Excluding Shenlong Automobile Company's sales agency business, after all, this is their exclusive agency, and other car sales companies simply cannot get Shenlong Automobile Company's cars.
The automobile sales company of Shangtong Trading Company accounts for 30% of the global automobile sales. Although it may not seem like much, this is actually a very scary figure.
There are countless companies that sell cars around the world, and some sales companies have been in business for decades. For someone like him to be able to achieve such results in just a few years, he has performed very well.
Compared with other sales companies, their net profit margin is much higher because they can provide more services to automobile manufacturers and consumers. At the same time, the properties are their own, and the overall profit margin is much higher. cut.
As their share of sales increases, their bargaining power with major automobile manufacturers will also increase. Moreover, with the business of Shenlong Automobile Company as a guarantee, they are not afraid of other automobile companies joining forces.
It's just that Shangtong Trading Company is not such an unreasonable company, and the profits they earn are profits that they consider to be reasonable. They will not arbitrarily destroy cooperation just because of their strong position.
If this is really the case, it is impossible for Shangtong Trading Company to be able to operate with peace of mind for so many years. It will definitely be targeted by many people. This cannot be suppressed by relying on capital.
Let alone a company, even the ancient emperors could not do whatever they wanted. They also needed to abide by underlying rules, otherwise their positions might not be guaranteed.
This is why he has always warned the following companies that they cannot think that they can do whatever they want just because they occupy an absolute share of the market. They need to remain humble at all times so that they can go longer and develop better.
Another big deal is the agency for Tianji Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company’s high-end agricultural products. However, compared with previous years, it seems that the sales of Tianji Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company’s high-end agricultural products have been a bit weak in the past two years.
However, it is still relatively stable overall. As for the slightly extra production capacity, it will be directly put into the country. Although the price is much lower, there is no need to worry about digestion.
However, Tianji Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company is still unable to completely abandon the overseas high-end market. They need sufficient funds to support domestic highway construction and the urbanization construction of Chinese housing companies.
Moreover, the high-standard farmland transformation and the construction of the agricultural Internet of Things that are being carried out in China also require a large amount of capital investment. For the time being, they need to make up for the high profits from selling their high-end agricultural products abroad.
If these tasks are almost completed, Tianji Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company should not particularly care about changes in foreign markets, and at that time, the domestic consumer market will also have a certain digestion capacity.
According to Zhao Yi's idea, good things should of course be reserved for the country. However, at that time, our country needed enough funds for infrastructure investment, and only the global market could digest their high-end products.
Although China can absorb some of it now, the overall scale is not very large. This is still due to price reductions. If the price is the same as abroad, then the market size will definitely be smaller.
Zhao Yi hopes that ordinary people in the country can buy their high-end products every now and then. This means that the people in the country are generally relatively wealthy, and he hopes to reach this level in the future.
In addition to these two major commodities, other businesses are very scattered, mainly daily necessities. In addition, there are many other technology products, to name a few.
In terms of profit margin, the products sold in their boutiques are the highest, followed by ordinary retail channels, and finally membership stores.
Although the profit margin of member stores is not particularly high, the customers are the most stable, and the annual membership fees collected also provide a good supplement to the affiliated companies.
Therefore, not only have they not reduced the opening of member stores, they are also increasing their efforts to prepare member stores to occupy more market share and squeeze out the market of other retailers.
They have relatively few direct retail channels in Europe and the United States. Although they have a large number of retail companies in which they hold shares, and their shareholding ratio is not low, none of them are entirely their own, so if they can compete, they will not show any mercy.
Now they mainly rely on boutiques and membership stores to dominate the European and American markets. They are also opening intensive community stores and convenience stores, hoping to allow their retail companies to occupy more markets.
Boutique stores mainly focus on high-end and high value-added products. Although many products are not exclusive to them, there are also many products that are exclusive to them.
This is due to the power of the brother companies of Shangtong Trading Company. Some products are directly handed over to them as agents, and the sales strategy is completely formulated by them. Of course, these high-end products are only placed in their own boutiques to increase the attraction of boutiques. force.
Even if some products are not exclusive to them, brother companies will also provide some special models, which can only be purchased in boutiques and are not distributed through other channels.
The customers of boutiques are all people from the middle class and above. They have strong spending power and have their own taste for the quality and uniqueness of products.
Boutiques also implement a membership system, and compared to pure luxury stores, they have a wider variety of products, which can meet almost all the requirements of high-end people.
Moreover, their boutiques are located all over the world. Although the density cannot be compared with ordinary stores, it is still very convenient compared to some luxury stores.
What's more important is that people who have boutique membership cards can get certain discounts in almost all other retail channels under Shangtong Trading Company, and even most of the retail channels where they have shares can also get certain discounts.
Therefore, it is very affordable to become a boutique member. Although membership is expensive, it can be treated differently from ordinary people wherever you go, and your natural identity is reflected.
After so many years of operation, their boutique members have actually become a status symbol, and there are even some cooperations. They give priority to looking for boutique members, and the success rate of business cooperation is higher than that of ordinary people.
This formed a positive promotion relationship, making the number of their boutique members more and more large, and they became more and more concerned about maintaining the relationship between members, and even organized some activities regularly to increase the understanding between members.
In fact, this has formed a social circle that can rely on the boutique membership level to identify each other and better find high-quality customers and partners.
At this point, as long as they don't commit suicide, their boutique has been successful. If it is just a product add-on, it may be replaced by other business models.
However, after adding other functions, as long as it is not particularly outdated, there will be no problem in operating it stably, and the stability of customers can also be well guaranteed.
Compared with boutique stores, ordinary membership stores target ordinary consumers. Although they also need to pay membership fees, the prices are not high. The main thing is to cultivate customer loyalty.
They have even introduced different levels of discounts on membership fees based on annual consumption, and at most they will even waive membership fees. The purpose is to attract these users to their bowl.
Ordinary member stores mainly adopt a small profit but quick turnover model, and even customize some of their own products. For example, many of the daily necessities manufacturing companies under Shangtong Trading Company supply member stores with independent brands.
It’s just that there are many competitors to ordinary membership stores. Many other low-cost chain stores have also launched their own membership stores, including many retail companies in which they hold very high shares, such as Wal-Mart.
When Wal-Mart was just developing, Shangtong Trading Company proposed an acquisition, but the other party did not agree and was even rejected from taking a share.
Faced with this situation, Shangtong Trading Company could only use force. At that time, Wal-Mart's sales performance was only more than a billion US dollars, and its actual profits were even less. It could only be regarded as a rookie and had not yet grown into a giant.
Shangtong Trading Company relied on its capital advantage and the cheaper supply of goods due to the lower domestic labor costs at that time, so it opened a competing store next door and engaged in a price war with it.
Since Wal-Mart is positioned as a cheap store and adopts a low-price strategy, Shangtong Trading Company also adopts this strategy, except that the price is lower and the service is better than the other party.
The two sides had been fighting for less than half a year before the other side couldn't stand it any longer. At this time, Shangtong Trading Company once again made an acquisition request, and the other side had to agree.
It was just that the scale of Shangtong Trading Company was not that large at that time and it could not take into account the global market. It had to let the other party continue to operate, leaving 10% of the shares to the other party, and promised to give them full management freedom.
This is why the current Shangtong Trading Company treats companies differently in terms of closeness and distance. Although it occupies 90% of the shares, it directly owns 100% of the shares and has complete autonomy.
Therefore, when competing, naturally there will be no mercy just because the other company holds an absolute share, let alone other retail companies that do not hold a high share.
Not to mention these companies that hold shares, there will be a certain degree of competition among the many retail brands that are directly operated to maintain the vitality of their retail companies.
Shangtong Trading Company, which has such a deep presence in the field of retail enterprises, is not afraid of competition among its own companies, but is afraid that each other will become modest gentlemen, which will cause greater problems.
Only enterprises that have been in a state of competition can maintain vitality for a long time and can cope with emerging opponents. The flowers in the greenhouse have limited vitality.
This situation of mutual competition between its subsidiaries is reflected in the various businesses of Shangtong Trading Company. For example, their hotel business has a large number of brands, and the competition between brands is also very fierce.
Although it is not to the point of incompatibility, within the rules, no matter how they compete, neither side will show mercy. As long as someone makes a mistake, they will give the other party a chance.
This is one of the fundamental reasons why Shangtong Trading Company, with such a large asset scale and such complex business operations, can still maintain such high competitiveness and its market performance is getting better and better.
The current Shangtong Trading Company has basically completed its domestic layout and has become the de facto domestic trade center node and an inaccessible component of domestic commodity trade.
Now they hope to expand their presence in the domestic service industry and strive to achieve this. If this is accomplished, their status in the country will be unshakable.
Compared with domestic, foreign business is developing well, but there is still a long way to go to achieve the same goal. Although from the perspective of shares, the situation is not bad, but from the perspective of control, there is still a lot difference.
Just using the traditional model to open up foreign markets, not to mention whether it can be done, will take a long time, at least it will take decades of slow erosion, before it can be done.
Fortunately, we are now in the Internet era, and the rapid development of e-commerce has given Shangtong Trading Company another way to accelerate the realization of this goal.
Although online e-commerce cannot completely replace the traditional retail industry, it can significantly erode the market share of the traditional retail industry, thus weakening the status of the traditional retail industry and making them weak.
As long as they become weak, Shangtong Trading Company will have many opportunities to take advantage of. They themselves occupy a larger share. As long as operations become difficult, other shareholders will most likely consider selling their shares.
In this way, Shangtong Trading Company can buy it at a relatively low price, thereby occupying the majority of the shares, or even all the shares, and achieving the purpose of absolute control.
Of course, now that they are no longer obsessed with all shares in overseas markets, they need more say. As long as they can decide the business strategy of the company, they are now more tolerant of shares.
It's just that although the shares it held were not small before, it did not gain much say. At that time, the reason why it was able to invest in so many companies was based on the reason of financial investment and its promise not to interfere with the operation of the company.
Otherwise, why would they be allowed to buy so many shares? Everyone is not a fool and will be wary of any external capital. Only by giving such a promise can they lower their wariness and gain the opportunity to invest.
This was an expedient measure at the time. The expectation was that they would get on board first and wait for the opportunity. As long as there was an opportunity later, they could legitimately expand their voice and occupy more shares.
Under normal circumstances, it is very difficult to do this. Even an economic crisis will not have a devastating blow to the retail industry. After all, people always need to survive. To survive, they need to consume. There will always be problems in the retail industry. business.
Previously, they could only squeeze out part of the market by developing their own offline retail channels, making it increasingly difficult for some retail companies to operate. However, this method is slow to produce results and expensive.
Compared with offline channels, online e-commerce has many advantages, such as breaking geographical barriers, lower operating costs, fast development, multiple business categories, etc.
Seeing that e-commerce has so many advantages, Shangtong Trading Company invested a lot of energy in the layout of online e-commerce, such as building global warehousing centers and logistics and transportation networks.
In fact, at this time, the most cost-effective option is to use someone else's logistics and transportation network. If you don't want to invest more money, you can even rent someone else's warehouse.
It's just that Shangtong Trading Company itself is not short of money. The capital for building warehouses is still enough. There is no need to rent other people's warehouses, and they don't have this habit.
Relatively speaking, building a global logistics system is a troublesome and difficult matter. It consumes the most energy and costs a lot.
The reason why we work so hard is mainly to provide consumers with a good service and instantly elevate e-commerce services to the highest level, so that other competitors have no chance to compete with them.
Obviously other logistics and transportation networks cannot do this. According to their efficiency, it is common for an item to take a week to reach the customer, or even longer.
This is obviously unacceptable to Shangtong Trading Company. Although they do not all emphasize one-day delivery or next-day delivery, they must at least deliver the goods to consumers within three days, and they also need to establish efficient after-sales services.
To achieve this efficiency, the logistics cost is very high. It is better to build a logistics network yourself. With the application of their high-tech technology, the cost is lower than using others.
More importantly, its own logistics network is of great help in providing good after-sales service, which can handle customers' return and exchange requests in a timely manner and improve consumer satisfaction.
It was Yingwei Shangtong Trading Company that suddenly raised the service standards of online e-commerce business to a level that others could not achieve, at least not in a short period of time.
As a result, their B2B business, B2C business and C2C business have been online for more than a year, but there is still no strong competitor. Even if a small company occasionally pops up, it will not be able to operate for a long time.
Because capital is smart, seeing that the service quality and various supporting measures of Shangtong Trading Company's online e-commerce business are the most advanced in the world, how dare they invest large sums of money into other e-commerce companies.
If you want them to invest, you must have an advantage that they think is highly competitive. If there is no advantage at all and you expect your competitors to make mistakes, there are probably very few such fool investors.
Therefore, many of these small e-commerce companies have not been in business for long and cannot find investors to continue investing. Naturally, they cannot continue to operate and go bankrupt.
In addition, the technical content of e-commerce websites is not low, and small companies have limited technical capabilities. Even if they build an e-commerce website, it will be paralyzed as soon as there are too many users.
Compared with their scale, the funds invested in technology are unaffordable for them. If all the funds are invested in technology, then supporting services will definitely not be able to keep up, and consumers will be gradually lost.
This is what will happen with a high probability without capital support, so it is very normal that more than a year has passed and no strong competitor has emerged.
It can be said that Shangtong Trading Company now dominates the global e-commerce market. It is not easy to develop rapidly if it only relies on computers. Not everyone has a computer, and even if they do, it is more troublesome to use it.
However, the emergence of smartphones has been a major boost to the development of e-commerce business, making Shangtong Trading Company's e-commerce business develop at an astonishing speed.
The year before last, global smartphone sales reached 260 million units, and 250 million mobile phone users became their consumers. Last year, global smartphone sales reached 800 million units, which was much better than expected.
This time the customer conversion rate is even higher, reaching almost 100%. Together with computer consumers, the number of global consumers of Shangtong Trading Company has reached 1.2 billion. At this point, it has actually formed a de facto monopoly.
This is also one of the reasons why other investors are reluctant to invest in small e-commerce companies, because Shangtong Trading Company has become a trend. It is basically impossible to compete with them head-on. They can only look for niche areas.
Obviously, Shangtong Trading Company did not give them a chance. After Zhao Yi reminded them to do vertical e-commerce and speed up their layout in subdivided areas, Shangtong Trading Company acted quickly and established many subdivided verticals in a short period of time. Electronic business platform.
Although the launch was relatively hasty, their resources are still very rich compared to small e-commerce companies. Once launched, they occupied an absolute market share in the segment.
As a result, some small e-commerce companies that thought they had found a living space were killed cleanly before they started to develop their ambitions. As a result, they died silently in the corner before they had time to attract capital.
Due to their excellent services and efficient logistics network, their consumer loyalty is getting higher and higher. The consumption amount of a single customer has increased a lot compared with the 500 yuan in the previous year, and the average consumption amount per consumer has reached 1,500 yuan.
Relying solely on the B2C e-commerce platform, they achieved annual sales of 1.8 trillion yuan. Although the average order amount seems not high now, it was already very scary at the time.
Although the C2C e-commerce platform developed relatively late, it has performed well, and the transaction volume of the platform has reached 200 billion yuan. However, it is still in the promotion stage, and Shangtong Trading Company does not make much money.
As for their vertically segmented e-commerce platform, although the sales volume of a single platform is not that terrible, combined, it has also contributed 500 billion yuan in sales to Shangtong Trading Company, and its development speed is also very rapid.
In addition, there is their cross-border e-commerce business. Although it has just developed, it has contributed a lot to the business. It is 100 billion yuan, and the profit rate has reached 60%, which is higher than the profit rate of other platforms. too much.
Another very important business is the community e-commerce business. Its turnover is even more terrifying than other e-commerce platforms, reaching a level of 1.5 trillion yuan. The e-commerce platform charges a 10% service fee.
In addition to service fees, logistics services are provided to these community merchants, which is another expense and also brings considerable income to Shangtong Trading Company.
In the face of such a huge business, their B2B e-commerce platform appears to be quite weak and basically has no sense of existence. However, this does not mean that they have given up on this business and are still working hard to operate it.
Last year, all their e-commerce platforms achieved a total operating income of more than 4.1 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 4% of the global retail market share. In fact, the proportion is still relatively small.
But this also shows that online e-commerce platforms still have a lot of room for development. Shangtong Trading Company hopes to increase this market share to more than 10% this year.
In the next five years, the market share will be expanded to about 30%. Although this goal is a bit high, Shangtong Trading Company is still relatively confident.
If they really do it, then they can really be said to be the king of global retail, and their voice on global retail will reach an unparalleled level, and offline retail companies will also need to rely on them.
However, Zhao Yi has always pursued concealment. Although he does not necessarily want to be domineering, he hopes to have the right to make decisions at critical moments instead of waiting for others to decide his fate. (End of chapter)