The three-year lease of the middle school commissary sold for 3.2 million, beware of the changing taste of campus business
If it is not compliant, it is necessary to find out whether there is a chain of interests behind it; if it is compliant, whether high rents will increase consumption costs, there should also be further safeguards to reassure the outside world and parents.
The commissary of Shaoyang Xinning No. 2 Middle School in Hunan grabbed a video of 3.2 million yuan in hand and was circulated on the Internet recently.
The three-year lease is 3.2 million yuan, and the annual lease fee is more than one million yuan.
The high cost of refreshing the imagination of the outside world has once again opened the tip of the iceberg of campus business.
Many netizens questioned that "the wool comes from the sheep" and that the rental cost is too high, which will drive up commodity prices and consumption costs.
In addition, the school is a closed place of consumption after all, and it may eventually become a "harvest" for students.
In this regard, the school stated that the bidding for the commissary was organized by relevant departments; the local education department responded that it was in accordance with the contract and was legal and compliant, and that “the price of items cannot be increased illegally”.
This response is not without reason.
First of all, campus bidding needs to be open, fair and just, and the auction of the right to lease management in the commissary department is indeed an open and transparent bidding.
At least for now, if there is no clear evidence of procedural violations, the high price of 3.2 million yuan is the result of normal bidding.
On the other hand, the school has more than 3,000 students. Considering that the current students’ spending power is relatively strong, and the passenger flow is stable, under such a student base, the monthly flow of the canteen may even be hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. .
In contrast, the 3-year lease cost of 3.2 million yuan is not necessarily that exaggerated.
In fact, before that, many local schools' canteens and leaseholds had been auctioned at sky-high prices.
For example, it is reported that a small shop in Nanning No. 1 Middle School sold an annual rent of 1.73 million yuan.
Similar cases show that the rate of return on campus business is indeed much higher than we thought.
However, after an open auction, it does not mean that the final price is reasonable.
Regarding the doubts from the outside world, it is difficult to prevaricate easily just by procedural compliance.
After all, a campus is not a shopping mall. The shopping malls are openly bidding for rent, mainly for adults with independent financial ability. However, the consumer audience of the campus canteen is students.
On the one hand, the consumption environment is closed, which can easily lead to monopolies, leading to problems such as hidden price increases; on the other hand, students' consumption behaviors are easily guided by various external factors, and irrational consumption occurs.
Such worries are not groundless.
For example, a netizen recently broke the news that a teacher in a junior high school in Yicheng, Hubei, asked students to buy basketballs at a designated store, and also registered the child's name and class.
Considering that the bidders have invested a high amount of money in this lease, how can we ensure that similar semi-mandatory consumer behaviors will not occur in the future in the process of recovering costs?
It should be emphasized again that the school has a strong public welfare attribute, and the business on the campus should be handled in accordance with the laws of the market, but it must be sufficiently vigilant for some problems that may arise from thorough marketization.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Special Commentator for Red Star News
Xiong Zhi