????At that time (in the late 1980s), Qingdao’s commerce had actually reached a point where it was necessary to change. Failure to change may mean being eliminated, and there may be hope for survival if it is changed. It is better to change early than late, and it is better to change than not to change.
????-Meng Guangyao
????There is no queue for shopping here, there is no counter, and you don’t need to go through a salesperson to buy things. You can choose from the shelves yourself. There are many goods that department stores can’t buy. Fresh shopping methods attracted many people to watch.
????Supermarket, that’s what people called it at that time. Many years later, when large supermarkets have opened all over the city, people will still remember this earliest "supermarket".
????The medical supply supermarket opened in 1984, which was the year when Qingdao was listed as an open coastal city. At that time, supply and marketing cooperatives, department stores, grocery stores and grain stores with a single format were the main channels for people to buy daily necessities, and the supply of many items was fixed, and they had to be purchased by ticket.
????However, today, 30 years later, supermarkets, convenience stores, specialty stores, online shopping, TV shopping, direct sales, etc. have appeared one after another. There are hundreds of thousands of commercial outlets in the city, covering all corners of urban and rural areas. You can buy whatever you want without even leaving your home.
????■ test the water
????Customers in supermarket don’t know how to pay.
????The creativity of supermarket originated from an experimental reform. In the early 1980s, the Provincial Department of Commerce decided to follow the advanced experience of foreign shopping malls, make experimental reform on the traditional business model, and establish a large supermarket, that is, remove the counters and let customers choose their own products.
????In the memory of Pan Yuxi, then general manager of Qingdao Medical Service, there were two places for reform at that time, one in Jinan, the provincial capital, and the other in Qingdao. After receiving this task, the former Municipal Bureau of Commerce attached great importance to it, screened the commercial retail outlets in the whole city, and finally selected the supply company of the sanatorium in Badaguan Scenic Area (referred to as "medical supply"). In fact, the medical supply was mainly responsible for the supply of vegetables and non-staple food in the surrounding sanatoriums, mostly purchased by groups, and retail sales only accounted for a small part of the turnover.
????"First, because the hardware conditions here are better, there are enough spacious shopping malls to use, and then the surrounding residents have a higher level, better quality and higher consumption power." Pan Yuxi said that after receiving the task, they began intense preparations. First, the downstairs lobby was vacated, painted and maintained, and then the shelves were purchased according to the requirements of the new business model.
????At that time, the horizontal frozen containers and open shelves necessary for supermarkets were not produced by domestic manufacturers. In order to start business as soon as possible, the Commercial Bureau decided to allocate funds and send people to Japan for procurement. Not long after, eight huge containers and shelves came back across the ocean. At the same time, the company organized large-scale procurement of goods. Buyers have gone to great pains to travel all over the world, transporting the goods of famous brands from all over the country back to Qingdao.
????The new cashier method is the key to the supermarket, but it is a strange job and no one has touched it. In order to operate normally after opening, with the consent of the Commercial Bureau, the mall specially sent personnel to Beijing Institute of Commercial Science and Technology to learn the specific operation of the cashier. A group of five people not only received training, but also brought back four Japanese cash registers purchased in the institute.
????On September 30, 1984, the medical supply supermarket was officially listed and opened. Pan Yuxi said that the lively scene after the opening was greatly unexpected. The quiet streets in the past suddenly became crowded with people, and not only the residents around came to buy them, but also the residents from other districts came here. Soon all Qingdao people knew that there was a supermarket where they could help themselves.
????Pan Yuxi, who is over 80 years old, still remembers that the supermarket has just opened. Many people came in to buy things and didn’t know how to pay. The mall had to send a shopping guide to guide the citizens to pay at the cashier’s desk. The mall of more than 400 square meters was equipped with more than 40 staff members. It takes a lot of manpower to load goods and code, and everyone works hard.
????In fact, the medical supply supermarket attracts the public not only with brand-new consumption patterns, but also with rich commodities. "We transfer goods all over the country, and there are many things that other department stores don’t have, especially high-end spices. Many hotels buy them here." Pan Yuxi said that whenever the Chinese New Year comes, people come in line to snap up the scarce commodities such as chickens, ducks and pork chops.
????In the late 1980s, the popularity of supermarkets reached its peak, and foreign teachers and experts from neighboring counties and even Yantai, Weihai and Jinan often came here to buy food in large quantities on weekends.
????Pan Yuxi said that there was no electronic monitoring and no alarm system at that time. Soon after the opening, it was found that the goods began to be missing and people had to "stare at it". Faced with this situation, people have different views on whether to stick to it. Some people think that the quality of Chinese people is poor and it is too early to run a supermarket. However, some people insist on doing it. Their view is that consumption needs to be guided, and the quality will be gradually improved. Self-service supermarkets are the trend of consumption, and we should not give up eating because of choking. In the end, the idea of sticking to it prevailed and the supermarket was able to survive.
????The supermarket for medical treatment has been booming for about 10 years. Later, with the deepening of reform and opening up, many supermarkets opened one after another, and it gradually lost its former style and stopped operating in 2000.
????■ format
????A thousand stores, a department store, a face
????At the time of testing the water in the medical supermarket, the department store format at that time was actually "one thousand stores". From the business scope to the layout of goods, from staff training to service management, all state-owned stores are almost the same. On the first floor, daily necessities are sold, on the second floor, needle cotton products are sold, on the third floor, household appliances are sold, and on the fourth floor, silk fabrics are sold. Each floor is filled with shelves against the wall, in front of which are counters more than one meter high. Customers stand outside the counter when they buy things, and the salesman takes the goods from the shelf. When the goods are sold, they are generally not returned. At that time, the salespeople were all blue uniforms and cold faces, and buying things depended on the mood and face of the salespeople.
????In 1970, Zhang Shusen, who had just been employed, became a salesman in Liaoning Road Department Store. At that time, the department store was more than 100 square meters, selling only small department stores such as daily necessities, clothing and fabrics. In that era of material shortage and supply shortage, the country was still implementing "unified purchase and marketing, planned supply", and the goods in short supply were in short supply, especially the large household goods such as sewing machines, watches, bicycles and radios, which were called "three turns and one ring" at that time, and they had to rely on specially distributed tickets for shopping, otherwise they could not be bought with money.
????Zhang Shusen said that he saved 10 yuan from his monthly salary of 21 yuan. After standing at the counter for a year, he finally saved 120 yuan, applied to the unit for a watch ticket many times, and queued up at the Hengdeli Watch Store on Zhongshan Road overnight to buy his first watch.
????From Liaoning Road Department Store to People’s Market Department Store on Market Second Road, then to Qingdao Department Store, and finally retired from domestic products, he has worked for several large department store retail groups for decades. In Zhang Shusen’s memory, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was only one shopping street on Zhongshan Road in Qingdao, which was also the most prosperous place for business, but there were no large shopping malls of this scale. Only the Qingdao No.1 department store located at the southern end of Zhongshan Road was considered as an upper-grade shopping mall at that time, and the old-fashioned domestic products located at the northern end had a business area of more than 2,000 square meters at that time. The others were Qianxiangyi, Shengxifu, Hendry, women’s and children’s stores and so on.
????■ change
????Liqun takes the lead in joint-stock system reform.
????In 1984, things are changing. The firm prices in the shops began to be adjusted frequently, and the prices of individual commodities were even adjusted once a month … At that time, Zhang Xiancun, who worked as a counter salesman in Laoshan Department Store, was transferred to the business unit of the shopping mall, and he felt the atmosphere of marketization from the fluctuating commodity prices. During this period, Qingdao commerce is brewing a reform.
????Zhang Shusen’s city department store, which relies on "management meals", was the first to usher in the transitional reform. Within three years, it gradually revoked the government’s financial allocation and turned into self-management and self-financing, while still assuming the department store management function.
????At the same time, in order to enliven the economy, state-owned stores introduced the contract responsibility system, and employees could sign up for the election of store leaders independently, and the original rigid management system began to break. In 1984, in the reform of the first batch of pilot enterprises in the city, Xu Gongzao, the current chairman of Liqun Group, and Li Liming, the current chairman of Qingdao Haibin Food Co., Ltd., were elected as general managers.
????In the view of Zhang Xiancun, the current chairman of Qingdao Weekly Group, the most obvious change after the reform is that enterprises have funds for self-development and the incentive mechanism has changed the disadvantages of "big pot". At the same time, competition, the basic feature of market economy, is increasingly prominent.
????In the spring of 1988, 24-year-old Zhang Xiancun became the deputy manager of Laoshan Department Store, and Lao took the lead in advertising car bodies in Qingdao business circles. On the shuttle bus No.3 and No.9, Zhang Xiancun’s creative slogan-"Welcome to Laoshan Department Store on every Tuesday" is particularly eye-catching.
????"At that time, some attempts were made in Qingdao’s commercial reform, but the intensity was still not enough. In fact, Qingdao’s business has reached a point where it must be changed. If it is not changed, it may mean being eliminated. If it is changed, there may be hope for survival. It is better to change early than late, and it is better to change than not to change. " Meng Guangyao, former director of Qingdao Finance Office and now president of Qingdao Commercial Federation, said.
????Liqun department store took the first step of restructuring, and in 1988 it became the first batch of pilot joint-stock reform enterprises in China. "But what is the’ shareholding system’, no one has made it clear, and management and operation almost follow the old path." In 1992, influenced by various subjective and objective factors, the economic benefits of Liqun declined seriously, and Xu Gongzao was ordered to be transferred from the municipal department store to Liqun as the "helm". He said that Beijing Tianqiao Department Store, which was a pilot of the same batch of shareholding system reform at that time, had begun to advance towards the real shareholding system model. They decided to go to Beijing to "learn from the classics" and establish a modern enterprise system, and Liqun Department Store was full of vitality.
????At that time, Zhang Xiancun, who was in charge of this matter at Laobai, was in a hurry. "If you step by step, you will definitely not catch the" first bus "of the pilot in the application time. In order to seize the opportunity, he decided to go beyond the declaration. After active efforts, the Municipal Commission for Economic Restructuring finally added the number of pilot units to 13, and Laobai successfully boarded the pilot "first bus". In the year after the company’s shareholding system reform, sales exceeded 100 million yuan.