Under the industry boom, will you follow the trend or go against the current?
Chen Zhiyu decided to go against the new retail tide. It was 2017 when new retail was in full swing, but Chen Zhiyu decided to leave Alibaba and join Wal Mart China to take charge of the e-commerce business of Sam's Club.
The crossroads in front of him were still in the fog at that time: everyone agreed that the future of retail should be covered by online and offline omni channels, but the question is, who can be the first to reach the traditional offline players and Internet companies?
At that time, the physical supermarket was a miserable laggard in need of transformation. E-commerce giants representing advanced productivity rushed to invest offline and formulated ambitious plans for external equity investment and internal incubation. However, Chen Zhiyu believes that "it is difficult to achieve a sufficient scale in a short time because there is no model. If an enterprise with a considerable scale is determined to innovate internally, it will have a greater chance of success." He is undoubtedly a minority.
Eight years later, time has given the answer to who is in the world offline.
New retail is retiring. Hou Yi, the founder of Hema, retired. This new retail benchmark project, which has tried more than ten formats for eight years, is waiting for the end in the sales rumors; RT Mart Supermarket changed its leadership. Ali recalled Lin Xiaohai, its senior manager, and Shen Hui, the former senior manager of Auchan, took over. This is a business in which Ali accounted for 72% of the shares and has been consolidated for more than three years.
The new retail business of JD and Meituan has also changed. For a time, JD 7fresh stopped expanding. Now there are only 64 stores, far from the goal of opening 1000 stores in five years; Meituan elephant is only online now, and has long since stopped opening stores.
Old retail is in. Wal Mart's Sam's Club won a big victory: from 2018 to 2022, more than 60% of Wal Mart's China's 29 billion yuan market growth was contributed by Sam. Some people in the retail industry speculate that Sam's sales compound growth rate in the past three years is not less than 30%, and the sales volume will exceed 80 billion in 2023. The per capita annual contribution of a single user is 14000 yuan, 1.6 times that of Taobao, and nearly 5 times that of Pinduoduo.
From everyone talking about Box Horse to everyone talking about Sam, it's only a few years.
They are certainly comparable: as of the end of last year, Hema had more than 360 stores (including Hema Fresh Food Store, Hema Olai and X Club Store), with sales approaching 60 billion yuan, but it is still losing money; Sam has 47 stores in China. Last year, the sales volume was conservatively estimated to be more than 80 billion, and the profit created by membership fees alone exceeded 1 billion.
But in a sense, it is difficult to compare. More than one Sam employee said to 36 Krypton that, internally, they would learn how Hema and JD do digital and online contract performance, and would also target Internet people. But when they returned to the "commodity", the core area of the retail industry, they did not look at new retail. The only opponent Sam really fears is Costco, another "old retail" player.
An employee of Jingdong 7fresh also sighed that the new retail company is full of innovative spirit, but it is a pity that it has gone so far. "They are always pursuing data, telling stories and proving themselves to the group to survive, but they ignore the essence of retail."
The so-called "essence of retail" is hidden in the common curiosity of the industry: why is it that after eight years of new retail clamor, Sam, the representative of "old retail", wins in the end?
What is a "member"?
Before "members" became a prominent academic in the industry - in the past few years, e-commerce and new retail companies have launched various forms of "members" business - Sam's Club also survived its own long night.
Around 2004, Wal Mart executives pressed the pause button on Sam's store expansion plan in China. The reason is that there is not enough member support.
Since joining China with Wal Mart in 1996, Sam has only opened four stores and closed one in eight years. During the same period, the number of Wal Mart stores exceeded 100.
Sam, the number of stores opened in China over the years, that is, the number of cities settled in, the map: 36 krypton
To the Chinese people at that time, Sam was like an alien species, wondering: "Why do you need to pay a membership fee before you can go shopping?"
The founder of the membership store that entered China the same year with Sam, Prescott, went bankrupt in 2005 due to poor management. This alerted Sam.
An old retail man recalled to 36 Krypton that the collapse of Prescott directly killed Wal Mart's management, and Sam China's expansion plan was completely suspended for six years. According to Sam's estimation at that time, in 2000, the proportion of middle-class families in Chinese cities was only 4%, which was a world apart from 55% in the United States at that time.
In this case, the eagerness to expand is tantamount to death. During this period, Sam's Club has constantly lost its armor and transformed into a hypermarket.
At that time, the boldest idea of Wal Mart was to give up Sam China's business directly and focus on big stores. However, this proposal was rejected by Robertson Walton, the eldest son of Wal Mart founder Sam Walton and former chairman of Wal Mart's board of directors. He wanted to give Sam more time.
Robertson Walton believes that Sam's business management is not a big problem, and he can't see his real competitors in a short time. He is optimistic about China's consumption potential, and it is possible to "recuperate" temporarily.
One background is that, In 2010, Wal Mart, which had become the best retailer in China in the past decade, was hit hard by e-commerce and entered the most turbulent and dark period. In five years, Wal Mart China changed three CEOs.
The hypermarket business is difficult, but Sam is getting better and better with the arrival of Andrew Miles, a senior executive of Watsons in 2012, ushering in a critical turning point.
This executive from the UK, who has a gentlemanly character, has been in charge of Sam China for more than 11 years. "The boss has changed from one to another, but he is like a needle to calm the sea." A former Wal Mart middle-level person commented on 36 Krypton.
Vinander was selected because he has the ability to lead the expansion of retail enterprises. From 2003 to 2008, as the CEO of Watsons Asia, he made the number of Watsons' stores reach an astonishing leap from 400 to 1500.
As soon as he joined Sam, Wenande began to work out Sam's expansion plan, but he found a thorny problem - Sam's employees did not understand the "membership store" clearly, and their thinking was deeply influenced by Wal Mart stores. "Before 2010, Sam was like a mixture of membership system and ordinary supermarkets, always eager to make profits from sales." He had repeatedly stressed in interviews with the media.
Why not profit from sales? This is due to the essential difference between the membership store and the ordinary supermarket. Reading the financial report of Costco, the benchmark of the membership store, we can find that in 2023, its gross profit margin will be 10%, lower than 15-25% of that of ordinary supermarkets; The net profit was US $5.8 billion, of which 73% was membership income.
In other words, the key to making money is membership fees.
This has also become the core indicator of Sam's internal management. A Sam store manager told 36 Krypton that the indicators that affect his annual year-end bonus are membership profit (that is, membership income minus renewal costs) and operating profit, but the former is far more powerful than the latter.
How to make new members willing to pay and old members willing to renew has become the ultimate goal of Sam's business. Around this goal, Vinander implemented two important operational reforms.
Wenande cut the first blow to the SKU - cut Sam's nearly 10000 SKUs in half. This is not only for members to "strictly select" goods, but also for commercial considerations.
Globally, Costco's SKU remains at around 4000 all the year round, which increases the chance of selecting goods on its shelves to maintain a high inventory turnover rate, so as to negotiate with suppliers to minimize the price of goods.
A former Sam employee told 36 Krypton, "At that time, this measure was greatly opposed internally, because many people still lack confidence in the membership model in China.".
In fact, until 2015, Sam's Shanghai store was still quite far away from the breakeven line, and many internal employees also believed that the store was not far from closing. But Vinande insisted on doing so.
But how can Sam really make money? Vinander waved his second knife at the membership fee.
Sam's membership fee has been 150 yuan for 20 years before joining China, but by 2016, Vinander decided to increase it to 260 yuan and keep it up to now. This brought Sam a huge crisis of public opinion at that time. More than a month later, Sam's customer service was directly hit by the complaint phone, and offline stores were crowded with customers who asked for advice every day.
In this regard, Vinander gave an internal reason, "If someone does not accept this number, it is not our target user."
Looking back, it was an era dominated by "consumption upgrading", and price rise was the right choice. It is more significant to help Sam select a group of "accurate" users: urban middle class with certain payment ability and pursuit of quality of life. Today, Sam's user scale is 100 times different from several major e-commerce platforms, but the sales contributed by a single user ranks first.
Of course, the "superficial" operations of reducing SKU and increasing membership fees are far from enough to explain Sam's success.
To some extent, they are not causes, but results.
Comparison of user profiles, number of users and arpu value between Sam China and three e-commerce platforms, source: public information and financial reports
What is a "good commodity"?
If you ask Sam where he is the best in the retail circle, you will hear a surprising consistent answer: the goods are well done.
This is extremely worth exploring, because every retail player insists that he attaches importance to commodities. What is Sam's outstanding point in the unanimous "to do a good job in commodities"?
More than one Sam insider confirmed to 36 Krypton that, One of the keys to Sam's success is the "novelty" strategy of commodities. The key person to promote this strategy is Zhang Qing, the Chief Merchandise Officer of Sam who took office in 2017.
A former Sam employee told 36 Krypton that only a few categories of Sam China rely on the global supply chain, such as dry goods. Most of them are local supply chains that can better meet the needs of local consumers, which means developing goods from scratch. Within Sam, the commodity department is also the department with the highest degree of information confidentiality and the highest voice.
A supplier once assured Zhang Qing that it would double the sales volume and profit within six months, but the goods were no different from those supplied to other retail channels. Zhang Qing therefore refused the other party's request not to withdraw from the arena. "If Sam's products are the same as those in other channels, why should members pay for shopping?"
Internally, Sam calls the explosive products that members must buy when they enter the store as "hero products". They believe that if the success rate of new products is too high, it means that there is no risk, and it will not be possible to create a "hero product" that can make members linger. The 700 yuan extra large chocolate, lime juice, cookie gift box, rainbow chips, etc. imported from Dubai are all on this list.
List drawing of some popular products of Sam: 36 krypton
"Sam has a lot of things that are exclusive, and they will take the initiative to find many innovative products to do, so Sam's procurement will be more research oriented." A former Sam middle level person said, "When a link in the external supply chain is too profitable, Sam will also choose to develop his own brand." Zhang Qing, the chief procurement officer, will also emphasize in his self introduction before the media, "I prefer to be called 'commodity officer'. We are commodity makers."
In order to ensure that the selection is not disturbed, Sam's procurement also prefers to deal with the supplier's R&D team rather than sales. "If a supplier comes up and arranges a sales team to tell you about sales, profits, rebates and rebates, it will probably be passed," Zhang Qing added.
She also talked in detail on many occasions about why they wanted to make strawberries with 11 degrees of sugar, dates with a meat yield of more than 90% and a weight of more than 12 grams, vegetables with a specified length in a specified number of days, and fresh meat mooncakes with the "fresh" flavor of fried and small wonton... Now, these private brand products with the logo of Memer's Mark, a total of more than 700 kinds, and a sales contribution of 40%, It reflects Sam's strict and unique commodity view to the greatest extent.
Another core principle of Sam's making goods is to make the goods with the best quality at the same price or the lowest unit price at the same quality.
Taking the single product of cassava as an example, many supermarkets use the traditional baking method of on-site baking (starting from raw materials), but Sam insists on frozen baking, that is, first make the semi-finished product of frozen cassava packets, then thaw it and the subsequent process, and finally make the finished product. The biggest advantage of this process is that it can ensure the stability of the taste, but the price is often half of that of baking at room temperature.
After several months of negotiations with a number of potential suppliers, Sam finally chose Lego Food, the leader in the domestic frozen baking industry, as the supplier of cassava. A person familiar with the matter said that Sam had high requirements for the formula at that time, "it must be pure natural vegetable oil, more high-purity cassava powder and milk powder, and the most important thing is not to raise the product price." Finally, Lego Food accepted Sam's request.
Under the temptation of "hundreds of millions of sales of explosive products", few suppliers will gain the upper hand in the negotiation with Sam, because once they reach a cooperation with Sam, they will get a strong endorsement of supply chain capabilities and partners from all sides.
In 2022, Sam Guang will purchase 700 million yuan of frozen baking products from Lego, accounting for 70-80% of the revenue of all KA channels of Lego. Because of the successful cooperation with Sam, Lego has also been able to expand new customers such as Hema and Haidilao.
Take Sam's another popular Swiss roll as an example. Although the price of a single piece is not much different, Sam's Swiss roll chooses animal cream and ensures that no flavor is added to the ready mixed powder; Most brands choose vegetable cream, and add various preservatives and additives such as vegetable fat powder (which can be added in food instead of milk powder) and potassium sorbate in the ingredients.
The same Swiss roll, Sam, a head supermarket's different formula drawing: 36 krypton
Industry insiders have disclosed that if other manufacturers use the same raw materials as Sam and retain profits, the price should be increased by at least 20-30%.
To sum up, Sam completed the creation of commodity quality and price in three ways: first, he guaranteed exclusive supply through buyout and exclusive distribution; Second, we can produce exclusive products through exclusive customization of our own brands; Third, for standard products, the price is lower than the average market price by virtue of the purchase scale advantage of selected SKUs.
In fact, the core strategy of Hema in commodities is similar to Sam's. In the official statement, Hema has always insisted on building a differentiated supply chain, taking the route of "medium and high-end products+standardized fresh food", and for some time, "novelty" was an important commodity strategy.
The new and unique product "Jingjie" that Hema was proud of was a good example. This vegetable, produced in Zhengzhou, Henan, was put on the shelves of many Hemamen stores, but as a product that Henan people love to eat and that other regions do not know much about, it is destined to be a niche and high priced product, and cannot become a popular product.
"The essence of retail is people and goods market, which has never changed. The new retail is just a round of replacement of people and goods market, but if your goods can't keep up, it still can't," said a person who worked in Hema and Sam.
So far, Sam has returned to the essence of the membership store - to continue to attract members through "good goods" that can not be bought elsewhere and are of high quality at a fair price, thus driving the growth of member income.
Unexpected winner of e-commerce channel
Another huge force to support Sam is the explosion of e-commerce channels.
Hema's original perfect vision of the business model was to use online orders to expand sales scale and support stores to make profits earlier. However, this requires a large enough number of online orders (a former Hema employee said that the critical point of internal recognition is "3000 daily orders"), otherwise, the store will also lose, and online will also lose.
Sam's online thinking is totally different. At first, it was just a supplement to the store business, but unexpectedly it grew to a huge size.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Sam China's online orders accounted for more than 50%. According to industry speculation, last year's sales of Sam's Line reached nearly 40 billion yuan, far exceeding the scale of 22 billion yuan for Dingdong, 26 billion yuan for Pupu Supermarket and less than 30 billion yuan for Meituan.
This means that Sam has become the last winner in the cruel competition of "instant delivery of self run fresh food", which is a big and small company that has been burning huge money.
Looking back, everything seems to be in order. The high unit price of Sam's line passengers can cover the high cost of instant delivery; The cost of getting customers is not high, because he shares a group of members with offline players, and he is loyal and insists on repurchasing - the problems that have plagued other players endlessly have been solved by Sam perfectly.
In fact, for a long time, Sam was very cautious about introducing users online, and his online shopping experience was also poor.
A former employee of Sam's e-commerce team vaguely remembered that when he joined in 2021, Sam's app clicked into the search box and could not find anything. "The whole interface is full of content and there are almost no goods. How can users place orders?"
In 2020, Zhu Xiaojing, the new leader of Wal Mart, took office. She, a strategic graduate, began to promote omni channel reform with all her strength. The outbreak of the epidemic has made this strategy even more urgent.
But how to do e-commerce, Sam is also trying to cross the river. At that time, a major difference was whether to move more than 4000 SKUs online and offline, or only select more than 1000 SKUs? Sam China President Wen Ande insists on only making 1000 popular SKUs online, while protecting the offline experience. Finally, Sam respected Wenande's suggestions internally.
Sam has two senior executives in charge of e-commerce business before and after him, both from Ali. One is Chen Zhiyu mentioned at the beginning of this article, who built Sam's front warehouse system from zero to one; One is Li Daming, who led the optimization of e-commerce experience on the user side.
Around 2021, Sam's e-commerce team will reach 6 or 70 people, and most of them will come from Alibaba, Hema, Dingdong Shopping and other Internet companies. Sam offered these people a salary higher than Sam's rank system, and they brought a rare overtime culture to Sam, both of which caused dissatisfaction among some old employees.
But the determination of the senior management is firm. Throughout the second half of 2021, the newly formed e-commerce team is optimizing the user experience of Sam's app, from the commodity structure, to the search logic, to the performance link, all changed.
Sam, who hardly does discount promotions, also participated in Double 11 this year for the first time. The reason is that "if users complete the 'hoarding' action in other e-commerce platforms, they will reduce their hoarding in Sam."
The epidemic has also deeply reshaped people's consumption psychology and habits. Urban middle-class families prefer to hoard goods, consume online, and spend more on "just in need" food and drink. By the end of 2021, Sam's online sales share and GMV began to increase rapidly. Sam China's top executives who have tasted the benefits will take the opportunity to raise online business to a higher strategic level - 2023, which will become Sam's "omni channel year".
Today, Sam's business is dominated by 47 stores and pre warehouse distribution networks in 23 cities in China. Compared with stores, online business is considered as a moat that it is more difficult for it to resist Costco, a member store giant.
So far, Sam China has completed two difficult reforms: making the long board of "commodity" long enough, and then making up the short board of "e-commerce" quietly.
It finally waited for the opportunity to soar, but new and old rivals also appeared at this time.
Fake enemies and real opponents
Houyi, the founder of Hema, made no secret that if there was a retailer worth learning from, it was Sam. Their strategy is to learn while sticking to the marketing.
This is a "price war" that has caused a sensation in the retail circle. The reason is that last August, Hema launched a 99 yuan durian thousand layer cake. A Sam's store in Shanghai soon lowered the price of the same product from 128 yuan to 98.9 yuan, and Hema continued to drop to 89 yuan. Sam adjusted it to 1 yuan lower than Hema, and finally the price of Hema dropped to 79 yuan, and this Sam's store dropped to 85 yuan.
Sam's follow-up action was quickly captured by Hema. They took advantage of the situation and launched a massive "price moving" activity in 13 cities, from commodities to publicity, to Sam.
An internal employee of Sam told 36 Krypton that the price war was not the will of the headquarters, but the temporary decision of a Sam store in Shanghai, "because there was too much competition in Shanghai, I lost my head". Less than a week after the price reduction, it was severely stopped by the upper level, and the store was also persuaded to quit at the end of the year.
Sam's stores always enjoy the right to adjust the price of their stores within a certain range (if they need to meet the requirements of gross profit), "but he forgot that Sam is a member model, and dynamic promotion is a big taboo of Sam." The above employee explained to 36 Krypton. Of course, being caught by Hema and making a big fuss makes this "mistake" even more unforgivable.
Zhu Xiaojing, CEO of Wal Mart China, has publicly explained "Why doesn't Sam do promotions", "because each promotion will increase the complexity of the business model, and the complexity of each commodity model will increase the cost, which will eventually be passed on to members."
Sam President Wenande also talked about what the "discipline" of the membership store is. "We don't pay much attention to the design of the store, gorgeous shelves, lights and complex promotion models. We care more about a stable price system."
There are many details that can reflect the different understanding of retail between Sam and Hema.
A store manager who worked in both Hema and Sam gave an example to 36 Krypton. In the face of the most common "loss" problem of fresh products, Hema's solution was to "decide how much to discount according to the proportion of loss", while Sam chose to directly include the loss in the cost, but he was determined not to discount. "The discount shows that this product is not very good. I can't sell this product to members.".
Another former Sam employee said that when the price and cost of the commodities mainly pushed by Hema's "mountain moving price" were calculated internally, the conclusion was that "money must be lost". In the Internet world, it can be tolerated that drain products do not make money, but Sam will not do so. Their principle is that even if the profits are a little lower, they must also ensure profits.
For the downward consumption environment and the "volume price" competition situation, new and old retailers have also made different choices.
In 2023, Sam invested 1 billion yuan and lowered the prices of more than a dozen products with the best sales for a long time. The most popular product is the laundry fragrance beads (regular), which was adjusted from 89 yuan to 79 yuan; Member's Mark egg yolk pastry, one of the commodities with the highest repurchase rate of Sam, dropped from 49.8 yuan to 42.8 yuan. According to 36 Krypton, this investment will increase this year, but the basic plate of Sam's commodities has not changed.
Hema took a bold step to start strategic transformation. Zhao Jiayu, chief commodity officer of Hema, mentioned at the supplier conference at the end of 2022 that more and more users pay attention to the cost performance ratio, including the young people who are most fond of the new and tired of the old: "They are no longer willing to experience the new and strange with high premium, but to experience the new products with low price." Hema then announced the transformation of discount stores, and re do the goods and supply chain, which is undoubtedly very difficult It's about life and death (Hou Yi).
To define an opponent is to define yourself to some extent. More than one Sam employee said to 36 Krypton that internally, they would learn how Hema does digitalization and online performance. But back to the commodity level, Sam really values and fears only one opponent, that is Costco.
Since Costco entered China, Sam has set up an organization similar to the "competition team", whose main task is to track Costco's store operations in an all-round way, including goods, supply chain, membership, services, sales data, etc. This group consists of 8-10 people, generally centered on the store, and divided into two parts: the headquarters functional group and the store operation group.
According to the industry norms of the membership store, before the opening of a new store, all commodity prices are strictly confidential, and will not be announced until 4 a.m. on the opening day. In order to spy on the promotion of Costco's Shenzhen Longhua Store, Sam Jing tried his best to find out about the team, from suppliers to internal employees.
When they found that Costco intended to continue to rely on traditional explosives such as Moutai, Burberry, and Xinxiu bags to attract membership, they quickly reported this situation to the upper level. A few days later, people were surprised to find that Sam's two stores in Shenzhen also launched the new beauty trolley box, and directly hit the price from 1180 yuan to 769 yuan.
In order to disperse the passenger flow of Costco Longhua Store, Sam has spread advertisements all over Hongshan Station of Shenzhen Metro since half a month ago, which is the nearest subway station to Costco Store. A Shenzhen citizen told 36 Krypton that Sam had never seen such a scene since he entered Shenzhen 28 years ago. "There was a shadow of e-commerce giants fighting for Double 11 in the early years".
In the first week of the opening of Costco Shenzhen store, Zhang Shuyun, the general manager of Costco in mainland China, and his entourage frequently appeared in Sam's Shenzhen store. "They went round and round buying goods and prices." Because of their high profile behavior, they were even stopped many times by Sam's store staff.
This kind of friend and foe testing is very similar to the scene at the beginning of Sam's Club.
Sam Walton recalled in his autobiography, "The Wealthy America", that in order to manage the store well, he had spent a long time wandering around a large Prescott Club on San Diego's Marino Street, and took a small recorder with him - as usual - to record his competitors' thoughts on price and sales. Although he was finally caught by the clerk, he got the information he wanted.
"I don't want our competitors to be too comfortable and feel that they can foresee the steps we will take," Sam Walton said. "Constant change is necessary to avoid people being too comfortable and unwilling to make progress."
So far, Sam, who has been in China for 28 years, has 47 stores in China, while Costco, which has been in China for 5 years, has only 6 stores. However, Sam is still alert to the huge influence of the latter in the world. Sam China's aggressive attitude in recent years, Costco's entry into China is a huge stimulus.
Lin Xi, an employee of Sam Shanghai, still remembers that the opening of Costco's first store in Minhang in 2019 was packed with people. "Sam has worked in China for 28 years, and probably has never seen such a scene." A retail personage commented on "Sam's speed of opening stores in recent years". "It doesn't want to be laughed at by the outside world. It has been in China for so long, and it needs Costco to help develop the market in the end."
But at least for the moment, the arrival of Catfish Costco has not affected Sam's performance. A Sam employee told 36 Krypton that since the opening of Costco Minhang Store, the number of cards opened by Sam's Shanghai store has increased almost every year. "Every time Costco opens a store, the turnover and membership of Sam's nearby stores will increase by an average of 25%".
"Costco, as the king of membership stores, is bigger and stronger in the world, but because Sam has worked in China for 28 years and knows more about Chinese consumers, Costco has only entered China for three years, and can't shake it in the short term." A retail industry person commented on 36 krypton.
What is retail?
In the worst days of Wal Mart's Chinese hypermarket, there was once a rumor that it would sell itself.
An insider told 36 Krypton that the purchaser wanted to include Sam in the discussion, but Wal Mart resolutely refused. Shortly after the negotiation broke down, Sam and others received dividends from the epidemic.
Over the four years from 2018 to 2022, Sam contributed more than 60% of the 29 billion yuan growth in Wal Mart's China market. By 2022, in the Chinese market, the revenue ratio of Sam's Club and Wal Mart hypermarkets has reached 1.65:1.
This is an amazing fact: like two generations of products of a company, the success of Wal Mart stores and Sam's Club in China has been separated for 20 years. In the innovative and active Chinese business community, it may be more challenging to turn red again after a decade of silence than to lead the way for a few years.
In 1983, Wal Mart founder Sam Walton met Saul Price, the inventor of the "membership store", in San Diego. Two retail masters had a family dinner with their wives. Soon after, the first Sam's Club opened in Oklahoma City in the south central United States. "I had an opportunity to start a company again from scratch," old Sam said in his memoir.
Of course, the soul and temperament of this company can be traced back to the founder Sam Walton. At least three of his habits are still deeply engraved on Wal Mart people: first, frequent and large number of shop tours; The second is to create a culture to fully mobilize people's passion; The third is simple style and frugal life.
"At that time, I was always checking the stores, and now it is the same. We have seen stores around the world and got some great ideas in this way." Sam Walton wrote in his memoirs. His three sons and one daughter had a family trip around the country, and his father took time to inspect the store, and he remembered that "the store is a part of our life".
Doug McMillon, the global CEO of Wal Mart, visited China a few years ago. Someone found that he was wearing a pair of shoes with a unique shape. On the surface, they looked like leather shoes, but the soles were rubber soles of sports shoes. He explained that this was specially customized, "not only to attend some business occasions, but also to walk tens of thousands of steps in the store".
Sam CEO Wen Ande also often speaks Mandarin and asks for advice on Sam's goods and services in the store. One time, a member told him that a certain commodity should not be sold again because it was "so big in package, but its shelf life is not long". This opinion was immediately adopted.
In the United States, Wal Mart's "Saturday Morning Meeting" system has been passed down since then, because old Sam firmly believes that "if you want to
If you succeed, you must work on Saturday ". An old subordinate commented that he knew when to make the atmosphere serious and when to make it active. Sometimes the meetings are democratic, and sometimes very authoritarian. However, he always holds meetings for three purposes: exchange information, solve problems, and unite the team.
An important part of Saturday morning meeting is that hundreds of thousands of people shouted "Wal Mart Cheers" together. In China, everyone in the company is familiar with this slogan (and Sam's slogan).
A Wal Mart employee recalled to 36 Krypton the seven awkward and three shocking moments when he first joined the company. In the largest exhibition hall of Zhuhai International Convention and Exhibition Center, Wal Mart's annual meeting with more than 3000 people started at 7 a.m. Staff representatives from Wal Mart and Sam's regions entered the hall in turn, shouting their slogans as they walked. "The gongs and drums are roaring to the sky. It depends on who is the loudest and fiercest. The executives also shouted together." At first, he was not used to it, but later understood that it was necessary to run a strong company.
The "frugal richest man" is a well-known story that has been greatly exaggerated by the American media. Sam Walton's entrepreneurial career began in the 1950s and 1960s when the American economy began to recover, but he grew up in the Great Depression, "knowing the value of every dollar from childhood". He himself drove an open van to catch birds and hounds, cut hair in the barber shop in the town, and practiced frugality in the management company.
After three generations of inheritance, this tradition has not disappeared. A former middle-level employee of Wal Mart in China told 36 Krypton that even if Wal Mart headquarters executives had luxury cars at home, they would only drive affordable Japanese cars or American Ford cars to work. There were executives who had parachuted in carrying luxury bags to attend internal meetings, "although they were not criticized, they also seemed out of place". In Shenzhen Futian Yinli Building, Wal Mart China's CEO and executives also do not have their own dedicated offices.
"Every time Wal Mart wastes a dollar, it makes our customers spend an extra dollar. Every time we save a dollar for our customers, we are one step ahead of the competition."
This is the motto of old Sam and the truth of retail industry. Especially today.
One day at the end of March 2018, Wal Mart Global CEO Dong Minglun delivered a speech on environmental protection at Tsinghua University and was interviewed by the media. Compared with environmental protection, the questioner is obviously more concerned about how the key person in the retail industry views the new retail entrepreneurship in full swing in China. To some extent, he is the perfect spokesperson for "old retail".
The dialogue did not spark anticipation. Dong Minglun only modestly said after listing many "technological innovations" of Wal Mart, "I think that for senior people in the retail industry, new concepts are emerging in endlessly, but the retail industry is, in the final analysis, the three major elements of price, goods and experience, and will never change."
Looking back, this is a meaningful answer.
The era of abundant Internet funds and great strides across borders is over. A company that has a deep understanding of "depression" and works hard at one thing may be more able to dance with this era.
