Shanghai local shopping mall “Lianhua Supermarket” is using retail transformation to reverse its traditional image and performance.

On May 30, the 29th anniversary celebration of Lianhua Supermarket Co., Ltd. (Lianhua Supermarket, 0980.HK), a subsidiary of Bailian Group, General Manager of Lianhua Supermarket Xu Tao told reporters that the company’s “brand renewal” activities since 2018 have been shown for the first time, and has made progress in all aspects of digitalization, membership system, fresh retail, etc., and has achieved continuous sales for the first time in nearly 6 years. increase.


29th Anniversary of Lianhua Supermarket, Dong Gang, Deputy General Manager of Lianhua Co., Ltd., Tang Hao, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Lianhua Co., Ltd., Lianhua Xu Tao, general manager of shares, and Zhong Xiaobing, executive deputy general manager of Lianhua (from left to right)

Public information shows that the predecessor of Lianhua Supermarket was Lianhua Commercial, founded in May 1991, is the first supermarket company in Shanghai featuring development of chain operations. It was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as H shares on June 27, 2003. It is the first Yulian A Chinese retail supermarket chain company listed on the Stock Exchange.

As a subsidiary of Shanghai Bailian Group, Lianhua Supermarket has developed into one of the top ten chains in China, with large-scale comprehensive supermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores in the country Outlets, its brands include Century Lianhua, Lianhua Supermarket and Kuike convenience. According to public information, as of the end of 2019, the total number of stores of Lianhua Supermarket and its subsidiaries was 3352 stores, of which the most were in Shanghai with 1,944 stores.

After the listing of Hong Kong stocks in 2003, Lianhua Supermarket reached its peak performance in 2013, with a turnover of 30.383 billion yuan and a net profit attributable to shareholders of 530 million yuan. The impact of e-commerce and the backwardness of the traditional model, the business began to decline, net profit began to decline since 2013, and sustained losses after 2015.

With the unsatisfactory operating conditions in recent years, Lianhua Supermarket adjusted the chain supermarketCity business operations, and formally proposed the “brand renewal” in 2018, drastically shut down the loss-making stores, promote the upgrading and transformation of existing stores, control the costs of personnel, rent, hydropower, etc., online and offline business integration, Promote the implementation of the “home” project and so on.

Starting in 2018, the company’s various operating indicators began to bottom out. In 2018, the company opened 314 new stores, the largest number since 2013. In 2019, the company made persistent efforts to open 316 new stores, including 7 large-scale comprehensive supermarkets, 250 supermarkets, and 59 convenience stores.


Lianhua Supermarket ’s high-level off-site live show with goods

With the closure of stores, cost optimization and new retail transformation, the performance of Lianhua Supermarket has improved significantly. Xu Tao told the surging news reporter, “Lianhua Supermarket has started to reduce losses since it encountered problems in 2013, but now we are reducing losses every year. In the past, the reduction of losses was based on the reduction of costs, but the first time in 2019 is because of the comprehensive The increase in revenue has brought us the trend of reducing losses. Two years ago, Lianhua Supermarket has realized the turning point of sales, and we hope to reach the turning point of profit as soon as possible. “

According to Lianhua Supermarket ’s 2019 annual report, Lianhua Supermarket ’s full-year turnover in 2019 was 25.895 billion yuan, an increase of 1.85% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders was 378 million yuan, excluding the first application of Hong Kong Financial Reporting Standard No. 16 The impact of “lease” reduced the net profit loss attributable to shareholders by 152 million yuan.

Affected by the epidemic this year, dining out has decreased, and traditional supermarkets have been widely sought after to protect people ’s livelihood supplies. According to Xu Tao, the supermarket business of Lianhua Supermarket has performed well in the past few months. The performance of the standard supermarket has double-digit growth and the passenger flow is stable. In addition, the epidemic will not slow it down. It will continue to grow at a rate of about 100 stores a year, and this year plans to launch about 50 digital stores to speed up online and offline integration services.

At the same time, in response to the“ May 5th Shopping Festival ”in Shanghai, since the launch of the event, Lianhua Supermarket has issued a total of about 7.9 million consumer vouchers with a total value of nearly 200 million yuan, driving about 540 million Yuan’s sales.

It is reported that Bailian Group, the parent company of Lianhua Supermarket, is actively promoting the digital transformation of all its business formats, hoping to be an e-commerce platform within the next five years GMV (Commodity Transaction Value) reached 30 billion yuan, digital members reached 20 million, and digital stores can cover 100%, including the home business of Lianhua Supermarket.

Xu Tao pointed out that Lianhua Supermarket is also further developing its digital business. At present, the “home” business accounts for 10% of the overall business. In the future, it is hoped that this proportion can be increased to 20%. “At the same time, we will launch 50 on the basis of the original stores this year. Digital store, digital operation of China and Taiwan, so that online and offline ‘one stock’, back-end connectivity. At present, electronic price tags and other technical plans are applied to digital stores to obtain big data and reduce manual investment. “Xu Tao said.

In order to promote the development of e-commerce business and the construction of membership system, Lianhua Supermarket is also actively experimenting with various methods such as online interaction and live broadcast.

In early May, Lianhua Supermarket held a “Light Up Dream Dinner” event online to encourage consumers to show off their cooking skills online. Since May 7 Since its launch, the official micro-tweets have reached nearly 10 million tweets, the number of participants has reached nearly 200, the official micro-fans have increased by 366%, the event exposure has exceeded 40 million, and the reach has reached nearly 8 million.

In terms of live broadcasting, Lianhua Supermarket started live broadcasting on the iBailian platform for the first time on May 19, and the number of views exceeded 10,000 in just 19 minutes. On May 30, to celebrate Lianhua ’s 29th anniversary and The “Bright Dream Dinner” event ended successfully. In the Bailian Shopping Center in Central, Xu Tao, general manager of Lianhua Supermarket, and Tang Hao, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Lianhua Supermarket, also attended the live broadcast and brought the goods in person.