Retailers' "Light Assets" Mode Hidden Danger Gradually Shows The Combination Of Formats To Test The Comprehensive Strength.

In the face of the price war of domestic electricity supplier industry, there are four cases of smoke and smoke, and the tradition of "entity shop" is a bit of a hero's old age.

Reporters visited a number of retail companies in Shenzhen, found that in today's cost increase, the industry downturn, has helped many retail enterprises to successfully achieve the layout of the national "light asset" mode of hidden danger gradually.

In the past year, there has been a sharp decline in retail business performance, forced closure of stores and relocation from central business circles. Meanwhile, capital intensive projects such as increasing the proportion of private property, entering commercial real estate, and entering online shopping centers have been frequently launched.

Insiders pointed out that retail enterprises continue to expand the pace of store expansion is slowing down, and leasing based light assets operation has gradually lost its edge.

Retailers in the "meager profit era" have to make a choice: continue to expand their assets rapidly or seek other ways to resist market risks.

Hidden dangers of light assets

"At the beginning of the year, when the internal meeting was held, the boss was still dissatisfied with the new store's opening speed for the annual performance."

A retail industry secretaries said that this year's industry development is far beyond the company's expectations.

For traditional retailers,

The mode has always been an effective strategy for many enterprises to realize scale management and remote development.

Take Tianhong shopping mall as an example. At present, more than 50 of its stores are open except for a small number of private properties such as Xiamen the Atlantic and Shennan Tianhong.

The speed of opening new stores has become an important concern of researchers in the capital market for commercial chain enterprises.

However, the rise of rent poses a challenge to the mode of light asset expansion.

Looking at the periodic reports of listed companies such as Tianhong mall and Ren Ren Le, the rent increase has become a topic of common concern for enterprises.

The 2011 Annual report shows that the rental market has continued to rise, making the rental of new store units rising, and the rental contract's increasing rent agreement also makes the annual rent increase naturally.

Tianhong mall said that in the first half of 2012, the retail industry continued to slump, and the cost of labor, electricity, water and rentals continued to rise.

In fact, for retail enterprises, once the lease of the shops expires,

The survival will be directly threatened.

The large commercial lease period is usually 10 to 20 years, while the small business contract period is shorter.

In November 2011, Tianhong store in Liyang, Changzhou, was closed for less than 1 years because of the default of the rental housing property company. The Tianhong shopping center therefore made up 33 million 490 thousand yuan in terms of compensation for employees, supplier compensation and decoration fees which were not amortized. In May 2012, Bajia was closed to the TASTE grade supermarket in Shanghai for more than a year due to the expiration of the lease. In July 2012, WAL-MART closed the Xiamen Oriental shop because of the rent problem with the owner.

With the increase of uncertain factors, the rapid expansion of the stores that used to leverage light assets levers is gradually swallowing the profits of enterprises.

The 2012 semi annual report shows that the company's net profit in the 1-6 month is -5776.51 million, which is 137.66% lower than that in the same period last year. The growth rate of Tianhong shopping malls has declined from 2011 to the previous quarter, and the company's quarterly revenue growth in 2011 has been 34.4%, 30.2%, 25.5% and 23.2% respectively.

In the first half of this year, net profit increased by -13.34%.

Northeast Securities pointed out that since 2011, the growth rate of Hong Kong's profits has been lower than expected, indicating that there are still some hidden troubles in the company's operation process, such as relatively concentrated stores and uncontrollable leasing modes.

Coincidentally, for the first half of 2012, the performance of the problem turned out to be a problem. The explanation given by Ren Yue is that the sale of old stores and the extension and loss of new stores have exceeded expectations.

Affected by sales performance, part

The pace of expansion has begun to slow down.

There were 24 new stores in 2011, 14 more than those in 2010, while in the first six months of 2012, the number of newly opened stores was only 5, and in the same period, 5 stores were closed for the reason of the business circle cultivation and the owners' business in the same period of 2010.

Combination of multiple formats to test comprehensive strength

"I like to visit here, the shopping environment is very good, many times more attendants than customers, but I rarely buy things, because the price is not very cost-effective."

What the consumer Mr. He said is the human and human home appliance house, which is located in the front of Shenzhen, which is located in the front of the human music headquarters.

The reporter came to the shop to see that some of the mobile phone and computer area are still 00 of the consumer in the selection of products; and in the large part of the home sales, few customers are patronized.

In the context of the convergence of strategic layout of national retail enterprises, the implementation effect is particularly important.

The mixed operation mode has become an important strategy for retailers to innovate their formats and layout regional markets.

Hua Runwan family's OLE, BLT, VanGO, joy song and other multi brand formats have been copied in different places after the success of the water trial in Shenzhen; Tianhong has launched the high-end brand "Jun Shang department store", and plans to reproduce the monarch mode in Xiamen and Nanchang; the year old treasure store has not only launched the 24 hour convenience store, but also the main brand Smart boutique living hall.

According to the logic of format mixing, each format can complement each other in the regional market, thereby freeing up the biggest profit space.

However, whether the format combination will play an optimized role will test the comprehensive strength of the enterprise.

Market participants say that some retailers' "one-stop shopping mall" mode is too long, and the positioning of their formats is not clear. There is a risk of becoming a supermarket theme. At the same time, the laying of diversified formats and consumption of large amounts of business funds can not easily become a profit growth point if it can not quickly become a profit growth point.

Public information shows that in 2011, the gross profit margin of main business and the gross profit margin of department stores fell by 0.76% and 1.7% respectively compared with the same period last year. In the first half of 2012, the gross profit margin of people's main business and department store counters fell by 0.37% and 1.36% respectively.

The UBS report also pointed out that the shopping mall mode of "supermarket + small department +X+ snack snacks" is a lack of flagship category, so that the extension of the company will not be effective in the short term.

At the same time, in the highly competitive retail industry, location capability and shopping experience have a great impact on a store. The strategic vision and industry judgment of the management are particularly important.

"Although two stores are in the same business circle, the popularity of enterprises is almost the same, but I still have more time to choose Huaqiang North Mao industry rather than Shennan Tianhong."

Consumer Liu Xiaojie said that although commercial chain enterprises seem to have little difference at first glance, the shopping experience may be quite different.

Reporters came to the Tianhong and Maoming stores in Huaqiang North Business District, and found that there was a clear gap between the two categories in terms of category structure, mall positioning and promotion strategy, and the traffic volume of Maoming industry was significantly higher than that of Tianhong Department store.

Mr. Sun, "old Shenzhen", said that Shennan Tianhong used to be different from maiye Huaqiang North flagship store. Later, the Shennan rainbow location in the street moved and the influence of the new store was not as good as before.

According to public information, Shennan Tianhong mall is the first shopping mall opened by Tianhong. The property of Shennan Tianhong shopping center was demolished in July 2008, and the original site was built in the landmark building "China Aviation Plaza". The Tianhong shopping center plans to set up high-end department stores after the completion of "China Aviation Plaza".

The company expects that the closure of Shennan Tianhong mall will result in a reduction in operating profit of 75 million yuan per year.

However, in the past four years, China Aviation Plaza has not been completed yet. The high-end department store planned on the Shennan rainbow site is far from being expected.

Risk prevention plan is imminent.

In the face of the increasing rent pressure and industry adjustment pattern, retailers begin to expand their capabilities, increase their own property, get involved in products and try online shopping centers.

In order to enhance the ability to resist risks, more retail enterprises began to exert their strength in their own property.

In 2011, Tianhong shopping center purchased property from Fujian Xiamen and Jiangxi Nanchang to open a store through its subsidiary of real estate operation. The 536 million yuan of Guang Bai group purchased a plot of Nansha sands in the South China Sea, and planned to build a new department store within two years. The first phase was invested in 700 million yuan, and the total amount of the project amounted to 2 billion yuan.

In fact, the integration of retail and real estate is not the recent start, but the buffering effect of this model on rent cost has only been revealed in recent years.

Mae Yip International Public information shows that as of the end of 2011, the Group owned property accounted for 63.5% of the total construction area, the ratio of rental related parties was 27.3%, and the proportion of independent third party leasing was 9.1%.

In the context of rising domestic rental costs, from 2009 to 2011, the number of stores in Maui international increased from 22 to 37, an increase of 68.18%; rental expenditure increased from HK $131 million to HK $216 million, an increase of 64.88%; rents accounted for a proportion of total operating income from 6.1% in 2009 to 5.2% in 2011.

"If a retail enterprise builds its own property, if there is no strong brand resources and professional team operation, it is easy to encounter bigger problems."

Insiders pointed out that although the purchase of self owned property can deal with the uncertain risk of rent, whether it can withstand the capital demand of heavy assets to enterprises is a challenge that must be faced in the development of its own property.

In addition to entering real estate projects, retailers have begun investing in other areas to balance revenue.

In July 2012, Xinhua Department store and Tianhong mall announced that they would use their idle funds to buy short-term profits.

Meanwhile, news of cross shareholdings among peers is frequent.

Yonghui supermarket semi annual report revealed that the company holds 2 million 160 thousand and 298 shares of people's happiness, Maui international has entered the big business shares.

The above phenomenon causes the industry to speculate on the merger and acquisition of retailers.

However, it remains to be seen whether the investment of peer stock will bring an effective return to the retailer.

Yonghui supermarket held a cost of 13.88 yuan per person before June 30, 2012. The price of Yonghui supermarket was 28.67% at the closing price of 9.90 yuan per person in August 31st.

In addition, due to the obvious impact of e-commerce on physical retailers, many enterprises are also considering trying online shopping mall.

Retail enterprises such as Ren Ren Yue and Tianhong shopping center have opened up online shopping platforms to try to share the "cake" in the online shopping market.

In 2010, online rainbow officially launched trial operation, and everyone's Tesco was formally launched in December 26, 2011.

However, due to the influence of supporting logistics system and talent system, physical retailers are still facing multiple tests to test water e-commerce.

One of the major problems facing online rainbow and everyone's Tesco is the scope of distribution. The two have even adopted the same statement: "only the distribution service in the Shenzhen area will be opened, and the distribution services in other cities will be opened in the later stage."

Analysts believe that if the investment is too radical or improper integration online and offline, retailers will not be able to obtain effective positive returns, and may even fall into a "dead end" of online and offline business conflicts.

"I can't keep up with the market changes. I'm afraid I can only wait for death. If we rush ahead, we may face greater risks.

Let's see. "

A retail executive sent such a feeling.