Click the image above for details Apart from recent localized outbreaks in Dalian and Xinjiang, most of the country has entered the late stage of the pandemic. Watching supermarket foot traffic gradually return, Lao Wang is not happy—the pandemic has not only changed consumer habits but also the industry landscape, and some sales lost by offline large stores will never return... Wrong! In fact, the business of large stores remains important! E-commerce has indeed taken a share, but most business is still in the hands of frontline sales; it's just that our approach to driving sales needs to be upgraded and changed! In the FMCG distribution channel classification, besides international and domestic KA chain hypermarkets over 3,000 square meters, and community supermarkets and convenience stores under 300 square meters, the rest are independent and small-chain supermarkets ranging from 300 to 3,000 square meters, primarily individually operated (referred to as "large stores" below). These large stores are scattered across every corner of urban markets, serving as the mainstream outlets for local distributors and the primary sales battleground for every city manager. These stores are either adjacent to urban communities or located on main shopping streets in townships. In recent years, with the rapid changes in retail formats, these once-thriving large stores are facing unprecedented challenges. For years, these independent (or small-chain) large stores have consistently supported sales in every urban market. In the past, they managed to survive year after year, but this year seems even tougher! It is an urgent task for every frontline city manager to proactively analyze and predict the development trends of large stores and adopt corresponding strategies. This article focuses on "large store business" and aims to provide inspiration and insights for frontline operators of different FMCG brands—how to "revive" large stores under the industry trend where new retail is gradually changing everything! -01- Declining foot traffic, increasing fresh produce share, and squeezed FMCG standard products intensify challenges! According to incomplete statistics, due to the pandemic, overall foot traffic in large stores has dropped by 10%-15%. Although foot traffic had been declining in previous years, it was often like boiling a frog slowly—people got used to it, thinking a little less was okay. But with the pandemic as a catalyst, this year's decline in store visits has truly hit the foundation. With the rise of new formats such as livestream e-commerce, community group buying, and O2O home delivery, more young people are not accustomed to shopping in supermarkets. Especially in the past two years, with the growth of Meituan and Ele.me, and the emergence of regional players like Dingdong Maicai, Miss Fresh, and PUPU Supermarket, offline supermarkets are no longer a necessary channel for young consumers. The "stay-at-home economy" of young consumers has further impacted foot traffic to offline large stores. National chain KA hypermarkets benefit from the "one-stop shopping experience" of commercial complexes, not only meeting consumers' daily necessities but also offering dining, leisure, and entertainment. Meanwhile, convenience stores and community small stores satisfy consumers' impulse and immediate needs anytime, anywhere. These two channel types have gradually recovered in the post-pandemic period, with some customers even returning to average levels. However, independent large stores and small-chain large stores covered by distributors are far from expectations; they are among the slowest to recover. They are caught in a pincer movement, facing attacks from both sides, with sharply reduced foot traffic and immense suffering. Large stores cannot wait to die; they must save themselves! The situation has forced large store owners to change their business tactics and reposition their category strategies. The most typical response is to continuously increase the fresh produce section, raising its share—a common practice—or even transforming into community fresh supermarkets. For frontline city managers in FMCG, the direct impact is obvious: "fewer display resources for standard products, and higher requirements for sales per square meter." Both primary and secondary displays are shrinking, making a decline in regular FMCG standard product sales inevitable. Beyond reduced shelf space, large store owners, as individual business operators, are deeply anxious about future uncertainty, so it's natural for them to demand higher backend fees and various "levies" from manufacturers and distributors. The challenges for frontline city managers are here!—Overall business in large stores is declining rapidly, shelf space is shrinking, and backend fees are increasing... Especially for low-frequency categories in FMCG, such as daily chemicals, general merchandise, and condiments, large store channels typically contribute about 30% of overall business. How to stabilize large store business, at least keep it flat, is a topic every city manager must face. -02- Face the facts, confront changes, and gain insights into the local market Externally, the objective environment has indeed partially affected the performance growth of independent large stores and small-chain large stores. Internally, frontline city managers have also seen continuous sales declines in large stores, but often they mistakenly attribute this to the temporary impact of the pandemic, expecting a rebound once it passes. They fail to observe the fundamental changes in the large store channel from a higher perspective, and some even turn a blind eye. It's time to recognize the current situation and trends of large stores, and to acknowledge and accept the tremendous changes brought by new retail to this channel. Stop blindly and stubbornly "persisting" with old methods for large store channels. Every city manager must establish a correct overall view and lead the large store channel out of the mire to rebirth. With the right overall view, the next step is to gain insights into the local market. The rise of new retail is not uniform across the country. In big cities, it's a blowout; in medium cities, it's developing; in small cities, it's just starting. Every city manager must view new retail changes from the perspective of the local market, rather than blindly following and implementing everything just because new retail has arrived, which can lead to overcorrection. Besides city tiers, the pace of new retail development varies by region. For example, community group buying is most mature in Changsha, Hunan, while Fujian is at the forefront of front-warehouse B2C. Regional development characteristics differ, and these new retail formats have the most direct impact on local large store business. Accordingly, each city manager's response strategy should be tailored to local conditions. After gaining insights into the local market, the next step is for city managers to personally engage. In the past, being familiar with the market and tactics, they could act as advocates and transmitters of strategies. Now they must do real work, proactively go to the frontline to practice new retail, and understand every key node and execution detail. New retail is not only a blank slate for frontline teams but also for city managers. For independent and small-chain large store owners, facing this crisis, they expect professional manufacturer managers to lead them, telling them how to do new retail, how to upgrade their business models, and how to connect with new retail platforms for efficient cooperation. Therefore, frontline city managers must proactively lead large stores in upgrading and connecting. They cannot sit by and watch large store owners fend for themselves. Helping large stores is helping themselves; the earlier they help, the sooner they seize the opportunity, and the earlier they connect, the more customer resources they gain. The crisis of retail large stores is also the crisis of city managers. Establishing a correct overall view, gaining insights into the local market, paying attention to details, and leading the large store channel to take proactive action are the urgent tasks. -03- Be the "guide" for retail large stores, integrating online and offline Facing the above internal and external challenges, what should city managers do? I'll try to sort out ideas from three angles: "place, product, and people," with transformation as the first step, and specific strategies adjusted according to each category. 1. Place: Connect online, resonate online and offline activities As offline foot traffic in retail large stores decreases and sales per square meter requirements increase, stores will have a growing demand for high-quality offline promotional activities from leading manufacturers. In the past, promotions were regular routine activities like in-store promotions, posters, and displays. Business was generally good, so activities were just formalities without much focus on conversion. But now it's different—each activity must succeed. Manufacturer weeks, internal buying events—only "big moves" can guarantee business and truly activate sales. Either don't do it, or do it big and explosive. No longer like before, where regular promotions' sales depended on luck. This is the strategic approach for retail large stores in the old offline scenario. For online, city managers should become "guides," leading stores to upgrade. Currently, many retail stores have built their own WeChat mini-programs, but they are often relatively unprofessional. A better approach is to help these retail stores connect to platforms like Meituan, Ele.me, and JD Daojia. On one hand, they can quickly learn home delivery business; on the other, these platforms come with their own traffic, serving as new sales increments and traffic sources. Some retail large stores are overconfident, spending a few thousand yuan on a mini-program tool, thinking it can cure all O2O ills. They don't realize that having a tool is just the foundation; operations are key! City managers should proactively guide retail stores to connect to platforms. In addition, city managers should also help local large stores build their own private domain traffic communities. By having store staff and promoters continuously bring nearby consumers into the community. Once a certain community traffic base is established, consider extending to home delivery business and online livestream activities. This is the strategic approach for retail large stores in the new online scenario. But that's not enough. Whether it's community operations, home delivery, or livestream activities, if they are purely online, traffic is always limited, and it's hard to generate significant sales. Therefore, the key is the resonance of online and offline integration. From past practical feedback, for a local large store, doing online livestream alone may be exhausting with little effect. But that doesn't mean online livestream has no value. In my view, online livestream, community, and home delivery must be linked with offline. Online for communication and atmosphere creation, offline for sales harvesting. Behind the online-offline linkage is a complete closed loop from traffic attraction to conversion to transaction. The more vibrant the online promotion, the greater the offline sales. Through community operations, promotional flash sales, and low-price livestream activities, increase visibility, thereby driving sales growth in offline "manufacturer weeks" and "internal buying events." If it's only offline internal buying events, the conversion is from natural foot traffic; consumers stay indoors, can't get promotion information in time, and sales won't be high. If it's only online, relying on price promotion resources, although there is conversion, it's resource-intensive, and resources are usually very limited. Only with the same theme resonating online and offline can true integration be achieved, igniting traffic on both sides and ultimately converting to actual sales. 2. Product: Cluster of bestsellers, compare with competitors internally and with same products externally In the past, the single old scenario often pursued wide distribution and full-item display. But now, with increasingly limited shelf space, product distribution should focus on premium clusters and bestseller clusters. Especially with the emergence of new online scenarios, the product structure for distribution needs adjustment. In the past, "novel and unique" products were hard to sell offline, with few resources and low historical sales. But now, behind home delivery business, there are many young consumer groups and emerging users who are willing to try novel products. So products that didn't sell well offline before can now be considered for online focus. We have always emphasized the bestseller mindset, and now more than ever. Large stores not only compete with national KCs like Walmart and RT-Mart but also with local RKCs, as well as community group buying, new retail, Lingshoutong, and Xintonglu platforms. Online, one slot is one SKU, magnified infinitely, helping consumers save selection time—still the bestseller mindset. The bestseller mindset here is not about selling whatever headquarters says, but combining with the local retail market. Observe what new retail platforms sell and what national KA hypermarkets sell. Use them as benchmarks—this is the logic of comparing with same products externally. Additionally, within large stores, as display resources shrink, under zero-sum competition, it's about who is more efficient. You need to compete for more competitor display resources and market share, rather than wasting energy internally, complaining daily that Walmart's prices are lower today or that new retail O2O platforms are running promotions... Instead of complaining about unchangeable market realities, it's better to fight a competitive erosion war within existing channels. The key here is "price landing," benchmarking against competitors. In the past, many distributors often withheld promotional resources, e.g., investing only 10 points when it should be 15. That was acceptable and understandable before. But now it's not okay. In the new retail environment, prices are transparent. If you don't invest resources in the market, you'll only hand over share to competitors. 3. People: Role transformation, proactive action, becoming omnichannel retail experts The "people" here are not consumers but city managers and their teams. Transform roles, objectively view the channel upgrade of large stores, starting with changing managers' mindsets and attitudes, abandoning the old office remote command style, and actively engaging in learning new and old retail. For city managers, in the past, it was about leveraging existing capabilities and experience; even drinking tea in the office, the market wouldn't be too bad. But now it's different! You must proactively go out and first make yourself an expert in new and old retail operations. In collaboration with clients, city managers should combine market development trends, cooperate with distributors and retailers, empower each other, and co-create business. In the past, large store business relatively pursued service and customer relationships, and it was the business distributors relied on most. But now it faces crisis and challenges. As the last piece of private land for distributors, city managers must advance and retreat with distributors, making local independent (and small-chain) large stores solid and sustainable. The pandemic quickly matured home delivery business, fully activated livestream e-commerce, and effectively drove community marketing. After this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Lao Wang has completely figured it out: the large store channel has undergone fundamental changes. You must win in the old scenario, and win even more in the new scenarios (home delivery, livestream, and community group buying)! The business of the large store channel must not only integrate online and offline but also make home delivery, livestream, and community work together synergistically! The large store channel will not become outdated; it will only iterate! Bio: Xu Xiang, currently Sales Director for Unilever South China, with 20 years of experience in FMCG daily chemicals, dairy, and condiments, deeply engaged in regional market management and customer marketing. Willing to exchange and learn with peers. The above article represents only personal views.