Chapter 601 The Development of the Electronic Retail Industry

Chapter 601 The Development of the Electronic Retail Industry

Chapter 601 Development of the Electronic Retail Industry

On September 9, Yang Wendong came to the Best Buy store in southeast Los Angeles.

"Mr. Yang, I'm Lu Yunhua, the person in charge of Best Buy in Los Angeles." A middle-aged man said very politely.

Yang Wendong looked at the blue and white supermarket-style building in front of him, nodded and praised: "This building looks very good, very beautiful, and very memorable."

Lin Youqing next to him said, "This was designed by a Los Angeles architectural firm we hired before. It will be memorable at first glance."

"Very good." Yang Wendong nodded.

Then everyone went in together. The mall was very large, with different brands of televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc., as well as various small household appliances displayed in the middle.

After a circle, Yang Wendong asked, "What else is upstairs?"

Lu Yunhua replied: "The brands upstairs are just different, but the items are similar. Our main products here are still various home appliances, especially televisions, which are the favorites of Americans."

"People from other countries like it too." Yang Wendong said with a smile.

Although white appliances are necessities of life, as long as they don't break down after you buy them, it's fine. But color TVs are different. They can provide entertainment, and their size and clarity are constantly being upgraded, which makes the probability of many people replacing them much greater than white appliances.

Lu Yunhua continued, "Mr. Yang, we now have more than 40 brands of home appliances here, including brands from Japan, the United States and Europe. We also have Honor from Hong Kong, but the sales volume is not very good."

Yang Wendong said nonchalantly, "It's normal that it's not good. Honor hasn't entered the US market yet, and there isn't much publicity. It's normal that no one buys it."

Honor Electronics is positioned in the mid-to-low-end market, and initially it will focus on the Asian market. Unless there are trading companies willing to transport products from Europe and the United States, it basically does not export here. Best Buy is just an experiment.

And because of the joint venture with RCA, its own unique brand will not enter the US market on a large scale in the short term. It will be a great success if it gives priority to developing the supply chain and then takes over Southeast Asia or parts of the Commonwealth market;

For such a super-large traditional industry, it is enough to take a bite out of it. It is almost impossible to achieve a monopoly, even for future computers.

Lu Yunhua said: "Yes, most of the customers who buy Honor are Chinese, and that's because we have given enough after-sales commitment, which is much higher than other brands."

"Is there much after-sales service?" Yang Wendong asked.

Lu Yunhua replied: "It's a little more than other brands. Our expenditure on after-sales service is also higher than other brands."

Yang Wendong nodded and said, "That means we are still a little behind Japanese and American brands in terms of technology."

Lu Yunhua said: "Yes, but our prices are cheap, so if there is real competition in the future, there is still a chance."

"This also requires good after-sales service." Yang Wendong thought for a moment and asked, "How many kilometers can our after-sales service cover?"

Lu Yunhua replied: "The range of free door-to-door service is 10 miles. If it is higher, I will have to charge a fee, otherwise the after-sales cost will be too high."

Yang Wendong asked again: "Are the after-sales people local or Chinese now?"

Lu Yunhua said: "7% are Chinese. Some of them were recruited by me from Hong Kong. Because we have a large investment, we have certain rights to hire overseas people. The others are some white people and a small number of Mexicans who have performed well.
Relatively speaking, the Chinese are still the best, whether it is the success rate or the speed of maintenance. However, due to political factors, we also recruited a lot of white people and ethnic minorities. "

Yang Wendong nodded and said, “Okay, we have to abide by American rules on American soil, but the core in the future will still be the Chinese. See if you can apply for a work visa. I can send more Chinese from Hong Kong over.

This way you can save costs and improve efficiency, and Hong Kong can also treat this as a benefit for employees.”

Although Hong Kong is the headquarters, due to the issue of the average social wage, Americans' wages are still higher than those in Hong Kong.

So many times, Hong Kong will give the ability to work in the United States as a benefit to outstanding employees. Whether it is salary income or the ability to learn more English, it is very meaningful for ordinary people.

Lu Yunhua smiled and said, "I understand. Our colleagues from Hong Kong do a very good job in all aspects of their work, much better than the local Americans."

"We are developing and catching up, so of course we have to work harder than them." Yang Wendong smiled and asked, "Are the brands here still free this year?"

A large shopping mall needs two ends as a balance, one end is a large number of merchants opening stores, and the other is a large number of customers. Both ends are very important. If any one of them is missing, the business will collapse immediately.

In the early days of opening, it is naturally impossible to have customers. In addition to investing a lot of money in advertising, it is also necessary to attract merchants when there are not enough people. Otherwise, no matter how good the advertising is, it will be useless without merchants.
Therefore, the merchants in the early stage were attracted for free. This logic will be adopted by many commercial complexes in the mainland in the future. Lu Yunhua nodded and said, "Yes, it is still free this year. Next year, we will charge about half of the rent appropriately. The year after that, it will be normal. The rent will be determined according to the flow of people. Two years is enough for our store to become famous around Los Angeles and stabilize enough consumer customers.

Therefore, many stores have suffered losses in the past two years. The only profitable business is the after-sales department. Our after-sales department is responsible for all brands. Unless there is a big problem, we will fix it ourselves. "

"After-sales service will be our core competitiveness in the future." Yang Wendong said with a faint smile: "In the future, if Honor Electronics' various products want to enter the US market, they will have to rely on these people."

After-sales service is a stumbling block for many brands to expand;

If it is a simple product like towels or toilet paper, as long as you know the distributor, you can easily sell the product to anywhere in the world;

However, this is not the case for automobiles, home appliances, and future computers and game consoles. These products are complex and expensive. If you want to build a sales network anywhere, you must have after-sales service, which is a big difficulty.

Many automobile brands, such as Volkswagen, are strong in Europe and the mainland, Fiat is strong in Europe and South America, and Toyota and Honda are strong in Asia and America. This has a lot to do with the after-sales layout. Although it is not decisive, it can have a great impact, making exports difficult.

Lu Yunhua said: "Yes, for the various brands in our mall, there is almost no need to worry about after-sales problems. This is also a great convenience. Some of them have also said that if we build other malls in the future, they are also willing to continue to cooperate."

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Okay, that's the best. I'm also going to build three more Best Buys in Los Angeles, just in time to be distributed around the city of Los Angeles, covering most of the people in Los Angeles."

In a small city, one supermarket or a large home appliance store may be enough, but for a city like Los Angeles, ten may not be enough. Even if you don’t build one, other businesses will build one in the future. This is a necessity of market demand.

The more supermarkets of this type are built, the lower the shared cost will be, especially in terms of promotion. If one supermarket is particularly busy, it will be convenient to transfer people there.

Lu Yunhua was delighted and said, "That's the best. There are also many consumers living in the north who think we are too far away. It takes an hour to drive here, but I can't refuse them if they come to buy things, and after-sales service is also very troublesome."

"These shopping malls or supermarkets also have service areas. Our goal in the future is to build such supermarkets in various cities to cover the electrical appliance purchasing needs of urban residents and provide after-sales service," said Yang Wendong.

"Mr. Yang, I have arranged for people to select addresses around Los Angeles. Do you need to make a decision?" Lu Yunhua said again.

Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "No, just sort out the information and give it to me. I will not be involved in the specific decision for now."

He generally doesn't get involved in very professional matters unless they are very important.

Best Buy and Carrefour are indeed his major layout in the retail industry, but they do not require him to be involved in the location of branches in the United States. There may be hundreds or thousands of such stores. If he were to take care of them all, wouldn't he be exhausted?

He only needs to take a look at the complete information before the project starts. There will be a special review team at the Hong Kong headquarters to check it.

However, with more and more investments in retail and physical businesses in the United States, a similar institution will probably be needed here soon.

"Okay, Mr. Yang." Lu Yunhua nodded and said.

Yang Wendong went on to say: "Best Buy will be a large industry for us in the United States in the future, so each of our stores is currently trying to figure out how to operate. We also need to train enough talent to facilitate rapid expansion once funds are in place."

Once personal computers appear, in a few years this thing will become the darling of American society. Many wealthy families will need to buy it. Not only Apple, but other electronic giants such as HP, IBM, Texas Instruments, etc. will also get involved.

Honor Electronics will naturally try to get a piece of the pie, but in a field involving high technical content, it may be possible to succeed, but it is very difficult to achieve a high position. Even early layout may not be useful. They are all electronic giants and the competition is too fierce. Their capital and technology are stronger than Changxing Group, and they have zz resources behind them.

In this case, if the computer itself cannot consume too much, you can make a profit with the help of the sales end. As long as you plan early and have a large number of terminal supermarkets in the United States, no matter who sells computers or even other electronic devices in the future, you can get a small bite from it and accumulate small amounts into large amounts.

This logic is similar to when many people opened gold mines a hundred years ago, but some people only built roads next to them. Whoever opened the gold mine might get lucky and make a fortune, but if you build your own road, you will definitely make money.

There are no competitors in this field, because the electronics giants will not spend huge amounts of money on this traditional business. The same is true for a powerful company like IBM, which has a market value of over $100 billion. As long as you succeed in your layout in advance, giants like IBM will also look forward to cooperating with you. This is the best choice for any electronics company, and you may even be able to influence the sales of some computers.
Lu Yunhua smiled and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Yang. I have also participated in the development process of Carrefour Hong Kong. I know exactly what to do."

The early Carrefour Hong Kong also started with one store, and then gradually learned and trained talents. Once it was almost ready, it immediately began to expand. Eventually, combined with Yang Wendong's strong capital, Carrefour successfully controlled the retail market in Hong Kong and is now expanding into Southeast Asian countries.

"Well, that's good." Yang Wendong continued, "But it's a little different. Hong Kong is a city where everyone is concentrated, while the United States is too big. Even if our initial target is the eastern United States, the range is huge. You need to study the personnel training and logistics further."

"Yes, Mr. Yang." Lu Yunhua agreed.

PS: Ask for monthly ticket

(End of this chapter)