America 1919-Chapter 719 - : 247, The Influence of Retail Industry_2
Chapter 719: 247, The Influence of Retail Industry_2
But Donnie also had his own ideas.
“Both of your ideas are good, but there is something you haven’t thought through!”
Donnie first affirmed their ideas, then continued, “But don’t forget, at the beginning, it was A&P who initiated this war!”
When Apollo Chain opened, companies like A&P and Sears Roebuck launched their own promotion campaigns immediately.
Even now, although they don’t have new actions, their promotions are still ongoing.
This is not a sign of wanting to cease hostilities.
...
“We can choose to stop fighting, but the other side won’t cancel their promotions, and as a newly established retail chain, if we have promotions with the same intensity as theirs, we won’t be able to win over those customers, so we must have bigger promotion activities than theirs.”
It was Apollo Chain, led by Tang Fei, who sounded the horn of war, but it was A&P who charged first.
Although the opponent is resting for now, it doesn’t mean they want to cease hostilities. If they did, they would either send someone to negotiate with Donnie’s team, or they would withdraw their promotion campaigns.
“But if we continue like this, we may win, but the cost will be enormous!”
Dustbog couldn’t help but speak out.
Donnie waved his hand, “Don’t worry, we are taking losses, but A&P is also taking losses. Sooner or later, they will sit at the negotiation table with us. What we want now is to gain more advantage at that table!”
At this moment, Donnie was extremely grateful that he had traveled to Atlantic City and started the private liquor business right at the beginning, not to mention establishing Surf Hotel.
These two ventures provided Donnie with cash flow far exceeding others.
In any era, cash is king, and that’s always right!
With these two cash pools providing a constant supply of cash, Donnie naturally had the confidence to compete with anyone in any field!
Seeing Donnie speak like this, Helen knew that Donnie had made up his mind about this matter, and now no persuasion would work.
But Helen, who understood Donnie, always felt that Donnie was in such a hurry about this matter because he must have some other ideas.
So after Dustbog left, Helen asked Donnie about the doubts in her mind.
Facing Helen’s questions, Donnie didn’t hide anything.
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“Do you know how many registered cars there are in the United States right now?”
Helen said, “Although I haven’t paid much attention, I think there should be at least 15 million registered cars by now?”
Donnie shook his head, “There are now over 20 million registered cars in the United States, and if you include those not registered, the number is even bigger.”
Helen asked, “What does that imply?”
Donnie smiled lightly and continued, “Additionally, right now in the United States, they are either building highways or constructing railways. Let’s set aside the railways for a moment, and just talk about highways. Previously, to travel from Atlantic City to Philadelphia, you could only take the train, but now people can drive there.
The pervasiveness of automobiles is changing Americans’ lifestyles!”
Although Helen still didn’t quite understand Donnie’s point, she nodded in agreement with his statement.
Previously, cars were considered luxury items, but with Ford Motor bringing down the prices, cars have become a daily necessity for people’s lives!
Donnie went on to say, “The pervasiveness of cars is also changing people’s lives. Before, people’s daily needs were met either through mail-order by phone or by visiting various stores. But imagine, what if we establish a large shopping mall that includes all the goods people need for their daily life, from clothing, food, shelter, to transportation? People could just drive their cars to this shopping center and buy everything they need all at once. What would that situation be like?”
Helen’s eyes brightened, finding Donnie’s proposal somewhat interesting.
In the view of many, Walmart was the company that scaled up the big chain supermarket business in the United States, but in fact, the first company to introduce such large chain supermarkets was Sears Roebuck.
The transformation of Sears Roebuck began in 1925 when it was heavily suppressed by A&P and was forced to seek a new direction.
This type of large self-service supermarket was actually first proposed by A&P, and the man behind the idea was John Hardford. However, just like the current promotion war between A&P and Apollo Chain, the executives and board of directors of A&P believed such an idea was too naive… mainly because the investment was too big.
So, A&P rejected John Hardford’s suggestion.
When Sears Roebuck learned of this, they immediately adopted the idea and in 1925, they launched their first such supermarket.
They moved their original stores to the suburbs, establishing large shops equipped with ample parking space.
The shops had a complete range of goods including clothing, shoes, hats, food, household items, home appliances, and even auto insurance services.
In just three years, the number of shops reached 192. After achieving scale advantage, they could both continue to expand their chain operations and reduce costs. This gave birth to GMS, which is the American general supermarket.
