---
title: "Boundless Meituan: A Retail Dream That Keeps Hitting Walls"
description: "Meituan continues to explore the boundaries of its business, but the closure of Xiaoxiang Fresh proves that Meituan still has capability boundaries in certain areas. Core guide: 1. Why did Meituan close its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi? 2. Besides Xiaoxiang Fresh, what other attempts has Meituan made in new retail? 3. Will Meituan's new retail succeed? Recently, New Distribution learned that Meituan's new retail project Xiaoxiang Fresh has closed its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi, Jiangsu, which, together with recent large-scale closures by Hema Fresh, Super Species, and SF Preferred, makes one sigh at the fate of various new retail experiments."
author: "新经销刘少德"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-04-16"
language: "en"
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---

# Boundless Meituan: A Retail Dream That Keeps Hitting Walls

> Meituan continues to explore the boundaries of its business, but the closure of Xiaoxiang Fresh proves that Meituan still has capability boundaries in certain areas. Core guide: 1. Why did Meituan close its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi? 2. Besides Xiaoxiang Fresh, what other attempts has Meituan made in new retail? 3. Will Meituan's new retail succeed? Recently, New Distribution learned that Meituan's new retail project Xiaoxiang Fresh has closed its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi, Jiangsu, which, together with recent large-scale closures by Hema Fresh, Super Species, and SF Preferred, makes one sigh at the fate of various new retail experiments.

Meituan is still exploring the boundaries of its business, and the closure of Xiaoxiang Fresh proves that Meituan still has capability boundaries in certain areas.
> **Core Guide:**
>
> 1. Why did Meituan close its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi?
>
> 2. Besides Xiaoxiang Fresh, what other attempts has Meituan made in new retail?
>
> 3. Will Meituan's new retail succeed?
Recently, New Distribution learned that Meituan's new retail project Xiaoxiang Fresh has closed its stores in Changzhou and Wuxi, Jiangsu. Coupled with the recent large-scale closures by Hema Fresh, Super Species, and SF Preferred across the country, the attempts of various new species in new retail are truly lamentable.
**Xiaoxiang Fresh Closes Stores in Changzhou and Wuxi**
The incident originated from a widely circulated online letter titled "Notice of Store Closure for Xiaoxiang Fresh in Changzhou," which cited "normal business adjustments" as the reason for closure. The stores being closed are located in Zhonglou District (Laimeng Store), Wujin District (Lujin Youyi Store), and Xinbei District (K12 Store), with all operations ceasing on April 18.
Among them, the Laimeng Store covers over 5,000 square meters, making it the largest Xiaoxiang Fresh store, while the K12 and Lujin Youyi City stores each exceed 2,000 square meters. The stores feature product retail areas, dining areas, and interactive food classroom zones, offering over 5,000 domestic and international quality products including vegetables and fruits, seafood, meat, poultry and eggs, beverages, snacks, grains and oils, convenience foods, and prepared meals.
In addition to making advance plans and warnings for personnel, prepaid cards, and potential emergencies, the closure of Xiaoxiang Fresh also sends an important signal to the outside world: Meituan will vigorously develop Meituan Maicai (Meituan Grocery), and does not rule out the possibility of Meituan Maicai re-entering Changzhou in the future. Notably, Xiaoxiang Fresh officially debuted in Changzhou on October 18 last year, so the closure comes just over six months after its establishment.
As Meituan's new retail project benchmarked against Hema Fresh, Xiaoxiang Fresh has attracted widespread attention since its inception. In July 2017, Meituan opened its first offline store, Zhangyu Fresh (the predecessor of Xiaoxiang Fresh Wangjing Store), in Beijing; in August of the following year, the Fangzhuang store in Beijing also began operations. To date, Xiaoxiang Fresh has opened a total of 7 stores nationwide, including 2 in Beijing, 2 in Wuxi, and 3 in Changzhou. The successive closures of the Changzhou and Wuxi stores mean that Meituan's offline fresh supermarket attempts now only include the two stores in Beijing.
Meituan's official response stated that the closures in Wuxi and Changzhou were due to poor business performance, while the Beijing Fangzhuang and Wangjing stores will be retained and are not affected by this adjustment. This also means that after this adjustment, Xiaoxiang Fresh's operations will be reduced to 2 stores in 1 city, and efforts will be focused on further optimizing and iterating the consumer experience and operational efficiency of these two stores.
"One of the purposes of this adjustment is to concentrate efforts on exploring the 'community fresh retail' direction with greater growth potential and speed," Meituan said publicly, indicating that the grocery project launched earlier this year will be a strategic focus for a considerable period.
Meituan Maicai adopts a "mobile app + convenience service station" model, using fresh e-commerce and community-based services as an entry point. Through community-based front warehouses and instant delivery systems, it provides fresh retail and delivery services to nearby community residents. As of the 17th of this month, Meituan Maicai will have opened 10 service stations in Beijing and Shanghai, with 3 in Beijing and 7 in Shanghai.
**Meituan's Boundless Attempts**
However, Xiaoxiang Fresh is not Meituan's first attempt in the new retail field. Meituan founder Wang Xing's so-called "too many people focus on boundaries, not on the core" has officially plunged Meituan into a war without boundaries.
**Convenience Store Sector:**
In 2017, Meituan invested in Bingbianli, which uses a "smartphone scan-to-shop + multi-person duty" model, allowing customers to complete the entire shopping process via smartphone scanning. Compared to traditional convenience stores, Bingbianli offers a wider variety of products, more differentiated products, a wider price range, and a novel purchasing model. However, just one year after the investment, in 2018, Bingbianli was repeatedly rumored to be facing large-scale layoffs and closure.
**Food Delivery Sector:**
In addition to the dining sector, Meituan has also engaged in extensive cooperation with major chain supermarkets and convenience store retailers, with products covering afternoon tea, snacks, daily necessities, and more.
In 2017, large chain supermarket RT-Mart joined Meituan Waimai, covering 132 cities. Lotte Mart, Auchan, CP Lotus, Metro, Hangzhou Century Lianhua, and New Huadu Shopping have also launched on Meituan Waimai. Products sold on the Meituan Waimai app include vegetables and fruits, snacks, daily necessities, etc., basically covering all categories available in offline supermarket stores.
**Supply Chain Sector:**
Around the vision of "eat better, live better," Meituan has not only laid out consumer dining stores but also actively extended upward into the B2B catering business.
In 2016, Meituan launched the Kuailv business, focusing on catering B2B, providing merchants with relatively standardized products such as rice, flour, oil, beverages, seasonings, pickles, frozen meat and poultry, convenience foods, and kitchenware. It has also launched non-standard fresh products such as leafy vegetables, fruits, and fresh meat. In June 2017, Meituan invested in the fresh B2B platform Yashilian, further strengthening its barriers in the fresh supply chain. At the same time, Meituan has continuously strengthened its competitive advantage in standardized catering products by investing in the FMCG B2B platform Yijiupai.
**Instant Delivery Sector:**
At the beginning of this year, Meituan officially launched the "Meituan Maicai" app. Meituan Maicai focuses on a relatively narrow category, mainly fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry and eggs, rice, flour, oil, aquatic products, and seafood—ingredients for three meals a day. It targets high-frequency, low-unit-price consumption scenarios, benchmarking against fresh new retail companies such as Miss Fresh, Dingdong Maicai, and Pupun Supermarket.
**New Species Face a Big Test**
Since Hema Fresh opened its first store in January 2016, both traditional online supermarkets and internet giants have begun imitating this "supermarket + dining + fresh" hybrid format, including industry giants like JD.com, Yonghui, and Hualian. In terms of fulfillment, consumers can purchase in-store or order online via app or mini-program, with delivery within 3 kilometers in 30 minutes. In terms of product selection, such new retail stores mostly use fresh products as an entry point, ensuring sufficient gross margins while attracting consumers through high-frequency consumption for in-store or online orders.
Judging from the current operating status of these new species, not only Xiaoxiang Fresh but all retail new species are generally not developing well. Take Hema Fresh as an example: its business strategy has quietly shifted from "running desperately" to "running to survive." Although only one word differs, it reflects the revenue dilemma Hema currently faces.
The same thing is happening with Super Species. In the first three quarters of 2018, Yonghui Yunchuang lost 617 million yuan, with cumulative total losses of 1 billion yuan. Yonghui Yunchuang's new retail business alone lost 389 million yuan, which was the main reason for Yonghui's financial losses starting in 2018. As a result, Yonghui chose to cut its losses, and Super Species was eventually divested from the listed company and ultimately placed under Yonghui Yunchuang...
Returning to the protagonist of this event, Meituan, can Meituan's new retail attempts succeed? Wang Jun, an expert in the new retail industry, said:
"Firing in all directions and striking later is Meituan's consistent style. Food delivery succeeded. Others are still on the way. In community retail represented by fresh products, whether offline or online, there are many competitors and heavy subsidies."
Can Meituan strike later this time? A Meituan without supply chain genes, without a nationwide distribution logistics network, without front warehouse layout, without a retail team, and without experience in sourcing and product selection will face starting from scratch again!
And this time, starting from scratch is not benchmarking against American internet trends, but against McLane and ALDI, which have worked hard for decades, and domestic emerging companies that are also exploring and learning.
From this perspective, Meituan's new retail path is still long and arduous!
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