was launched, Pagoda, known as the “high-end fruit porter”, issued a profit warning.
On social media, netizens complained one after another, saying, "It's too expensive," "I can't afford it with a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan," "Buy whatever you want at Pagoda, and you'll lose a million dollars" and "Who is eating Pagoda?" There are also netizens. Mentioned that Pagoda is getting more and more expensive, but the quality is getting worse and worse.
Profits in the first half of the year are expected to decrease by no more than 70%
Information shows that Pagoda was founded in Shenzhen in 2001. It is a company integrating fruit procurement, planting support, post-harvest preservation, logistics and warehousing, standard grading, marketing expansion, brand operation, and store retail. , information technology, financial capital, scientific research and education into one large-scale chain enterprise.
According to the annual report, Pagoda achieved operating income of 11.391 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of approximately 0.7% compared with the same period in 2022; gross profit was 1.315 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.04%; net profit attributable to the parent company was .362 billion, a year-on-year increase 11.9%.
However, according to Pagoda’s recent announcement, it is expected that Pagoda Group ’s profit attributable to owners of the company in the first half of 2024 will be approximately 10% higher than the group’s profit attributable to owners of the company for the six months ending June 30, 2023. RMB 261 million will be reduced by no more than 70%, and the group's revenue in the first half of 2024 will be reduced by no more than 15% from the group's revenue of RMB 6.294 billion for the six months ended June 30, 2023.
This year, Pagoda officially announced Yang Mi as Pagoda Good Life Ambassador, trying to drive sales through traffic, but the results seemed to be mediocre.
In this regard, Pagoda said that the company actively pays attention to changes in market demand and adjusts its business strategy as needed.
In the "Ten Year Plan" previously released by Pagoda, it stated that from 2023 to 2032, the company will focus on the development of retail, to B, category business, and the development of international markets. Its goal is to upgrade the "delicious" strategy that has supported Pagoda's development and growth in the past two decades to a "high-quality fruit expert and leader." Use "experts" to distinguish comprehensive e-commerce stores from standard supermarkets; use "leaders" to distinguish small regional chains. In addition, management hopes to have more than 10,000 stores and terminal retail sales exceeding 50 billion yuan by 2032.
Is Pagoda’s positioning in the high-end fruit market appropriate? Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that this depends on market feedback and actual changes in consumer demand. If data shows that its brand image deviates from consumer expectations at the higher end of the market, or that competitors meet the same needs in a more attractive way, positioning may need to be adjusted.
Word-of-mouth crisis
Although Pagoda claims to sell "high-end fruits" with high prices, it has been criticized and even complained about many times due to fruit quality issues.
During this year’s “March 15” period, illegal activities such as using rotten fruits to make high-priced fruit cuts at the Wuhan Yinhai Yayuan store of Baiguoyuan, storing overnight fruits in the refrigerator and selling them as fresh fruits the next day were exposed, and once became a trending topic on social media, sparking public opinion. widespread attention.
According to Hubei Economic and Television Channel, the clerk of Baiguoyuan Wuhan Yinhai Yayuan store made rotten apples, rotten oranges, rotten dragon fruits, rotten honeydew melons, etc. into fruit-cut platters and put them out for sale in a grand manner. The clerk even called this: "turning decay into magic" and said to the undercover reporter: "Try it, it doesn't taste bad at all."
In response, Pagoda issued a statement on the store's handling, saying that it has been Verify and verify immediately, and suspend the franchise store involved for rectification and conduct a comprehensive investigation.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Pagoda has been exposed as shoddy. In 2022, a popular science blogger released a video saying that when they secretly visited Pagoda stores, they found that store staff not only sold overnight cut fruits, but also sold them. Cut the fruits that are about to go bad into pieces and sell them.
Subsequently, Pagoda’s official Weibo post said: I’m sorry for betraying everyone’s trust in us! After self-examination, it was found that the two stores involved in the video had problems such as illegal grading of fruits and the sale of overnight cut fruits.
In addition, in November 2023, Shanghai Baiguoyuan Industrial Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Baiguoyuan, was fined 93,760 yuan by the Shanghai Qingpu District Market Supervision Bureau for violating the provisions of the Food Safety Law in providing Cuiguan pear products with excessive pesticide residues. Administrative penalties.
According to statistics from the Black Cat Complaint Platform, as of August 19, there were 2,685 complaints using the keyword search "Baguoyuan". Most of the complaints from consumers were related to issues such as bad fruit, defective products, and the merchant's refusal to return goods. Among them, there are many complaints about fruit quality.
Source: ifeng.com
