---
title: "Current State of China's 6.5 Million Retail Small Shops: Accelerating Structural Divergence, Urgent Need for Integration and Upgrading"
description: "The B2B model has become a hot topic in the FMCG industry. To succeed in B2B, one must first deeply analyze the current state of small shops and grasp their future development trends, so that the B2B model built on this basis will be more reasonable and feasible."
author: "鲍跃忠"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-02-24"
language: "en"
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# Current State of China's 6.5 Million Retail Small Shops: Accelerating Structural Divergence, Urgent Need for Integration and Upgrading

> The B2B model has become a hot topic in the FMCG industry. To succeed in B2B, one must first deeply analyze the current state of small shops and grasp their future development trends, so that the B2B model built on this basis will be more reasonable and feasible.

**Click the image for details**
**The B2B model has become a hot topic in the FMCG industry. To succeed in B2B, one must first deeply analyze the current state of small shops and grasp their future development trends, so that the B2B model built on this basis will be more reasonable and feasible.**
> 1. Analysis of the Basic Situation of Small Shops in the Market
According to data released by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, as of the end of October 2016, there were over 58 million individual industrial and commercial households nationwide, employing 124 million people, and over 22.2 million private enterprises, employing 175 million people.
Regarding the industry distribution of individual industrial and commercial households, the author did not find national data, only relevant data from Beijing's Chaoyang District in 2014, which can serve as a representative: among the 83,406 individual industrial and commercial households that should have reported in Chaoyang District, 85% were engaged in wholesale and retail trade, and the annual reporting rate for this industry in 2014 reached 90.03%. Based on this, it can be inferred that among individual industrial and commercial households, those engaged in wholesale and retail trade reached 49.3 million.
Currently, it is difficult to accurately count how many of these merchants are engaged in FMCG wholesale and retail. However, based on data from Nielsen and Kantar, whether it is 5 million or 6.5 million households, it feels like at least that number.
Moreover, with changes in the macroeconomic environment, changes in social employment concepts, and the government's policy of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation," individual industrial and commercial households are growing rapidly. According to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce: at the end of 2012, there were 40.593 million individual industrial and commercial households and 10.857 million private enterprises, with 199 million employees. By the end of October 2016, it had reached over 58 million, an increase of 42%.
From the classification of small shops, they can be analyzed according to the following dimensions:
**1. By business format:** Currently, small shops in the market mainly consist of small supermarkets and convenience stores operating food, tobacco, alcohol, and daily necessities. In recent years, some new specialty stores have developed rapidly, such as maternity and baby stores, fruit stores, fresh food stores, pharmacies, clothing stores, washing and care stores, beauty stores, liquor stores, snack food stores, snack stores, leisure goods stores, stationery stores, sports stores, underwear stores, sports stores, toy stores, etc. At the same time, cross-border stores have developed rapidly in recent years, such as small shop + catering, small shop + fresh food, small shop + water bar, small shop + internet cafe, small shop + fitness, etc.
From the perspective of retail format development patterns, format segmentation is an important trend in retail development; from the perspective of meeting recent changes in consumer demand, composite formats will develop further rapidly.
**2. By scale:** The vast majority operate as single stores, a small portion have gradually developed about 10 stores, and some maintain loose franchise relationships with certain organizations.
**3. By impact on family and personal life:** The vast majority of small shops are opened to maintain the livelihood of the individual and their family; some are investment-oriented, and some are opened by parents to support their children's personal development, encouraging them to practice first. Therefore, the operating condition of the store has a significant impact on the personal and family life of the owner.
**4. By age of the owner:** The younger generation is gradually surpassing the older ones; more and more young people, highly educated individuals, and those with ideas and aspirations are entering. Small shops are gradually moving away from the "mom-and-pop store" pattern.
**5. By time in operation:** Those opened within three years are more numerous than those opened for more than three years.
**6. By professionalism in store management:** More and more people have retail experience and supermarket experience. Many retail and supermarket practitioners, after years of training in large enterprises, turn to entrepreneurship, mostly starting by opening small shops.
**7. By future development intentions:** Currently, many young people regard opening a small shop as a career pursuit, opening with dreams. In reality, small shops are indeed "places where hidden dragons and crouching tigers lie," such as Yonghui and Pangdonglai, which started from small shops and developed into large-scale chain enterprises in a short time. However, most still operate with a short-term view of maintaining short-term income.
**8. By product sourcing channels:** The vast majority follow the traditional approach of waiting for goods to come to them; the main product sourcing channels for small shops are distributor delivery and wholesale market procurement. Now, some young owners are quickly moving online to find products, such as Taobao and Tmall, and seizing opportunities during online promotions.
**9. By management status:** Many newly opened small shops strive to develop according to the model of formal supermarkets and convenience stores, paying attention to store layout, product management, installing backend software, and having good business and management awareness. However, a considerable number of small shops are still relatively backward, still "dark rooms with earth platforms," selling counterfeit and shoddy goods, keeping no accounts, and operating in a muddled manner, lacking even basic business awareness.
**10. By profitability:** According to data published by the industry and commerce departments, the industry's annual inspection rate reaches over 90%, indicating that profitability is objective. Small shops that have been open for a longer time have achieved relatively good returns. However, they are currently facing declining customer traffic and declining sales.
**11. By the nature of the operators:** From a certain perspective, those who start their own businesses are mostly "restless" individuals; opening a small shop and being their own boss gives most a considerable sense of "superiority" and considerable independent thinking and analytical ability. They also have good innovation awareness; currently, many small shops actively trying the home delivery model proves this.
**12. No ability to change, only imitation.** Most small shop owners can only maintain the current operating situation, lack the ability to seek change and innovation, and face operating pressure in the current new retail innovation environment.
**13. Regional differences are very large.** Due to imbalances in economic development and retail development among regions, the current situation of small shops varies greatly by region. Economically developed regions have relatively better development levels, and regions with developed retail commerce have slightly higher operating levels for small shops, such as Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi.
**Overall, small shops are a very complex group. Not only are they complex in terms of region, format distribution, and scale, but also in terms of their purpose for opening, development goals, management capabilities, and responsibility for managing the shop.**
> 2. Problems and Concerns of Small Shops in the Market
Based on the above portrait of small shops, the problems, concerns, and key points of small shops in the market are summarized and outlined in the following four aspects:
**Problems of small shops:**
**----Lack of systematic business thinking:** Overall, due to their own abilities and the objective environment, small shop owners have not formed a systematic and complete business thinking about their operations, nor have they formed a clear industry understanding of their business format. They are basically in a relatively primitive business mindset, maintaining basic operations. More often, they learn and imitate. This situation easily leads to being impacted by market changes.
**----Focus on the front end, neglect the back end:** The better-performing small shops can pay attention to front-end issues such as store layout, product display, and store image, but most small shops have not even done these front-end issues well. Most small shops lack category management strategies and ideas, and lack analysis of operating data. In the operation of small shops, category management and data analysis are important factors affecting their operating results.
In a sense, what small shops lack is not products, but category strategy, that is, using products with different positioning to support the store's operations.
**----Pragmatic but short-sighted:** Due to various factors, small shop owners are generally pragmatic and short-sighted at the operational level. This includes focusing on short-term benefits in cooperation with customers, particularly paying attention to visible and tangible benefits such as price, promotions, and gifts, while easily ignoring new business cooperation such as adding new products, maintaining customers, and market expansion. This also leads to a lack of long-term thinking in cooperation with customers; they go to whoever is cheaper, whoever offers returns, and whoever has discounts.
**----Focus on external issues, ignore self-problems:** In actual operations, small shop owners often ignore their own operational problems and tend to shift the occurrence of problems to external parties and suppliers. Therefore, in cooperation with small shops, they often get entangled in specific issues and small problems, while ignoring major and fundamental issues.
**Concerns of small shops:**
**----Sales:** They pay special attention to sales. But they often limit themselves to focusing on total sales value and do not understand the contribution of each category.
**----Loss:** They pay special attention to product loss and inventory backlog adjustments. This is also because it is a direct visible loss for small shops.
**----Promotions:** That is, whether there are activities. Therefore, manufacturers and distributors continuously launch ordering policies in daily business to hit the needs of small shops.
**----Price:** Small shop owners pay very high attention and importance to price, and are very particular about high and low prices. They are very intolerant of high prices. In many cases, they may give up cooperation because of a slightly higher price on an individual product.
**----Gross margin:** Small shop owners often attach great importance to gross margin and calculate the gross profit of products very clearly. They are relatively strict in controlling product gross margin.
**----Cost:** They attach great importance to cost control and are strict in managing labor, electricity, and equipment. Therefore, the small shops seen in the market are often dimly lit, with outdated equipment, no low-temperature equipment, and lacking related display props. Cost control comes first, and the possible impact on sales is ignored.
**----Customer traffic:** Small shop owners pay more attention to customer traffic and often hope that manufacturers' products and promotional activities can bring traffic to their stores.
**Characteristics of small shops:**
**----Focus on key points:** The operation of small shops mainly reflects two major focuses: **focus on convenience** and **focus on target customers and target products**. Convenience is the biggest advantage of small shops, and focusing on target customers and target products is an important core strategy for small shop operations.
**----Simple communication:** Key people, key matters. Doing business and communicating with small shops is relatively simple; find the boss and explain the issues he is concerned about clearly.
**----Benefit-driven:** What small shop owners care about is sales, gross margin, and saving money; benefit-driven is the key point in cooperating with small shops.
**----Large room for front-end and back-end integration and improvement:** Overall, the performance improvement space for small shops is very large; increasing by 30-50%, or even doubling, is entirely achievable. Performance improvement should be the biggest concern of small shop owners; having someone who can truly help them improve operations is their greatest expectation.
Therefore, the best way to cooperate with small shops is to choose integrating the front and back ends and helping small shops thoroughly improve performance as the best entry point.
At the same time, the sales capability and development potential of small shops are an important foundation for reflecting the value of 2B. Imagine, **truly owning a market network with good sales capability and good development potential is a truly valuable network.**
**Key points for doing well with small shops:**
**----Location:** Location is the first key factor determining the success or failure of a small shop's operation.
**----Products:** The core is category management under the guidance of a correct category strategy. In the current highly competitive environment, the products of small shops are not just simple product organization, but product organization under the guidance of a correct product strategy. Without such a unified product strategy, it is difficult to form consistency in product organization, and they will remain entangled in various problems and contradictions. Or, in the current market environment, small shops do not lack products; they lack ideas on how to operate products well. If such a consistent idea can be built, smooth cooperation will form.
**----Customers:** Overall, the current retail market has shifted from product-led to customer-led, and retail stores have moved from competing on products to competing for customers. **Customers have become the first element of small shop operations.**
**----Operational efficiency and quality:** Under the same products and environment, the management capability of small shops becomes very important. Timely replenishment, timely display, and store techniques are very important to the store's performance.
**----Cost:** The retail industry itself is a low-cost, low-return industry. Therefore, cost control is crucial for retail stores.
>
> 3. Future Development Trends of Small Shops in the Market
>
Currently, the retail industry is in a period of major transformation under new retail. At present, the entire retail industry, including small shops, is facing a serious situation of declining customer traffic and declining performance. The future development trend of small shops in the market needs to be analyzed within the context of the overall retail pattern transformation.
To analyze the future transformation trend of retail stores, it is necessary to analyze from three dimensions: **changes in consumption, changes in the FMCG product market, and the retail industry's own transformation.**
**----Changes in consumption:**
In the current consumer market environment, consumers' basic consumption needs are fully met. With the improvement of consumption demand and the rise of the middle class, consumer demand is more manifested as potential consumption.
The so-called potential consumption refers to consumers' pursuit of higher quality, deeper levels, and broader scope of consumption based on the satisfaction of basic consumption. For example, consumers' current pursuit of health, sports, tourism, culture, leisure, fashion, and individuality. Potential consumption demand will not be as direct as basic consumption demand; potential demand needs to be tapped.
**Tapping potential consumption requires merchants to accurately grasp changes in consumption, especially potential consumption demand, and have a basic command of the overall product market, in order to effectively tap consumers' potential consumption.**
Analysis at the current stage shows that consumers' potential consumption is enormous, far exceeding basic consumption demand.
But because potential consumption is a conscious consumption, it cannot be simply provided through product offerings; it must be tapped through effective means.
Current consumption demand manifests as three iterations: **meeting basic needs, emphasizing consumption quality, and focusing on consumption experience** three iterations. Not only does the overall consumer market show three iterations, but individual consumers also show three iterations.
In the three-iteration consumption environment, consumption demand becomes more complex; consumers not only value meeting basic needs, but also value consumption quality and focus on consumption experience. Traditional simple product presentation methods are difficult to meet the needs of consumers in the three iterations.
Current consumers not only focus on buying products and meeting needs, nor only on buying quality products, but also pay special attention to whether consumption needs in different scenarios can be met. For example: which foods and supplies can meet the needs of sports scenarios, which can meet family scenarios, and which can meet tourism scenarios.
In the complex consumption environment of three iterations, retail enterprises must transform traditional retail techniques, from meeting the three iterations of consumers, especially experience consumption, to building scenario planning to meet experience consumption needs.
**----Changes in the product market:**
In recent years, the FMCG product market has changed significantly, mainly in the deep extension of products. This is manifested in the following aspects.
**----Deep development according to product function extension:** With the upgrading of consumption, in recent years, the first manifestation in the product market is the deep development according to product function. For example, in maternal and baby products, infant food used to be simple milk powder. Now, even infant supplementary food has formed a large series, including calcium, zinc, vitamin, and iron supplements, forming a full series of staple and supplementary food combinations. Another example is personal skin care products; previously simple products like Dabao have now developed into full series including moisturizing, nutritional, cleansing, and hydrating products, as well as masks, lotions, and creams. Kitchen cleaning products, previously simple dishwashing liquid, have now developed into complete series for cleaning fruits, porcelain, glass, stainless steel, microwaves, and ovens. Currently, most product categories are undergoing very significant deep development. This deep functional development, because it better meets consumer needs, has been widely and deeply welcomed by consumers and has become the market leader in several categories. With the further development of consumer market diversification, the product market will inevitably further develop deeply in function.
**----Deep development according to product attribute segmentation:** With the increasing prominence of market differentiation and diversification, products with different flavors and packaging are continuously extended on the same product attribute. For example, in beverages, tea drinks, previously simple black tea and green tea, have been compounded into more different flavors; condiments, previously simple soy sauce and vinegar, have developed into richer flavors such as light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, extremely fresh soy sauce, and chicken essence.
**----Deep development according to changes in consumption concepts:** Consumers' consumption concepts, habits, and methods are constantly changing, some are disruptive. For example, influenced by health consumption concepts, sales of dried fruit have risen rapidly, and dried fruit has gathered more series, forming a larger product group. Influenced by consumption habits and methods, previous snack foods positioned as snacks are also changing, becoming leisure staple foods and becoming a huge product category.
**----Deep extension according to consumption scenarios:** New consumption methods will inevitably trigger new consumption demands and drive the creation of new products. For example, sports, fitness, and outdoor activities have become very important consumption fields; the emergence and development of this consumption field will inevitably trigger a large demand for food and supplies. For example, in food demand, there will inevitably be a greater need for products that quickly replenish energy. Therefore, in recent years, sales of functional beverages have risen rapidly.
**----Deep development in packaging according to different consumption scenario needs:** In a situation of great product abundance, different consumption methods trigger different consumption demands. Family consumption, tourism consumption, sports consumption, etc., have completely different actual demands for products. Therefore, in recent years, products that meet different consumption methods and continuously differentiate in packaging have been constantly emerging. For example, Three Squirrels and Bestore, with their focus on small packaging, have well met the needs of different consumer groups in different consumption scenarios through differentiated packaging organization.
**----Hot products are not hot:** The personalization and diversification of the consumer market, coupled with the abundance of products, has changed the previous 20:80 rule in category management; star products will become fewer and fewer, replaced by balanced output of products.
**----Problems with current retail formats:** In summary, it is "a thousand stores with one face, a thousand stores with the same products."
**Current retail stores are seriously "a thousand stores with one face."** Whether it is department stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience stores, or even various specialty stores, it is manifested in serious "a thousand stores with one face" in store layout design, product mix, and store operations. Not only are stores of one enterprise "a thousand stores with one face," but stores of different enterprises are also seriously "a thousand stores with one face." Currently, such retail stores have lost their appeal to consumers and have become inefficient retail stores. This form of retail market leads to serious homogeneous competition, with everyone fighting at the same level.
**Very serious "a thousand stores with the same products."** Currently, from first-tier cities to rural areas, from department stores to roadside small shops, from food to other categories, products are completely concentrated in a few brands, whether it is beverages, snack foods, grains and oils, or personal cleaning and paper products.
**Currently, the concentration of the FMCG industry is very high.** The market is almost monopolized by a few brands, even by a few varieties of a few brands. Consumers have lost their voice and choice in products and are in a forced consumption environment.
In such a market environment, with the same products in a thousand stores, consumers have no freshness; they see the same products every day, and the same products in every store. How can such products and such stores attract customers?
Recently, I saw a viewpoint from Sun Mingbo, Chairman of Tsingtao Brewery: **An enterprise cannot respond to all consumers with one product.** Similarly, it is impossible for all retail stores to respond to all consumers with almost equal products. This is not the retail that customers need, nor the product demand that customers need.
Based on the above analysis of changes in the consumer market, changes in the product market, and the prominent problems existing in current retail stores, the transformation of retail stores is inevitable, and the transformation has already begun.
Analyzing the future transformation of retail stores in form, the following changes will occur:
**----More precise segmentation of target customers:** Facing the fiercely competitive market situation and changed consumer demand and behavior, retail stores will adjust from **"one store serves all, vague customer base, low stickiness" to "segment customers, precise positioning, enhance perception, form dependence." Serving all will make it difficult for convenience stores to survive; precision will give convenience stores broader market development space;**
This dialectical relationship seems a bit contradictory: the more you want to do more, the harder it is to do more; the more you want to do bigger, the harder it is to do bigger? The more homogeneous, the more intense the competition; the more precise the positioning, the more it can attract target customers and enhance stickiness with target customers. The key point leading to this contradiction is the significant change in the environment and the significant change in consumers.
The realm of doing a store in the new environment: let target customers, upon entering the store, immediately deeply feel: this store is opened for him, has the products and services he needs, is the shopping feeling and shopping experience he wants, can produce a relatively strong perception in a short time, and then through a period of shopping experience, develop dependence on the store.
**----"A thousand stores with a thousand faces":** "A thousand stores with a thousand faces" is to completely break the current formatted retail, achieving true personalized retail and differentiated operations from store planning, product mix, retail promotions, store operations, and other aspects, to meet consumers' personalized consumption needs and further enhance the store's ability to attract customers and operational vitality.
In the current environment, achieving "a thousand stores with a thousand faces" is mainly based on merchants' accurate grasp of changes in consumer demand and comprehensive control of the product market, with the support of relevant big data, simulating and building different consumption scenarios, and through different store consumption scenario product presentations, achieving comprehensive and precise product push, thereby tapping customers' potential consumption and enhancing business space.
The core lies in merchants' grasp of consumers and control of the product market, the key is understanding consumption scenarios, and ultimately achieving differentiated store operations and realizing "a thousand stores with a thousand faces."
**----Adding products:** It is predicted that the category management strategy of future retail stores will undergo major adjustments: from "widening and reducing depth" to "widening and deepening," product varieties will increase by 50-100% or more, reaching around 4,000-5,000 varieties, and product concentration will adjust from the current 30/70 to 50/50. A large number of high-ticket products will be added, such as instant noodles, beverages, and personal care products.
**----Lifestyle and scenario-based:** In a market environment with abundant products, deep extension of FMCG, and diverse product functions, product organization must start from consumers' consumption scenarios and organize products suitable for different consumption scenario needs. For example, sports, office, leisure, tourism, TV, computer, etc. Different consumption scenarios, even for the same category of products, have significant differences in demand.
Scenario-based means dividing corresponding life scenario areas according to the target consumer's daily lifestyle, and building consumption scenarios in each life area according to their consumption methods, so that customers can find corresponding demand products according to the scenario and meet consumption needs.
**----High integration of online and offline:** Modern retail is the first beneficiary of Internet development. But in the process of the Internet developing towards transactionization, it lagged behind and was preempted by Mr. Ma.
In fact, the essence of offline retail and online retail is completely consistent. The core is to grasp the two elements of customers and products; only the transaction methods differ. Offline stores rely on the influence and experience of physical stores to acquire customers, while online stores rely on online traffic diversion to acquire customers.
Analyzing offline stores developing online has many advantages: real store brand influence, real corporate brand reputation, and years of accumulated retail technology and category management technology.
Developing omni-channel is an inevitable choice for retail enterprises; online transactions expand the store's new transaction and sales space and increase the store's trading area to a larger range.
**----Customer-led operations replace product-led operations:** Retail has entered a consumer-led period.
The differences between product-led and consumer-led are manifested in: first, in concept; second, in organization; third, in means. In the product-led period, retail stores value products the most; the enterprise's organizational design and process settings are based on product organization as the main line; in the enterprise organization, procurement is in an important position; when the enterprise has operational problems, it first focuses on products.
The current market environment is that many stores have acceptable product organization, but business is dismal, mainly because customers have not been developed, and the store has not been accepted or recognized by customers. Because in a saturated competitive environment, how can you grab customers? Of course, products are very important, but relying solely on products is also difficult to sustain.
In the consumer-led period, retail stores value customers the most. The enterprise's organizational design and process settings must focus on acquiring customers, gaining insight into customers, and retaining customers; the store and operations, which bear the primary responsibility for customer management, become the most important links in the enterprise, and the enterprise's business organization is centered on operating customers well.
Overall analysis shows that consumer-led and product-led still have significant essential differences.
In an environment where the product market is extremely abundant and product differentiation among retail stores in various formats is difficult to form essential differences, enterprises need to quickly shift their operational focus from the product side to the customer side.
How to be consumer-led? Borrowing a passage from Professor Chen Liping: **It is to create value for customers; enterprises must first consider creating value for customers, and then consider their own value. Only by creating customer value can enterprise value be realized.**
>
> 4. Thoughts on Integrating Small Shops with the 2B Model
Combined with the current situation of small shops in the market, the following suggestions are made for integrating market small shops with the 2B model:
**----2B and 2C have essential differences.** The purchase process of 2C is the individual decision of the consumer. The procurement process of 2B is the decision process where the store owner purchases on behalf of consumers. The process of retail store owners purchasing products considers how to better sell the products to consumers.
**----What product services do retail stores need?** (Differences between 2B and 2C)
The products provided can conform to the store's operating positioning;
The products provided can conform to the store's category role positioning;
Not only must products be provided, but a systematic marketing plan for products entering the store must be provided: entry, display, and promotion.
**----Must deeply understand small shops' principles for selecting suppliers:** Timely replenishment, full category (one-stop), price, inventory adjustment, and more services. Whoever can better meet the principles of small shops will ultimately win small shops.
**----In the current environment, the core of the 2B model is on the small shop side, not the product side.** The core is deep integration into small shop operations; technology is the means, and products are the guarantee.
**----The purpose of integration is to solve the efficiency problem of FMCG distribution channels.** The key to solving the efficiency problem is people's thinking, not just moving online. Cultural integration and business strategy integration are very critical.
**----Integration is building a complete operating system.** It needs to start from planning the business processes for small shops, starting with improving the efficiency and capability of small shops, and forming an efficient operating system. It needs to start from improving the operating capability of small shops and form a highly connected close relationship. On this basis, integrate product resources. Only by building a complete operating system can a valuable business system be formed.
**----Business cooperation must have primary and secondary roles; completely equal business communication is difficult to carry out:** Therefore, the integrating party needs to first establish its own strong business position. For example, in small shop guidance, product resources, supply chain, timely replenishment system, market maintenance, and other advantageous positions.
Integrating market small shops is a complex systematic project that must be planned comprehensively, carried out step by step, considered comprehensively, and planned for the long term, gradually building a valuable market network system.
**----Rectify stores:** First, based on the actual situation of different stores, identify key problems, provide rectification opinions, and improve the store's operating techniques and capabilities in a short time, so that small shop owners can quickly feel the value and power of professional management;
**----Rectify products:** Plan comprehensively, guide and adjust the store's category management, provide suitable product solutions for different stores, help stores find suitable categories and products at optimal prices, comprehensively and effectively improve the store's product management, and lay the foundation for better operational improvement;
**----Provide continuous training, guidance, and control:** Establish a mechanism to help store operators continuously improve their operating capabilities. WeChat groups can be used to provide professional guidance and regular training, which will also enhance effective contact with small shops. Help stores operate healthily and continuously, establish more contact with stores, reflect the value of the platform, and form more trust.
**----Trust some back-end functions:** Stores' daily operations are mostly repetitive and tedious work, which can be integrated through back-end information systems to improve efficiency and accuracy. For example, category management and replenishment reminders simplify store work, make stores dependent, and thus form actual control over stores.
In specific implementation, the following steps can be taken:
**1. Appropriate investment:** Small shop owners are very pragmatic; to first gain their trust, you must give them some sweeteners. Appropriate investment must be made. For example: store signs, cash registers, back-end systems, etc. In fact, these can also be integrated. Of course, after the scale grows, fees can also be charged.
**2. Introduce operating techniques to quickly improve store operating capabilities.** Let stores quickly feel the contribution of technology to sales growth.
**3. Integrate product resources,** introduce more reasonable categories and products at suitable prices into stores.
**4. Trust some back-end functions,** such as category management and replenishment, simplify store work, make stores dependent, and form a stable cooperative relationship.
**5. Establish corresponding training, assessment, guidance, and control mechanisms,** closely connect with stores, and help stores continuously improve operation and management.
Bao Yuezhong
Senior Economist
Expert of the Ministry of Commerce's "Ten Thousand Villages and Thousand Towns Market Project"
Adjunct Professor of Shandong Institute of Economics and Trade
Senior Consultant of Lianshang.com New Retail Advisory Group
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