I would like to know the current situation of Gome’s brand and its brand building strategy~

Gome model: professional chain, five unifications, low prices to win. Gome and Wal-Mart have three similarities: first, they both develop a large number of chain stores and win by quantity; second, they both have five Unification means unified brand and image identity, unified procurement, unified distribution, unified management, and unified fund settlement; third, they all win with low prices.

The difference between Gome and Wal-Mart is that the former is a professional chain, that is, it only deals in household appliances, while the latter is a department store chain with tens of thousands of product varieties.

The reason why Gome has achieved such great success lies not only in its chain model and low-price strategy, but also in its chosen business field, namely home appliances. Home appliances are one of the products with good growth potential in China. In the past decade or so, China's household expenditures and purchases of large-ticket consumer goods have mainly focused on home appliances. Secondly, home appliances are products with relatively high commercial added value. Thirdly, home appliances are products that have seen serious duplication of construction since China’s reform and opening up, resulting in a serious contradiction between supply and demand. Fierce competition among manufacturers is extremely beneficial to businesses. Whoever becomes the leader in this industry will have the absolute advantage of low-cost expansion. Fourth, general clothing, department stores, and groceries can be produced regardless of their strength. For many products, formal department stores cannot compete with street stores, and street stores cannot compete with street vendors. Because the latter has lower operating costs. Home appliances are different. Consumers not only pay attention to product brands and manufacturers, but also to merchants. Only large stores with strong strength, famous brands and many chain stores can avoid buying fakes and have more guaranteed product repair services. In this field, it is impossible for ordinary small self-employed shops to have a competitive advantage.

Huang Guangyu’s road to the United States

In 1985, before the wave of reform and opening up, a Chaoshan boy decided to go out and make a living like other fellow villagers. He was Huang Guangyu. That year, Huang Guangyu was only 16 years old and had not yet graduated from junior high school. The person who took him out was his brother Huang Junqin, who had just graduated from high school.

The brothers, who come from a poor family, took 4,000 yuan raised from their hometown and chose Inner Mongolia as their first stop to look for business opportunities to make money. Like merchants from Guangdong and Fujian at the same time, they sold supplies that were in short supply at the time through their relationships with manufacturers in Chaoshan, Shenzhen, and Guangdong. After a period of accumulation, the brothers got their first pot of gold.

Soon, Huang Guangyu, who has a keen market vision, discovered that the Inner Mongolia market was too small and wanted to develop in larger cities. In 1986, Huang Guangyu and Huang Junqin went to Beijing with their first pot of gold earned in Inner Mongolia, and contracted a Gome clothing store at No. 420 Zhushikou East Street, Beijing. On January 1, 1987, Gome Clothing Store officially opened. Three months later, it was renamed Gome Electrical Appliances, and Huang Guangyu's real entrepreneurial journey began. That year, he was only 17 years old.

Starting in 1987, Huang Guangyu showed his unique side. At that time, home appliances were in a seller's market and they had no worries about selling the goods. The Huang brothers still decided to stick to the business strategy of retailing and making small profits but quick turnover, while other merchants raised the prices in order to make huge profits. "Actually, there was an element of being 'forced' at the time." Huang Guangyu recalled, "As an individual company, if you want to find a way to attract customers, you must have something of your own." The method he came up with at that time was to make small profits but quick turnover. In the face of powerful state-owned electrical appliance stores, the low-price strategy has brought many repeat customers to the small Gome electrical appliance store.

Although some people questioned the source of the goods at the time, and there were rumors that the sources of goods introduced by Huang Guangyu were private goods, we have to admit that Huang Guangyu is a business genius. He and Gome have left countless marks on this market. He pioneered many retail expansion models, many of which have become common models in the entire retail industry.

In 1991, he was the first to think of using the "Beijing Evening News" to advertise. After placing an advertisement in the middle of the newspaper at a low price of only 800 yuan each time, he put up the slogan "Buy electrical appliances, go to Gome" and published the prices of electrical appliances every week. At the time, this was a forward-thinking move. Very little advertising investment has attracted a large number of customers to Gome, and the electrical appliance store's business is enviable.

Huang Guangyu, who had achieved a small amount of success, did not sit back and be satisfied with his achievements. Instead, he opened many stores one after another. By 1993, there were seven or eight small stores. Of course, this was also its earliest capital expansion move. Subsequently, he named all his stores "Gome Electrical Appliances", thus forming the prototype of a chain operation model.

The growth of Gome is accompanied by the growth of the Huang brothers’ wealth. Due to differences in business philosophy, the two brothers separated, and Huang Guangyu received the "Gome" brand and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. At the age of 24, he began to focus on building his home appliance retail empire, and Gome grew at an alarming rate.

In 1993, Huang Guangyu’s original small electrical appliance store became a large electrical appliance mall; in 1995, Gome Electric Appliance Mall expanded from one to 10 stores; in 1999, Gome entered Tianjin and began to move from Beijing to The country has also begun a large-scale national expansion; in December 2001, Gome had 49 directly-operated chain stores and 33 franchised chain stores in 12 cities; in December 2004, Gome Electric Appliances had 200 directly-operated stores , and entered the audio-visual chain industry; in 2005, Gome entered the real estate industry and built the first city of Gome; in the following three years, it acquired Shanxi North Electric, Dazhong Electric and Yongle Electric respectively; in February 2008, it successfully defeated its largest competitor Suning Electric Acquired Sanlian Trading Company.

Up to now, Gome has become the undisputed number one giant in the domestic home appliance retail industry.

In 1998, 29-year-old Huang Guangyu did two things.

First, establish Pengrun Investment, a subsidiary real estate company, and achieve a backdoor listing in Hong Kong, laying the groundwork for national expansion starting next year;

Second , compiled the "Gome Business Management Manual", which was later called the "Little Red Book" and laid a theoretical foundation for Gome's expansion in the next 10 years.

In 1999, when Gome entered the country and took a key step to establish a national chain network, Huang Guangyu entrusted the position of general manager of Gome Electric to his brother-in-law Zhang Zhiming and founded the company with total assets of approximately 5 billion yuan. Pengrun Investment Co., Ltd. retreats behind the scenes to conduct capital operations. Later in 2000, when Gome was in full swing, Huang Guangyu suddenly reduced his stake in Sinome Electric Appliances. After that, everyone gradually realized that he was already playing a "left-hand over right-hand" capital game.

“Interaction, mutual assistance and complementarity” have always been the investment philosophy that Huang Guangyu adheres to. Gome uses cash flow from commercial operations to complement real estate and has achieved good synergy effects. In Beijing, where housing prices remain high, Huang Guangyu also wants to "use the model of making home appliances to make real estate." Pengrun Homes has played the price card more than once.

The industry’s impression of Huang Guangyu can also explain the problem. When Gome was undergoing rapid expansion of its nationwide chain, Huang Guangyu focused a lot of time and energy on the operational field and had close contact with major home appliance companies across the country. However, with the opening of thousands of Gome stores across the country, Huang Guangyu, whose net worth has increased, has gradually "faded out" of various meetings held by manufacturers.

In early 2000, Huang Guangyu set his sights on the Hong Kong securities market, which had a loose investment environment, and began a series of dazzling capital operations. Huang Guangyu got involved in Jinghua Automation (later renamed China Pengrun, now known as Gome Electrical Appliances), and went through many complicated steps to subscribe for stocks in cash to obtain a controlling stake (as shown in the table below). On October 26, 2002, Huang Guangyu regained control of the national football team. Subsequently, Huang Guangyu made the largest adjustment to Gome's senior personnel and organizational structure in recent years. The frequent changes in Gome within a year even triggered deep doubts in the industry.

In 2003, Huang Guangyu established the fully-controlled "Beijing Pengrun Yifu Network Technology Co., Ltd." Gome Group put all the equity of 94 stores into "Gome Electric Appliances", with Pengrun Yifu holding 65% of the shares, and Huang Guangyu directly holding the remaining 35% of Gome Electric Appliances. He began to reorganize "Gome Electrical Appliances". It is worth noting the shares and company name of Gome he holds. The ratio of 65:35 is to avoid the Ministry of Commerce’s restrictions on foreign retail enterprises and the proportion of foreign shares must be below 65%. Register "Beijing Pengrun Yifu Network Technology Co., Ltd." to take advantage of the preferential tax exemption policy for domestic high-tech enterprises and avoid the huge income tax required to sell equity.

Huang Guangyu is notoriously low-key and reticent. In 2003, Huang Guangyu, the president of Pengrun Investment, the general manager of Gome Electric Co., Ltd., and the chairman of China Pengrun Group, made only two public appearances. Huang Guangyu's low profile also gave Gome a negative evaluation of "no tone". Some analysts pointed out that in Gome, where public opinion attention is quite high, there is no socially significant operational experience or theoretical product output generated by actual operations. Packaging that lacks theoretical elements has resulted in the Gome brand's lack of height and theoretical depth.

Whether the family can continue to operate effectively under centralized power is the biggest test for Huang Guangyu.

There is a book "Huang Guangyu Said" readily available in its headquarters building. The book introduces that Huang Guangyu began to study Hong Kong's securities market very early, studying capital operation methods and the exchange rate policies of various countries. It is not difficult to understand that such a complex but almost flawless capital operation method must have been carefully planned and prepared by Huang Guangyu for many years.

After the operation of capital, what follows is the accumulation of wealth. In 2004, he successfully topped the Hurun Wealth List with a net worth of 10.5 billion yuan. But the impression he left on people was not only the young creator of billions of wealth, but also his bald look and the phrase "I don't have enough money."

With "not enough money to spend", he continued on the path of capital operation - cashing out crazily and increasing investment. In 2005, Huang Guangyu topped the Hurun Wealth List.

On April 6, 2006, Huang Guangyu announced that he would sell no less than approximately HK$1.2 billion of Gome Electrical Appliances shares in a private placement. This is the third time Huang Guangyu has cashed out in the international capital market since September 2004. Cashing out three times in three years, he cashed out nearly HK$4 billion from the international capital market.

On October 31, 2007, in the "2007 Hurun Cash-out Rich List" released by Hurun, Huang Guangyu cashed out 9.3 billion yuan by selling shares, becoming the richest man who cashed out the most.

In 2004, someone pointed out that Gome squeezed upstream payment through the chain retail industry to achieve short-term financing and long-term investment. In this regard, Gome reached its limit.

Observing the Huang family’s real estate investment system, it is not difficult to find that Huang Guangyu’s best trick is actually to build an internal financing platform between the retail industry and the real estate industry, through short-term financing and long-term financing. To devour the high profits of the real estate industry.

Naturally, Huang Guangyu did this in an extremely covert manner, using his brother Huang Junqin as a cover. His official debut in the real estate industry was in early 2005, when Huang Guangyu took the opportunity to cash out in the capital market. funds to establish Gome Real Estate.

As we all know, the real estate industry is the most obvious industry that has developed through the release of government public power, and there are many shady things in it. The deeper the involvement of private companies, the more involved they are with the government and state-owned banks. These past events are like time bombs. If any one explodes, the situation will be difficult to deal with.

However, although the profits of the real estate industry are huge, the demand for funds is also extremely huge. The game of short-term financing and long-term investment has always made Gome's capital chain very tight. In desperation, Huang could only rely on the capital market to achieve his goals. He overestimated the value of his assets several times to achieve listing, and played a clever financial trick to solve the problem of financial constraints. However, Huang inadvertently gained something. A by-product - the list of the richest people.

In 2008, he cashed out 13.5 billion yuan, once again becoming the entrepreneur with the most cash on hand, and also topped the Hurun Wealth List for the third time. At this time, his total assets had reached 43 billion yuan. He was also the second rich man after the Rong Zhijian family to be on the Hurun Wealth List three times.

He once said that the greatest contribution of an entrepreneur is to actively operate assets. Someone also asked him, "Are you a man of action or a master of capital?" Obviously, Huang Guangyu chose the latter without hesitation. Perhaps, being a master of capital operations makes him feel superior.

Huang Guangyu’s strategy is to emphasize rapid coverage of central cities and nearby areas: every time he enters a city, he starts to open stores intensively, covering the first-tier market to the second-tier market, trying to quickly and maximize the acquisition of the market. After the market share in the region is established, Huang Guangyu will gradually adjust its operations, sort out the processes and build a management backend.

In fact, the entire Chinese home appliance chain industry has the same initial development model.

In fact, the most important secret to the success of this enclosure movement is the "light asset" operating model, which continuously occupies suppliers' funds for scale expansion and uses the opening of new stores to charge home appliance manufacturers Admission fees, booth fees and other various expenses can spread the cost of opening a store to the greatest extent.

But this approach is not without its drawbacks - excessive expansion can easily lead to a break in the capital chain. Countless local retail companies have verified this result. To maintain the long-term expansion rate, capital has become the most important element.

In 2004, Gome Electrical Appliances was listed in Hong Kong through a backdoor transaction. Due to the attractiveness of its business model, Gome Electrical Appliances was popular in Hong Kong, which solved Gome's financial worries for its expansion.

In fact, as retailers become increasingly powerful, they have increased their bargaining power with manufacturers and gradually gained control of their voice, embodying the business model of "channel is king", which has long existed abroad. Famous retailers such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour all developed under this model.

The larger the channel, the stronger the bargaining power with manufacturers. Huang Guangyu was no longer satisfied with the slow pace of self-built channels, and he began to choose acquisitions.

Whoever does not sell electrical appliances in Gome now will miss the largest market channel.

In a sense, the past 10 years have been the 10 years of the rise of China’s entire retail industry. From obscurity to fully controlling the channel, home appliance retail companies have become more vigorous than other retail industries and formats. . In the long run, the power of channels will undoubtedly become more and more powerful. If a company falls due to expansion, more companies will come up, but the way of expansion has never changed. This is the power of channels.

More importantly, Huang Guangyu’s domineering way of occupying channels is being accepted by more and more industries. In this era when channels are king, the horizontal integration of channels will become very important. violent.

The root cause is that as early as 2006, negative news about Huang Guangyu came out. According to reports, he was suspected of illegally borrowing a loan from the Bank of China. The situation at that time was very delicate, and also involved his brother Huang Junqin, and Huang Guangyu's wife Du Juan once worked at the Bank of China. But then, it is said that relying on the brothers' good public relations skills, they successfully resolved the crisis they faced at that time. Check the announcement issued by Gome on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January 2007, saying that the Ministry of Public Security's "assisted investigation" against Huang Guangyu and the Pengrun Real Estate Company he indirectly held has been officially cancelled, and the company's crisis has been temporarily resolved safely.

Now, he is facing another crisis and has been arrested by the police, and many mysteries are still difficult to solve.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission also confirmed that Huang Guangyu was related to illegal stock operations. At the same time, the persons in charge of two stocks related to Huang Guangyu were also heard - Huang Junqin, the controlling shareholder of ST Jintai, and Xu Zhongmin, the chairman of Zhongguancun and his hometown. Also affected are the companies they work for - Gome, Jintai, Zhongguancun, and Sanlian Trading Company, all of which are implicated.

Gome's "quasi-financial" development model is its deep root.

It is said that Huang Guangyu was investigated for suspected "market manipulation", which specifically refers to the manipulation of the stock price of *ST Jintai controlled by his brother Huang Junqin. However, industry experts pointed out that because Gome's expansion adopted a "quasi-financial" development model, it was able to gather a large amount of funds in a short period of time. With the support of a large amount of funds, it was possible to "manipulate the market."

Experts said that the profit model of traditional retail companies mainly realizes profits through wholesale and retail price differences, but currently in our country, this profit model is undergoing worrying changes. “Opening a store to sell goods” is becoming “opening a store to make money”. For example, large retail companies like Gome have reported in the media that they have adopted "quasi-financial" development models such as charging suppliers "admission fees" or defaulting on payment to occupy funds.

Experts from the Shanghai Chain Management Research Institute pointed out that this "quasi-financial" model treats "eating" suppliers as a cornucopia of reasonable fund-raising, turning retailers into "financial enterprises without jurisdiction." This has led some retail companies to rely on supplier payments and bank loans to open stores without capital, expand rapidly, and quickly accumulate funds, which provides them with a financial foundation for other market operations.

Gome's current decision-making management team has changed from the previous 7-person decision-making team to "3-person core decision-making layer-11-person executive committee."

According to the new management structure, Chen Xiao, acting chairman and president of the board of directors, Wang Junzhou, executive vice president, and Wei Qiuli, vice president, form the core decision-making committee of Gome Electric Appliances, which is responsible for the company's daily operations and major management decisions. The latter two are both veterans of the United States and the United States who have followed Huang Guangyu for many years. Under the decision-making committee, several vice presidents of Gome and the CEOs of various regions formed an 11-member executive committee, which is responsible for the daily operation and management of the headquarters and branches across the country. Among them is Huang Guangyu’s sister, Huang Xiuhong, general manager of Gome East China Region.