Nearly 1500 stores have digitally "loaded" changes, and Guangdong 7-Eleven has ushered in new changes.

29-year-old Guangdong 7-Eleven Huan Xin

In this cooperation with multi-point Dmall, at present, nearly 7-Eleven 1500 stores and three distribution centers in Guangdong Province have all launched the multi-point retail joint cloud, forming the whole process and all-factor digitalization from consumers, stores, supply chains, franchisees, warehousing and logistics to headquarters management. For Guangdong 7-Eleven, this is not a simple decision.

As the sole distributor of 7-Eleven in Guangdong, Guangdong 71(Guangdong Yi Sai Convenience Store Co., Ltd.) opened its first 7-Eleven convenience store in Shenzhen Special Zone on 1992. After 29 years of development, Guangdong 7-Eleven has opened nearly 1500 convenience stores in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai.

"The most direct pain point is that our traditional system can't adapt to the current market." Talking about the original intention of this cooperation, Lei Yu, the digital transformation manager of Guangdong 7-Eleven, bluntly said that the traditional system of Guangdong 7-Eleven has been used for more than 20 years. During this period, the retail market in China changed rapidly, and consumers demanded higher convenience. "On the basis of the original traditional system, we have added many functions and different scenarios, including smart payment, take-out and membership management. However, these new functions are relatively independent, and the data is difficult to obtain, which leads to the complicated operation of our store and needs to be operated in different links, which ultimately greatly reduces the customer experience. So in the process of tinkering, we think it's time to change a tool. In view of the growing challenges in the convenience store industry, on the one hand, it is in line with the trend, on the other hand, it is also an urgent need for us to change. "

According to Lei, it took only half a year to complete the new system of all stores and distribution centers in Guangdong 7-Eleven after the pilot stores. Because convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, it is not easy to switch systems. "In order to minimize the impact on the daily operation of the store, our switching process is carried out at night. 1.500 stores were switched in 23 batches, and the highest record was switching 1.20 stores overnight. " Lei said that in the process of store system transformation, staff training is also very important. It is reported that in the process of replacing the system, Guangdong 7-Eleven * * experienced 1 14 training days and trained more than 2,400 employees.

When it is fully digitized.

Half a year's hard work was not in vain. The digitalization of Guangdong 7-Eleven is not a simple switching system, but involves all aspects.

According to Wen, managing director of Guangdong 7-Eleven, Guangdong 7-Eleven upgraded and established a new membership system in understanding customer needs. Subdivide members based on data, form more accurate consumer portraits, and finely manage omni-channel members; In terms of improving the floor efficiency of stores, multi-point retail United Cloud directly connects with third-party platforms such as Meituan and Hungry through a system similar to the take-away intermediate platform, and the online and offline inventory is real-time, greatly reducing the situation of out-of-stock returns and greatly improving the shopping experience of 7-Eleven O2O merchants. The growth of online sales has expanded the daily sales of stores and improved the overall floor efficiency of stores; In terms of human effects, the new system optimizes all the work links at the store end, especially making it mobile and online. Many store management tasks can be operated by mobile devices, and tasks are pushed to people, so that everyone is online, everything is online and always online, which greatly improves the work efficiency of shop assistants.

In addition, in the back-end supply chain, 7-Eleven has also completed the digital transformation in Foshan, Dongguan and Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, and all of them have switched to multi-point intelligent warehousing logistics management systems. Equipment such as supplier self-service sign-in screen, receiving sorting monitoring large screen and so on have been added in the warehouse. By applying digital technology and intelligent hardware equipment, different sorting modes are provided for different scenes, which improves the overall logistics efficiency, improves the sorting efficiency by 30%, and shortens the average working time of employees by 2 hours.

"It can be said that our digital transformation has achieved phased results." Wen believes that the launch of multi-point retail joint cloud is only the beginning of the new journey of 7-Eleven digitalization in Guangdong, and there is still a long way to go in the future.

The advanced road of convenience store

In fact, the digital journey of Guangdong 7-Eleven is a microcosm of the current convenience store industry. For the convenience store industry, digitalization has become the only way.

"First of all, a convenience store is a retail format that can quickly respond to customers' needs. Therefore, to be a convenience store, we must understand the needs of customers and know their preferences; Second, most convenience stores are located in crowded business districts, and the rent is expensive, which requires higher floor efficiency to offset the rising rent cost; Third, convenience stores have fewer people and are open 24 hours a day, so it is difficult to recruit workers and the labor cost is high. It is also necessary to achieve higher human efficiency to offset the high labor costs and alleviate the shortage of manpower in stores. Fourth, the area of convenience stores is relatively small, the speed of commodity circulation must be fast, and the requirements for supply chain and logistics efficiency are relatively high. " This paper holds that it is the only way for the industry to digitally transform clients, stores and logistics terminals to improve the efficiency of the whole chain, and it is also the best solution to solve the pain points of convenience stores at present.

Compared with supermarkets, the digitalization of convenience stores is different in both product composition and store management. Ren Zhongwei, a partner of Duodian Dmall, said that supermarkets have a high proportion of fresh food, a large number of people, and the operation of stores is relatively complicated, and their standardization degree is different from that of convenience stores. However, every store in Guangdong 7-Eleven is not standardized and it is difficult to copy. In terms of supply chain management and store services, convenience stores generally have cooked food and fresh food, accounting for a high proportion of sales, but the proportion of fresh food in supermarkets is not so high, and fresh food is relatively high.

"Store service and supply chain are different, including marketing. The customers of convenience stores are mainly young people, who solve their three meals a day and some daily beverage consumption, so the marketing methods are different. Therefore, based on the digital experience of the original supermarket, Multi-Point Dmall has specifically subdivided a product-Multi-Point MiniOS, which provides services for convenience stores, especially small shops and large chains, and will be different in supply chain, shops and marketing. " Ren Zhongwei said that after the cooperation with Guangdong 7-Eleven, the system of multipoint Dmall faced many new requirements and challenges, which gave it a better opportunity to improve its small stores and large chain systems.

It is worth noting that in view of the huge number of convenience store franchisees, in order to strengthen the collaborative efficiency of Guangdong 7-Eleven franchisees, Multi-point Retail United Cloud has specially developed a franchisee system module for Guangdong 7-Eleven, and established exclusive information files for franchisees, which runs through the whole life cycle of franchise and development. Franchisees can manage stores online in the mobile system, see the operating and sales status of all stores in real time, track and handle abnormal problems, and support their own operating expenses. Store management is completely mobile, real-time, digital and intelligent. It is reported that Guangdong 7-Eleven currently accounts for about 30% of franchise stores.

29-year-old Guangdong 7-Eleven, with the support of digitalization, has no plans for large-scale expansion, and is still steadily strengthening the quality improvement and efficiency improvement of existing stores. According to the article, Guangdong 7-Eleven will maintain the speed of opening 150-200 stores every year, with the emphasis on pursuing quality rather than quantity. "If you want to open a store for profit, you must find your own rhythm and open a store steadily. We expect that in the next few years, we will follow this rhythm and will not be driven by competitors in the market or competitors with venture capital background, or we will follow our plan steadily. "