---
title: "Envisioning 2025: Ten Key Words for the Retail Industry"
description: "As 2024 draws to a close, this article looks ahead to 2025 with ten key words that will shape the retail industry, including deep reform, self-pampering consumption, two-dimensional economy, and going global. It explores trends such as comprehensive discounting, private brands, channel integration, and digital empowerment, offering insights for retailers to adapt and thrive."
author: "行业观察"
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published: "2025-01-07"
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# Envisioning 2025: Ten Key Words for the Retail Industry

> As 2024 draws to a close, this article looks ahead to 2025 with ten key words that will shape the retail industry, including deep reform, self-pampering consumption, two-dimensional economy, and going global. It explores trends such as comprehensive discounting, private brands, channel integration, and digital empowerment, offering insights for retailers to adapt and thrive.

As of today, 2024 will come to a full stop at midnight, and no matter how many joys and sorrows this year has brought, they will all become the past. With the arrival of 2025, there are more beautiful expectations for a new beginning.
This article summarizes ten key words through some visions for 2025. If you have more ideas, welcome to add them in the comment section.
**Deep reform, self-pampering, two-dimensional, going global...**
**Envisioning 2025: Ten Key Words**
**Key Word 1: Deep Transformation**
In 2024, the "adjustment and reform trend" in retail enterprises was hot. While "giants" like Yonghui, Bubugao, and Zhongbai accelerated their alignment with Pangdonglai, many state-owned "giants" also joined the pace of adjustment and reform. This wave will continue into 2025, and it is not hard to imagine that more enterprises will join in.
The impact of adjustment and reform is not only on the supermarket enterprises themselves but also on all aspects related to supermarket enterprises, such as products, supply chains, and the improvement and requirements of talents in the related retail industry.
Take products as an example: some products with poor quality control and weak brand influence will be gradually eliminated, and the corresponding factories and suppliers will also be affected. This will counter the "bad money driving out good money caused by price wars," and consumers will pay more attention to consumption experience and quality.
**Key Word 2: Comprehensive Discounting**
In 2023, the scale of China's discount retail market reached 1.79 trillion yuan, accounting for 3.8% of total social retail sales. **According to estimates, under a neutral assumption, the industry scale of the discount retail format in 2025 is expected to be 2.28 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.0% from 2022 to 2025, showing a good development trend.**
In this regard, in 2024, we can intuitively feel the arrival of the "hard discount era." While consumers are tightening their wallets, rapidly expanding snack discount stores are gradually transforming into "wholesale supermarkets," and retail "giants" are actively expanding "hard discount" format stores, further intensifying the "hard discount" battle in physical retail.
The main reasons are that driven by changes in consumer demand and market dynamics, the retail industry has to take this path:
  * **Shift in consumer demand**: Consumers are now more rational. Under the influence of the macroeconomic cycle, consumption power has shown structural differentiation, and the pursuit of cost-effectiveness has become mainstream. "Extreme cost-effectiveness" has become a new consumption trend, and the public's demand for affordable and discounted goods has increased.
  * **Changes in market supply**: On the one hand, overcapacity and inventory backlog are prominent, especially for seasonal and short-shelf-life products such as food, snacks, clothing, shoes, and hats, providing abundant product resources for discount retail. On the other hand, channel and supply chain models urgently need to be restructured. Offline costs are declining, while the traffic dividend of traditional e-commerce channels is gradually disappearing, and traffic costs remain high. Small and medium-sized vertical discount retail formats of 100-300 square meters show advantages such as streamlined SKUs, high repurchase rates, high sales per square meter, high turnover, and low costs, promoting the development of discount retail.
### **Main participants and models of discount retail**
  * **Hard discount stores**: Such as Chongqing Tiaoma, Hema Outlets, and ALDI, which reduce costs by optimizing supply chains and improving operational efficiency to achieve low-price sales.
  * **Snack discount chains**: Such as Snacks Are Busy and Zhao Yiming, which attract consumers with a rich variety of snacks and affordable prices, meeting consumers' daily snack needs.
  * **Regional newcomers**: Such as Aotele and Discount Niu, which develop rapidly in regional markets with their unique business models and localization advantages.
  * **Foreign warehouse membership stores**: Such as Sam's Club and Costco, which provide consumers with a cost-effective shopping choice with their high-quality products and membership models, while also reducing costs through large-scale procurement and efficient operations.
**Key Word 3: Private Brands**
As consumers' requirements for product quality and cost-effectiveness continue to rise, they pay more attention to personalized and diversified choices. At the same time, competition in the retail market is becoming increasingly fierce, and supermarket enterprises need to achieve differentiated competition through private brands to attract consumers and increase market share. On the one hand, private brands can better meet these needs and provide consumers with competitive products. On the other hand, developing private brands can reduce intermediate links, lower procurement costs and marketing expenses, thereby increasing profit margins.
Currently, in the wave of reform in the retail industry, in addition to enterprises like Sam's Club, Pangdonglai, and ALDI having rich private label products, enterprises such as Yonghui and Bubugao have also begun to enrich their private label sections. Recently, China Resources Suguo, which is undergoing adjustment and reform, has also added a rich array of private brands after the reform.
**For retail enterprises to develop private brands:**
**First, focus on product quality innovation**, from raw material selection, production process improvement to packaging design innovation, comprehensively enhance the quality and added value of private brand products, build a complete quality management system, and ensure stable product quality.
At the same time, actively explore differentiated development paths, launch unique products to meet the specific needs of different consumer groups, and avoid purely low-price competition strategies.
**Second, focus on online-offline integration and omnichannel marketing**. With the rapid development of e-commerce platforms and new media, supermarket enterprises will further promote the deep integration of online and offline private brands. By establishing online shopping platforms and cooperating with e-commerce giants, they can achieve online-offline connectivity and provide consumers with a smoother shopping experience. Use diversified sales channels such as e-commerce platforms and social media to expand the market coverage of private brands and enhance market competitiveness.
**Third, continuous innovation is needed**. When everyone is developing private brands, the competition is about who better understands consumers' hearts. Use market research and data analysis tools to deeply understand consumer needs and preferences, develop diversified and personalized products for different consumer groups, and continuously launch unique new products to meet consumers' growing needs, enhancing the brand's vitality and attractiveness in the market.
**Fourth, brand image building and value enhancement**. When people still have some "prejudice" against local retail enterprises, enterprises should pay more attention to consumer evaluations and experiences. At this time, measures such as advertising, event planning, and actively fulfilling social responsibilities can be used to enhance the visibility and reputation of private brands, shape a positive brand image, attract more consumers' attention and purchases, and improve the overall value of the brand and the comprehensive competitiveness of the supermarket.
**Fifth, supply chain optimization and cost reduction and efficiency improvement**. Currently, advanced internet technologies such as the Internet and the Internet of Things can achieve intelligent and refined supply chain management, reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, better respond to market demand, and provide strong support for the development of private brands.
The construction of private brands is a way for retail enterprises to cater to consumer needs and satisfy consumer preferences, but there are still many difficulties in exploring private brand products.
**Key Word 4: Deep Restructuring**
During the reform of the retail industry, in 2024 we can observe two contrasting scenes in the retail industry: on one side, Sam's Club and Hema are rapidly expanding; on the other side, there are store closures, equity changes, leadership changes, and other turmoil. Under the current situation of global economic uncertainty and significant shifts in consumer behavior and preferences, this is understandable. After all, the market pie is only so big. If you don't shed your burdens and quickly seize more, you will only "starve" if you fall behind.
Image source: Xiaohongshu ID: Biscuit
Similarly, in 2025, "restructuring" may become more frequent: **store closures and equity transactions will be more frequent, and more and more retail enterprises will quickly adapt to consumer behavior and preferences, providing more creativity in products, services, and experiences.**
**Key Word 5: Connected Intelligence**
Currently, convenient payment methods and online-offline purchasing channels allow consumers to feel that consumption is more convenient, and the products they see and buy are gradually more in line with their preferences. The reason for this result cannot be separated from the strong promotion of the Internet and big data.
**For the physical retail industry**, the application of modern technology is not only about establishing online platforms for consumers to place orders, but also more about store operations, product management, personnel management, and other work. Some enterprises have also begun to try diversified scenarios such as "unmanned stores" and "smart shopping."
**For consumers**, they can obtain an intelligent shopping experience: with various intelligent shopping methods such as free purchase, self-service purchase, smart shopping carts, and instant payment, it improves the cashier efficiency of merchants and saves labor costs. Users can check out in as fast as 3 seconds without queuing.
**For enterprises**, systematic data analysis is more accurate: through big data analysis, a complete experience report on the health of products in merchants/stores is issued, and based on score management, it guides digital product selection, new product launches, replacement, display, promotion, inventory, etc., continuously optimizing products.
**Key Word 6: Channel Integration**
From the introduction of connected intelligence above, it is not difficult to see that the transformation of physical retail will see more integration due to the development of modern technology, including but not limited to:
**Seamless online-offline connection**: Consumers can freely switch between different channels for shopping, with models such as online ordering and in-store pickup or delivery, and offline experience with online purchase becoming more complete and convenient. At the same time, product prices, service quality, and after-sales guarantees are consistent across channels, eliminating consumers' sense of channel difference.
**Scenario integration and innovation**: Set up more consumption scenarios in stores, providing product tastings and trials. VR and AI technologies can also be used to let consumers further experience products integrated into specific life scenarios, forming a more concrete experience.
**Integrated membership system**: Establish a unified membership system to achieve interoperability and sharing of online and offline membership points, rights, and levels. Members can enjoy the same preferential policies and exclusive services across all channels, such as member-exclusive discounts, point redemption, and priority purchase rights, enhancing member loyalty and stickiness, and promoting consumption across different channels.
**Expansion of unmanned retail and self-service**: Unmanned convenience stores, unmanned shelves, self-checkout, and other unmanned retail models will continue to develop and improve, reducing enterprise operating costs while providing consumers with a more convenient and efficient shopping experience. In addition, self-service will extend to more areas, such as self-service returns and exchanges, and self-service pickup, enhancing consumers' shopping autonomy and convenience.
**Rise of instant retail**: To meet consumers' demand for immediate shopping, through cooperation with local merchants and delivery platforms, achieve instant delivery or in-store pickup of fresh food, daily necessities, and other products, creating an instant retail model of "online ordering, offline minute-level delivery/pickup," becoming an important growth point for physical retail enterprises.
**Development of community-based retail**: Centered on communities, open community retail stores or carry out community group buying businesses, deeply explore the needs of community consumers, and provide products and services closer to residents' lives. Through online-offline integration, achieve rapid delivery and offline experience within the community, enhancing stickiness and interaction with consumers.
**Key Word 7: Self-Pampering Consumption**
In 2024, one manifestation of people's consumption of emotional value was "self-pleasing consumption." After this manifestation became the norm, it gradually sublimated into "self-pampering consumption."
**"Self-pampering consumption" refers to consumers, especially young people, paying more attention to meeting their own emotional needs and actual life experiences, willing to invest more time and money in themselves to obtain happiness, satisfaction, and an improved quality of life.**
Compared with the past "self-pleasing consumption," "self-pampering consumption" is more pragmatic, no longer simply pursuing the appearance of material things, but paying more attention to the actual value and emotional experience brought by consumption, emphasizing self-care and positive improvement of life.
**Reasons for the emergence of "self-pampering consumption":**
First, with the development of social economy and the improvement of people's living standards, consumers' consumption concepts have gradually shifted from meeting basic material needs to pursuing higher-level spiritual satisfaction and emotional experience, paying more attention to their own feelings and quality of life.
Second, the fast pace and high pressure of modern life require people to relieve stress and relax through various means. "Self-pampering consumption" has become an effective way of self-regulation and emotional catharsis, bringing positive psychological feedback and emotional comfort to consumers.
Third, technological progress provides more convenience and possibilities for "self-pampering consumption," such as the widespread application of technologies like the Internet, mobile payment, and artificial intelligence, enabling consumers to more conveniently access various consumption information and services, meeting personalized and diversified consumption needs.
Combining the above three reasons, physical retail enterprises can provide consumers with more pragmatic proposals and scenarios to improve the quality of life based on their "self-pampering" needs. For example, during the 2025 Spring Festival, they can propose life proposals starting from "pampering yourself from the new year," and provide corresponding products to enrich consumers' Spring Festival experience and happiness.
**Key Word 8: Dimensional Economy**
In 2024, there was also a relatively popular key word: "guzi economy," which the author here calls the "dimensional" economy.
First, let me explain what "guzi" is.
**"Guzi" refers to peripheral products derived from content IP such as comics, animations, games, idols, and special effects, such as badges, posters, cards, pendants, stands, figures, dolls, etc.** In 2024, the concept of the guzi economy became extremely popular, with related concept stocks strengthening. Its industry chain has huge development space, with IP and channels being the core.
In first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, many old shopping malls have gradually undergone "two-dimensional" renovations to gain traffic, such as Shanghai Bailian and Nanjing Shuiyoucheng. For physical retail enterprises, facing "young" consumers, they cannot be an "old man with a generation gap." They should walk with young people, understand trends, and understand what they want.
Image source: Xiaohongshu ID: Alan
In 2025, the "dimensional" economy will also further integrate into physical retail, undergoing youthful transformation:
**First, promote the integration of physical retail with culture and entertainment.**
The guzi economy is closely connected to the cultural and entertainment industry. Its development in physical retail promotes the deep integration of retail with culture and entertainment. Physical retail enterprises are not only places for selling goods but also platforms for two-dimensional culture display, exchange, and experience. By holding cultural and entertainment activities such as cosplay events and anime exhibitions, they attract consumer participation, increase consumers' stay time and consumption opportunities in stores, and also enhance the cultural connotation and brand image of physical retail.
**Second, drive consumption upgrading in physical retail.**
With the rise of the guzi economy, consumers' requirements for the quality and variety of related peripheral products are also increasing. This will prompt physical retail enterprises to improve the quality and richness of products, introduce more high-quality, officially licensed guzi products, meet consumers' demand for quality products, and thus drive consumption upgrading in physical retail. In addition, some high-end and limited-edition products in the guzi economy also provide new growth points for the high-end consumer market in physical retail.
**Key Word 9: Brand Going Global**
As the saturation of the domestic retail market gradually increases and competition becomes increasingly fierce, the growth space for enterprises in the domestic market is limited. **Going global can open up new markets for enterprises, diversify market risks, and reduce dependence on a single domestic market.**
Many overseas markets, especially emerging markets, have great consumption potential and growth space. For example, regions such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East are experiencing rapid economic development, with large populations and increasing consumer demand for various retail products, providing good development opportunities for retail enterprises.
In 2024, enterprises going global, such as Hema, Miniso, and many tea beverage brands, attracted industry attention. In this chaotic world, although overseas markets have infinite opportunities, they also hide crises. Many enterprises, with the spirit of "rather than involution, take a gamble," bravely venture overseas. **In 2025, more enterprises and brands will join the ranks of going global.**
**Key Word 10: Development Momentum**
In the article "Looking Back at 2024: Retail Wanders Between Virtual and Real!" Retail Vision mentioned a document closely related to the development of the retail industry released at the end of 2024: the "Implementation Plan for the Retail Industry Innovation and Upgrade Project." The content of this document also provides guidance for the development of retail enterprises in 2025. The following is a summary of the parts related to supermarket enterprises for your reference.
### **1. Scenario-based transformation**
  * **Optimize the shopping environment**: Promote supermarket enterprises to focus on optimizing store layout and internal and external environments, add humanized service facilities, such as increasing rest areas, optimizing lighting and ventilation systems, etc., to create a more comfortable and convenient shopping environment for consumers and enhance the shopping experience.
  * **Enrich business format combinations**: Encourage supermarket enterprises to develop integrated commerce. In addition to traditional product sales, they can also add catering, entertainment, parent-child, and other business formats, creating a new landmark of "one-stop" services, meeting consumers' all-round consumption needs, and increasing customers' stay time and consumption amount in supermarkets.
  * **Cultivate thematic features**: Support supermarket enterprises to link with technology, nature, art, and other elements to form characteristic spaces, meeting consumption needs such as socializing and parent-child activities. For example, create supermarkets themed around healthy living, set up fitness equipment display areas, healthy food cooking areas, etc., to attract specific consumer groups.
### **2. Quality supply**
  * **Optimize product structure**: Prompt supermarket enterprises to be consumer-centric, pay more attention to the optimization of product quality and variety, increase the supply of new consumer hotspot products such as smart home, digital products, smart wearables, big health, beauty, and pets, to meet consumers' increasingly diverse and personalized needs.
  * **Improve service quality**: Encourage supermarket enterprises to provide professional and humanized pre-sales and after-sales services, such as "peeling" weighing and integrated delivery and installation, to enhance product power and cost-effectiveness with additional services, and enhance consumer satisfaction and loyalty to supermarkets.
  * **Strengthen brand building**: Support supermarket enterprises to promote national "trendy" products, promote time-honored brands to increase variety, improve quality, and strengthen brands, promote the development of national brands, and also provide consumers with more product choices with cultural connotations and quality assurance.
### **3. Digital empowerment**
  * **Improve operational efficiency**: Promote supermarket enterprises to jointly promote the product barcode system with suppliers, promote full-chain data interoperability, and achieve information sharing. At the same time, apply digital technology to optimize standard processes such as inventory management, logistics distribution, and anti-counterfeiting traceability, promote the intelligent upgrade of information systems, and improve the efficiency and accuracy of enterprise operation management.
  * **Innovate consumption scenarios**: Encourage supermarket enterprises to explore the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality to create new digital consumption scenarios such as cloud shopping, cloud purchasing, and cloud experience, provide services such as smart parking, smart delivery, smart energy saving, and smart security, and provide consumers with a more convenient and personalized shopping experience.
  * **Expand sales channels**: Support supermarket enterprises to develop online-offline integrated instant retail models, such as platform ordering + nearby delivery, store ordering + instant delivery, etc., to achieve coordinated development of in-store and home delivery, meet consumers' demand for shopping convenience, expand sales channels, and enhance market competitiveness.
### **4. Diversified innovation**
  * **Develop new business formats**: Encourage supermarket enterprises to develop "digital empowerment + chain operation," promote the "one store with multiple functions" model, and carry convenience service projects such as accepting express delivery, paying utility bills, and providing breakfast, to improve customer flow, sales per square meter, and space utilization. In addition, support supermarket enterprises to develop new formats such as boutique stores, collection stores, pop-up stores, and brand discount stores, and cultivate "small but beautiful" and "specialized and refined" characteristic stores.
  * **Innovate business models**: Prompt supermarket enterprises to explore deep joint operations, self-purchasing and self-operating models, shift from selling products to selling service experiences, solutions, and lifestyles, and improve store efficiency. At the same time, encourage large supermarkets and warehouse membership stores to also engage in wholesale business, supply goods to surrounding small merchants, expand business areas, and increase revenue sources.
### **5. Supply chain improvement**
  * **Strengthen collaboration**: Encourage large supermarket enterprises to play an advantageous role, strengthen supply chain collaboration, optimize distribution channels, efficiently connect supply and sales, and promote cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Support the entire supply chain to share and manage inventory, promote models such as centralized procurement and distribution, unified warehousing and distribution, direct supplier distribution, and automatic replenishment, reduce multi-level inventory, repeated transportation, and unnecessary reverse circulation, and reduce enterprise operating costs.
  * **Develop private brands**: Support supermarket enterprises to carry out same-industry or cross-industry alliances, develop private brands, and improve the market competitiveness of private brands through joint R&D of hot-selling products, joint procurement to expand volume, and selection of categories to increase single-item procurement volume, achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement, while also enhancing enterprises' control over the supply chain.
  * **Improve product power**: Encourage supermarket enterprises to promote models such as direct sourcing from origins, order-based production, and farmer-supermarket docking, develop "clean vegetables" into cities, use cold chain temperature control data to serve fresh agricultural product sales, extend shelf life, achieve high quality at good prices, and provide consumers with fresher, higher-quality, and more affordable products.
**Conclusion**
Wishing everyone a happy New Year in advance! Thank you for your company and support in 2024. I hope to continue to walk with you in 2025, listening to the wind and rain together, and seeing the world together.
**【New Order · Symbiosis】**
**The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference**
**Date: March 17-19, 2025**
**Location: Chengdu, China**


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