformation of its member stores.

Source: Shanghai Tide Life

Nowadays, member stores have become the "highland" that major retail giants are vying for. As the "originator" of hypermarkets, Carrefour's layout in member stores has just begun.

Just on the opening day of the Shanghai member store last year, it also boarded a hot search, because the official apology letter issued by Carrefour indicated that on the opening day, competitors put pressure on suppliers to ask merchants to "choose one from two", which led to many goods in the store being repurchased by suppliers.

Obviously, there are still many problems to be solved in front of Carrefour member stores. In the transformation process of traditional hypermarkets, if you are not careful, you may be completely out.