Source | Zhengdian Consumer In the past two years, Pangdonglai, Sam's Club, and Hema (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Pang-Shan-He") have become benchmarks in the domestic retail industry. To some extent, Pang-Shan-He has continuously redefined the logic of "people, goods, and places" in domestic commodity circulation, making more consumers willingly "pay" with their votes. As 2025 has just ended, the "report cards" of Pang-Shan-He have also been released, all showing high growth trends. "Pang-Shan-He" Revenue Growth Exceeds 40% As non-listed companies, the performance of Pang-Shan-He is also a focus of industry attention. Image source: Pangdonglai official website (screenshot) According to information on Pangdonglai's official website, as of December 31, 2025, the total sales of Pangdonglai Group in 2025 exceeded 23.531 billion yuan (RMB, same below). Among them, the supermarket format occupied the core C-position, with sales reaching 12.643 billion yuan, jewelry sales reaching 2.451 billion yuan, and tea annual sales of 1.063 billion yuan. In 2024, the cumulative annual sales of Pangdonglai Group (in Xuchang and Xinxiang) were 16.964 billion yuan. Among them, Xuchang Pangdonglai Supermarket's cumulative annual sales were approximately 5.945 billion yuan, and Xinxiang Pangdonglai Supermarket's cumulative annual sales were approximately 2.149 billion yuan. That is to say, its group revenue growth in 2025 reached 38.71%, and the supermarket format's revenue growth was as high as 56.2%. It is worth mentioning that on March 28, 2025, Pangdonglai founder Yu Donglai stated that they would control sales scale, saying, "This year, we plan to keep our sales scale within 20 billion yuan as much as possible." In addition to Pangdonglai, according to reports from "Business Observer," Sam's Club China, Walmart's warehouse membership store business, saw sales exceed 140 billion yuan in 2025. In 2024, its sales were only 100.5 billion yuan. In other words, Sam's Club's sales increased by approximately 40% year-on-year. It is worth mentioning that last year, Sam's Club has become a new growth driver for many companies' performance, including Youyou Foods, Yanjin Puza, etc. As an important retail business segment under Alibaba Group, Hema's overall GMV in fiscal year 2025 exceeded 75 billion yuan, and it achieved full-year adjusted EBITA profitability for the first time. Image source: Weibo @Ma Jihua Hema CEO Yan Xiaolei also revealed Hema's performance through an internal letter on New Year's Day this year: Hema's overall revenue growth rate exceeded 40% in 2025. As early as August 2025, Yan Xiaolei publicly announced that Hema not only achieved full-year profitability in fiscal year 2025 but also achieved the goal of consecutive monthly profitability. "The key to Pang-Shan-He's performance growth lies in precisely targeting different consumer demands and amplifying differentiated advantages," said Zhan Junhao, a well-known strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, to the author: "Pangdonglai builds strong user stickiness through ultimate service experience, Sam's Club locks in mid-to-high-end customer groups with selected SKUs plus membership system, and Hema seizes the instant consumption track with fresh food digitalization plus online-offline integration. All three deeply cultivate supply chains, create high-cost-performance hit products through private brands, and build hard-to-replicate competitive barriers with precise scenario operations and user mind-share occupation." Industry Cold Thinking In fact, overall, the hypermarket format has not developed well in the past two years. In contrast, many domestic retail enterprises fell into turmoil in 2025, including Alibaba selling RT-Mart to Dehong Capital for over 10 billion Hong Kong dollars, Renrenle being delisted, Suning.com selling 12 Carrefour China subsidiary equities at "1 yuan per store," and many companies taking Pang-Shan-He as their adjustment target, including Yonghui Superstores, Wumart, Bubugao, etc. Image source: Professional Retail Network But at the performance level, taking the first three quarters of this year as an example, Yonghui Superstores lost 710 million yuan, Hongqi Chain saw both revenue and net profit decline; Zhongbai Group lost 580 million yuan, Guoguang Chain turned from profit to loss, and the net profits of Liqun Shares, Bubugao, and Sanjiang Shopping decreased by 46.8%, 88.83%, and 5.42% year-on-year, respectively... Behind the performance decline, it inevitably leads to the contraction of hypermarket stores. According to the "2024 China Supermarket TOP100" list, the cumulative number of closed stores reached 3,037. And just Yonghui Superstores closed more than 200 stores in the first half of 2025. Why are there such different development trends? In the view of Zhu Danpeng, a Chinese food industry analyst: "Behind the significant performance growth of the three Pang-Shan-He companies, the entire domestic retail industry has undergone earth-shaking changes in the past decade. The decline and exit of many brands also reflect a fundamental change in the consumption thinking and behavior of Chinese consumers, ushering in a critical juncture where the consumption side forces the industry side to continuously innovate and upgrade." Indeed, whether it is Pangdonglai, Sam's Club, or Hema, their product retail prices are not low. Some consumers told the author: "A trip to Sam's Club costs hundreds or even thousands of yuan." So why are consumers still keen to spend at Pang-Shan-He? Is it really a symbol of middle-class identity? The answer is no. After all, besides having better conditions, the vast majority of consumer groups disdain to show off their status in this way. Zhu Danpeng told the author: "The new generation of consumer groups has become the main force, but their consumption thinking of 'liking the new and disliking the old' has never changed. The new generation has a very strong self-awareness and a high demand for emotional value, so they also require extreme personalization and humanization of products." Pangdonglai, with its humanized service and extreme cost-performance products, hits the purchasing motivation of Chinese consumers; Hema's convenience and overall innovation are very obvious; and Sam's Club, as the big brother of membership stores, has very obvious global supply chain and product differentiation... Three different companies, combining personalization and quality-price ratio, have also become the basic principles of contemporary retail. Zhu Danpeng frankly stated that China will never lack consumers; what is lacking are products, business models, and enterprises that understand consumers. How to recognize consumers, insight into consumers, satisfy consumers, and please consumers should be the cornerstone and origin of the entire Chinese retail industry in the future. How to provide higher quality and more differentiated products is the core, and how to provide a better service system and emotional value is also the direction and trend of future upgrading and development. 【Moving Towards the C-End】The 11th China FMCG Conference Time: March 16-18, 2026 Location: Chengdu, China