Four seas network news, recently, unmanned shelf head enterprise Guo Xiaomei into the outage storm. Although Guo Xiaomei said that the business development was normal, according to the Beijing News reporter, Guo Xiaomei has issued a nationwide notice on the suspension of unmanned shelves since April this year, and plans to lay off more than 2000 people. At present, businesses in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other places have stagnated, and warehouses in many cities have been emptied. As early as this year, Guo Xiaomei was accused of defaulting tens of millions of payments to suppliers, and a large area of the country was out of stock, and its capital chain was broken or had early signs.
In fact, guoxiaomei is only the epitome of the development of the unmanned shelf industry. Recently, the unmanned shelf business, including convenience shopping and scarlet convenience, has also been reported to be downsizing or withdrawing. It is generally believed in the industry that excessive pursuit of capital, blind expansion of enterprises and no clear profit model are the main factors hindering the development of the unmanned shelf, which is not optimistic about its long-term development.
1. Employees report that the business of beishangshenhang has stopped
On May 4, a picture with the content of "Guo Xiaomei will exit the market and consumers can handle snacks and shelves by themselves" was circulated online. Guoxiaomei later issued a statement saying that the online documents are not the work of the company's officials and employees. At present, the company's business development is normal.
However, the Beijing News reporter learned from many sources that Guo Xiaomei's business in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other cities has been suspended, the warehouses in Suzhou, Xuzhou, Shaoxing and other places have been emptied, and almost all the staff in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places have been disbanded.
Li Chen is an employee of Shanghai Branch of Guo Xiaomei, who is responsible for the background operation of fresh refrigerator project. According to him, as early as April 25, colleagues discussed the failure of corporate financing. On April 26, the Shanghai Branch immediately held a meeting to inform the unmanned shelf to stop operation, and to transform the joint venture with a third party. This notice was issued by Guo Xiaomei. Li Chen said that "the company didn't say that clearly" about the layoff, involving more than 2000 people, leaving only more than 20 people in Chengdu headquarters. But at present, the background of the fresh freezer has been closed, the shelves can scan the code, but no one has managed it, and all suppliers have stopped cooperation.
According to Zhang Jun, a picker at guoxiaomei's Shenzhen warehouse, on the afternoon of April 26, he and several pickers were also dismissed. The warehouse supervisor told them "no need to deliver goods. It's a holiday.". In addition, the head of a third-party logistics company responsible for the spot replenishment of guoxiaomei in Shenzhen also received the notice of suspension of replenishment.
In the afternoon of May 3 and the morning of May 4, the reporter of Beijing News visited Guo Xiaomei's Beijing office located in Zhongguancun (6.390, 0.02, 0.31%) South Road eco zhongkeaike for three times. The company's gate was always locked and there was no light in the room. A staff member of guoxiaomei's Public Relations Department explained that it was on duty that day, but all the staff were sent out. However, according to the building's security and cleaning personnel, Guo Xiaomei recently only had the front desk and a leader who came to the company from time to time, and did not see other employees.
Wang Hongfeng, supply chain manager of a second tier city in Xiaomei, also told the Beijing News on May 4 that Hangzhou employees signed a labor termination contract, the leaders of Suzhou and Shanghai regions have also left their jobs, warehouses in Hangzhou, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Shaoxing and other places have been emptied, and shelves in Beijing and Shenzhen have ceased to operate.
2. The financial crisis has foreboding
According to the public information, Guo Xiaomei was founded in June 2017, and has successively obtained over 500 million yuan of investment from many well-known institutions such as IDG and LanChi venture capital. In September 2017, guoxiaomei and the intelligent retail container tomato convenience strategy merged, becoming the top enterprise in the field of unmanned shelves.
In March this year, Yan Limin, founder and CEO of guoxiaomei, said publicly that the goal of guoxiaomei is to establish the largest office retail network in China. At present, the unmanned shelf has entered nearly 100 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu and Hangzhou. The number of terminal points continues to grow by more than 300% every month. In the future, the business will also cover shelves, intelligent containers, mini convenience stores and other terminals.
However, under many halos, Guo Xiaomei is already in danger. Many of its supply chain managers and warehouse staff told the Beijing news that since the Spring Festival this year, the shortage of guoxiaomei is particularly obvious, and the financial crisis has been foreboding.
As a supply chain manager in a first tier city of Guo Xiaomei, Chen Guang went through the resignation formalities at the end of February this year. According to his recollection, when Guo Xiaomei was out of stock nationwide, it owed tens of millions of yuan to its suppliers and about one million yuan to its city.
'I've felt something wrong since February. "Wang Hongfeng told the Beijing news that at that time, Guo Xiaomei's sales staff left in large numbers, while in more than 10 distribution cities in North China and Northeast China, only Harbin and Tianjin were not out of stock, while other cities were out of stock more than 50%. In addition, he also learned from many colleagues close to the company's core figures that the company's alleged 500 million yuan financing actually only received 350 million yuan, which "has burned almost.". '
In Chen Guang's view, the unmanned shelf industry is a business that tests the quality of consumers and the sense of responsibility of front-end sales. On the one hand, the payment of open shelf depends on self-awareness, and the theft rate is high; on the other hand, the sales expansion point is not strictly implemented in accordance with the company's regulations, and a large number of low turnover and high cargo damage points bring great operating pressure to guoxiaomei.
According to Wang Hongfeng, guoxiaomei requires shelves to be installed in the closed office area with more than 30 people, but the actual location is seriously fake. There are 5600 locations in the second tier cities, nearly half of which are unqualified. Kindergartens, red wine warehouses, automobile 4S stores, etc. have been arranged. Low turnover and high cargo damage have become common problems. Later, the company checked and removed thousands of problem shelves in a month, including 41 fake points of one sales person.
Average loss in March or over 20 million yuan
According to a purchase list of Guo Xiaomei issued by Chen Guang to the reporter of Beijing News on January 12 this year, the purchase cost of 2300 Guo Xiaomei shelves in the city on that day was 19429.51 yuan. If it is calculated based on the 22 working days per month, 10% higher gross profit rate of retail industry and no damage to goods, the monthly average turnover of each shelf of guoxiaomei is about 204.38 yuan, and the gross profit is only 20.44 yuan / month. However, if it is calculated according to the cost of 30 yuan for every 3 days of replenishment at that time, it will lose 279.56 yuan per shelf month. Guo Xiaomei said in a statement on April 26 that it has 100000 shelves nationwide, which means its monthly average operating loss will exceed 27.956 million yuan.
If the point expansion and new shelves are included, the cost of guoxiaomei will be higher. Take Chen Guang's first tier city as an example. It costs 1500 yuan to 3700 yuan to add a new shelf. If the lowest cost is 1500 yuan, the laying cost of guoxiaomei's 100000 shelves will be at least 150 million yuan.
Therefore, in spite of the basic wages of employees, investment in fixed assets and damage to goods, guoxiaomei's 100000 shelf operation for four months has brought a loss of 260 million yuan only for laying and operation.
"Unmanned shelves have a high demand for the supply chain, but when developing the location, Gome did not consider the issue of replenishment and distribution. The cost of market competition is not included. The monthly distribution cost in Hangzhou alone is more than 200000 yuan. "Wang Hongfeng said that although Guo Xiaomei later determined whether to replenish according to the order quantity, the more dispersed shelf distribution also pushed up the distribution cost.
In addition, Wang Hongfeng believes that there are problems in guoxiaomei's procurement system. At first, there were only 4 or 5 people in guoxiaomei who were responsible for the purchase of goods, shelves and other products. The ability to select products was poor. Some of the long-term best-selling goods were not enough. The short-term goods such as ham sausage and instant noodles were not sold out. Only corn sausage and ham sausage weighed over 10 million yuan, and finally they could only be sold at a low price. Although later, guoxiaomei turned to purchase in different regions, but because the payment was not in place, it was faced with the risk of goods shortage.
According to Lai Yang, President of Beijing Jingshang Circulation Strategy Research Institute, the operation pressure of the unmanned shelf mainly lies in that the enterprise has not returned to the retail nature and has not found a low-cost way to obtain income. In the absence of a clear profit forecast before blindly seizing the spot, can only burn money. Once the capital chain breaks, the enterprise will face a survival crisis.
4. The transformation of e-commerce is not good
As for layoffs, business suspension and other issues, Guo Xiaomei replied to the reporter of Beijing News on May 6 that the company is making strategic adjustment, including personnel contraction plan, but it does not mean that there are problems in the company, it is only a phased goal change. The company will continue to promote off-line shelves, explore the transition from 'self operated heavy mode' to 'joint operation with third parties and regional partnership light asset mode', and change to e-commerce operation.
According to the report, Guo Xiaomei will adopt the mode of "combining boxes and groups, and collecting by the head of the group", focusing on the e-commerce with the office scene as the core.
For Guo Xiaomei's transformation, Lai Yang, President of Beijing Business Circulation Strategy Research Institute, thinks that although it is possible to match orders in the office scene, its supply and consumer scale are limited, so it is difficult to form a model of directly matching with manufacturers, unless you burn money. Wang Liyang, a community business research expert, is also not optimistic about Guo Xiaomei's group model. 'the office is not a high consumption scene, everyone is working, but in fact, it can't do the scale of a lot of groups. '