To say that the hottest internet celebrity at present is none other than Yu Donglai from Fat Donglai.
In 2023, Pangdonglai, a supermarket company deeply involved in Henan, became popular all over the country because of its unique business model, high-quality services, and generous treatment of employees. The founder, Yu Donglai, was also called "China's Good Boss" by netizens across the country because of his "tyrannical" personality towards employees.
Since last year, Fat Donglai has been on the hot search list. On June 27 this year, topics such as "Pang Donglai compensated customers who bought dough rolls with nearly 9 million yuan" and "Pang Donglai rewarded customers who complained about dough rolls with 100,000 yuan" were once again on the hot search list. In the past few days, Pang Donglai received unprecedented attention from netizens across the country because of his radical change of Yonghui Supermarket to .
So far, Yu Donglai has led the team of Fat Donglai to transform three old supermarket companies into the circle, including Jiangxi's leading supermarket Jiabaile, Hunan's old supermarket BBK, and Yonghui Supermarket. Among them, Yonghui Supermarket is particularly eye-catching.
Just because, in front of Yonghui Supermarket, which ranks among the top five in the industry, Fat Donglai is still like a younger brother. On the Hurun Global Rich List in 2023, Zhang Xuansong, the founder of Yonghui Supermarket, became the only local entrepreneur in Minhou, Fujian, to be on the list with a net worth of 9.5 billion. This unusual sense of conflict attracted countless netizens to watch.
With the help of Pang Donglai's "golden finger", since June 19th, Yonghui Supermarket's Xinwan Plaza store in Zhengzhou has had extremely hot performance for many consecutive days. This made Yu Donglai's halo shine even more brightly. Zhang Xuansong also breathed a sigh of relief temporarily.
Zhang Xuansong was born in 1971 and is a native of Minhou, Fujian. Before graduating from high school, Zhang Xuansong dropped out of school and entered the business world, and entered the supermarket industry in 1995. Zhang Xuansong spent more than 20 years becoming the "King of Fujian Supermarkets".
However, although Zhang Xuansong is still the richest man in Minhou, Fujian, in the past two years, Yonghui Supermarket has rarely had good news worthy of clinking glasses. Instead, it has been stuck in the quagmire of store closures and poor performance. Its market value has also dropped from more than 106.4 billion at its peak. yuan, falling to 22.5 billion yuan on June 26.
Thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi. Compared with Donglai standing proudly under the spotlight, Zhang Xuansong, the king of supermarkets, has been retreating. Investigating the reason, a senior retail source told "City Circle" that in recent years, cycles have switched and the economic environment has changed. However, large supermarkets that failed to recognize the situation still adopted the strategy of continuous expansion.
"'Yonghui' did not shrink in time and achieve a soft landing, so they hit the wall one after another. However, after decades of development, Fat Donglai has become popular in recent years precisely because of its strategy of focusing on regional development, which fits this The theme of cycle switching. "
" Behind the "Fujian Supermarket King" bending down to the "Henan Biggest Internet Celebrity", there is actually a capital situation hidden behind it.
1. There is a capital bureau behind it.
The grass is as gray as a snake, and the pulse is thousands of miles away.
The story begins with the opportunity for Fat Donglai to become popular. This has something to do with a man named Pang Xiaowei. Pang Xiaowei was born in 1973. His educational background is Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Zhejiang Gongshang University. He has been named one of the top ten emerging angel investors by authoritative media.
Pang Xiaowei founded the retail business portal Lianshang.com in 2000 and served as the actual controller and chairman. Yu Donglai and Pang Xiaowei co-founded Lianshang Donglai Business Research Institute. Pang Xiaowei serves as the dean of Lianshang Donglai Business Research Institute, and Yu Donglai serves as the chief mentor of Donglai Research Institute.
"City Circle" discovered that as early as 2008, there was information about Yu Donglai and Pang Donglai on Lianshang.com. But the first time the two met, according to Pang Xiaowei, was in 2021. This year, Fat Donglai, with sales of 7 billion yuan, did not appear on the "Top 100 Supermarkets in China" list, and Yu Donglai only enjoyed a certain degree of popularity in Henan.
However, Pang Xiaowei recalled that he felt "full" when he saw Yu Donglai. "There were so many valuable things" that he quickly invited this "amazing entrepreneur" over to do the job. The protagonist of the "Donglai Management Philosophy" private party. It was one day in December 2021. Yu Donglai talked about his business philosophy and so on at the meeting.
This private session will be very successful.Pang Xiaowei once recalled to the media that more than 500 people came to the event. The venue was not big, there was not enough space, and the back was full of people. Participants included chairman, general manager and senior executives of retail companies across the country. Therefore, Pang Xiaowei struck while the iron was hot, and in March 2022, he and Yu Donglai jointly initiated the establishment of the Donglai Research Institute.
Donglai Research Institute has successively launched a seed class, the first CEO class and the second CEO class. There are barriers to entry into these classes. Red Star Capital Bureau reported that the seed class has tuition of 500,000 per family due to Donglai's personal on-the-spot guidance. There are 12 students in one phase, and registered companies need to pass various reviews. Compared with the seed class, the tuition fee for the CEO class is much discounted. The first term is 30,000 yuan and the second term is 100,000 yuan.
However, the teaching method of the students in the CEO class has become a "big pot meal". The number of companies has also soared to no more than 100. Even so, to enter the CEO class, you must meet three major requirements: the company must have been established for more than three years, have net assets of no less than 5 million yuan, and have positive profits in the previous year.
The people who participated in the training are all over the catering, e-commerce, retail and other industries. These people have more or less influence in their respective business fields. From the perspective of the industry, this laid the foundation for Fat Donglai to become popular all over the Internet. The business details that Yu Donglai repeatedly mentioned during the training were widely disseminated.
For example, the "grievance award" that made Fat Donglai really popular in 2023, as well as "the average employee salary is a minimum of 7,000 yuan", "employees who don't want to go to work are not allowed to refuse leave" and so on. At this point, the big foreshadowing has been laid, and the protagonists who were radically changed by Fat Donglai have completely come to the stage.
's public reports are traceable to the several explosive changes made by Fat Donglai: In July 2023, Jiangxi's leading supermarket Chaojiabaile began to make adjustments; in April 2024, a 20-person executive team was dispatched , went to Changsha to provide assistance to Chao BBK, a long-established merchant in Hunan; in late June, the first store of Yonghui Supermarket opened after a major overhaul.
Suddenly, good news came frequently. Zhou Shan, general manager of Jiabaile, even said gratefully that Brother Donglai pulled him from the "morgue" back to the ICU. Therefore, following Jiabaile, BBK, and Yonghui Supermarket, it was also reported that Zhongbai Group would imitate Fat Donglai and was about to restructure its stores. While the outside world is talking a lot, some people are also asking: There are so many supermarkets across the country, why these companies?
As a mentor, Yu Donglai positions himself as "preaching" and "spreading goodness." He once mentioned why he wanted to overhaul Yonghui Supermarket, "Yonghui has made many contributions to China's retail industry, and its later development is too big." We have made some detours and hope that Yonghui will be able to start again through this adjustment.”
Yu Donglai also talked to Chinese entrepreneurs about the original intention of changing Yonghui Supermarket and BBK, “Pang Donglai’s concept is too precious. We can do anything we do with this concept, and we also want to share our experience and methods with more companies, at least to help them make this society less miserable and have more beautiful elements.”
However, Many industry insiders told "City Circle" that companies that have been reformed or are about to be reformed have direct or indirect relationships with Yu Donglai and Lianshang.com. Public information shows that Jiabaile is a student in the seed class of Donglai Research Institute. He has studied with Yu Donglai in 2022, and from the second half of 2023, he will receive assistance from Fat Donglai and 11 other companies in the seed class.
As the leading supermarket chain in Hubei, Zhongbai Group also announced that it will adjust its model according to Fat Donglai. It is also close to this acquaintance. In 2017, Zhongbai Group and Yonghui Supermarket jointly established Yonghui Zhongbai Supermarket. Although Yonghui Supermarket has continued to reduce its shares in Zhongbai Group since 2022, as of now, it still holds 9.86% of Zhongbai Group's shares and is the third largest shareholder. And the relationship between BBK, Yonghui, and Lianshang.com is constantly being cut off and confused.
Sky Eye Check shows that BBK Investment Group Co., Ltd. has a stake in a company listed on the New Third Board called Yihe Network. Lianshang.com is a subsidiary of Yihe Network, and the two companies share the same actual controller Pang Xiaowei. Pang Xiaowei, the actual controller of Lianshang.com, is also the actual controller of Yihe Network. The former holds 60% of the latter's shares.The main business of Yihe Network is training, exhibition services, etc.
"City Jie" further read the prospectus of Yihe Network and found that BBK was originally the fourth largest shareholder of Yihe Network. In 2015, it transferred 6.25% of the shares of Yihe Network to a person named Zhang Haixia. . Zhang Haixia is a shareholder of many BBK companies including BBK Investment Group and BBK Commercial Chain. At the same time, Bubu Investment Group also invested in Shenzhen Julin Chengze Venture Capital Partnership.
Another important point comes. A person named Xie Xiangzhen, while investing in Shenzhen Julin Chengze, also invested in Yonghui Supermarket Co., Ltd. Xie Xiangzhen has an unusual background. He is a former executive of Yonghui Supermarket and the brother-in-law of Zhang Xuansong and Zhang Xuanning. Zhang Xuansong’s brother Zhang Xuanning is another founder of Yonghui Supermarket. In this interlocking capital situation, Yonghui Supermarket is the largest and ranks highest in the industry. Therefore, the fact that it was radically changed by Fat Donglai is particularly touching.
A question that is coming up is: Can Yonghui Supermarket’s explosive reform be rolled out on a large scale across the country?
2, "It is impossible to open 200 stores"
Feng Qing, a former employee of Yonghui Supermarket, when he heard the news about Fat Donglai's sudden change of Yonghui Supermarket, his first reaction was, "This is a good thing." Yu Donglai and Fatty Donglai’s Internet celebrity effect can bring traffic to Yonghui Supermarket. Moreover, Pang Donglai and Yonghui can complement each other. "Pang Donglai has a higher positioning, which is different from Yonghui's overall market. Yonghui Green Label is somewhat similar to Fat Donglai's positioning."
Yonghui Green Label in Feng Qing's mouth, commonly known as Boutique Yonghui, is the brand name of Yonghui Supermarket. A high-end supermarket brand launched in 2010. Yonghui Green Label stores sell better quality products at slightly higher prices. "But it's a pity that when I started doing it, it became less high-quality and more about people's livelihood." Today, as can be seen from the popularity of Yonghui Supermarket's Xinwan Plaza store, Yonghui Supermarket and Fat Donglai have joined forces to It did produce an unusual chemical reaction.
Zhang Xuansong seems to have great trust in Yu Donglai. At the Yonghui Supermarket reshuffle meeting, Zhang Xuansong once said, "From today on, Yonghui will follow Brother Donglai to pursue light, quality, and love." Perhaps in anticipation of today's hot scene, as early as June 6 On the 19th, the day when Yonghui Supermarket Xinwan Plaza store opened, when answering the media’s question of “when will more stores be opened?” Yu Donglai confidently said, “They will be opened one after another, and there may be 20 stores. There will be 20 stores.” 20 stores in Henan have been renovated in this way. Can Yu Donglai’s wish be realized? According to Zhang Lan, a senior retail professional, if the renovation is simply carried out in the Henan area, there will not be a big problem. If the labor costs of a single store, such as wages, increase, it will win reputation and gain some traffic. This will definitely be helpful to Yonghui’s performance.
It is undeniable that Pang Donglai does have an innate advantage in Henan. It has a complete supply chain, provides its own and self-sourced products that are both popular and popular, and has also accumulated an excellent reputation in people's hearts. Many people in Henan have similar trust in Pang Donglai. "In Henan, Pang Donglai is the guarantee of quality. You can buy the products from this supermarket with your eyes closed."
If you want to spread this model to the whole country, "the difficulty is It’s huge.” Yonghui Supermarket has continued to strategically shrink in the past three years. Although the number of stores has decreased significantly from the peak of 1,440, the 2023 annual report shows that Yonghui Supermarket still has 1,000 stores. "For hundreds of thousands of stores, the labor costs are calculated based on adjustments, which is unrealistic." Zhang Lan believes.
After all, Yonghui Supermarket is a listed company, and it also depends on the return on investment. The supermarket giant's cash flow has been tight in recent years. “Yonghui Supermarket has a tight capital chain and is unable to settle payments, which has led us to become more and more cautious in cooperating with it.” A supplier of Yonghui Supermarket in Guangxi told City Circle.
Taking a step back, even if Yonghui Supermarket chooses to launch nationwide, it is very likely that most of the products in the store will be replaced by Pangdong. Because, judging from the popular categories after the overhaul of BBK and Yonghui Supermarkets, most people go there for Pandong’s self-operated products.
China Food Industry Analyst Zhu Danpeng explained to "City Circle" that Fat Donglai is just a regional brand. When it opens a few single stores, it strives for refined in-store management and precise category combinations. ization, as well as humanization of team management, can be achieved on a small scale. "But when it comes to copying to a large chain, nationwide or even global, it is not that difficult."
Feng Qing is more optimistic about the question of whether Yonghui Supermarket can be rolled out nationwide. "If you really recognize this model, it can be replicated on a larger scale." Feng Qing continued to explain to "City Circle", "The key depends on whether Yonghui Supermarket has the determination to change and whether the Fat Donglai model can persist. , whether customer service can be done well or not. This depends on whether Yonghui has a clear positioning. "
Earlier Yonghui Supermarket also learned from others. For example, it went to Japan to learn from Ito-Yokado, and to Hong Kong to seek advice from Dairy Milk International. "It's just that not many people can put it into practice after studying." Feng Qing said frankly. Moreover, "City Circle" learned that while this time it was being radically changed by Fat Donglai, Yonghui Supermarket also made some moves in its stores in some cities, such as Fuzhou and Beijing.
However, compared to the stores in Henan, the changes in the stores in Fuzhou and Beijing are still relatively superficial. Taking a Yonghui supermarket in Xihongmen, Daxing, Beijing, as an example, "Apart from the change in morning working hours from 7 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., there are currently no other obvious changes." A store clerk told City Circle.
Yu Donglai is much more cautious about the issue of scale expansion. Also on June 19, the media once again asked Yu Donglai, "Why don't we open 200 stores (exploding to 200 Yonghui Supermarkets)?" The Internet celebrity boss shook his head and waved his hands and said, "That's impossible, there must be other stores." brands, come together to serve this market. "
In any case, from the current point of view, Yu Donglai and Zhang Xuansong have achieved a win-win situation. Fat Donglai's goods can be sold to Yonghui Supermarket, and Yonghui Supermarket has gained Fat Donglai's popularity and management experience. In addition, as soon as word spread in the market that Zhang Xuansong was going to become Donglai's disciple, Yonghui Supermarket's stock price hit three full daily limits, with an increase of nearly 30%. The stock price rose from 2.3 yuan to a maximum of 2.93 yuan.
The first store of Yonghui Supermarket after the radical reform has performed extremely well for many days in a row. Behind the amplification of the effect of single store rectification, not many people paid attention to the news that "Yonghui Supermarket will close 200 stores nationwide". "The news that Fat Dong came to help Yonghui Supermarket released some positive information to the market and served as a hedge against the news that Yonghui Supermarket was closing its stores." Zhang Lan is also familiar with the public relations industry.
html On the evening of June 18, some retail self-media reported that Yonghui Supermarket will significantly optimize its existing store system in 2024 and plans to close about 200 tail-end stores, accounting for about 20% of existing stores. Yonghui Supermarket responded to multiple media outlets saying, "There is no response to this yet." "This news is not released by the company, but is a market rumor. The company has plans to open or close stores every quarter. The specific content is subject to the company's external release. .”However, there are various signs that the news of store closures is not groundless.
3, The richest man in Minhou, the more anxious he gets, the more chaotic he gets
html At around 9 pm on June 23, Wang Si, a post-90s girl from Zengcheng District, Guangzhou, suddenly wanted to eat watermelon. So, she placed an online order for items from Xintang Wanda Yonghui Supermarket. In her opinion, because orders over 38 yuan can be delivered to your door within one hour, "it's very convenient and more suitable for lazy people like me."However, something unexpected happened to Wang Si. When the deliveryman knocked on the door and handed her something, he said, "I know you often buy Yonghui's things, but this supermarket will be closed next month. You have to be mentally prepared." At that moment, Wang Si was extremely disappointed. . After calming down, Wang Si knew that it was reasonable for Xintang Wanda Yonghui Supermarket to close its store.
Xintang is just a town below Zengcheng District, and its spending power is not strong. Especially in the past two years, people have become more and more cautious when buying things. I don’t know since when, Wang Si also discovered that there were many stores and shops in the surrounding area, and business was bleak due to the reduction in foot traffic. Even Yonghui Supermarket opened in Wanda Mall is no exception.
The bigger impact will begin in 2021. This year, another AEON Mall opened next to Wanda Mall. It is known as Asia's largest comprehensive shopping mall. "This mall has taken away all the mid-to-high-end customer flow." Wang Si told "City Circle" regretfully. Situations like this are happening in other cities as well.
After buying stinky chicken legs in Yonghui Supermarket once, Xiao Yang from Chongqing never went to Yonghui again. The quality control of the fresh food products originally dominated by Yonghui Supermarket is getting worse and worse. Compared with other competing supermarkets, Yonghui's prices are not advantageous, and "the service attitude of the employees is not good either." Xiao Yang complained to "City Circle".
"City Circle" learned that at present, Yonghui Supermarket is still undergoing strategic contraction, and store closures are still continuing. Mainly concentrated in some third- and fourth-tier cities, such as Guangzhou Zengcheng, Chongqing, Guangxi, Sichuan, etc. Taking the main urban area of Chongqing as an example, four Yonghui supermarkets have closed. However, in some big cities, such as Beijing, Yonghui Supermarket is operating reasonably well.
The reason is that Beijing focuses on centralized procurement. It is large enough to cover many supply chain advantages and the quality will be more controllable. "Third and fourth-tier cities mainly focus on regional procurement because the procurement volume is limited, quality control is not strict enough, and there is a lack of long-radius support." Feng Qing explained the reason.
"It is right to reduce the number now, because some stores were opened blindly. If the revenue of a single store is not good, it must be closed." Zhu Danpeng explained. Yonghui Supermarket, which is listed on the A-share market, also had its "highlight moments."
Since its A-share listing in 2010, Yonghui Supermarket’s stock price has continued to rise, reaching a high of 11.72 yuan per share in 2018. The total market value was once as high as 106.4 billion yuan, and it was called the “King of Supermarkets” by the outside world. Zhang Xuansong has also become the richest man in Minhou, Fujian many times, even in 2023, when the strategy continues to shrink.
But in fact, since 2018, when net profits suffered a sharp decline for the first time, Yonghui Supermarket turned around and gradually showed decline. Since 2021, Yonghui Supermarket has embarked on the path of store closures and layoffs. Public information shows that Yonghui Supermarket has closed more than 400 stores with poor performance in three years. Reaching this point was not without warning. The turning point for
actually began in 2015. Feng Qing clearly felt that Yonghui was no longer developing upwards. Although the stock price had not yet responded at that time, internal employees felt that the company's development had encountered a bottleneck period. Not only that, the business differences between the two brothers Zhang Xuansong and Zhang Xuanning have also become obvious.
"The eldest brother wants to build a boutique supermarket green label, and the second brother mainly engages in capital, and later gets involved in specific businesses." Feng Qing explained to "City Circle" that it is also to make the stock price look good and not affect the performance of the listed company. Yonghui will lose money. Life (a subsidiary of Yonghui Yunchuang) was separated, thinking about making money and then coming back.
At the end of 2018, Zhang Xuanning took the new retail business Yonghui Yunchuang and spun off the Yonghui Supermarket system. This caused quite a stir at the time. The key point is that Zhang Xuanning and Zhang Xuansong were originally acting in concert and held a total of 22.17% of Yonghui Supermarket's shares.
But also in 2018, the two terminated their relationship as people acting in concert. It was after this move that both brothers were no longer the largest shareholders of Yonghui Supermarket and lost management control of Yonghui Supermarket. Although Zhang Xuansong and Zhang Xuanning later shook hands and made peace, Yonghui Supermarket had missed the opportunity to overtake in corners.
"With the entry of capital such as JD.com , Tencent, and Milk International, many decisions of Yonghui Supermarket cannot be made by themselves. Because capital needs innovation and topics." Feng Qing believes. It is also since 2015 that Yonghui Supermarket’s internal structure has been continuously adjusted, with the focus constantly switching between regions and headquarters.
From the perspective of Yonghui’s internal employees, the company has been changing, has no precipitation, lacks energy, the organization is a bit scattered, and has lost its ability to execute. An employee joined Yonghui around 2015. In the next nine years, he changed positions basically every year, and the city where he worked kept changing. “There was a colleague who just rented a house in one city and was transferred to another without having time to learn. A city." Feng Qing sighed when talking about his old club.
Along with this, Yonghui Supermarket is unable to achieve 100% of its performance goals.Although it seemed to the outside world at the time that Yonghui Supermarket's overall data was good and continued to grow, only internal employees knew that same-store growth had begun to decline, mainly relying on continued expansion to bring relatively good results.
Unfortunately, Yonghui Supermarket expanded too quickly and scattered at that time. “Including opening stores in Tibet, there is no way to give full play to its scale and supply chain advantages.” Until 2021, Yonghui Supermarket The decline is well known. When Zhang Jingyi, the former secretary to the board of directors of Yonghui Supermarket, resigned this year, he posted on WeChat that Yonghui Supermarket was “going downhill.”
Over the years, Zhang Xuansong has also worked hard and done a lot of things. What impressed Feng Qing deeply was the in-house production of its own brand. For example, mini Yonghui, Yonghui Life, Super Species, etc. Zhang Xuansong also wants to do this well. At that time, in an internal meeting, Zhang Xuansong expressed that he actually hoped to spend the raised money on the supply chain to enhance product competitiveness.
However, what makes Feng Qing feel helpless is that many decisions are made in a rush. When he sees a move in the market, he rushes into it without thorough research. "It's a bit mechanical. When I encounter problems, I don't analyze and solve them properly. As a result, I learn these things very quickly and end them very quickly."
was noisy and lonely. Mini Yonghui, Yonghui Life, Super Species, etc. did not have a good ending in the end. In desperation, Zhang Xuansong, who was once all-powerful, lowered his head and bent down and became Yu Donglai's "disciple". On this side, the matter of Yonghui Supermarket being radically changed by Fat Donglai is yet to be resolved. Zhang Xuansong, the richest man in Minhou, Fujian, still wants to use this to turn the tide.
On the other side, the wheel of the times is still rolling forward.
(Characters Feng Qing, Zhang Lan, Wang Si and Xiao Yang are all pseudonyms.)
author | Tao Ting
editor | Chen Fang
operator | Zhang Daxing
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