What are the advantages and differences between RT Mart and Yichu Lotus?

S 1: The fresh food department is operating well.

At present, the retail industry is a low-profit competitive industry, and the average net profit rate of the industry 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 and so on. , all need to have certain technical conditions for production, processing, transportation and storage, and the requirements for hygiene and freshness of this kind of goods make the operating costs of this kind of goods vary greatly, and the gross profit margin is as high as 10%-40%. This is like a "gold mine" to be mined for the retail industry whose average net profit rate is only about 1%.

Why does Yichu Lotus have an advantage in fresh food? This has to mention a unique competitive advantage of Yichu Lotus Supermarket-the consanguineous relationship between Yichu Lotus Chain Supermarket and Zheng Da Group. Zheng Da Group was founded by China industrialists Xie Yichu and Xie Yu in 192 1. Starting from the sales of crop seeds, the company has gradually developed and grown, forming a complete modern agricultural and animal husbandry industrial chain consisting of seed improvement, planting, feed industry, aquaculture, agricultural and animal husbandry products processing, product sales, import and export trade, etc., and has become a model of modern agricultural and animal husbandry industrialization in the world. At present, Zheng Da Group is involved in many fields, but agriculture is still the core industry of Zheng Da. The group's large-scale farms, slaughterhouses and livestock and poultry products processing plants are almost all established in accordance with international safety and health standards, and the production of livestock and poultry products is the strength of Zheng Da Group. Therefore, Zheng Da can completely reduce the operating cost of fresh food in supermarkets and strengthen the sales network while expanding the food industry. With the support of Zheng Da Group, Yichu Lotus has a solid foundation for developing fresh food. The difference between Lotus and other supermarkets is that many fresh products are produced and sold by themselves, and the price is relatively lower than that of RT Mart and Tesco, so it has a competitive advantage.

In addition, the government's guidance is also one of the reasons why CP Lotus develops fresh and strengthened supermarkets. People in China are used to buying fresh food in the market. However, because the farmer's market affects the city appearance, the environment is poor, the sanitary conditions are poor, and the management is difficult, the local government has been actively advocating "changing agriculture into supermarkets", hoping to improve the shopping environment.

S2: Good reputation

Lotus supermarket chain 1997 entered Shanghai. Compared with other large supermarket chains, it entered Shanghai earlier and 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 has just been born in Taiwan Province Province. Its word-of-mouth advantage is unparalleled.

S3: Improving human resources

Lotus has a relatively complete reserve plan for managers. Generally speaking, Lotus in Yichu is composed of the manager and the assistant manager.

Manager), department manager (department manager), team leader (team leader), employee (assistant manager).

College graduates will be trained by operating trainees when they enter Lotus in Yichu. After the training, he will receive on-the-job training for department managers and be promoted to department managers after completing the on-the-job training for department managers. During the period of being a department manager, those who do well will receive a three-month training in the manager trainee program, and after the training, they will be promoted to assistant manager.

After signing the new store agreement, Lotus Personnel Department will recruit corresponding personnel for training according to the management personnel reserve plan. Because Yichu Lotus has been operating successfully in the eastern coastal areas for a long time, it chose Shanghai as the national training base.

S4: Lotus has established its own brand advantage.

How to develop its own brand 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 the "Lotus Lotus" brand. On the one hand, it can save a considerable brand registration fee, on the other hand, it can make use of the good social image of Lotus, make it easier for customers to recognize their own brand products, shorten their acceptance time, and thus 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, CP Lotus has formulated several principles for choosing product categories: First, such products should not be products with high brand loyalty. For goods with high brand loyalty, customers have established a strong sense of consumption, which requires a lot of resources to change their views on the brand and establish a good impression on a new brand. Therefore, such goods are not suitable for making their own brands; The second is that this kind of goods should be goods with large consumption and high purchase frequency. This kind of goods can be ordered in large quantities because of their quick turnover, thus reducing the production cost and procurement cost and ensuring the realization of low price of their own brands. Third, goods with high price sensitivity. 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 for similar products, and can also use consumers' price sensitivity to cultivate consumers' brand loyalty to their own brands.

S5: Yichu Lotus strictly controls the quality of product supply.

Lotus Club in Yichu requires suppliers to provide their factory quality control standards, which are generally higher than the national quality control standards for this product. In the contract text, Lotus will require the supplier to produce according to the factory quality control standards.

The second level is to check the quality of each order and each batch of goods from each supplier. Yichu Lotus sends professional technicians to the supplier regularly to check its production status and whether there is any illegal operation, so as 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 in different proportions. For products with stable performance, not particularly strict requirements on product quality and good history, less inspection or even exemption can be arranged. For the lack of stability of product performance, the quality is good or bad, especially for new products, it is necessary to arrange a large proportion of random inspection or even full inspection.

S6: Perfection of Lotus Logistics System in Yichu

Commodity distribution center is an efficient internal logistics system. The advantage of the rapid development of chain commerce lies in the realization of economies of scale through unified procurement, unified settlement and unified distribution. Through advanced management, technology and modern information network, the distribution center conducts unified and standardized management of business processes such as 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 40,000 to 50,000 square meters in Qingpu and Pudong, Shanghai. These two centers are responsible for distributing daily goods, including fresh goods and non-fresh goods, to stores in Greater Shanghai, and all logistics operations are undertaken by Lotus at Yichu.

Yichu Lotus distributes 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 strongly cooperates with Yichu Lotus's commitment to "guarantee satisfaction" to customers. The most obvious example is that during the Spring Festival in 2007, no store in Shanghai Yichu Lotus was out of stock, and it was 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 to the products after they are sold, which makes the consumer surplus increase continuously. At this time, the increased consumer surplus is beyond consumers' expectations and 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 already obtained, make consumers feel regret and worthless, and thus hit the company's competitive advantage.

Lotus in Yichu carried out 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 them with a smile. "We care about you" is one of the most popular slogans of Lotus, which is a promise to customers. Lotus strives to provide cheap goods while allowing customers to enjoy value-added services.

The most important thing is: Yichu Lotus is equal to every customer, and the low price provided by Yichu Lotus to every customer is the same. RT Mart and Tesco are not doing enough, because RT Mart and Tesco have to apply for membership cards to enjoy discounts that only members can enjoy, thus losing potential customers who don't want to apply for membership cards. Lotus has done a very good job in this respect.

Second, the weakness analysis

W 1: The promotional information of Lotus in Yichu is not communicated with customers symmetrically.

Marketing promotion refers to various activities related to providing a way to buy and guiding consumers to buy, such as advertising, promotional activities, promotion team, pricing strategy, sales channels, public relations, etc. Obviously, in this respect, Lotus is far from perfect.

Whenever Yichu Lotus wants to carry out promotional activities, the general beneficiaries are customers who shop in Yichu Lotus. Customers who stay at home or don't come shopping can't know that things they are interested in are on sale. Lotus at the beginning of the month is limited to customers who shop internally, and promotional posters will be issued to match 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 printed with shopping information to customers' homes, so that customers can understand the promotional information and go shopping in a targeted manner.

It can be seen that this shortcoming is very fatal. Because of this situation for a long time, the original customers of Yichu Lotus will also be taken away. From this point of view, it reflects the imperfection of Lotus in customer information management, which will not only lose some customers, but also fail to understand 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 CP Lotus are not perfect.

In the shopping environment of Lotus, there is not enough rest place, that is, the place where customers can stop and rest. In general, when shopping, customers usually feel tired after walking for a period of time. What is most needed at this time is a chair to sit on. In this case, RT Mart and Tesco do better, because you can always see that these two supermarkets have seats. This situation is not realized by all Lotus supermarkets in Yichu. In addition, the most typical example is: Lotus in Yichu does not have enough parking spaces, and there is no underground parking lot. When too many customers go shopping by car, 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 by far the most perfect of the three. But from a subtle point of view, some details are still not the best. Give two examples. It is troublesome for customers to buy clothes or trousers, but they need to modify the length, because there is no such service in Lotus Shop, and customers need to adjust themselves. This is a kind of trouble for customers, even because 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 Yichu Lotus is like this. The shuttle bus service in the suburbs 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 from it. The shuttle bus service in the suburbs of RT Mart has to go back and forth at least six times a day, so RT Mart has robbed more suburban customers.

W3: Location of Lotus in Yichu

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

The first principle of lotus location in Yichu is Yinbian (roadside shop) (staghorn shop) in Jinjiao, which is generally selected in a relatively remote place with development potential, reflecting the principle of low-cost operation.

Deer horn shop: located at the intersection of two roads, the shop undertakes the passenger flow from two roads and four directions, and has good display and advertising functions.

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

The second principle of easy lotus is generally considered feasible, which should meet the following standards: first, the store should not be located in the commercial center, and generally choose the urban-rural fringe. On the one hand, because of the low price, on the other hand, considering the expansion of the city scale and the trend of urban hollowing out, these places will form new residential areas in the future.

Judging from the site selection principles of Lotus in Yichu, the site selection principles of Lotus in Yichu and RT Mart are different. Consider existing residents and communities, and consider 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. RT Mart and Tesco are all residential areas, but there is no residential area around Lotus in Yichu. Customers find it more troublesome to go shopping in Lotus in Yichu, despite the shuttle bus service.

W4: The Aging of Lotus Consumers

Lotus supermarket chain in Yichu adopts the practice of attracting tourists with fresh food in its business strategy, and its publicity is famous for 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 2003, Nielsen's survey report on Shanghai's retail industry showed that all retail enterprises except Carrefour experienced the phenomenon of aging customers and low average customer unit price. The implementation of Carrefour's market differentiation strategy in China has been far ahead of the enterprises in the same industry.

This disadvantage is a problem that RT Mart, Tesco and Lotus must really face. We have to ask ourselves: where are the young people's customers?

W5: Lotus did not fully develop consumer-centered public relations activities.

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

RT Mart can effectively proceed from the needs of consumers and has a strong sense of service. RT Mart often holds some activities or competitions about the surrounding residents, and has made good communication with them. The disadvantage of Lotus in Yichu compared with RT Mart is that its awareness of public relations activities is much weaker, which is linked to the reasons for site selection, and on the other hand, its awareness of public relations activities is not strong, and there is less communication with customers.

W6: There is something wrong with lotus management in Yichu.

Operation management is a serious injury to Lotus. I have worked in Lotus in Yichu for nearly a month and have seen dozens of management disputes. This is not something that people who work in Lotus in Yichu absolutely don't know. I think it is necessary to raise this internal issue separately.

First of all, communication between departments is really lacking. For example, when I work in the group buying department, I often receive orders with relatively large shopping amount, and then go directly to the purchasing department to purchase. Often, the general answer is: sorry, it's out of stock; Sorry, the goods are not enough; Sorry, just give us a few more days. Such similar answers often make our group buying department unprepared, and even often lose such a big order, which is a pity. The purchasing department never tells us about the storage of related goods. It can be said that the information between departments is really not smooth.

Secondly, the problem of cross management. This problem is very serious in our group buying department. The customers of the group buying department are all enterprises and important customers. Every time we want to ship, just signing the bill often makes our group buying department have a headache to the extreme. Because it takes at least half a day to get the approval from the purchasing department, then the manager on duty, then the cash office, then the loss prevention department, and finally the store manager, it takes us half a day or a day to deliver the goods, so sometimes it takes several days for the store manager to travel.

W7: The training time of employees is shortened, which makes some employees completely ignorant of the nature of work and the situation code.

Lotus Supermarket in Yichu has a perfect personnel reserve mechanism, but due to its rapid expansion, it needs to recruit a large number of personnel, and it needs rapid training after recruiting people in Dali, which leads to unsatisfactory training results.

Some employees have no idea what's going on in the workplace, and neither do the code names on the radio. For example: once when I was at work, I heard the radio talking about a certain brand of products, red. I know this product is not on the shelves, so I need to replenish it immediately. Strangely, the tallyman in the yard didn't know what happened and there was no movement. They didn't know until I told him that this brand of goods was out and went to replenish them. It can be seen from this aspect that although the consequences of accelerated training are not very serious, such a situation can be completely avoided, because if customers see that this commodity is out of stock, it will have a very bad influence: this supermarket is often out of stock.

W8: The operation of other retailers has more and more influence on store profits.

The location of the store cannot be changed at will, and it is increasingly influenced by the operation of other retailers. The rapid market growth has prompted competitors in the industry to increase their competition for market share. In the past decade, China has been the fastest growing economy in the world, with an economic growth rate of around 8%. The rapid economic growth has also led to the rapid growth of the retail industry. From 1993 to 2004, China's GDP increased from 3,456.05 billion yuan to131500 million yuan in 2004. At the same time, the total amount of social consumer goods has also increased from 1462 1 100 million yuan in 2004 to 53958.500006566, especially since the retail industry in China was fully opened in June, 20041/kloc-0, foreign-funded retail enterprises have prepared for "staking the land". Foreign retail enterprises entering China mainly operate large-scale general supermarkets in China, and domestic large-scale general supermarkets have also experienced nearly ten years of development, accumulating and raising considerable funds, technology and talents to prepare for a new round of development. In some areas, the competition between large comprehensive supermarkets has become fierce.

Judging from Lotus in Yichu, RT Mart and Tesco have obviously robbed some customers, which has a great impact on the profits of their stores.