In the city of Nantong, Jiangsu, which looks across the Yangtze River from Shanghai, the Carrefour "Nantong palace store", located in the central part of the textile and chemical industry, has no customers in and out, showing a tranquility. In August 20th, more than 8 years after its opening, the store has quietly closed.

　　 because Price Competition is in trouble.

A more than 50 year old housewife who was passing by often said, "did you ask if the shop was inconvenient?" About 5 minutes' walk, there is also a big run hair. Da Yun FA is a large supermarket from Taiwan. This shop is on the same road with Carrefour. Da Yun FA and Carrefour It is also very similar in terms of commodities, even during weekdays, with a certain number of customers patronizing.

　 Carrefour "Nantong Wangfu" shop closed in August 2014

The first modern supermarket in China is Carrefour. They were stationed in Shanghai and Beijing in 1994. A large number of food, daily necessities, groceries and household appliances were purchased, and then sold at a low price of more than 5000 square meters of large stores. This so-called "hypermarket" business model became the standard of Chinese supermarkets.

After 20 years, foreign enterprises such as WAL-MART and big RFA came into China, including Chinese enterprises, and the hypermarkets in big cities have shown an excess trend. According to a survey by Swiss financial giant UBS, about 60% of consumers in big cities often visit more than 3 supermarkets and then shop at low prices. Because each store sells basically the same products, it is easy to fall into price competition.

Carrefour's data also reflect the situation of various retail businesses. Carrefour in China increased by 8% in 2013 compared with the previous year, but sales increased by only 3%.

According to statistics, in 2014 1~6, 158 supermarkets and department stores closed in China, far exceeding 35 in 1 years last year. There are 118 foreign-funded stores. This is largely due to the closure of 98 stores by HORIZON GROUP and the 100 supermarkets in China Post. But Carrefour also closed 1, while WAL-MART closed 9.

Carrefour's model is to sell large quantities of goods at a low price using large area stores, while supporting this model is the various fees charged to suppliers. For example, "admission fee". Take Carrefour as an example, a commodity must pay 3000 yuan to each store if it wants to enter Carrefour. If you enter all 240 stores, you will need 720 thousand yuan.

　　 adjustment Commodity structure

At the same time, each commodity has a display fee of 2000 yuan per week, and the cost of goods, warehousing, and logistics costs are also borne by suppliers. According to sales volume, there are about 20% buckle points.

But even so, companies still want to push goods to hypermarkets because they can ensure sales scale, but only a large number of large enterprises and well-known enterprises can bear huge fees. As a result, each store has the same goods of the same enterprise.

And stores rely on the cost of manufacturers to start selling price competition. In fact, although there are shops that reduce prices to less than those of their competitors, and attract customers in this way, profits are very heavy. The price competition of "manual" can not see the future.

In order to change this situation, Carrefour has been adjusting its product line. "Recently, the admission fees have been reduced," said a cadre of a large Japanese beer company. As consumers' concerns about food safety and safety continue to rise, Carrefour has begun to explore the mode of attracting customers with product quality.