Why can't you poach the employees of Pang Donglai?

Author | Mati

Editor | Ershan

Just like Subway refers to its employees as "Sandwich Artists", Song Haobo gave his occupation a distinctive name - "Vegetable Beautician".

This former musician and current supermarket stock clerk is primarily responsible for the maintenance, restocking, and organization of the two vegetable sections in Pangdonglai Jinhui Store. Simultaneously, he also serves as a shopping guide, cleaner, warehouse equipment maintenance technician, kindergarten teacher, and customer service representative. A shift lasts for 4 hours. The work is not physically demanding, but it is rather intricate.

Does such a job require enthusiasm? Song Haobo answered without hesitation: "Certainly." At the end of the day, he said energetically: "Being dull and being dedicated are entirely two different things when working." Perhaps it is precisely because of Pangdonglai that he can gain a sense of achievement that is difficult to attain even as a musician in the process of "beautifying vegetables".

Someone once said that no matter how much money is offered, Starbucks employees cannot be poached. Now, this statement also applies to Pangdonglai.

Phenomenal Pangdonglai: High Efficiency and Extreme Single-Store Efficiency

An easily overlooked fact is that Pangdonglai, beyond the trending searches, also has outstanding performance.

The "outstanding" standard is not in Xuchang, not in Henan, but nationwide - last year, Pangdonglai's net profit reached 140 million yuan. And all of this is achieved with only 13 stores (11 in Xuchang and 2 in Xinxiang), which means that each store can achieve an annual income of 1.3 billion yuan and a net profit of 10 million yuan. The single-store efficiency ranks first in the domestic retail industry.

On October 23 this year, at the press conference of the "Promoting the Construction of Chinese Modernization in Henan Practice" series theme Xuchang special session held by the Propaganda Department of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, the relevant person in charge of Xuchang City stated: "Pangdonglai has developed from a cigarette and wine store on the street more than twenty years ago to the ceiling of the Chinese supermarket industry."

As of November 26 this year, Pangdonglai's cumulative sales in 2024 have reached 14.638 billion yuan, and the annual sales will exceed 15 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 40%. Since last year, Pangdonglai has become a template for domestic retail enterprises to learn from. From Yonghui to BBK, and then to Jiabailer, supermarkets in various places have shown remarkable adjustment results. Later, Pangdonglai has even become a check-in spot for bosses from all walks of life.

This scene is so familiar because it occurred a year ago.

At that time, the new retail was retreating comprehensively: JD 7fresh only had 64 stores, which was far from the goal of opening 1,000 stores in 5 years; Meituan's Xiaoxiang only conducts online business and has long stopped opening stores. Although Hema's GMV has been increasing, its stores have not achieved continuous profitability.

The new retail is retreating, but it is hard to say that the "old retail" represented by Yonghui and GaoXin is making significant progress. Yonghui Supermarket suffered a loss of 1.32 billion yuan in the net profit attributable to the parent company in 2023, while the parent company of RT-Mart, Sun Art Retail Group, although achieving an operating income of 83.6 billion yuan in the fiscal year 2023, its net profit was only 109 million yuan.

The only winner is Sam's Club.

36Kr once quoted retail industry insiders as estimating that Sam's Club's compound growth rate in sales in the past three years is not less than 30%, and its sales in 2023 exceeded 80 billion yuan. This means that the average annual contribution of a single Sam's Club user is 14,000 yuan, 1.6 times that of Taobao and nearly 5 times that of Pinduoduo.

According to Walmart's third-quarter earnings report for 2024, in the third quarter of 2024, Walmart's net sales in the Chinese market reached 4.9 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 17% - it is reasonable to become the target of everyone's learning.

In August 2023, Hema took the lead in firing the "Learn from Sam's Club" first shot, and domestic retailers quickly followed suit. The replication targets ranged from Sam's Club to Costco, and then to ALDI. For a period of time, everyone had to talk about private label products, and everyone claimed to be members.

Many people simply think that Sam's Club represents "pay to enter", "big packaging", "bulk sales" and other new and unique overseas products. Therefore, the vigorous and superficial imitation ended in failure. Half a year later, in the middle of 2024, Hema announced the cessation of replicating Sam's Club, and shortly after, Hou Yi announced his retirement.

Whether it is Costco or Sam's Club, the core competitiveness is the product strength. They both make the best-quality products within the same price range, or the lowest-priced products with the same quality. "Product strength" is also the strength of Pangdonglai and the secret weapon for it to achieve the ultimate single-store efficiency.

Today, the entrance of Pangdonglai Tea Market is crowded with people waiting for their numbers to be called, and shopping carts and bags filled with goods can be seen everywhere. For the long queues of purchasing agents, Pangdonglai's own products and freshly made cooked food are the most popular categories. If you have the opportunity to come to Pangdonglai, you will probably be attracted by the area of Pangdonglai's own brand.

Pangdonglai started self-purchasing very early, and its own brand is DL. Different from the general private label that provides a cheaper option, many of DL's products are priced higher than third-party brands, and most of them are concentrated in the mass market. It is a typical value-added private brand. Some analysts speculate that the proportion of Pangdonglai's own brand shelves is not less than 20%, and the sales share is even higher. After the adjustment, most supermarkets in various places have also introduced some of Pangdonglai's own products, and it is precisely these products that have caused consumers to queue up in long lines.

According to LianShang.com, the Yonghui Xinwan Square Store adjusted by Pangdonglai eliminated and removed more than 81.3% of the original products, and launched 10,110 new products. The store's product structure reached more than 90% of Pangdonglai's product structure. On June 19, Yonghui Zhengzhou Xinwan Square Store announced the adjustment results: The first-day sales were 1.88 million yuan.

From learning from Sam's Club to accepting Pangdonglai's "adjustment", domestic supermarkets have finally achieved two completely different outcomes. Businesspeople see the product strength, and managers see the people.

"Culture First, Business Second": Humanistic Business Driven by Love and Trust

Not long ago, an employee of Pangdonglai was unreasonably slapped by a customer while at work. Pangdonglai rewarded this employee with 30,000 yuan in cash as a consolation. This incident triggered a collective empathy among "workers", and this is just one vivid footnote of Pangdonglai's "humanistic" corporate culture.

An informed person once told us that Pangdonglai became a research case for Huawei five or six years ago. "At that time, there was a broadcast in the store. You are welcome to shoot Pangdonglai, but please pay attention to the portraits of other people. Similar things will be broadcasted in turn - although it is only a supermarket, its respect for people is far more than that of a supermarket."

This informed person found in the research process that working at Pangdonglai is a "decent and honorable" thing in Xuchang. "If you are an employee of Pangdonglai, it is equivalent to working in a big company like ByteDance or Tencent. It is a very honorable thing; not only does it have a good local reputation, but the benefits are also keeping up.

The feeling of the self-media person Pan Luan in Pangdonglai Xuchang Angel City Store is that "the cashiers are very young girls around 20 years old, very enthusiastic and energetic". His conclusion at that time was that Pangdonglai must offer a very competitive salary, otherwise it cannot retain young people.

The average salary in Xuchang is less than 4,000 yuan, while the average salary of Pangdonglai employees (including cleaning aunts and security uncles) is 7,000 - 8,000 yuan, almost double.

Yu Donglai once revealed in a short video that the employee turnover rate of Pangdonglai is below 5%, only 1/6 of the industry average.

Leisure time is also a benefit. Most supermarkets are open throughout the year, but Pangdonglai closes on Tuesdays and does not open from New Year's Eve to the fourth day of the Spring Festival. Each employee has 30 days of paid annual leave per year, plus 5 days of free leave and 5 days of companion leave. Moreover, paid leave is mandatory for traveling and enjoying life, otherwise money will be deducted.

In order to "increase efficiency" while "increasing costs", Pangdonglai found Feishu.

Pangdonglai has more than 15,000 front-line employees, and there are diverse and long-link complex collaboration processes. Pangdonglai uses Feishu to integrate various systems, allowing data to find people. In multiple business scenarios, it improves the information reach efficiency of each link through capabilities such as multi-dimensional tables, automated robots, and AI, reducing the burden and improving the efficiency of employees. This method not only improves operational efficiency but also creates more free time for employees.

Take food safety, which supermarkets are most concerned about, as an example. For each processed product, Pangdonglai requires the precise opening date of the raw materials, and conducts full-process monitoring and regular inspections of the products within the shelf life to ensure that consumers can enjoy fresh, safe, and high-quality products.

In the past, after the product was opened, employees needed to manually write the factory date label and calculate the shelf life and expiration date manually based on the paper record. This method is not only time-consuming but also prone to the failure to remove expired products in a timely manner due to human negligence, presenting potential risks. Now, Pangdonglai uses the AI field shortcut capability of Feishu's multi-dimensional table to greatly improve management efficiency. Employees can quickly complete product inspection and date management through their mobile phones, further ensuring the safety and freshness of the products, while greatly reducing the burden of daily inspections and avoiding repetitive labor.

You might think that it may be challenging to popularize digital tools such as Feishu in a short period of time. But facts have proved that both the ease of use of Feishu and the learning ability of Pangdonglai employees are sufficient to break this concern. It is reported that Pangdonglai only took half a year to achieve the popularization of Feishu for all employees.

For Pangdonglai, "Employees first" is never just a slogan, but a core concept deeply rooted in the corporate culture and business philosophy. In the context of the retail industry generally oriented towards "cost reduction and efficiency increase", Pangdonglai's insistence is particularly distinctive and more inspiring.

The Use of Humans: Pangdonglai's Business Philosophy

In his book "The Human Use of Human Beings", one of the founders of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, wrote: "When individual human beings are used as basic members to weave into a society, if they cannot act as responsible persons properly, but only as gears, levers, and connecting rods, then even if their raw materials are flesh and blood, they are actually no different from metal.

If Starbucks enhances the sense of team collaboration by referring to its employees as "partners" and creates its own unique coffee community culture, turning ordinary coffee shops into the "Fourth Space". Then Pangdonglai's model is more "familial", focusing on the personal happiness and life independence of employees. Although these two cultures have different paths, their goals are the same - to enhance the competitiveness of the enterprise through the happiness of employees.

In this regard, digital tools can also be useful.

Due to the actual working conditions in the retail industry, there are personnel in various business forms who get off work later than the standard time of 18 o'clock, and even in the central kitchen production line and movie night shows, there are 24-hour shifts or getting off work in the early morning.

In the past, in order to ensure the safety of employees arriving home, the management of Pangdonglai tried methods such as reporting numbers on WeChat, signing in and checking in with location, and confirming by phone. However, these methods generally have the problem of high operating costs. Now, Pangdonglai uses Feishu's leave and attendance system to effectively obtain the off-duty time of employees in different business forms. The scheduling information supports integration into the multi-dimensional table, easily screening out employees who are scheduled for the night shift, and effectively obtaining the scope of employees who need to report safety.

Many people believe that a large part of the reason why Pangdonglai truly respects and loves its employees as close family members is Yu Donglai's emphasis on the construction of long-term trust.

Many people heard countless stories with similar templates during their local investigations: Pangdonglai will try its best to meet every need of the customers, whether you like the ladder of the staff, a bottle of red wine that is not on the shelf, or a delicacy that is not available locally. Pangdonglai regards the construction of long-term love and trust as the foundation of its existence, and this value is also applied to everyone in the company.

In the short film shot by Feishu for Pangdonglai, an employee said, "Here, our compulsory course is to love ourselves".

Allowing each employee to have the energy to "love themselves" brings the most direct change of "professional service with warmth". The front-line employees of Pangdonglai are well aware of the operation of the supermarket: when the passenger flow is the largest, how long it takes for the cashier to handle 100 customers, and how to efficiently allocate staff. If the shopping carts are placed randomly, the employees will put them back in place; if there is a melon seed shell on the ground, they will immediately bend over to pick it up...

Because of this, Pangdonglai's stores are no longer just shopping places, but more like a "Third Space" that integrates community and leisure functions. Thoughtful designs such as free rest areas, mother and baby rooms, and barrier-free facilities can be seen everywhere, and "purchasing based on customer needs" is written into the daily details. These measures not only enhance customer stickiness but also inject premium ability into the brand, invisibly building the moat of the enterprise.

In the traditional business logic, every employee salary and every holiday adjustment is a real cost. But in Pangdonglai, these expenditures are the investments of the enterprise. Here, people are not costs, but the source of productivity.

The happiness of employees drives the efficiency of the enterprise, and advanced culture and values build the core competitiveness of the brand. Pangdonglai is reshaping the retail industry's definition of "efficiency". In the future, the retail industry, which is tired of "involution", may usher in a new stage from focusing on profits to focusing on humanity and experience. And Pangdonglai is becoming the wind vane of this change.

Yu Donglai once said: "If the enterprise is kind to its employees, the employees will be kind to the customers, and a beautiful society is built in this way." Pangdonglai shoulders the mission of spreading advanced cultural concepts, because an enterprise that is good to its employees can grow steadily and sustainably in the market.

This concept is also confirmed in Feishu. Xie Xin, the CEO of Feishu, mentioned in a public speech that being kind to employees is essentially an advanced cultural concept and the foundation of the development of modern enterprises. And Pangdonglai is a vivid practitioner of this concept.

The tacit combination of Pangdonglai and Feishu not only shows the resonance of their values but also proves once again that the real power of technology lies in helping enterprises and employees grow together and move towards the good.