---
title: "Bulk Snacks Enter '10,000-Store Competition' with Intensifying Rivalry"
description: "As 2024 begins, discussions around bulk snack stores are non-stop, and one thing is certain: the competition in this sector will intensify this year. Over the past year, bulk snack stores have proliferated nationwide, with major brands expanding aggressively, especially in lower-tier markets. The top two brands, Snacks Busy and Wanchen, have rapidly scaled through mergers and integration, now targeting national expansion."
author: "零售商业评论"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2024-01-25"
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# Bulk Snacks Enter '10,000-Store Competition' with Intensifying Rivalry

> As 2024 begins, discussions around bulk snack stores are non-stop, and one thing is certain: the competition in this sector will intensify this year. Over the past year, bulk snack stores have proliferated nationwide, with major brands expanding aggressively, especially in lower-tier markets. The top two brands, Snacks Busy and Wanchen, have rapidly scaled through mergers and integration, now targeting national expansion.

As 2024 begins, discussions around bulk snack stores are non-stop, and one thing is certain: the competition in this sector will intensify this year.
Over the past year, bulk snack stores have proliferated nationwide, with major brands expanding aggressively, especially in lower-tier markets. Our research found that in some third- and fourth-tier cities, several brands open stores within 50 meters of each other on main streets. The top two brands in the sector, Snacks Busy (零食很忙) and Wanchen (万辰), have rapidly scaled through mergers and integration. Their latest moves are aimed at national expansion. For example, Snacks Busy Group is based in Hunan, focusing on central and southern markets, while Wanchen Group's strengths lie more in East and North China. But now, the market landscape is changing rapidly, with both sides entering each other's strongholds. The market has entered a frontal battle. We observe that bulk snack stores have indeed brought significant impact to the entire snack market, **and currently, bulk snack brands are in the stage of grabbing market share and franchisees, which has brought significant uncertainty to the previously stable snack market.**
**"Franchise War" Erupts, Head Brands Face Off**
Bulk snack stores are in the stage of rapid expansion, with capital influx leading some brands to target 10,000 stores, intensifying competition. Participants are accelerating store openings. The rivalry between Snacks Busy and Wanchen continues to escalate, and the "franchise war" is in full swing. Since Snacks Busy merged with Zhao Yiming Snacks last year, there have been constant moves. At the end of 2023, Snacks Busy Group received 1.05 billion yuan in investment from Haoxiangni and Yanjin Puzi Holdings. Recently, Snacks Busy Group revealed plans to invest over 1 billion yuan in the next six months for national market development, focusing on northern regions, with increased support for franchise policies, competitive marketing, key city locations, and direct-operated store expansion. In terms of franchise policies, from January 22 to April 30, 2024, franchisees of Snacks Busy and Zhao Yiming Snacks can enjoy zero franchise fees, zero management fees, zero training fees, zero service fees, and zero profit on decoration fees. Additionally, they can receive one-time opening subsidies and subsidies for oversized storefronts. As of now, **the number of Snacks Busy + Zhao Yiming stores exceeds 7,500**, and at the current pace, it is expected to surpass 10,000 soon.
(Source: China Economic Weekly)
On the other side, their rival Haoxianglai has also launched a general offensive. Haoxianglai is a bulk snack brand under Wanchen Group. In 2022, Wanchen entered the bulk snack industry through acquisitions, integrating four snack retail brands: Luxiaochang, Adiadi, Haoxianglai, and Laiyoupin. After unifying them under "Haoxianglai," they achieved a leap in scale. According to Haoxianglai's official website, **as of December 2023, it had over 5,000 stores.** In mid-2023, Wanchen Group's bulk snack business revenue share rose to 87.91%, making it the core business. The bulk snack layout also brought a surge in revenue. According to its latest performance forecast, in 2023, thanks to the expansion of the bulk snack business, revenue is expected to be between 9 billion and 9.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1,538.55%-1,647.79%. The bulk snack business alone is expected to generate 8.5 billion to 9 billion yuan in annual revenue. Strategically, to accelerate the national expansion of the Haoxianglai brand, Wanchen Group announced at the beginning of this year an investment of 1.2 billion yuan to attack the southern market with high-subsidy competition. Similarly, Haoxianglai's official website has also publicly offered zero franchise fees, zero management fees, zero service fees, and zero delivery fees. It is clear that the two head brands are now in direct conflict. The author believes, "In fact, competition among industry leaders helps drive rapid development of the entire industry and forces companies to improve their competitive advantages in supply chain and products. Of course, bulk snack stores are currently in the scale-building stage; only by increasing scale can they gain bargaining power in the supply chain. Capital is also in a standoff, and mergers and acquisitions will continue to intensify." While the two head brands appear to be fighting, it is important to note the intense competition across the industry. Many second-tier players need to be more cautious, as they can easily be marginalized or eliminated.
**Bulk Snacks Target "10,000-Store Competition"**
Looking at the entire industry, relevant data shows that by the end of 2022, there were over 13,000 snack collection stores in domestic cities. Meanwhile, Huachuang Securities research estimates that by 2025, the number of snack collection stores could reach 30,000. The market is still accelerating. Regarding bulk snack stores, CITIC Securities' in-depth report on the leisure snack industry states that convenience stores and supermarkets are mainly in first- and second-tier cities, while snack discount stores, with their extreme cost-effectiveness and excellent single-store model, can deeply cultivate the vast lower-tier cities, with potential store numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Based on the assumption of 100,000 snack discount stores in the future, it is predicted that in the long term, snack discount stores will account for 10%-20% of the snack industry's channels. Currently, the bulk snack track has entered a scale competition phase. Besides the "Snacks Busy" and Wanchen systems, there are also second-tier players. For example, Ai Snacks (爱零食) also began its acquisition and integration in 2023, accelerating its national layout. After entering Jiangxi, Hubei, Guizhou, and other markets, Ai Snacks announced entry into the Yunnan market in early 2024. Another company, "Snacks Youming" (零食有鸣), which opened its first store in Chengdu in 2021, has now exceeded 2,000 stores and maintains a pace of over 100 new stores per month, planning to exceed 16,000 stores by 2026. It has raised funds five times since April 2021, with the latest B+ round led by New Hope's Shengwang Fund in May last year. There are also "Linshi Mofa" (邻食魔珐) completing a tens of millions yuan angel round, and "Snack Frog" (零食青蛙) completing a 20 million yuan angel round led by Yinong Capital. It is foreseeable that at the current pace, Snacks Busy Group and Wanchen Group are both racing toward the 10,000-store scale. "On one hand, snack discount stores are a new model, and with capital support, people see the market space. On the other hand, **some brands are attracting franchisees with zero or low barriers, bringing more entrants into the track. Of course, the market is far from saturation," said an industry insider.
**Who Feels the Pressure?**
From another perspective, the rise of bulk snack stores has also brought significant impact to the traditional leisure snack market and even convenience store retail. For example, old players like Bestore (良品铺子) have cut prices, starting a low-price competition. Previously, Bestore announced that over 300 products in its stores would see an average member price reduction of 22%, with a maximum reduction of 45%. Laiyifen (来伊份) also launched promotional activities like "Weekly Best Sellers." Three Squirrels (三只松鼠) stated that it had implemented a "high-end cost-effectiveness" strategy a year ago. Cost-effectiveness has indeed become key in the snack industry competition. Here, we compare the bulk snack store model with traditional brand chain snack stores. In summary, the core of bulk snack stores lies in low markup rates and low gross margins. They do not charge manufacturer fees or delay supplier payments, allowing suppliers to offer very low base prices. Currently, the average total investment for a top store is around 500,000-700,000 yuan, with gross margins maintained at about 20%. The bulk snack store model directly connects with manufacturers, eliminating middlemen, and uses low prices to capture the market. An industry insider revealed, "Retail discount stores use low-priced brand products as traffic drivers, attracting customers and maintaining good repurchase rates. These are also called volume products, basically not profitable or even at a loss. Profit products are those from non-famous brands or white-label products, with margins reaching 30-50%." According to the "China Snack Hard Discount White Paper," bulk snack stores in communities are 20%-40% cheaper than traditional retail stores. China Merchants Securities statistics also show that supermarket prices are about 20%-75% higher than bulk snack stores; convenience store prices are even higher, about 44%-85% higher; e-commerce prices are about 7%-59% higher. These are naturally advantages of bulk snack stores. However, brand chain models like Bestore have accumulated years of advantages in the supply chain, which is hard to shake in the short term. From a market positioning perspective, bulk snack stores currently focus on lower-tier markets, differing from brand chain players. The author believes that the key to bulk snack stores lies in channel profits; with larger scale, they may even force upstream companies to provide exclusive supply. For the upcoming market competition, we believe the main strategies are: first, leverage the scale advantage from rapid expansion to upgrade into supply chain advantages. As store numbers and daily sales increase, gain bargaining power in the supply chain, and ultimately establish an absolute advantage in low prices and discounts. At the same time, as scale effects emerge, reduce operating costs and improve single-store profitability, making the franchise system more stable. Second, develop private labels. By moving up the supply chain and creating private labels and differentiated products, companies can avoid homogeneous competition. Private labels also have higher gross margins, allowing more benefits to consumers and forming a price advantage. Cinda Securities research points out that the industry is likely to see the strong get stronger, with leading brands with core competitive advantages squeezing out smaller or weaker brands. The final industry structure, whether "a few superpowers with many strong players" or "many strong players standing together," depends on the competitive gap among leading brands.
We believe that as head brands begin national expansion, store density will increase, and the market will enter intense competition. In 2024, the next phase is the 10,000-store race.
**PS: From March 14-16, 2024, the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference & the 2nd China FMCG Hard Discount Conference & the 2nd China FMCG Distributor Conference will be grandly held in Chengdu!** This conference will focus on the theme of **"Supply Chain Revolution"**. Over three days, there will be one main forum, one China FMCG Hard Discount Conference, one China FMCG Distributor Conference, over ten sub-forums and closed-door exchange sessions, and the first-ever [Extreme Supply Chain] Brand Factory Direct Procurement Fair. It will bring together thousands of FMCG brand owners, distributors, retail innovators, and industry service providers from across the country in Chengdu for continuous brainstorming to explore the challenges, opportunities, changes, and solutions in the era of supply chain revolution.
In this era of supply chain revolution, a new business era will emerge. We hope every participant will still have a place in this wave, and we believe this will be a worthwhile conference! For business cooperation, please contact:
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