---
title: "In-Depth: What Will Be the Most Mainstream Retail Format in the Next 10 Years?"
description: "The 'Double 12' shopping festival, initially an online shopping spree, has increasingly shifted towards encouraging offline consumption, reflecting the trend of 'new retail.' This article explores the evolution of retail, arguing that convenience stores will become the ultimate retail format, and highlights the importance of supply chain efficiency, consumer data, and the integration of online and offline channels."
author: "翁怡诺"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-12-20"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/in-depth-what-will-be-the-most-mainstream-retail-format-in-the-next-10-y-01b255cb/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/in-depth-what-will-be-the-most-mainstream-retail-format-in-the-next-10-y-01b255cb.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/cCkQVV3YtsPMFRE-jQBkyQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%B7%B1%E5%BA%A6%E5%A5%BD%E6%96%87-%E6%9C%AA%E6%9D%A510%E5%B9%B4-%E6%9C%80%E4%B8%BB%E6%B5%81%E7%9A%84%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E5%BD%A2%E6%80%81%E7%AB%9F%E7%84%B6%E6%98%AF%E5%AE%83-01b255cb.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/in-depth-what-will-be-the-most-mainstream-retail-format-in-the-next-10-y-01b255cb/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# In-Depth: What Will Be the Most Mainstream Retail Format in the Next 10 Years?

> The 'Double 12' shopping festival, initially an online shopping spree, has increasingly shifted towards encouraging offline consumption, reflecting the trend of 'new retail.' This article explores the evolution of retail, arguing that convenience stores will become the ultimate retail format, and highlights the importance of supply chain efficiency, consumer data, and the integration of online and offline channels.

Editor's Note:
When the "Double 12" shopping festival was first launched, it continued the online shopping feast of "Double 11." However, in the past two years, judging from the promotional methods and intensity offered by major merchants, "Double 12" has increasingly tended to encourage consumers to spend at offline physical stores.
This may be the trend of "new retail." Jack Ma once said that e-commerce will disappear in the future, and only by combining online, offline, and logistics can true new retail be born; Liu Qiangdong also said that future retail will be borderless, without distinction between online and offline.
So, what exactly is the ultimate form of retail in the future?
**Text / Weng Yinuo, Founding Partner of Hongzhang Capital**
**"Marketing Economy" Will Become "Selection Economy"**
In the past three years, an obvious trend is that the boundary between online and offline has begun to blur. E-commerce can open physical stores, and traditional retailers are also constantly moving online, that is, cross-channel integration. Competition no longer comes from online and offline models, but begins to return to the essence of retail: **based on efficient supply chain capabilities, commodity management to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers.**
For example, 7-11 is an IT company. Its philosophy is to truly achieve lean retail. The 7-11 store manager's judgment on products, including replenishment and ordering, is assisted by an IT system that can capture subtle changes in consumers.
Under the trend of specialization in physical retail, the transformation from "large and comprehensive" to "small and beautiful" is also quietly happening, with a number of category killer specialty stores emerging. Zhou Hei Ya is an example. In the past, we ate braised food as a dish; now we treat it as a leisure snack. The change in leisure scenarios has greatly increased total consumption.
Every evolution of a business format always sees more efficient formats survive and grow in the competitive environment. **The goal of retail enterprises is low cost, high customer traffic, high purchase rate, and high customer loyalty.** Loyalty can bring higher average transaction value and repeat purchase rates.
For consumers, the biggest change in the internet age is that the cost of obtaining supply information has dropped significantly, reducing the cost of making mistakes when consuming. For retailers, they need to master first-hand consumer data at lower cost and understand consumers' real needs. In the past, channels served producers and suppliers; in the future, channels must serve consumers more. The marketing economy will gradually transform into a selection economy.
E-commerce has inherent advantages in data acquisition and analysis compared to physical stores, and will have obvious advantages in the future "selection economy." However, e-commerce channels have weaker disruptive innovation in improving logistics supply chain efficiency. The increase in manufacturing specialization and the advancement of IT and logistics technology are the reasons for the improvement in supply chain response speed. The era of business digitalization is also the era where supply chain reigns.
E-commerce models and physical retail development goals are different. **Physical retail that brings value to customers and e-commerce with platform advantages both have long-term core competitiveness, and the integration of the two is an inevitable trend.** Customer traffic in physical retail stores is relatively fixed, pursuing customer purchase rate and loyalty. The characteristic of e-commerce is that customer communication is virtual and borderless, but the supply chain behind it is the same. Traditional companies and e-commerce companies both face issues such as supply chain optimization, changes in customer demand, and conversion rate optimization.
**Convenience Stores Are the Ultimate Retail**
After the global economic bubble, consumers began to value cost-effectiveness. Changes in consumer awareness are driving changes in industry structure, business models, and discourse power. **Lifestyle stores are one of the core formats of the future retail industry.** Their products differ from supermarket goods that purely pursue function and low price; they are close to life, have a sense of design, are easy to identify, and are more refined, conveying a personalized attitude towards life.
Due to the higher overall efficiency of platform e-commerce, Alibaba and JD.com have become traffic monopolists. However, when SKU is very limited, the supply chain efficiency of convenience stores is very high, and the supply chain efficiency of discount stores is even higher than other physical channels. Take Germany's Aldi as an example: its labor cost ratio is lower than its competitors, mainly because its SKU is small, store area is small, and categories are simple, thereby reducing the number of personnel, showing simplicity and efficiency everywhere.
After per capita income exceeds $10,000, the retail convenience store format will enter a period of rapid growth. The degree of aging, the proportion of professional women, and family forms have a great relationship with the development of convenience stores.
Our judgment is that regional retailers will begin to integrate after five years and complete integration in about ten years. Convenience stores will become the mainstream format, and there are big opportunities for the organizational transformation of traditional mom-and-pop stores. Convenience stores are actually a "change" in change. Traditional retail generally uses automatic replenishment, but according to the logic of Japanese convenience stores, certain product analysis capabilities are needed. For example, the people near schools are different from those near hospitals. It is necessary to do refined operation improvements for different groups, which requires very high IT requirements.
**In the long run, convenience stores are called ultimate retail.** Manufacturing retail is another direction. Retailers not only capture product price differences but also think more about how to make money from private brands, earning money from finance and manufacturers.
A recent study by the U.S. convenience store industry association suggests that future convenience stores will develop in three directions: convenience dining stores, gas station convenience centers, and community supermarkets. In the logic of dining, we have several major positioning: fast food, formal dining, and casual dining. Now a new concept has emerged - fast casual, which requires both the gross margin of casual dining and the turnover of fast food. Manufacturing retailers are the most vital, and private brands will also enter a stage of rapid development.
**Potential Stocks in Consumer Categories**
**New FMCG has three characteristics: functionality, emotionality, and sociality.** Three Squirrels is not just nuts, but also afternoon tea culture. Everyone spreads the brand by sharing food, which has a certain social attribute. The post-00s generation increasingly values personalized consumption and experience, and pays more attention to health. Fitness and sports have developed rapidly in recent years. The internet makes post-00s more homebound, and all products and services are enhancing the possibility of staying at home. Cute language and internet emojis fill social media, influencing brand marketing methods. Now many brands have the concept of IP, combining products with IP to resonate with fans and drive consumption.
Nowadays, women hold the decision-making power in household consumption and have strong spending power. The "she economy" cannot be ignored. In 2015, the female consumption rate in China exceeded Japan's overall consumption. The "he economy" receives less attention. Men have different consumption areas at different ages, and they have very high brand loyalty, which is worth deep cultivation.
From the perspective of the operating status and competition level of the large consumer goods industry, liquor, daily chemicals, beverages, etc. are highly competitive; condiments, Chinese-style leisure foods, etc. are relatively less competitive, with poor brand marketing awareness and greater room for improvement. We found that health-oriented foods have become a new highlight in the industry.
Food healthification is a big concept, and functional food is one of the major categories. Local enterprises have an advantage because they better understand local consumer needs. But be careful, because health itself is a false proposition; it is imperceptible. At the same time, health is not easy to leave a brand imprint; there must be differentiation, and basic categories are difficult to brand.
The category upgrade brought about by changes in channel formats is an interesting evolutionary process. **In the next ten years, consumer brands suitable for e-commerce and convenience store channels will increasingly highlight their value.** The core of future retail lies in differentiation. Since the global supply chain is a major trend, imported goods have certain cost-performance advantages. Internet marketing capability has become an important skill for brands and formats. In recent years, internet consumer brands such as Three Squirrels, Heyjuice, and Call a Duck have risen. New models and new gameplay have become new opportunities for future consumer goods.
Another trend is **the integration of brands and retail from game theory to mutual integration. The core of evaluating a brand is how many billion-level brands it has.** For example, Pepsi has 22 billion brands, Nestlé has 29, and retailer representative Walmart has 40 private brands, including 23 global brands. Germany's Aldi gets 90% of its revenue from private brands. It is difficult to distinguish who is an absolute retailer and who is an absolute brand.
**Source: CEIBS Business Review (ceibs-cbr)**
-END-
The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China
Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors
Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly
**The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry**
Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content
Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base
| **001** Excellent article selection | **002** Distributor market operation | **003** Terminal visit management | **004** Sales supervisor skills | **005** Sales improvement skills | **006** Channel expansion | **007** Managing distributors | **008** Distributor development | **009** Distributor internal operation management | **010** Team management | **011** Efficient distribution skills | **012** Sales manager's eighteen skills | **013** KA operation method strategy | **014** First lesson for new sales | **015** Internet, brand | **016** Distributor B2B transformation |
[Long press QR code to follow]


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671