Carrefour Wal-Mart’s exposure to a variety of illegal tactics is not surprising

Is it disregard for the interests of Chinese consumers or do as the Romans do? Why are Carrefour and Wal-Mart, the world’s leading commercial retail giants, experiencing frequent outbreaks in China?

At the beginning of last year, Carrefour had been severely punished by the National Development and Reform Commission for alleged price fraud. Wal-Mart had been fined with more than 3 million yuan in fines and 15 days of suspension for rectification of the sale of ordinary cold fresh pork in 12 stores in Chongqing. At the CCTV “3·15” party this year, Carrefour toppled its own feet due to the misplaced price of the three yellow chickens.

In fact, what was exposed was only the tip of the iceberg. Well-known retail companies such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour had been subject to administrative penalties by the industrial and commercial departments in many places for various illegal acts.

As a senior person who has been deeply cultivating in the retail industry for nearly 10 years, Wang Minghua (a pseudonym) confessed to “First Financial Daily” that “multinational companies with strict rules and regulations, such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart, can frequently perform 'little tricks' in China. The retail companies of other chain brands? We are not surprised to see such news.” He believes that behind these problems is the retail industry’s vicious circle of hard indicators and poor management of all aspects of work.

Tricks

In supermarket stores, tricky tricks can be roughly divided into "explicit techniques" and "implicit techniques."

Carrefour's three yellow chicken incident is an explicit approach, that is, the price of the store's goods and goods placed there are specified positions, the general price tag is left-aligned, and will be placed by the tally. However, because there are at least 20,000 kinds of goods in a 10,000-square-meter store, the tally of the salesman is simply too busy. Therefore, if the goods are intentionally or unintentionally, there will be cases where the goods and the price are inconsistent. A small number of shopkeepers will deliberately place low-priced goods at high prices. Unclear customers will naturally be able to buy bargains at high prices.

Another common "dominant technique" is when the cashier brushes the goods several times, resulting in a higher total price. However, the disadvantage of "explicit techniques" is that they are easy to operate but leave evidence for careful consumers. Such as price tags and cash receipts. Carrefour’s price fraud broke out last year.

The "hidden trick" is more "safe" for businesses, and many tricks. For example, Wal-Mart's counterfeit green pork incident is because it is difficult for customers to distinguish between green organic and non-green organic pork by naked eye. Therefore, as long as the cutters in the fresh cabinets of the stores make some hands and feet when cutting, it is easy to confuse ordinary meat and meat. Green meat.

In addition, the return of expired or expiring goods to the warehouse and re-lamination of the warranty label is another “hidden method” that is publicly disclosed in the industry, and therefore, from time to time under strict supervision and labelling The “premature” food incident can demonstrate how high the probability of this technique is used.

"There are so many things that are falsely packaged. Many fresh foods and foods have a shelf life. If they are not sold, they will be a loss to retailers and suppliers. Therefore, many supermarket stores are operating in such dark boxes and all Labels and packaging re-postings are all happening in the background, and customers simply can't get the evidence, so the frequency with which this technique is used by the stores is still quite high,” Wang Minghua pointed out.

Root cause problems

From the cashier, the tallyber, the warehouse manager, and even the supplier, all kinds of tricks can appear in the retailer. Although the “three-five fights” that are made more often cannot be used for personal gain, such incidents cannot be ended.

“For all staff members, the most crucial significance is assessment. The assessment of retailers is mainly sales indicators and damage indicators. The higher the sales and the lower the damage, the better the performance can be achieved. Will be punished or difficult to promote.And evaluation will be in accordance with different commodity classification, such as fresh area, daily chemical area, etc., and will also be assessed according to the floor, such as managers of all floors will have their own performance indicators." Miss Wang, who is the manager of a foreign retail company, disclosed.

However, the retail industry is a niche industry. The gross profit margin of the store is maintained at about 10%. Some poorly-operated stores will be even lower. Therefore, the staff of each post must complete the indicator and only display the supernatural powers across the sea.

In an interview, the reporter learned that inflated prices and multi-brush products can increase sales within their jurisdictions, while shoddy goods can not only improve gross margins, but also allow suppliers to obtain payment faster. “For example, the purchase price of a piece of pork is fixed, so the supplier is the same regardless of how the knife is falsified. However, if more ordinary pork is imported and the sales flow is faster, the supplier can get it faster. The payment will be large and the sales volume will be large, so even if the supplier knows that there is something wrong with the knife market, the supplier will not expose it. For the knife-handler, shoddy can significantly increase the gross profit margin and allow their performance to increase rapidly.” Wang Minghua said frankly Floor managers in order to make their own outstanding performance of the floor, for all areas of tricky behavior will be closed one eye, which makes management more loopholes.

The most terrible possibility is the “return package” sale. This habitual practice that the industry has become accustomed to is still considered by the industry to be the most covert and hardest to get evidence. As long as these fresh foods and foods do not cause problems, these goods will be Repackaged and reappeared on the shelf. Because only in this way can the goods loss ratio of goods be reduced, it should be known that cargo loss control is an important assessment indicator for front-line staff and management personnel. There is a deadline for food quality, and the rest can only rely on "human".

"If you do not rely on returning to repackaging, the food and fresh goods areas will have a very large amount of damage, and some of the goods that are sold in a normal way may be destroyed by 50%." According to Wang Minghua, according to the regulations, futures products must be destroyed and processed. There is a ledger book, which records all the records of destroyed commodities. However, the goods that are actually destroyed are only a few. Some products are difficult to repack and sell, so they can be marinated or braised. After being processed with heavy flavors, they can be stored for a period of time to reduce the damage and increase sales.

“Suppliers also acquiesced in these practices. After all, this is related to their collection and replenishment rates. If the goods are unsalable or the loss of goods is very high, then suppliers will also have to replenish large quantities of goods and it is difficult to get payment,” Wang Minghua said.

“The drive of interest has caused everyone involved in all aspects to “do everything”. Perhaps the trickery in the retail industry has only been discovered and has not yet been discovered. There is very little difference between what has been done and what has not been done. This also allows us to It is necessary to consider whether there is a problem with the profit model and management of the retail industry itself, and the relevant laws and regulations are not perfect, such as the fact that if overseas markets find fraud problems, they may be fined hundreds of millions of US dollars, leading to the closure of retailers, and the Chinese retail market. There are many places where you can find loopholes. These are worthy of consideration by industry players and related management departments,” said Lim Bo, a consumer analyst at Shi Fu Financial.