---
title: "Bestore Slashes Prices Drastically! Is High-End Strategy Dead?"
description: "The leisure snack industry has been hit again. On November 30, Bestore announced its largest price cut in 17 years, with member prices on over 300 products in stores averaging a 22% reduction and a maximum cut of 45%, focusing on snacks with optimized costs without compromising quality and high repurchase rates. Shortly before, leading bulk snack retailer Snackbusy merged with Zhao Yiming Snacks. In November, both retail and brand sides of the industry made major adjustments, with Three Squirrels having already adjusted earlier, while Baicaowei said it would not follow suit for now."
author: "田静"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2023-12-01"
language: "en"
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---

# Bestore Slashes Prices Drastically! Is High-End Strategy Dead?

> The leisure snack industry has been hit again. On November 30, Bestore announced its largest price cut in 17 years, with member prices on over 300 products in stores averaging a 22% reduction and a maximum cut of 45%, focusing on snacks with optimized costs without compromising quality and high repurchase rates. Shortly before, leading bulk snack retailer Snackbusy merged with Zhao Yiming Snacks. In November, both retail and brand sides of the industry made major adjustments, with Three Squirrels having already adjusted earlier, while Baicaowei said it would not follow suit for now.

The leisure snack industry has been hit again!

On November 30, Bestore announced its largest price cut in 17 years, with member prices on over 300 products in stores averaging a 22% reduction and a maximum cut of 45%, focusing on snacks with optimized costs without compromising quality and high repurchase rates.

Shortly before, leading bulk snack retailer Snackbusy merged with Zhao Yiming Snacks.

In November, both retail and brand sides of the leisure snack industry made large-scale adjustments. Before Bestore's price cut, Three Squirrels had already made corresponding adjustments and told the public that it has been implementing its "high-end cost-performance" strategy throughout the year, improving quality and reducing prices through supply chain integration and strengthened internal management, keeping terminal prices at a healthy level while ensuring basic profits, and will continue to do so in the future.

Baicaowei, on the other hand, said it would not follow suit for now.

Whether it's Three Squirrels' "high-end cost-performance" or Bestore's "price cut without quality compromise," both signal that a new round of transformation in the snack industry is accelerating.

**Returning to the "Neighborhood Image"**

**Does it conflict with high-end positioning?**

On November 27, Bestore held its second extraordinary general meeting of 2023. After board election, Yang Yinfen was elected chairman and, after a two-year hiatus, again assumed the role of general manager.

On the 29th, Yang Yinfen issued an open letter to all employees stating that a new round of reform would be launched to return Bestore to its neighborhood image. Bestore said it would implement the largest price cut in 17 years, with 300 products averaging a 22% reduction and a maximum cut of 45%, focusing on snacks with optimized costs without compromising quality and high repurchase rates.

Bestore, established 17 years ago, faces a market environment of consumption stratification and the rising momentum of bulk snack new forces. It has reached a moment of major reform—changing leadership and business transformation, with a series of major moves.

Opening Bestore's official website, the words "high-end snacks" are prominently displayed: "Bestore high-end snacks, good quality, better taste."

In 2019, Bestore was the first in the industry to propose a high-end snack positioning, providing consumers with products that are high quality, high appearance, high experience, and meet spiritual needs, clarifying three core directions: clear high-quality product standards, focus on health and nutrition for specific consumer groups, and meet the needs of consumer life scenarios.

On February 24, 2020, Bestore successfully listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming the "first high-end snack stock."

In this internal letter, what does returning to the neighborhood image mean? Does this positioning conflict with the previous high-end positioning?

What is a high-end snack? Cleaner? Tastier? More expensive? But good taste and high quality should be basic qualities for a food company, right? **Simply charging a high price does not mean high-end.**

The terms "high-end" and "low-end" are relative concepts, not absolute ones. More precisely, they should be a social consensus. **Only when consumers perceive you as high-end are you truly high-end**, not a one-way value expression from the company to consumers.

How to build high-end?

Teacher Kong Shou mentioned that to truly build a high-end brand, a company should let consumers experience high-end through all aspects, including product technology and design, packaging, service, channels, store image, sales staff, advertising, endorsers, PR, public welfare, and brand content, rather than just shouting that it is high-end.

On this issue, the author asked Bestore's brand side, and they replied: **This price cut does not conflict with the high-end positioning; Bestore insists on a high-quality route.**

**Not just difficult to survive, but whether it can survive!**

Regarding Bestore's price cut, the heat on Zhihu once approached 10 million. A Zhihu netizen said: In a downward economic cycle, any company that wants to survive cannot avoid price adjustments.

Indeed, Yang Yinfen stated in the open letter: **17-year-old Bestore faces the most difficult challenge since its founding. It's not just about being difficult to survive, but whether it can survive. If it doesn't change, it may really lose its seat at the table.**

Yang Yinfen analyzed three reasons for this price cut:

> **In terms of the industry,** online consumption traffic is shifting, competition is intensifying, and various offline snack models are flourishing, with a series of "new species" emerging. **In terms of users,** consumption has entered an era of rationality. In addition, the letter wrote: "The real problem that consumers think we are expensive also shows that our product prices must be more affordable." **In terms of itself,** after 17 years of development, the company has become bloated, with bureaucracy and departmentalism emerging. Externally, this is reflected in slow development and declining scale and profitability.

In summary, **the industry landscape has changed, competition has intensified; external economic instability affects consumer psychology; and the company, in its 17th year, has deviated from consumers' current needs.**

It is clear that Bestore is not having an easy time.

In the past three years, Bestore has also experienced three years of performance fluctuations.

From 2020 to 2022, Bestore's total revenue increased from 7.894 billion yuan to 9.44 billion yuan, with growth rates of 2.32%, 18.11%, and 1.24%, respectively, significantly slower than the previous years' growth of around 20% or even over 30%. Entering 2023, Bestore's revenue in the first three quarters fell 14.33% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the parent company fell 33.43% year-on-year.

**This time, Yang Yinfen's leadership and drastic reform may be a "self-rescue" for Bestore.**

In fact, Bestore had already launched related strategies under the bulk snack trend.

In May this year, it launched the bulk snack brand "Snack Wanjia." Tianyancha information shows that the operating company of "Snack Wanjia" is Hubei Qianbaiwei Food Co., Ltd., whose major shareholder is Ningbo Guangyuan Juyi Investment Co., Ltd., a company established in June 2021 with Yang Yinfen as its legal representative.

It is understood that Snack Wanjia is a new brand incubated by Bestore to expand its bulk snack chain business. As of mid-October this year, Snack Wanjia had over 300 stores, mainly in the Hubei market.

Before this, Bestore purchased 3% of "Zhao Yiming Snacks" for 45 million yuan, but just six months later, it sold all its shares for 105 million yuan, reportedly because it already had "Snack Wanjia," so it exited "Zhao Yiming Snacks."

"Clearing out" Zhao Yiming shares, launching Snack Wanjia, and now this "drastic" large-scale price cut—these successive moves indirectly confirm that Bestore has indeed reached a turning point. Although it is not yet at a life-or-death juncture, **Bestore, which has already smelled the scent of "life and death," is timely shifting gears and actively seeking a way to survive.**

**Price Cut Without Quality Compromise**

**"Stingy Economy" Is Becoming the Theme**

Through this Bestore incident, let's look back at recent news.

Recently, the dazzling "Pinduoduo" is the best example. As early as March 2016, Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng joked that his team was 20 years behind Alibaba's team. Seven years later, Pinduoduo's US market value once surpassed Alibaba's, reaching as high as $192.4 billion.

According to Pinduoduo's third-quarter earnings report released on November 28, 2023, third-quarter revenue was 68.84 billion yuan, up 93.9% year-on-year; net profit under US GAAP was 15.54 billion yuan, with a net profit margin of 22.6%; adjusted net profit reached 17.027 billion yuan, up 37% year-on-year. Pinduoduo's stock price also surged over 20%.

In the current economic downturn, it must be admitted that consumption downgrading seems to have become the norm, which is also one of the key factors in Pinduoduo's victory in the "price war."

**Because in 2023, young people began to consume in reverse, paying more attention to cost-performance, leading to a new term called the "stingy economy."**

As the "Contemporary Youth Consumption Report" released by DT Research Institute stated, rational consumption of "comparing prices, competing on quality, and valuing experience" is increasingly becoming the mainstream choice in the market.

In the past year, we have witnessed brands like Zhong Xue Gao and Hua Xizi fall from grace, and also witnessed Pinduoduo's market value reaching the top. **Behind the rise and fall of brands, it reflects users' urgent attention to price.**

Facing the rationalization of consumption habits and the differentiation of consumption levels, the old price system inevitably appears rough and general, lacking the ability to precisely move consumers. This is not just a "special situation" for the snack industry.

Across the entire industry, including Hema, Yonghui, and JD.com, all are adjusting prices. The ones raising the banner are discount stores, especially snack discount stores. Several companies focused on offline retail, such as Yanjin Shop, Ganyuan Foods, and Jindao Foods, all mentioned the hot business format of 2023—discount stores—in their third-quarter earnings conference calls.

Discount stores are not a new format; they have been developing for at least 10 years, but they only stood out in 2023 after accumulating strength. Bestore's round of "price cut without quality compromise" reform, which actively adapts to current trends, also stems from this consideration.

**When you can't change it, embrace it actively.**

From the perspective of the times, using more affordable and competitive products to move users has become the theme of this era.

What needs to be confirmed is that **no matter how prices are cut, price cuts are not the ultimate goal; cutting prices without compromising quality is the essence.**


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