On April 27, Alibaba Vice President and General Manager of Retail Link Lin Xiaohai shared his early experience of riding a tricycle to deliver goods at the 'Retail Link First City Partner Conference', encouraging Retail Link city partners to persist in their efforts and achieve new successes in the new fiscal year. Retail Link is the world's largest one-stop store procurement platform, with one million small stores purchasing through it, meaning one in every six stores in China is a Retail Link contracted user. Retail Link has over 4,000 staff, inheriting the 'Alibaba Iron Army' spirit, tasked with expanding small stores, selling selected products and brand tasks, and providing value-added services. They are the backbone force enabling small retail stores to embrace the DT big data era. The following is the full speech: Good morning, everyone! Walking into this venue this morning, I was deeply moved. I recall that in July 1995, I joined Procter & Gamble as a wholesale manager. A wholesale manager was essentially a local salesperson for P&G's urban expansion. I spent a full six months running small stores in Shenzhen. As a salesperson, I rode a bicycle, pulling a cart of laundry detergent—at that time, we were selling Ariel Ultra Concentrated 40g laundry detergent, which was very hard to sell. I experienced all kinds of human warmth and coldness. Many times, especially the first time I visited a store, I was kicked out by the owner, who thought I was a fraud. Of course, some people sympathized with me—in such hot weather, under Shenzhen's scorching sun, I was small, weighing only 95 pounds, pushing a 28-inch bicycle taller than myself with a large basket behind. Some sympathetic store owners even invited me to work in their stores, and some even told me they had daughters, and if I were willing to stay, I might become the boss in the future! I tried riding a bicycle from Hongling Road in Shenzhen all the way to the reservoir, and also rode a tricycle loaded with goods for delivery. Controlling a tricycle is different from a bicycle, and it was raining; I almost hit a Mercedes-Benz. I thought, if I had crashed into it, I don't know how I would have compensated. I was lucky! Seeing you all reminds me of those six months. But it was precisely that experience that forged my bond with small stores and deepened my connection with all of you city partners. So seeing you all feels so familiar. Brothers, welcome home! Just now, in the video, we saw the tremendous changes Retail Link has undergone over the past two years. I remember it was September 2016 when I joined Retail Link. On the first day, I went to Nanjing with the team for a team meeting. After the meeting, they arranged for me to go to Huai'an for field work. At that time, there was a reward for the first partner to achieve 100 supply stores. In Huai'an, I met city partner Yang Lan. That day, together with Yang Lan, we visited several stores. I remember one store owner, Sister Li, and I wonder how her business is doing now. At that time, Sister Li, Yang Lan, and the Huai'an city partners had a roundtable discussion. The students told me how hard the partners worked. I asked Yang Lan, 'It's so tough, how do you keep going?' He told me he believed our future would be better! At that time, I wrote down all the problems on two full pages of my notebook. Actually, before coming here today, I flipped through that notebook and found that 80% of the issues recorded have basically been resolved. The past year has been hard, but we achieved outstanding results. Just now in the video, we saw that in one year, we surpassed one million stores. The number one million was a dream we longed for. There are only 6 million stores nationwide, and now 1 million are active on the platform—that's one-sixth. Compared to the previous year, this is a brilliant achievement. Behind this achievement is the improvement of our capabilities in various aspects. In terms of products, we have now basically established a three-tier warehousing and distribution system. Our products now have a significant competitive advantage. In the past year, we gained support from over 80% of top FMCG brands, signing strategic cooperation agreements. Our overall warehousing and distribution experience has improved significantly compared to a year ago. I remember in December 2016, a single promotional event caused the East China warehouse to overflow, and we couldn't ship for nearly 15 days. But last year's 'Double 11' set a record sales volume in one day, and the Cainiao team felt no pressure. The experience for small stores has changed dramatically. We are the only B2B e-commerce platform that provides credit sales services to small stores, because we trust small stores. City partners have become a highly cohesive marketing iron army, and the most combat-effective and competitive team in Alibaba Retail Link. Our team has evolved from a ragtag group to a retail iron army with re-planning and strong management. All achievements are attributed to you here and the over 4,000 city partners on the front lines. It is you who helped Retail Link gain respect from brand owners; you who helped us earn the trust of small stores; you who helped Retail Link gain recognition from the group; you who helped us gain influence in the entire industry. So thank you all. Last year, our active sales stores increased 15 times, and GMV increased 25 times. We always say that yesterday's best performance is today's minimum requirement. Today, as partners gather for the first annual meeting, we hope to look forward to the future. These achievements are just the foundation of a distribution platform, but next year it must be an intelligent distribution platform. We need to achieve a better experience at half the cost; we need a huge improvement in product strength—all products needed by small stores, with competitive prices and better service than any platform. We hope every small store can have at least one shelf of self-selected products to bring incremental business. We hope to provide various cold chain services to top small stores, helping them operate frozen and fresh food, expanding their business scope. We also hope all small stores can not only get procurement services from Retail Link but also more value-added services. We hope to help small stores expand their operating hours, scope, and capabilities. This is the first thing to be clear about next year: the intelligent distribution system. Second, there will be significant improvements on the store side. Let every small store feel the internet, big data, and the changes in people, goods, warehouses, and places brought by Alibaba. Because of Retail Link, each small store's product structure becomes more optimized, and it can do business it couldn't do before. Store management becomes simpler, more efficient, and more intelligent. We hope to help each small store connect better with its customers and consumers, and even help brand owners establish connections with consumers through small stores. And we don't want small stores to bear too much cost. True technology is when store owners don't feel the technology—it's still today's way of working, but because of Retail Link's empowerment, the small store becomes an intelligent store and a community internet service station. This is the future we hope to see. To achieve this future, we still have six major strategies in the new fiscal year. The first strategy is products. Our product side will definitely make small stores feel stronger product strength in the new fiscal year. We will fully integrate all virtual warehouse water and heavy goods with all brand owners and distributors, so that every street can buy core brands' water and beverages. In the physical warehouse, we will sign strategic cooperation with core brand owners, establishing retail competitive advantages in 15 categories this year, switching out the entire shelves of 15 categories in small stores. In self-selection, we are committed to bringing Tmall brands offline, bringing imported brands to China, promoting regional products nationwide, and bringing all rural Taobao products to cities. We will use data matching to help each small store find the most suitable sales scenarios and self-selected products to bring incremental business. This is the product plan. For the supply chain plan, the three-tier warehousing and distribution system will further evolve this year. We will expand city warehouse capabilities, differentiate regional warehouse product layouts, city warehouse product layouts, and front warehouse product layouts, achieve city warehouse supply and distribution, increase the proportion of city distribution, and greatly improve the experience of small stores receiving goods in batches. We have said we hope to improve the efficiency of the warehousing and distribution system at half the cost this year. For the partner team, the direction this year remains re-planning and strong management. After today's conference, we hope all partners can become Iron Men, each partner producing three times the output of a traditional FMCG salesperson. As a result, we can at least double our income. The fourth strategy is to make Retail Link a precision marketing platform for all brand owners in the new fiscal year. We are not only a distribution platform but also a marketing platform, helping brand owners with new product promotion, store displays, and sales promotion, enabling them to reach each small store in a more precise and efficient way. After completing these foundational tasks, we hope to significantly improve the store experience, letting every small store feel the changes in people, goods, places, and warehouses brought by Retail Link. Therefore, this year's Tmall small stores will be given more value, making each Tmall small store a base for new retail operations. Finally, the product structure and supply chain system accumulated by Retail Link can be exported to more scenarios, such as integrating with Koubei to enter the catering industry, and we have already integrated with telecom business halls. These six strategies will help Retail Link achieve this year's goals. The key to achieving these goals is you, the partners. In fact, many partners have been asking me: Retail Link needs partners today, but will it need them in the future? In the video just now, at the strategic launch on August 28 last year, I clearly stated: Today we need partners, and tomorrow we need them even more. Today, I want to emphasize again the importance of the partner team to Retail Link's business. Retail Link serves 6 million small stores. The owners of these stores have relatively weak internet capabilities, and their business scenarios are very complex. We don't expect these 6 million small stores to hire many employees in the future to help with standardized operations. What we provide to small stores is an APP, and in the future, a POS machine. How can these store owners embrace new retail and enter the internet? They definitely need city partners to help them. Our customer base determines that the business must have partners. That's the first point. Second, today, city partners spend most of their time on sales promotion. Next, we hope partners will develop from sales promotion to services, and then to consulting. The value we currently provide to small stores is still very small, and there is a long way to go. All partners should evolve from sales promotion to services, and then to consulting. I think this path can keep us going for many years. Therefore, we need partners in this system. Finally, let me talk about my expectations for all partners here and the over 4,000 partners on the front lines for the new fiscal year. The first expectation is that partners remember Retail Link's mission, vision, and values. Retail Link's mission is to build an intelligent distribution network, allowing one million small stores to embrace the DT era. Last year, we built a distribution network; in the new fiscal year, we will make it an intelligent distribution network. Our vision is to serve every store, for every home. We hope to create one million intelligent communities through one million small stores, reaching hundreds of millions of consumers. Our values are extreme, altruistic, and trust. This business has over 170 competitors. If we don't achieve excellence and do better than our competitors, we cannot gain the trust of small stores. This is an ecosystem where all suppliers, partners, and Cainiao on the platform must benefit, so we can develop. Ultimately, gaining the trust of small stores, partners, and suppliers will enable common development. That's the first expectation. The second expectation is about execution. If last year the partners' sole responsibility was to expand stores, this year the expectations are three words: density, stickiness, and depth. What is density? If you cover three blocks with 200 stores, I hope you can secure all 200 stores—that's density. Instead of going 100 kilometers away to develop another store, I hope each partner can deepen density in their own blocks, achieving 100% coverage. That's the first expectation. Second, stickiness: in the new fiscal year, I hope every small store can become dependent on Retail Link, treating it as the first procurement platform, browsing Retail Link daily, purchasing daily, and buying all categories from us. In the future, we need to achieve 100% SKU procurement from Retail Link for each store—that's depth. That's the second expectation for partner friends. The third expectation is that to achieve this goal, all partners need to become Iron Men. This work is not easy. We cannot, like traditional FMCG salespeople, sell store by store, SKU by SKU. We need to teach small stores to use the APP, tell them procurement methods, help them plan categories, and cultivate the habit of independent ordering. This will help improve online operational capabilities, reaching more stores and categories. To achieve this, besides personal growth and effort, and following the SOP we set daily, it's more important to use the smart devices at hand. Every partner is an ordinary person, but the day you open the Ling Xiaobao app, you become an Iron Man. If you do these three things, I believe partner friends will definitely achieve three times the output of FMCG salespeople and double the income in the new fiscal year, with everyone becoming a ten-thousand-yuan partner. The new fiscal year is about to begin. I wish all partners good health, family happiness, and prosperity. Thank you all! Source: Entrepreneur Bang -END-