QianDama is a fresh express market chain founded in 2012 and branded for selling fresh meat and vegetables. Six years past, QianDama opened its 1000th store in September 2018 and is expanding to the north.
QianDama(钱大妈) is a fresh express market chain branded for selling fresh meat and vegetables. Founded in Dongguan, China, QianDama opened its first store in living community in 2012. Six years past, QianDama opened its 1000th store in September 2018 and is expanding to the north.
At the early stage, QianDama was famous for selling fresh pork and it advertised itself as “Never Sell Overnight Pork” and would offer different discounts depending on the time of the day – the later, the cheaper. The power of discount works for QianDama, just like it works in Double 11 and Black Friday. People lined at in evening for buying discounted pork, which was delivered to the store on the same date. The discount was incredible since every another half hour past 7 pm, a 10% discount would be added, and until 11:30 pm, all pork would be sent out for free. The promotion worked like the marketing and brought QianDama into public eyes.
Like Fresh Legend, which is originated in Anhui province, QianDama’s store is much smaller than a typical supermarket in our general concept, and it might only size a half Target Express with only fresh food. Similar to Fresh Legend, Qiandama focused on providing fresh food to communities and neighbors and hence most of its stores are sited near living block. In China, apartments and mansions are the mainstream, and houses are regarded like villas, which are considered luxury housing. For most apartment communities, the population density could well feed a fresh express like QianDama, but might not be enough for a supermarket when it requires a more condensed population and larger area coverage. In crowded cities, parking is a problem but without cars, the supermarket might be a little too far for walking, especially when people walking back with several fully-stuffed shopping bags. Fresh express solved the distance problem for those who lived car-close but walk-far residents in the community.
Rooted in Dongguan city, QianDama rapidly spanned to a province scale, from south of Guangdong to north and east cities in Guangdong and ongoing. In 2015, QianDama received its series A funding from HeJun Capital(和君投资) and in 2017, raised series A+ of millions from Genbridge Capital(启承资本), JD.com, HeJun Capital and Ruisheng Capital(瑞胜资本). The funding is used in expansion and brand management. QianDama expanded through franchisees and hence it can keep an asset-light strategy. The business model is B2B(business-to-business) since it controls the distribution channels and sends fresh products directly to franchisees. The quality control is in QianDama’s hand and franchisees can be liberated from looking for wholesalers to purchase products and worrying about the logistics works. The investor in series A+, JD.com is one of the biggest e-commerce enterprises with a considerably large and efficient logistics network. Thus, JD.com’s logistics could be used by QianDama for distributions. And now, QianDama has several farm bases in Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, and in order to assure products quality, a strong logistics network is a must, which JD.com could play a critical part in product transition.