Source | 降噪NoNoise ID | JZao2021 Author | Sun Jing
A small format, crowded with big players. In 2025, the typical example is the community store, i.e., affordable community supermarkets. After the business layouts of several leading community store brands drew market attention, global retail giant Walmart also brought new news. On September 13, Walmart opened its fourth community store in Shenzhen Bao'an Wanda Plaza, simultaneously announcing that it has entered the stage of scaled implementation in Shenzhen. Previously, Walmart community stores had been quietly polished with little external communication. Instead, some netizens posted on Xiaohongshu, enthusiastically recommending some internet-famous items in the store, such as Wo Jixian 4.0 pure milk (little green bottle), original flavor French fries, salted butter cream puffs, organic chestnut kernels, etc., causing another wave of netizens to sigh with envy at the pictures. If taken literally, community stores are not a sexy retail concept, but as long as you enter the store and browse carefully, you can basically instantly understand why community retail is so hot at the moment. Just as Walmart China has been promoting the slogans "Reinventing Walmart" and "Restarting Growth" in recent years, only when consumers go to nearby stores and walk between the shelves can they truly feel the essence of "reinvention" and the details of renewal. What can community stores actually revitalize? The author recently visited Walmart's fourth community store on-site and had an in-depth exchange with Zhu Jun, Senior Vice President of Walmart China and Chief Merchandising Officer of Walmart stores. The author found that Walmart has a clear and unique value proposition and model design for community stores, rather than following the crowd. Behind this is the brand's transformation and upgrading over the past few years, which has explored a replicable and high-efficiency growth path. In plain terms, when the business "operating system" is formed, applications will not "run wild." For the community retail industry currently in the exploration phase, the retail giant's thinking is worth dissecting. The core of "Reinventing Walmart": Differentiated products, exceeding expectations in value Walking into Walmart's fourth community store, the difference between the store and traditional community supermarkets and convenience stores is clear at a glance. At the entrance is a freshly made roast meat counter, with Cantonese table favorites—roast goose, char siu, Longjiang pig's feet, etc.—either hanging individually or neatly arranged on plates, with prominent words printed on the counter glass: "Fresh, not overnight." The lively atmosphere of community life immediately rises. Walmart community stores aim to focus on customers' "five meals a day," so the large core area opposite the roast meat counter is reserved for the brand's strong category—"Wo Jixian" bakery. Among them, there are more than 30 choices in the 9.9 yuan price range alone, such as a box of 6 donuts, wife cakes, Danish one-bite pastries; and 6.99 yuan 4.0 pure milk toast, etc., densely covering main scenarios like breakfast and afternoon tea, with prices significantly competitive compared to outside bakeries. ▲ Wo Jixian bakery area's "9.99 yuan" shelf Adjacent to the bakery area is another high-frequency daily life category: liquid milk. The internet-famous big single product, Wo Jixian 4.0 pure milk, is placed in a prominent position, with fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, eggs, frozen products, etc., at the innermost part of the store. Overall, Walmart community stores focus on bakery, cooked food, fresh food, instant food, snacks, beverages, and other meals, as well as some high-frequency non-food and daily necessities, and finally a small amount of self-pleasing products, such as Japanese incense sticks, toys, flowers, etc. Filling a 500-800 square meter store with 2000 selected products, Walmart's confidence in retail efficiency is evident. If you switch from a customer to an industry observer, you will find the differentiation between Walmart community stores and other similar supermarkets—previously, people said that the secrets of the retail industry are all on Walmart's shelves; now this sentence might have to be changed to: the secrets of the retail industry are all on Walmart's walls. For example, roast meat emphasizes "only sold on the day," pork highlights "passed 27 food safety tests," milk tea has "45% pure buffalo milk content," seafood frozen products "obtained BAP certification" and "0 water retention agents," bakery "many single products 9.99 yuan," and private brands focus on "direct cooperation with leading suppliers, high quality starts from raw materials"... Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that the limits of language are the limits of the world. It feels like Walmart has figured out "language." Behind the language is actually the core of "Reinventing Walmart": First, a clear value proposition: In the transformation and upgrading, Walmart has clarified that its core customer group is 175 million urban middle-class families and single people. This group cares most about quality and food safety, so Walmart will make "providing high-quality fresh food and food" the first of its three major strategies. Reflected on the store walls and posters, health and organic have become the main "selling points" of products. When differentiated values such as clean ingredient lists, zero preservatives, animal cream, low sugar, direct shipping from Australia, etc., are amplified, the sense of quality is highlighted, and consumers' shopping desire naturally rises. ▲ Fresh food area in the store Second, the systematization of private brands: In the newly opened Shenzhen Wanda store, the concentrated display of hundreds of Wo Jixian products became a major highlight of the store. These exclusive products, which cannot be bought in channels other than Walmart, are strengthening Walmart's competitiveness. Expanding the proportion of private brands has become a major trend in the retail industry, but some domestic supermarkets still have a rough understanding of private brands, such as directly putting a label on a product. Although the product has a price advantage, it lacks characteristics, and the "brand" recognition cannot stand; or there is a lack of planning, unclear category structure and layering, and even unstable quality control affecting the shopping experience. After the transformation of the past two to three years, Walmart has upgraded "Wo Jixian" to the main force of its private brand matrix, and around the "food" demand scenario, it cooperates with leading domestic suppliers to build a unified system covering core categories such as bakery, beverages, snacks, and fresh food. This systematization is reflected not only in the strength of quality control and the breadth of categories, but also in the depth of product development. For example, after the little green bottle sold well, Wo Jixian took advantage of the momentum to develop series products such as ice cream with 4.0 pure milk, rose Pu'er milk tea, and milk toast, which also sold well. On social media, some netizens use "surprise" to evaluate the Wo Jixian series, because it is "delicious and cheap." "Has Walmart suddenly become enlightened?" "I feel like Walmart is alive again"... These real customer feedbacks may partially explain the reason for the booming customer flow in Walmart community stores. ▲ Netizens spontaneously recommend Wo Jixian series products on social media Third, emphasizing the high value brought by "Everyday Low Price": Wo Jixian achieves long-term stable low prices across all channels through direct sourcing from the source, scale advantages, full-chain efficiency improvement, product customization, and reducing promotional mechanisms. For example, the 9.99 yuan price range includes more than 30 bakery products, as well as HPP juice, NFC juice series, dumpling and bun breakfast series, thick soup noodle series, etc. Through these "hook products," Walmart engraves the core strategy of "Everyday Low Price" into customers' minds. Ultimately, differentiated products and value that exceeds expectations not only reshape Walmart's competitiveness, but also make restarting growth a natural result. Walmart China management revealed at the China Supplier Summit in June this year that the sales, sales per square meter, and customer flow of community stores all far exceeded expectations. Where does ultimate efficiency come from: A game of chess across all channels "Whether it is the goal of transformation or the creation of products, customer first is our unchanging starting point," Zhu Jun revealed. Currently, the only standard for measuring the operational quality of community stores internally is customer feedback. Once customer expectations are met and trust is established, a positive cycle will form. "We often look at heat maps to understand customers' shopping habits, and also pay attention to customer feedback, turning online reviews, social media topics, and in-store communication into indicators for continuous iteration and optimization through digital tools." Although Walmart emphasizes that it does not pursue the speed of opening stores, from opening the first store in January this year to completing model validation in September, this speed is actually not slow. Of course, Walmart's exploration of community stores did not start from scratch; it is supported by the entire group ecosystem. In recent years, Walmart has been promoting the strategic transformation of "an omni-channel matrix with physical stores as the core." As an important part of omni-channel, community stores, together with large stores (original Walmart hypermarkets) and e-commerce business, are forming a game of chess, complementing each other's advantages and cooperating. A game of chess across all channels means that the underlying planning of customer profiles, product structures, and product selection logic for each channel is basically consistent and reusable. It can be understood that Walmart is condensing the "people" and "goods" in "people, goods, and places" into a large middle platform, and its organizational capabilities can adapt to different channels at any time. Specifically for community stores, products can be directly selected from the large store SKUs around the core needs of the "community," which not only saves investment in product development and supply chain construction, but also leverages economies of scale. Only scale can bring ultimate efficiency and market competitiveness. After all, the number of large stores is limited, and flexible community stores can fill more urban "gaps," allowing more target groups to experience Walmart's renewal. The entry of community stores into the scaled implementation period also marks a phased progress in Walmart's "omni-channel" strategy. At present, Walmart's omni-channel matrix is relatively clear: Large stores: focus on "slow shopping" one-stop shopping, with a wider category range, more selected FMCG and non-food items, and treasure hunt experiences; E-commerce: daily full-category replenishment, providing services with different delivery times and delivery ranges, with sales proportion already close to half; Community stores: "quick purchase" of daily high-frequency products, adapting to the high-density living patterns of urban residential areas. Walmart's e-commerce sales proportion has already approached half It is not excluded that in the future, "medium-sized stores" between "large stores" and "community stores" may appear. Of course, the orderly advancement of this big game requires patience and strategic determination. Walmart China's low-key transformation in recent years has been building capabilities around "customer value." For example, meticulously polishing products, focusing on core demand categories such as fresh food and food, making selections and improving quality-price ratio, thereby forming differentiation; in store experience, changing the traditional retailer's traffic flow thinking, aiming for good shopping and surprises, and greatly simplifying SKUs. In terms of shopping convenience, actively embracing e-commerce and other omni-channels. But whether it is polishing products, polishing stores, or expanding channels, the transformation of retailers will never be immediate, and the change in customer perception is also subtle. From Walmart's reinvention journey, retailers in transformation should have the psychological preparation of being a "bamboo"—before the "momentum of breaking through," the bamboo whip often lurks underground for three to five years, quietly building a huge root network, and then one day the bamboo shoots break through the soil and usher in explosive growth. Flexible combination of three major strategies Revitalizing the zero-supply ecosystem In the big game of "Reinventing Walmart," there is actually a key chess piece that is easily overlooked: the supply chain strategy. From the exploration of Walmart community stores, many industry insiders see a new and flexible zero-supply ecosystem. From the source of products, first, there is the private brand Wo Jixian, mainly co-created with leading brands. For example, soy sauce is developed in cooperation with Qianhe, milk with Mengniu, Guangming, etc., and luncheon meat with Yunnan's well-known local brand Dehe; Second, based on consumer insights, co-develop with leading suppliers. For example, some special flavor bases from Haidilao; Third, big brand special supply and channel exclusivity. For example, Crest directly gave Walmart an "Everyday Low Price" big single product. According to the industry trend of community stores, in the future, the proportion of retailer private brand sales should become larger and larger. As an OEM supplier, the larger the factory capacity, the higher the supply chain efficiency. For suppliers who value their own brand momentum more, methods such as co-branding and exclusive supply are indeed more conducive to brand exposure. "Whether to choose special supply, exclusivity, or OEM, the final decision is in the hands of supplier partners. He decides how to cooperate with us. A partner can also choose multiple flexible cooperation methods. We hope to establish a win-win long-term cooperative relationship with suppliers," Zhu Jun said. Walmart's strategy is clear, but it is not enough for itself to be clear; it must be clear together with suppliers, and together create products around "customer first." Deep collaboration between zero and supply often brings new surprises. The supplier of the little green bottle is a well-known regional dairy company in Guangxi. In the process of following Walmart from milk to continuously extending to ice cream, milk tea, and other categories, this regional enterprise's market channels are also widening, with a new growth curve. Products such as the special-grade light soy sauce with only five ingredients, the ancient method brewed Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar, and the umami oyster sauce with more than 45% oyster juice content, co-created by Wo Jixian and leading condiment suppliers, became category leaders just one month after launch. ▲ Wo Jixian series of grain, oil, and condiments received praise from netizens on social platforms This open zero-supply cooperation ecosystem is reshaping the underlying rules of the industry—that is, suppliers can also gain growth opportunities and exercise consumer insight capabilities in cooperation to serve more retailers; zero and supply are not opposing relationships, and suppliers are not objects to be arbitrarily pressured and "cut a knife" by retailers. Especially in the current environment of consumption pressure, the stable development of suppliers is precious. We believe that the retail giant's exploration of the zero-supply ecosystem has reference significance for the industry. Because the competition of community stores is superficially a competition of differentiated product value, but in essence it is still a competition of supply chain. Common development with aligned interests ultimately benefits the customers who walk into the store. Of course, the premise is that there are enough community stores and the density of covered population is high enough. At present, Walmart's exploration has provided a path for community stores to move towards scale, as well as an ecosystem template for win-win cooperation between retailers and suppliers. With more industry participants deepening their layout, I believe that such good stores at the doorstep will benefit more consumers, and more consumers will truly feel the value of community stores after entering the store, and re-experience the vitality of offline.