Baiyuan Pants Industry: Win-win through service

The business of 100 yuan a pair of pants has attracted more than 900 franchisees in 10 years. After many franchisees tasted the sweetness, they opened several, a dozen, or even dozens of chain stores in a row.

Today, the entire franchise system has more than 1,100 chain stores in 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.

The one who does this business is Baiyuan Pants Company in Shanxi. In its success story, the protagonist is service, and the ending is win-win, which is win-win for franchise headquarters, franchisees, customers and suppliers.

Serving customers

One hundred yuan started with service, and service has become the DNA of this company's business philosophy.

In 1995, Yang Jianxin started his business at an ordinary stall in a shopping mall in Taiyuan City. He named his company "hundred yuan" (100 yuan), and sold pants as a uniform price.

He spent 1,300 yuan to buy an imported hemming machine, the first in the industry to provide customers with "barrier-free returns, free ironing for life, and edging" services.

He also gave free roses to customers who bought trousers on Valentine's Day, one pair of trousers and one flower.

His innovative services made the business boom. He sold more than 10,000 yuan of trousers in one day, while more than 20 other trousers stalls in the same mall have a combined turnover of only a few thousand yuan.

"Give a customer 5 yuan or even 50 yuan, and he may not necessarily promote it for you. Providing him with real services will bring back more people's hearts." Yang Jianxin, now the chairman of Baiyuan, knows the service well. value to his business.

This value is even more important under the specific business model of the hundred-yuan business. A specific business model refers to a single product of 100 yuan, only trousers; a single price, all trousers are sold for 100 yuan. When the quality and price of products in the market are not much different, service has become the most important means of competition.

“Baiyuan is not actually a professional clothing brand or product brand, but a service brand,” said Tang Peng, general manager of Baiyuan, “Baiyuan has a good service concept and good service, and our customers will return The rate is very high, especially the number of old customers is increasing very fast."

Based on the concept of service, more than 1,000 chain stores of 100 yuan provide more and more special services to customers. Many stores not only iron the trousers for free, but also carefully iron the clothes sent by customers; some stores have added free dry and wet cleaning and darning services; Gas credit card, bicycle pump, send and receive newspapers.

Now, the service of "barrier-free return and exchange, free ironing for life, and fringing" is not only provided to actual customers who buy 100 yuan; chain stores enjoy this service.

In addition to the service that customers can see the benefits of, the 100-yuan chain store also provides chat services to customers who visit the store. "The communication between us and our customers is very sincere, and we offer them 'kindness'," said Tang Peng.

He said, for example, that one hundred yuan franchisee, the same store, after providing "kind" service to customers, doubled the sales of trousers, and sold more than 8,000 pairs a year.

Service to franchisees

Baiyuan headquarters serves franchisees. The first step is to determine the service purpose of the whole company - win-win. Yang Jianxin believes that with a win-win situation, the entire franchise system can have a source of sustainable development. "We must never allow franchisees to make no money. Suppose a franchise store closes, will other franchisees dare to join?" he said.

This purpose has become a guideline for Baiyuan to make relevant decisions, provide a guideline for management and training services, and guideline employees to deal with franchisees.

Actually, some franchisees can't make money at the beginning, and others have conflicts of interest with 100 yuan in the course of business. At this time, when making decisions, Baiyuan basically adheres to the principle that the company suffers losses and safeguards the interests of franchisees.

In franchising, inventory is a major concern and headache for all franchisees. This is especially true for 100 yuan, which deals in trousers products. According to the purpose of win-win, the company has improved inventory management and basically achieved zero inventory.

The specific approach is to cancel the previous system of purchasing goods from franchisees to the Hundred-Yuan headquarters to participate in the order fair. Instead, according to the sales situation of the previous year and the market situation of this year, the products will be produced proportionally, and the products will be produced through the company's Multiple logistics centers are distributed to franchisees around the world.

Make an analogy. Last year, a franchisee sold 100,000 pairs of a certain type of trousers, so 100 yuan will decide to produce about 50% this year, and then adjust it according to the market conditions, and then send the products to the franchisee. In this way, the number of products produced is avoided as much as possible, which greatly exceeds the demand of the market.

Once a new trouser style is launched, 100 Yuan will post pictures on the company's website before sending the fabrics to franchisees. Franchisees make comments on new styles based on pictures and fabrics, and feed them back to headquarters together with order information. This kind of interaction "is fast and timely, and reduces costs, and basically achieves no inventory." Yang Jianxin said.

In line with the purpose of win-win, Baiyuan provides training services for franchisees. There are store manager training courses, single franchisee training, 10 regional franchisee training courses, and national franchisee conferences. These training courses have played a good role in changing the business concepts and ideas of franchisees.

Once, Baiyuan invited professional lecturers to train more than 900 franchisees. The lecturer said that opening a large store can produce very good brand effects and market influence. Many franchisees have followed the instructor's advice after they go back.

"We received a lot of calls from franchisees, saying that I had found a 100-square-meter, 80-square-meter store in a certain place, and now I want to open a large store. The concept has changed." Tang Peng said.

Management process and training are systematic services provided by Baiyuan to franchisees. This kind of service pursuit has a positive impact on franchisees on a large scale.

Actually, while providing systematic services, Baiyuan also pays attention to the coordination of personalized services. This kind of personalized service is prominently reflected in the dealings between headquarters staff and franchisees.

Baiyuan conducts standardized training for employees, allowing them to provide services to franchisees in accordance with standard actions. They treat franchisees politely, thoughtfully, warmly and generously. Answering the franchisee's phone, the first sentence is the standard "Hello, Baiyuan Pants! Can I help you?"

Baiyuan assigns special service personnel to franchisees to provide meticulous services. Its marketing department has more than a dozen employees, each of whom is responsible for about 60 franchise stores, and keeps abreast of the sales of franchise stores. Once it is found that the pants in any store are out of stock, the employee will immediately report to the statistics and deliver the required goods to the franchisee within half a day.

Because of good service, many investors join Hundred Yuan every year. There were 27 franchisees in the first year, 166 in the second, 340 in the third, 456 in the fourth, 606 in the fifth, 730 in the sixth, and nearly 900 in the seventh.

These franchisees also operate well. Some franchisees have achieved an annual turnover of tens of millions or tens of millions of yuan, and some even set an annual turnover target of 100 million yuan.

Service Headquarters

The franchise system of 100 yuan has a characteristic - the franchisee service headquarter. This service is mainly reflected in two aspects. One is the feedback of business experience, and the other is financial support.

The franchisees of 100 yuan often test some new practices and ideas in operation. After these practices and ideas are effective, they will be fed back to the headquarters for the headquarters to use to improve the rules of the entire franchise system, and in all Share among franchisees.

“Many of our franchisees have very good experience in store management, personnel management, salary design, and cost control,” Tang Peng said, “We can use it to make manuals and train our new recruits. Franchisees."

A franchisee with a good business also supports the franchise's headquarters financially. The first franchisee of Baiyuan was a young guy. He started from a store of about 30 square meters in a county in Shanxi, and entered Gansu, Shaanxi and other markets successively. So far, a total of 22 chain stores have been opened.

He became wealthy and decided to support the development of Hundred Yen. He and Baiyuan jointly invested in the construction of Baiyuan's regional logistics center in Xi'an.

This close relationship between franchisees and headquarters supports the continuous development of the entire franchise system and is a true portrayal of the concept of win-win.

Service Provider

The 100-yuan pants are OEM, and the actual production is done by its more than 300 suppliers.

Whether the supplier relationship is effective or not is related to the success or failure of the 100-yuan franchise system. To this end, Baiyuan provides services for suppliers by establishing an information management system.

For example, the 100-yuan purchasing system brings together the detailed information of all cooperative suppliers and the information of fabric products. Suppliers can log in to this system at any time to grasp the situation of fabric products. They can also have direct dialogue and information exchange with Baiyuan through this system. In this way, the production activities of suppliers can be carried out flexibly, quickly and efficiently.

The franchise of one hundred yuan is a service brand success story. Service, pay attention to innovation, kindness, generosity; the result is a win-win situation.

The author is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the CEConline website.