Chapter 14 Four Sons of Department Store

In 1914, the Nanjing Road in Shanghai was paved with quinoa wood floor tiles. "The canopy dust in Beijing, the fog in London, the mahogany paved road on Nanjing Road", a nursery rhyme was sung in Shanghai.It was also in this year that a seven-storey building began to be built at the northwest corner of the intersection of Nanjing Road and Zhejiang Road. Its architecture has an exotic Baroque style. The arc-shaped eaves above the third floor are supported by Ionic columns in the middle; the fourth floor is a cast iron balcony, and the fifth and sixth floors are double windows.On the top of the sixth floor of the facade at the southeast corner is a Moxing tower, with a big clock at the base and a garden on the roof.The building was built for three years, and in October 1917, Xianshi Company opened, which was the first large-scale department store in Shanghai.

One year after Xianshi opened, another six-storey department store, Wing On, appeared on the diagonally opposite corner. Its building facade is decorated with columns and wall-mounted square pillars, giving people the feeling of Western Renaissance architecture. .The exterior wall is finished with tai stone, and the display window is made of imported large glass, which is a precedent for large glass display windows in Shanghai.It also has a roof garden and towers and towers.In addition to the department stores on the 1st to 4th floors, restaurants, hotels, billiard rooms, dance halls, playgrounds and cinemas are also set up on other floors, which are similar to the shopping malls of later generations.

The opening of Xianshi and Wing On marked the beginning of Shanghai's prosperous era, and Nanjing Road became "China's No. 1 Commercial Street", and its business line continues to this day. In 1926, a manager of Xianshi Company named Liu Xiji set up another hill, and built Xinxin Company, the third large department store on Nanjing Road, next to Xianshi. In 1936, another businessman named Cai Chang opened Daxin Company in the west of Xinxin Company. It is legendary that the founders of the four major department stores on Nanjing Road all came from Xiangshan, a small county in Guangdong Province.In modern China, this is an awe-inspiring place. It gave birth to the most famous revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, three of the "Four Compradors" in the late Qing Dynasty, the earliest overseas students, and the famous "Four Sons of Department Stores". ".

The founder of Xian Shi, Ma Yingbiao (1864-1944), went overseas to Australia as a laborer in his early years. After saving a little, he started a fruit shop business. When he was 40 years old, he returned to Hong Kong and opened the first department store in China. Xianshi, the shopping mall at that time only had an area of ​​500 square meters.Ma Yingbiao created many firsts, such as the first commodity price and "no second price" system, invoices for all sales, the first Sunday rest system for employees, and the first exception to hire female shop assistants, which was a sensation in those days for a while.After the success of the first venture in Hong Kong, he went north to found Shanghai Xianshi.

The founders of Wing On Company, Guo Le (1874-1956) and Guo Quan brothers also opened a fruit shop in Australia. They followed Ma Yingbiao’s footsteps. They founded Hong Kong Wing On in 1908, and went to Shanghai 10 years later to open a shop opposite Xian Shi. Shanghai Wing On.There are more than 10,000 kinds of products sold by Wing On, eight of which are high-end products from all over the world. It is known as "a department store that sells all over the world", and it was even called "a golden cave" at one time.Guo Le also hung up an English slogan made of neon lights, "Custmers are always right" - "Customers are always right", which is almost a replica of "Customer is God".

The founders of Xinxin and Daxin, Liu Xiji and Cai Chang (1877-1953), were former ministers of Xianshi. They competed with Xianshi and Yong'an neighbors, and they all had the vitality of catching up from behind.Xinxin designed and equipped Shanghai's first radio station founded by a Chinese. Because the house of the station is surrounded by glass partitions, it is commonly known as "glass station". On May 25, 1949, when Shanghai was liberated, the radio station first broadcast this important news and played revolutionary songs to the people of the city.The last Daxin Company to appear is even more aggressive. It is a ten-storey building with a business area of ​​17,000 square meters. It is the crown of the four major department stores. There were so many people that they had to sell tickets to control the flow of people.Daxin Amusement Park is exquisitely arranged, with "Sixteen Views on the Roof", and at the same time, there are performances of Peking Opera, drama, movie, comedy, magic and so on.

Four Xiangshan fellows do the same business on the beach, but they compete with each other mercilessly, leaving countless wonderful business war stories.Xian Shi originally planned to build five floors, but later heard that Yongan had six floors, so he insisted on temporarily adding two floors. Yongan did not show any weakness, and immediately decided to add a "Qiyun Pavilion" on the roof. Naturally, Xianshi couldn't swallow this breath. Immediately add another "Mosing Tower".One year, Xianshi launched discount coupons. In order to increase consumers' impulse to buy, it set the prices of several popular products such as cigarettes and soy sauce at very low prices. Wing On secretly sent people to take the cash to buy Xianshi Gift certificates, and then use the gift certificates to buy cigarettes and soy sauce, which made Xianshi suffer a big loss. In 1936, when the Daxin Company with the largest area opened, Xianshi and other three companies first jointly threatened the small factories of domestic products not to sell products to Daxin, otherwise they would collectively stop purchasing from these small factories. Jointly hold the "Spring Sale" and set the prices of some hot-selling items at a very low level.On the other hand, Dah Sing advertised small profits but quick turnover. It also customized Dah Sin soap, Dah Sin shirts, and Dah Sin cigars with unique specifications to manufacturers. This is already a very advanced retail model.A year after Daxin opened, Wing On built a 22-story high-rise, once again leading the pack.

The "Four Sons of Department Stores" competed with each other, making a Nanjing Road full of flowers, and the international media called it "the road with the most cosmopolitan culture on earth." Enter the concession and seek refuge.For a time, the population surged, and business flourished abnormally. After 1945, the civil war broke out. Due to the incompetent governance of the Kuomintang government, severe inflation occurred, and the four major department stores encountered panic buying. By the spring of 1949, except Yongan, the other three department stores had withdrawn from Shanghai one after another.

After the founding of New China, the fate of the four major department stores was different. In 1952, the Xianshi Company Building was used by Shanghai Fashion Company, Huangpu District Cultural Center, East Asia Hotel, etc. The rooftop garden enjoys the coolness evening party very popular among ordinary citizens. In 1993, Xianshi Company returned to Nanjing Road, with a new location at No. 479 Nanjing East Road. In 1956, Yongan Company changed its name to Shanghai Tenth Department Store, and after the reconstruction in 1987, it was called "Hualian Commercial Building".Xinxin Company has since closed down, and its original location has been changed to Shanghai No. 1 Food Store. In 1953, the Daxin Company Building was changed to Shanghai No. 1 Department Store, which was the largest department store in the country until the 1980s.