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  1. Why did he give up a million-yuan distribution business to open convenience stores?
  2. From convenience stores to fresh food convenience stores, why did he choose fresh produce to enter the retail sector?
  3. What is the secret behind this convenience store company's 20% increase in customer traffic and over a million yuan increase in monthly revenue? Besides transforming into regional B2B platforms or unified warehousing and distribution, what else can traditional distributors do? Zhang Mingyang, founder of Mingzhe Bianli, tells us through his personal experience: traditional distributors can also open convenience stores. Founded in 2006, Mingzhe Bianli currently has over 200 franchised stores in Xi'an, its B2B project Mingpinhui covers over 6,000 outlets, and its own warehousing area exceeds 20,000 square meters. In 2017, it achieved annual GMV of over 400 million yuan. So, what lessons can traditional distributors learn from Zhang Mingyang's transformation case? 1 Identity Shift: From Traditional Distributor to Chain Convenience Store Operator For people from Henan in the 1970s and 1980s, most life paths were related to agriculture: either farming in rural areas, working as migrant workers during slack seasons, or engaging in agriculture-related businesses such as selling agricultural products, fruits, and vegetables. Zhang Mingyang, born in 1980, was no exception. In 1994, at age 14, he started following relatives in the grain and oil retail business, and later came to Xi'an with them. Besides helping with daily chores, he absorbed knowledge about the retail industry. In 1997, the relative who brought him to Xi'an sought a career change, which presented an opportunity for the young Zhang. "At that time, my relative didn't want to continue the grain and oil business, so I took it over. In today's trendy terms, I started my own business at 17," Zhang told New Distribution. He ran this grain and oil business for nine years, during which he expanded and gradually began to act as an agent for products, becoming a traditional distributor. At that time, global retail giant Walmart had just entered the Xi'an market, and some chain convenience stores opened by Fujianese entrepreneurs were appearing on Xi'an streets. Influenced by this, the idea of changing careers began to emerge in Zhang's mind. "I was young then. Although the wholesale business could make money, I felt it was meaningless. So I started thinking about switching to chain convenience stores." In Zhang's view, no matter how big a traditional wholesale business gets, it is still constrained by regional and local supply chains, but retail can transcend regional limits and has vast market potential, making it a cause worth striving for across generations. In 2006, Zhang officially changed careers and opened his first store in Xi'an—Mingpin Supermarket (the predecessor of Mingzhe Bianli). 2 From Direct Operation to Franchising: Accelerating Store Expansion and Strengthening Fresh Produce Advantages However, the path to opening stores was not as simple as Zhang imagined. Due to the fully self-operated model, capital investment became an unavoidable issue. Single-store output determined that stores had to be located in high-traffic areas, where rents were high. Additionally, the lack of professional talent slowed store expansion. Eventually, Zhang, who originally planned to open dozens of stores a year, only opened his second store in the third year. By 2015, Mingzhe Bianli had only 20-30 stores. The turning point came in 2016. In 2016, Mingzhe Bianli officially opened franchising, and all existing 20-plus stores were contracted out to individuals. In this model, Mingzhe Bianli only needed to organize the upstream supply chain and store services. This asset-light model put Mingzhe Bianli on the fast track. In just over two years, it expanded to over 200 closely franchised stores in Xi'an. Another noteworthy aspect is the fresh produce nature of Mingzhe Bianli stores. Unlike most convenience store brands that focus on FMCG products, Mingzhe Bianli has positioned itself as a fresh food convenience store since its inception, with store locations mostly in residential communities. "Traditional convenience stores mainly sell FMCG products. If we also did traditional FMCG-focused convenience stores, even if we did well, we could never overcome the three mountains over domestic convenience stores—7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart. But in the fresh produce sector, we have the opportunity to become the industry leader," Zhang said. Differentiated competition strategies reduce resistance in store expansion, but the deeper significance is that fresh produce, as non-standard products, are purchased more frequently than FMCG like beverages and alcohol, have higher gross margins, and have more fixed consumption scenarios. This allows Mingzhe Bianli to narrow down store location choices and improve conversion efficiency. Mingzhe team sourcing directly from fruit origins Currently, fresh produce accounts for over 30% of Mingzhe Bianli's store merchandise, and a large portion is sourced directly from origins. Internally, Mingzhe Bianli has established divisions for vegetables, fruits, meat, and eggs to manage fresh products professionally. 3 20% Increase in Customer Traffic: The Key Is Community E-commerce The rising cost of online traffic has drawn attention to offline retail as a traffic pool. In the context of transforming people, goods, and scenes, new formats like Hema Fresh and Super Species have emerged, prompting Zhang, who has run offline traditional retail for over a decade, to think: How should offline business be done? "When we ran direct-operated stores, we studied stores and employees. Later, when we transformed to franchising, we studied franchisees. Over the years, we found that our customers—consumers—have never changed. Only by gaining more consumers can store business be guaranteed. Then we started thinking: if we want to get closer to consumers, can we put the store in users' phones?" Based on this thinking, in March 2017, Mingzhe Bianli began building communities to meet personalized user needs, officially established an e-commerce division in July, and on September 1, started building a B2C online mall with a self-built team. Ideals are beautiful, but results often fall short. In December 2017, the online mall, which had been online for three months, was shut down by Zhang due to high costs. He analyzed two main reasons: self-building a B2C mall requires continuous updates due to technological and consumer demand iterations, which is a bottomless pit for human and material resources; and fresh food convenience stores are ultimately based on daily FMCG, with low product value and gross margins, plus delivery costs, thinning operational profits. These combined factors led to the failure of Mingzhe Bianli's community e-commerce. Rising from adversity is commendable, but starting over after failure reflects one's character, and Zhang is not one to give up. On March 1, Mingzhe Bianli's fresh produce project was relaunched, this time focusing on its advantageous category—fresh produce. Learning from the previous lesson, he did not promote it in all stores initially but only piloted in two stores, gradually increasing to 30 stores by May. Mingzhe Bianli WeChat Mall In terms of delivery, they changed from self-built logistics to a model where after users order online, the Mingzhe team delivers the goods to the store the next day, and users pick them up at the store. Changing from home delivery to store pickup saved logistics costs and increased consumer visits, boosting overall store sales. "Consumers usually not only pick up their orders but also buy many other items." Technologically, Mingzhe Bianli abandoned self-development and adopted the mature WeChat mall platform, enabling rapid launch and saving development and maintenance costs. Convenience+ Division Establishment Ceremony The results after adjusting strategy were gratifying. After the new community e-commerce launched, consumer visits increased by over 20%, and sales increased by 2,000-5,000 yuan per store. Because of this, Mingzhe Bianli officially established the Convenience+ Division on June 1. In Zhang's view, Convenience+ holds infinite retail possibilities. In the future, stores will not only sell fresh produce, FMCG, and daily necessities but also offer various new services like appliance repair and daily cleaning. To date, Mingzhe has established over a hundred WeChat communities covering tens of thousands of people, managed and operated online by the Mingzhe team, with average monthly online orders exceeding one million yuan. Final Thoughts: The root of business development lies in the pursuit of internal and external efficiency. From planned economy to deep distribution, it's the same. For traditional distributors, Mingzhe Bianli's case provides an alternative transformation path. Besides using digitalization to reform original business processes and improve decision-making and operational efficiency, extending upstream to product production and downstream to stores and consumers can also enhance the efficiency of the entire business chain. By digitally upgrading the supply chain, shortening product circulation levels, and even driving customization and production from the demand side, it is possible. In this context, traditional distributors should find their reasonable positioning and continuously strengthen their core functions. Those with good terminal relationships can outsource non-core functions like warehousing and distribution to third parties, focusing on store services and product promotion; those with extensive local distribution resources can consider aggregating regional commerce to build regional B2B or unified warehousing and distribution. Avoid talking about transformation without considering actual circumstances. -END-