---
title: "Expert Discussion: How to Empower Small Stores in the New Retail Era?"
description: "The 3rd 'FMCG + Internet Conference' hosted by New Distribution was held grandly at Chongqing Yuelai International Conference Center on November 8-9, 2017, attracting thousands of industry distributors, manufacturers, and internet companies from across the country. The following is the roundtable forum discussion on the afternoon of November 8, featuring Qiu Hao (founder of Dianchi), Zhao Wen (general manager of YeePay's industry line), Zhang Jiabo (sales director of Heading), Wang Jun (retail expert specially invited by New Distribution), Chu Zheng (general manager of Yunmei's cloud warehousing division), and Zhang Li (founder of Jianfu convenience stores), on the topic 'How to Empower Small Stores in the New Retail Era?'"
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-11-22"
language: "en"
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markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/expert-discussion-how-to-empower-small-stores-in-the-new-retail-era-8e9a3077.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0L6xOEA010GU7BgekxUnjQ"
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---

# Expert Discussion: How to Empower Small Stores in the New Retail Era?

> The 3rd 'FMCG + Internet Conference' hosted by New Distribution was held grandly at Chongqing Yuelai International Conference Center on November 8-9, 2017, attracting thousands of industry distributors, manufacturers, and internet companies from across the country. The following is the roundtable forum discussion on the afternoon of November 8, featuring Qiu Hao (founder of Dianchi), Zhao Wen (general manager of YeePay's industry line), Zhang Jiabo (sales director of Heading), Wang Jun (retail expert specially invited by New Distribution), Chu Zheng (general manager of Yunmei's cloud warehousing division), and Zhang Li (founder of Jianfu convenience stores), on the topic 'How to Empower Small Stores in the New Retail Era?'

The 3rd 'FMCG + Internet Conference' hosted by New Distribution was held grandly at Chongqing Yuelai International Conference Center on November 8-9, 2017! It attracted thousands of industry distributors, manufacturers, and internet companies from across the country, with a full house and unprecedented scale. The following is the roundtable forum discussion on the afternoon of November 8, featuring Qiu Hao (founder of Dianchi), Zhao Wen (general manager of YeePay's industry line), Zhang Jiabo (sales director of Heading), Wang Jun (retail expert specially invited by New Distribution), Chu Zheng (general manager of Yunmei's cloud warehousing division), and Zhang Li (founder of Jianfu convenience stores), on the topic 'How to Empower Small Stores in the New Retail Era?' New Distribution has organized the content for our readers.

**Qiu Hao: Hello everyone. We just talked about how to empower retail in the mobile internet environment. Now let's return to the conference theme: New Retail. Today's five guests are all very distinctive. As we begin the roundtable forum, let's take a minute for each guest to introduce themselves again.**

**Zhang Li:** I'm Zhang Li from Xiamen Jianfu Convenience Store.

**Wang Jun:** We just discussed looking at the essence. In the industry, there are several changes: being rebranded, being demolished, being franchised. Thank you.

**Zhang Jiabo:** I'm from Heading Company, my name is Zhang Jiabo. We have been committed to circulation informatization. For convenience stores, we provide a full set of solutions, including the Qianfan solution, which we also develop and provide technically. Heading has been doing technical R&D for 12 years. Thank you.

**Zhao Wen:** YeePay is a third-party payment provider. We are also the pioneer and leader in industry payments. The new retail industry is a key industry for us. We provide a complete set of payment solutions: the front end handles all-channel acquiring, the terminal handles fund splitting and settlement, and the back end adds financial services and credit services. We provide overall payment solutions for retail enterprises.

**Chu Zheng:** I'm the most unserious speaker, Chu Zheng, but our company is very serious. We seriously do supply chain upgrade services. We have five major modules. As for specific projects, there is a counter and team at the entrance; if you're interested, you can go check it out.

**Qiu Hao: I learned about the guests beforehand. Among the six people on stage, three have performed crosstalk, so today might be fun. I'm often invited to host dialogues. This is my third time hosting in the past month, and I have one next week and another in January. Why am I invited to host? The reason is simple: I often come up with a particularly bizarre question to challenge the guests. Today I've prepared a particularly bizarre question: Everyone is talking about new retail today. I want to ask you: in your eyes, what kind of retail is NOT new retail?**

**Zhang Li:** If you can't sell without the internet, then it can be called not new retail.

**Qiu Hao: What if there's a power outage one day?**

**Zhang Li:** If there's no electricity, we go back to a hundred years ago. If there's no fire, we go into caves. There's no other way. Since you've fallen in love with the internet, embrace it well. There's no other choice.

**Wang Jun:** You can't stump us. It doesn't exist. I never admitted there is new retail. First of all, that's the point. I'm now taking a stand: borderless retail. I think they are just synonyms. Retail changes every day. Looking back at the two-day forum, I'll share a knowledge point. Not changing means death; changing doesn't guarantee survival. In such fiercely competitive business environment, what is 'new'? Innovation is daily. There will be innovation next year. I believe you agree with my answer. Thank you.

**Qiu Hao: You assume I agree. First, you don't agree with the concept of new retail, but you think retail needs constant innovation.**

**Zhang Jiabo:** From a software perspective, 'new' for us means upgrade. Every year we do various upgrades for customers, from minor system upgrades to major hardware upgrades, even offline-to-online upgrades. I believe retail only becomes new after upgrading. Initially, it was just putting up shelves and selling things, even starting with a street stall is retail. As the new era changes, with new technologies and new methods, retail that is unwilling to upgrade may not be new retail. For example, those unwilling to embrace internet and big data technologies, or unwilling to try new things. That's my perspective. Thank you.

**Zhao Wen:** From my personal perspective, anything that is not driven by big data for people, goods, and scenes, that does not meet consumer needs, and where users cannot pay for their cognition and services, should not be considered new retail.

**Qiu Hao: Everyone knows Beijing's Tianfuhao (phonetic), which is the same company as the neighbor that was sold for 84 million, which was widely discussed in the industry. Nearly a hundred years ago, they provided phone ordering and home delivery services. According to what Zhao just said about people, goods, and scenes, and meeting customer needs, it should be closer to new retail, or if not, then it's not new retail. So if Tianfuhao (phonetic) from a hundred years ago were placed today, do you think it would be new retail?**

**Zhao Wen:** First, I don't know that company. Maybe Chu can answer.

**Chu Zheng:** The boss of Tianfuhao (phonetic) is a good friend of mine. As for whether it's new retail, it must have been new retail at that stage. In my mind, what is not new retail? I judge it this way: retail done by businessmen who still use their own brains is not new retail, because they haven't been brainwashed by Ma Yun. That's not new retail. In plain terms, retail that hasn't been fooled is not new retail; all that have been fooled are new retail.

Qiu Hao: This is very consistent with the independent thinking ability I just mentioned. Actually, everyone sees why we all mention this issue. Today's retail indeed requires each of us to have the ability not to be brainwashed. There was a concept called 'IQ tax'. I sincerely hope each of us pays less IQ tax.

You can see our five guests: three are from the supply side, providing services to retail enterprises, and there are also representatives from the demand side. Let's start with the demand side. Mr. Zhang, according to your thoughts and cognition, if you were to adapt to today's new retail concept, what kind of model would you build your store into? In your mind, what would already be considered new retail?

**Zhang Li:** First, create value for customers. What is customer value? Convenience, safety, fashion, fun, and interesting. Achieving these five elements realizes what I think is the arrival of the new era, not simply doing pseudo-technology or pseudo-propositions. The best lover relationship is fun and interesting; everything else is nonsense and deception.

**Qiu Hao: Can I interpret that in the future, every store of yours will be a lover to our customers?**

**Zhang Li:** I am the customer's lover, not the customer is my lover. When the customer needs me, I'm by their side; when they don't, I stay far away. I come when called and leave when dismissed.

**Qiu Hao: To achieve such a goal, what do you think you need to do next?**

**Zhang Li:** I treat customers as feminine thinking and store owners as masculine thinking. Of course, they need to be tall, rich, and handsome; otherwise, they won't treat me as a lover. I've tested this: when I concentrated the most beautiful store clerks in one store, sales increased by over 40%. You can try it. That's human nature. This morning I was reading Freud's 'Theory of Needs'. It's like that: accept human nature and face it calmly.

**Qiu Hao: Now we cooperate with Microsoft to recognize customers and connect with POS systems to know what they buy. Have we analyzed what products sell best after hiring beautiful female clerks?**

**Zhang Li:** Customer repurchase rates increased, that's certain. Customers didn't change much on specific products, but the success rate of clerks rose sharply, and average transaction value increased.

**Qiu Hao: Why 'tall, rich, handsome' instead of 'white, rich, beautiful'?**

**Zhang Li:** Because store owners are masculine thinking. We need to understand the biological evolution process, the most primitive DNA. Consumers will definitely compare and choose. During their selection, you have to pretend to be tall, rich, and handsome, but if you pretend long enough, you become it. I've turned my store into the neighbor's sunny big brother.

**Qiu Hao: In fierce competition, do we have an additional choice: find prettier clerks? Let's give Mr. Zhang another round of applause. Mr. Wang, you've run many convenience stores. What do you say?**

**Wang Jun:** That's really hard to find. Actually, it's a matter of cost and benefit calculation. I'm actually pessimistic. The retail I imagine is a process of paying tuition or making up lessons. The stores we're running now, let alone future imagination, compared to the world's excellent retail channels, we are in a process of making up lessons. Customers' sense of being respected and shopping experience, and our operators are not respected enough. In the future, society will consider offline retail work as a profession with face, income, and respect. Both aspects are not respected enough, and there's huge room for improvement. The ceiling for creating value is far from reached; there will definitely be value. That's the first lesson to make up.

In the future, offline retail will take on the responsibility of selecting better products and doing better quality control. Everyone must pay attention to technology. One thing: one product, one code. This is also a process of making up lessons. When a manufacturer produces a product, they have the responsibility and obligation to let consumers see at any time when it was produced and the reason for production. Now unmanned retail is doing this, which in turn achieves product identification, traceability, and food safety control. There's a 100% way to find a solution. When we talk about new retail, we are actually making up lessons for manufacturers. We should give new retail some applause.

**Qiu Hao:** I'll introduce two concepts: basic skills and combat techniques. The relationship between these two: if our basic skills are not solid, and we only practice flashy combat techniques, like the recent fight between Wu Sen Yilong and the Thai boxer, he was KO'd in two rounds. Both were training, but when it came to actual combat, it showed immediately. From the perspective of basic skills and combat techniques, the basic skills of most Chinese retail enterprises today might be at the level of Japan 40 years ago. For example, we've done many systems and served many customers, but who dares to say their inventory management is completely accurate? Our basic skills are far from solid. For example, service and respect for people: a person who has never felt respected will not respect others. The three guests behind, I believe, are answering from the perspective of technology, serving clients, and basic skills. We must settle down and explore. According to Mr. Zhang's or Mr. Wang's understanding and expectations for the future, what can we do to help them? That's the real thing. We must return to the most basic skills. I can have martial arts, but I also need weapons. Only by combining martial arts and weapons, plus combat techniques, can we truly win in competition. I've been in the industry for over a decade. I can tell you that the gap between us and Japanese convenience stores hasn't narrowed; it's widened. If you have a chance to see Xinbianli in Shanghai, you'll see that convenience stores should be like that. It's not that they are leading; it's that many enterprises lag in basic skills. So when you try to catch up today, you'll find it very difficult. Mr. Zhang, please tell us how you empower these small stores?

**Zhang Jiabo:** I've visited many customers. When I went to Hangzhou before, I noticed a phenomenon: a milk tea shop had all handsome male clerks, and people were always queuing outside. And in Japan, being pressed down to try on shoes by Japanese girls was a very nice experience. A few years ago, I thought I was a traditional ERP vendor. How do I provide customers with a simple ERP system? But after we had over a hundred customers, we changed. The direction we want to go is that our most basic work is to help enterprises do the most basic informatization work well. Because with the development of the new era, whether you call it online-offline integration or omni-channel, they will become one. On the informatization path, you need a reliable basic data processing capability that can connect online and offline, including products, members, orders, marketing, etc. We are building such a very basic platform. We also hope to make this platform solid and provide customers with the most reliable highway-like capability.

Second, we hope to cooperate with more industry peers and cross-industry partners. After establishing the most basic platform, such as the Qianfan platform, we hope to be open and make the most standard interfaces for third-party cooperation, providing capabilities to customers. If we are fortunate to cooperate with Jianfu on face recognition trials, we might take the lead in the future. We are also trying coupon marketing in 36524 convenience stores. We may try and cooperate with more new enterprises, making new developments, so everyone knows we are ready at any time. So the direction is two points: first, do the basic informatization work well; second, try some new and more fun applications for everyone, always ready for the arrival of a new era. Thank you.

**Qiu Hao: Heading can empower small stores in two ways: first, the most basic things, letting them run on this road without worry; second, providing newer and more fun things, letting them run better. I hope you can empower more small stores in the future.**

**Zhao Wen:** My understanding: first, in the next 3-5 years, we are very optimistic about this field. Medical insurance payment should be deeply involved in this field. We need to integrate software and hardware vendors, platform system providers, to jointly provide retail enterprises with payment settlement, financial services, credit evaluation, etc., plus data technology to promote the development of this field. This year and next year, we are already doing account compliance, in line with the People's Bank of China's payment management measures. We also need to provide retail enterprises with low-cost all-channel acquiring, such as WeChat, Alipay, bank cards, flash payments, etc. We integrate them all. When a payment comes in, we split it to three to five stakeholders. We do the splitting for you. There's also a unified reconciliation and clearing system. We will build a unified cashier for retail enterprises. Through the above services, we hope to establish payment settlement for retail enterprises, extract data capabilities through cooperation with various partners, and then link financial services. Going forward, we want to become a link provider for financial services based on payment services. We need to do payment well, and we also need to be a data service provider and financial service provider. This year and next, we will focus on payment, data, and financial services.

**Qiu Hao: You're actually taking two steps: first, except for cash, all other payments come to you. Second, when you collect enough money, you can provide financial services.**

**Zhao Wen:** Yes, consumer finance, virtual credit cards, etc.

**Qiu Hao: First collect money, then they borrow from you. That's good, helping them financially. Mr. Chu, please briefly introduce what cloud warehousing is.**

**Chu Zheng:** Many people ask me about cloud warehousing. They always want me to explain it briefly. But really, if I explain it briefly, everyone's understanding will be one-sided. I prefer them to understand me accurately. Back to the topic: how to empower small stores. The people here are all my energy storage targets. Mr. Zhang is really one of my idols. I've read many of your written works, and I have a team dedicated to reading them. Quanshi is the same: from opening five stores making money to not making money after five stores, we know all your company's stories. That's our energy storage target. But one thing: Mr. Zhang will never be my empowerment target, because he's already a leader. I believe Jianfu and Quanshi will one day be stronger than 7-11 in China. Our Chinese convenience stores will definitely have the best. If you say I empower him, I'm overestimating myself. But one thing: he is definitely my energy storage target. Mr. Wang also said that the Chinese convenience store system, whether for food safety or whatever, I have many ideals, and I feel pessimistic. To be honest, I'm too optimistic, extremely optimistic, because difference is opportunity. That's what you can learn from all business books. What is your ideal for the future? I think it's definitely right. Today's counterfeit sellers don't want counterfeit goods either. They know what is good, but they don't dare to be good, because being good requires a price they may not be able to afford. But they can be a little better; that's what they can do. My empowerment can tell them: within the same expenditure range, you can definitely do better than yesterday, a little better. More importantly, set aside the cold software and hardware, and use people to communicate what 'good' means. That's the empowerment our company can do. I learned from Mr. Zhang that finding a pretty girl can improve business. For mom-and-pop stores, I might say, 'Can you change your wife? Changing your wife might improve your business.' We will have a corresponding plan for any store. That's the empowerment we can do. I can never empower upward, but you should never believe Ma Yun's empowerment either. I know smoking is bad for health; I read it in the newspaper, so I borrowed the newspaper. I know Teacher Ma proposed new retail, so I uninstalled Taobao. That's true. Distributor friends, remember: when they talk about empowerment, you must think about who is empowering whom. When they gather you together, you are empowering them. New retail is like chumming when fishing; whoever gets hooked is who you are. High can empower low, but low to high is always energy storage. I hope to fairly and reasonably distribute our capabilities and profits with everyone. That's the empowerment I can do for small and medium enterprises and convenience stores. Maybe this person is not my target, that's how it is.

**Qiu Hao: Mr. Chu spoke very well. This is what we need. We must hear various voices to build our cognitive system. Time is very limited today. Finally, one more question. Everyone is an industry friend. Based on your understanding of today's retail environment, please say one sentence to conclude today's forum.**

**Zhang Li:** Earlier we talked about empowerment. You need to know what you lack. For me, it's three things: lack of money, lack of people, lack of time. Whoever gives me these three is empowering me. Everything else is deceiving me.

**Wang Jun:** System suppliers must achieve modularization and plug-inization. In the future, your store's points should be redeemable at KFC; linked redemption is more powerful. Second, the financial accounting system under the entire store system, which may involve compliance issues, must design a good plan for commission distribution. The future industry is about professionals doing professional work. Let's work hard.

**Zhao Wen:** I'll say one simple sentence: Congratulations on getting rich. In such a good era, let's strive.

**Chu Zheng:** No matter what happens in the future, it will happen and it will come. Don't be anxious. Don't take too big steps; you might hurt yourself. Don't believe in new retail. Just catch up with the opponent ahead of you, and you're fine.

**Qiu Hao: Once again, let's give a warm round of applause to the five guests for their spiritual gift. Thank you!**

Click **Read Original** to see more highlights of the 3rd FMCG + Internet Conference...

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