"Now I mainly use Meituan Maicai, Dingdong Maicai, and Meituan Waimai to buy groceries. I haven't been to physical supermarkets for nearly a year. When I do go to physical stores, I mostly choose Sam's Club," said Li Mingliang, a post-80s worker, to the reporter.
Li Mingliang is an ordinary office worker in Beijing, living in Yanjiao Town, Sanhe City, Hebei Province.
Originally a "Beijing drifter," Li had to buy a house with a loan in Yanjiao, Hebei, due to high housing prices in Beijing. He moved to Yanjiao in 2016 and became one of the commuters between Yanjiao and Beijing, frequently traveling between his workplace in Beijing and his home in Yanjiao.
Now, Li pays a monthly mortgage of 12,000 yuan, leaving little after salary deductions, so he focuses on cost-effectiveness in daily spending.
Before 2019 (pre-COVID), Li's grocery shopping channels were roughly half offline wet markets and physical supermarkets, and half front-warehouse platforms.
During the pandemic from 2020 to 2022, Li mainly bought groceries through e-commerce (front-warehouse) platforms, occasionally visiting physical stores. Daily necessities were purchased through Taobao and small grocery stores or supermarkets on Meituan Waimai.
After the pandemic ended, Li basically stopped going to offline supermarkets.
In Li's view, ordinary supermarkets offer nothing worth buying; their produce, fruits, and meat have no advantage in freshness or price compared to traditional wet markets.
"The main reason is that it's more convenient to buy groceries on front-warehouse platforms like Meituan Maicai and Dingdong Maicai. Although prices are slightly higher, it saves time and effort," Li said. "Moreover, most supermarkets' online products are not consistent with offline ones, whether in price or freshness."
More critically, front-warehouse platforms are expanding their categories, from initial vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, and milk, to prepared dishes, grains, oils, seasonings, alcoholic beverages, and then to snacks, personal care, cleaning supplies, daily necessities, etc. More and more products can be bought through these platforms, gradually replacing supermarkets.
However, Li still goes to wet markets, though not frequently. When hosting gatherings at home and needing large quantities of vegetables, fruits, and meat, he chooses larger wet markets because they have more seafood varieties, fresher meat and vegetables, and "the vendors have good service attitudes and will clean seafood properly."
Currently, Li mainly uses Meituan Maicai for groceries, with Dingdong Maicai as a supplement. Since his workplace is not far from Sam's Club, he goes there for offline purchases of vegetables, fruits, and food. "Supermarket channels have basically been abandoned."
Li provided his consumption bills for "buying groceries" from January to July this year.
In these seven months, Li spent a total of 12,430.37 yuan on groceries (mainly food), averaging 1,775 yuan per month. Online spending accounted for about 60%, offline physical stores 40%, with offline mainly at Sam's Club and wet markets.
"The products are attractive and of good quality" is the main reason Li continues to shop at Sam's Club. He has been an executive member of Sam's Club for three consecutive years.
This shows that Li still has a demand for offline physical stores, but the prerequisite is that the products must be attractive enough.
In Li's bills from January to July, online "grocery shopping" is the mainstream. He doesn't cook often, about 2-3 times a week.
On front-warehouse platforms, from January to July, Li spent 4,785.45 yuan on Meituan Maicai, averaging 683.63 yuan per month, ordering 8.1 times per month, more than twice a week. He placed 3 orders on Dingdong Maicai, spending 378.5 yuan.
Two years ago, Li's main online grocery channel was Dingdong Maicai because its quality was relatively good and service was attentive, with fish and abalone handled cleanly.
"Later I switched to Meituan Maicai mainly because Dingdong's service quality declined. Although the product quality was slightly better, the prices were higher. Some similar products were more expensive than Meituan Maicai," Li said.
Additionally, Li also orders from physical supermarket stores through Meituan Waimai. From January to July, Li spent 1,053.88 yuan on online orders from physical stores, placing 13 orders. "The products purchased were mainly sugar-free drinks, because of merchant/manufacturer promotions with big discounts. Apart from that, I basically don't order from physical stores," Li said.
About once a month, Li goes to a wet market to buy groceries for gatherings, spending an average of 300 yuan per visit. From January to July, his total spending at wet markets was 2,100 yuan.
Offline "grocery shopping" at physical stores is mainly at Sam's Club.
From January to July, Li visited Sam's Club 6 times, spending 2,968.54 yuan. He also placed 11 online orders at Sam's Club, spending 1,144 yuan. The total spending reached 4,112.54 yuan, averaging over 587 yuan per month at Sam's Club.
Although in recent years many domestic retail companies have entered the "membership store" market, in Li's view, their product strength is far inferior to Sam's Club.
"Mainly, Sam's Club has extremely strong product selection and development capabilities and global supply chain advantages. These are capabilities that many domestic retail companies lack, and the gap is significant," Li said.
This is also the main reason Li pays membership fees every year to keep his Sam's Club membership: "Shopping at Sam's Club, you basically won't be cheated."
Cui Yu, a post-90s, differs from Li Mingliang. Her main grocery channels are the "small supermarkets" and "small fruit and vegetable stores" downstairs in her residential complex, and she doesn't go to large supermarkets or chain supermarkets.
"Close to home" is the top priority, and the quality and freshness of vegetables at small stores are guaranteed. "They do business with familiar customers; if there's any quality issue, you can go to the store for a refund," Cui said. She only goes to wet markets for seafood and fresh beef and mutton.
"I don't go to big supermarkets because the products there are not attractive; they don't make me want to buy. Moreover, the products in big supermarkets don't update as fast as the small supermarket downstairs; many items remain unchanged for months," Cui said. "For example, nectarines sold at the small supermarket downstairs are bigger, sweeter, and cheaper than those in big supermarkets. Seasonings like soy sauce and vinegar of the same brand are also cheaper at the small supermarket downstairs."
There are three supermarkets downstairs in Cui's residential area, all independent stores with no fame, but they are one of the main places for neighbors to buy groceries. Among them, two sell vegetables, fruits, meat, and pastries, while the other is just an ordinary "standard product" supermarket. Clearly, the small supermarkets selling vegetables, fruits, meat, and pastries have more customer traffic.
"Every time I go to the supermarket, I buy a lot of vegetables and fruits, spending about 70-80 yuan," Cui said. "For rice, flour, oil, beverages, etc., I buy through online instant shopping platforms, with delivery to home."
Cui likes snacks. She often visits the "Korean shop" snack store not far from her building, and buys most other snacks on Taobao. She doesn't buy snacks at supermarkets because "the snacks in supermarkets are mostly not tasty."
However, she does go to specialty snack stores like Laiyifen. She doesn't go to discount stores like Hi-Tech or HotMaxx, mainly because she doesn't like their snacks.
Although Li Mingliang and Cui Yu cannot represent all post-80s and post-90s, they share a common point in grocery shopping: they have requirements for product quality, price, and service, and they also want to save time and effort, so they don't go to supermarkets too far away.
Clearly, some traditional supermarkets are still located in busy urban areas, but their product strength is insufficient. Especially in recent years, due to various reasons, traditional supermarkets and other offline stores have faced declining sales, reduced customer traffic, and increasing revenue pressure.
Taking Sam's Club as an example, we can see a clue.
Sam's most attractive point is its product strength, with extremely strong product selection and development capabilities and global supply chain advantages.
Although SKU is only about 4,000, Sam's Club has carefully selected products, "choosing the best among the best," helping members pick products, so members can buy satisfactory items at Sam's.
Through strict quality control, Sam's Club has accumulated deep practical experience and created a highly differentiated, member-exclusive product system and service standards, giving Sam's a good reputation and earning consumer trust. This is why a large number of consumers become members and continue to renew.
At the same time, Sam's Club also has a large number of private label products, ensuring considerable profits.
Now look at Shouhang small stores, which also achieved performance growth through differentiated product selection, quality service, and focusing on residents' "three meals a day."
The Lincoln Park store, with a business area of 190 square meters and 3,000 SKUs, has an average daily sales of 34,700 yuan.
Li Ronghua, purchasing director of Shouhang Supermarket, said that in recent years, as consumer demands have changed, "one store fits all" can no longer meet new needs. Shouhang Supermarket has also changed with customer demands: "We have adjusted our product positioning to be close to community customers, focusing on three meals a day, and providing diversified life solutions."
In Li Ronghua's view, community small stores should have a full range of categories. Even with only 190 square meters, they should cover all categories needed for community consumers' "three meals a day," including daily necessities as much as possible.
Furthermore, only doing "standard products" cannot compete with large supermarkets and mom-and-pop stores; they must pursue quality and characteristics.
Take pork as an example: in a 190-square-meter store, branded black pork can achieve daily sales of 1,500 yuan, with a gross margin nearly twice that of ordinary pork. "Customers also feel it's worth buying this pork because it tastes good," Li said.
"Full category is the foundation, quality is the core. Shouhang's community stores sell many quality products, including Japanese seasonings, avocado oil, camellia oil, etc.," Li Ronghua said.
These are the main reasons why Shouhang small stores are popular with consumers and achieve performance growth.
Just a few days ago, Fresh Legend upgraded to its "eighth-generation store," pursuing more products, more affordable prices, and higher quality.
The eighth-generation store further increases self-made and private label products, further compresses regular shelves, and expands frozen and refrigerated areas. "This is an inevitable trend. Now frozen products taste very good, are convenient to use, and hygienic. In addition, fresh food is becoming more and more 'fresh-prepared'," said Wang Wei, founder of Fresh Legend.
As Wang Wei said, providing consumers with unique, cost-effective products is the ultimate work goal for enterprises.
Focusing on consumers' actual needs, doing well in product strength and differentiation, and providing good service are what more supermarkets should think about.