Delivery sales are pushing convenience stores to invest in technology
Some have said that the 20-plus-year history of convenience stores in China is a history of long-term competition between local and foreign convenience stores. The entry of foreign convenience stores brought many novel models such as 24-hour operation, fresh food, and supply chain. As 'latecomers' in the convenience store industry, local convenience stores have also shown strong learning ability, absorbing foreign business concepts while gaining insight into local customer preferences, forming their own business characteristics. In recent years, regional convenience stores such as Hunan Xinjiayi, Guangdong Tianfu, and Zhejiang Shizu have emerged as new city landmarks.
The rise of local convenience stores is precisely due to the empowerment of technology, making everything 'lightweight'. As mentioned earlier, local convenience stores can stabilize their territory and form a situation of separate dominance when foreign convenience stores attack, with the biggest advantage being their familiarity with the local area and good offline service. However, the comfort of 'acquaintance transactions' and the incompatibility of traditional e-commerce with the convenience store format have also caused them to miss the wave of internet development. Before the rise of instant retail, the online experience of most local convenience stores was basically zero, and their store information systems and technology levels were 'primitive'. Therefore, those convenience stores that failed in online transformation were likely not because the 'direction was wrong', but because they were not fully prepared.
Concepts changed, but actions lagged. You can't find a new continent with an old map. Without some high-tech equipment, how can you compete with e-commerce that has been struggling in the digital wave for 20 years? In fact, truly successful convenience store brands have all increased their technology investment. Take 36524 as an example. This established company made some digital attempts to cope with the surge in online orders brought by delivery, improving inventory management and picking, achieving 'online and offline inventory synchronization'. Similarly, Wuhan Today also launched a 'store online inventory modifiable' function. Zhou Chenmin revealed: 'When doing delivery, inventory is a big problem. Convenience stores have many short-shelf-life products, which face expiration and near-expiry issues. So we worked with the technical department to create a "store online inventory modifiable" function - the store can manually modify inventory. For example, if fresh milk expires in one day, the system should show online inventory, but because it's actually near expiry, if a customer orders it, we can't deliver it, leading to store cancellations. With this function, the store can manually modify system inventory, alleviating cancellations due to inventory issues and reducing negative reviews.'
In addition, Yuelai Yuxi Convenience Store, to optimize product selection, not only introduced ERP but also invested in developing some big data analysis systems. At the same time, in the instant retail field, it also participated in Meituan's 'New Supply' project. These various technology investments have further improved the operational efficiency of convenience stores.
In Liu Baojian's view, as a retail format, offline, consumers can feel the difference of each store through external factors such as decoration, 'but online you can't feel this; the only thing you can feel is service. Online images, naming, and search optimization are basic skills. In terms of service, more effort can be put into depth and breadth. For example, response speed and picking accuracy are all service.'
As the instant retail industry becomes increasingly popular, merchants will face more competition in the future. For regional convenience stores, not only old rivals like foreign convenience stores, but also large supermarkets with completely different positioning, mom-and-pop grocery stores, and even emerging discount stores and collection stores, will all move online for a new round of competition.
Retail is always a long-term business, and instant retail is essentially retail, so it is naturally the same. Instant retail is not mysterious; the so-called 'online' is nothing more than an extension of the store's own business philosophy. The banners on the city walls change, but the water on the wall always flows east. For convenience stores rooted in the local area, keeping up with demand changes and operating patiently for the long term is always the only way.