RBF Team August, JD Discount Supermarket started accelerating store openings. On August 16, the first store in Zhuozhou, Hebei, created a retail spectacle upon opening: within just two days, it received over 100,000 customers. Based on Zhuozhou's local resident population, this means 1 in every 6 residents visited. Two-day sales far exceeded twice the sales of JD Discount Supermarket's Beijing pilot store opening period, setting a new high for JD's discount format stores and even breaking records in the current discount supermarket sector. Immediately after, on August 30, JD Discount Supermarket will open four stores simultaneously in Suqian, Jiangsu: Hope City in the Economic Development Zone, Shuyang Central Mall, Sihong Wuyue Plaza, and Siyang Sunshine Lane, all large discount supermarket stores exceeding 5,000 square meters. Image: JD Discount Supermarket Suqian Economic Development Zone Hope City store. These four stores continue the "large store + full category" model, with over 5,000 SKUs, all located in densely populated areas and logistics hubs. The number of visitors at opening may break records again, marking JD's accelerated expansion in the discount retail track. Behind this is the unique business model built around "hard, full, fast, and excellent." First Store Observation: How Does a 5,000m2 Large Store Drive 60,000 Customers? Unlike the common small stores of several hundred square meters in the industry, JD Discount Supermarket has a business area of 5,000 square meters, displaying over 5,000 products covering fresh food, daily necessities, household cleaning, personal care, and all categories, completely breaking the traditional discount store's "small but refined" inertia. The price range for daily necessities is particularly impressive: 30 fresh eggs for 9.9 yuan, 24 bottles of purified water for 7.99 yuan... Products form clear low-price anchors, and multiple consumers on-site reported that "it is indeed cheaper than the surrounding markets." In terms of product structure, JD's own brand products, which are high quality, low price, and clean ingredients, account for about 20%, with around 1,000 SKUs. The fresh food area features a "bright kitchen and bright stove" section, where麒麟西瓜 (Qilin watermelon), 阳光玫瑰葡萄 (Shine Muscat grapes), and other items clearly display origin direct sourcing information, enhancing quality perception. There are also fresh direct-supply pork, lamb, and beef hind leg meat at highly competitive prices, effectively dispelling consumers' quality concerns about low-priced goods. Image: JD Discount Supermarket's first national store in Zhuozhou Junyue Plaza. The omni-channel service system further amplifies JD Discount Supermarket's competitive advantage. It is understood that consumers can order through the JD APP's instant delivery entrance and enjoy delivery within 30 minutes at the fastest. Additionally, offline stores offer free self-service heating and ice pack pickup service areas. This omni-channel service model of "browse in store, deliver online" allows consumers to easily enjoy JD Discount Supermarket's quality products and services wherever they are. Through the above observations of the Zhuozhou first store's products, prices, and services, we see that JD Discount Supermarket shows strong appeal. The explosive success at the first store's opening also makes us wonder: can the traditional discount store's "small but refined" model still meet market demand? How does JD Discount Supermarket break this inertia and innovate the discount store play? Next, we will deeply analyze the three major types of global discount stores and explore JD Discount Supermarket's innovation path. Breaking the "Small but Refined" Stereotype: Innovating Discount Store Play In the discount retail track, "small but refined" was once the industry's default survival rule. Whether it's the global benchmark ALDI or domestic emerging regional discount brands, most enter the market with stores of several hundred square meters and around 1,000 SKUs. But a deep look at the global discount store market reveals three major types, each with its own boundaries and limitations. The first type is hard discount, benchmarked by ALDI and LIDL. ALDI achieves extreme SKU simplification (usually controlled at 1,000-2,000), focusing on fresh food, grain and oil, and other daily necessities. Store areas are mostly around 300-1,000 square meters, with simple decoration and self-service, and private label share exceeds 70%. They rely on large-scale single-item procurement to lower prices, with product prices 20%-30% lower than regular supermarkets. For example, in the German market, ALDI attracted a large number of price-sensitive consumers with this model and captured a significant market share. However, this model has obvious shortcomings: due to narrow categories, it can only meet basic daily needs. When consumers have more diverse shopping needs, it is difficult to satisfy them. Image: ALDI Songjiang Yale City store. The second type is soft discount, characterized by temporary low prices, achieving price advantages by selling near-expiry products, surplus stock, defective items, or off-season goods. SKUs are richer than hard discount stores, and the shopping environment is better, with prices 10%-30% lower than regular supermarkets but higher than hard discount stores. Some regional discount supermarkets have tried this model, attempting to balance "low price" and "experience." For example, a regional discount supermarket attracted many consumers at the initial opening with a rich product variety and relatively comfortable shopping environment, but later lost customers because it couldn't compete with hard discount stores on price and wasn't as thoughtful as traditional supermarkets on experience. The third type is category-specific discount stores, focusing on "vertical low prices." They focus on a single category for deep discounts, such as fresh food discount stores like 钱大妈 (Qian Da Ma, community fresh food discount) and Tango (French fresh food discount); snack discount stores like 好特卖 (HotMaxx) and 嗨特购 (mainly near-expiry food); clothing discount stores like TJ Maxx (US) and 唯品会 offline stores (brand surplus). Taking 钱大妈 as an example, it focuses on community fresh food, gaining a certain share in the community market through the promotion of "no overnight meat" and fresh ingredients. But the disadvantage of this type is that it can only meet one type of need; after buying snacks, consumers still need to go elsewhere to buy a bag of rice. Image: 钱大妈 store. These three mainstream discount store models each have their own characteristics, but they all face the common problem of being unable to simultaneously meet consumers' needs for "one-stop shopping," "quality at low prices," and "convenient experience." JD Discount Supermarket, however, has carved its own development path beyond these three models. Compared with hard discount stores, JD Discount Supermarket does not simply pursue extreme simplification but achieves full category coverage while ensuring low prices. Its Zhuozhou first store, with 5,000 square meters and 5,000 full-category products, breaks the limitation of narrow categories in hard discount stores, meeting consumers' one-stop shopping needs. For example, office workers can buy breakfast in the store, mothers can choose diapers, and the elderly can buy rice, flour, and oil—something traditional hard discount stores find difficult to do. Compared with soft discount stores, JD Discount Supermarket's low prices are not achieved by sacrificing product quality or shopping experience. It achieves "everyday low prices" through supply chain optimization, completely dispelling the prejudice that "cheap goods are not good." At the same time, its rich product variety and quality shopping environment avoid the "neither here nor there" awkwardness of soft discount stores. Compared with category-specific discount stores, JD Discount Supermarket not only has price advantages in single categories but also provides consumers with more comprehensive shopping choices through full category layout. Moreover, relying on JD's strong supply chain and logistics system, JD Discount Supermarket can achieve direct sourcing from origins and direct shipping from factories, further reducing costs and improving product quality. Image: JD Discount Supermarket's first national store opening queue scene. The author believes that JD's breakthrough lies in "learning from others' strengths and stacking capabilities": it retains the "extreme low prices" of hard discount (achieving everyday low prices through supply chain optimization), absorbs the "full category coverage" of soft discount (5,000 SKUs covering family needs), and also has the "vertical supply chain deep cultivation" of category-specific discount stores (direct sourcing from origins, direct shipping from factories), plus JD Logistics' "efficient delivery" capability. This model not only concretizes JD's core advantage of "good and cheap" into offline stores, filling the market gap of "large store scale + full category selection + true low prices + fast delivery service," but also opens a new track of "large-scale full-category hard discount supermarkets." The Implementation of the Strong Control, High Efficiency, Low Cost Triangle Model Discount retail is a "thin profit, high requirement" tough business. Without full-chain capability support, "quality at low prices" is empty talk. In other words, JD Discount Supermarket's rapid replication from single store to multiple stores relies on the implementation of the "strong control, high efficiency, low cost" triangle model, which is also inseparable from JD's multi-dimensional capability empowerment. 1. Absolute control of the supply chain: locking in "quality at low prices" from the source. The low prices of large and comprehensive good products are JD Discount Supermarket's feature, but they also pose great challenges to its supply chain management and operations. The inventory turnover, shelf-life control, and replenishment of 5,000 products alone require far more manpower and loss control than the traditional discount store with 1,000 products. However, JD's strong supply chain capability ensures direct sourcing from origins, direct shipping from factories, and "multi-pronged" private label development, squeezing out the "water" in the supply chain, achieving a "win-win" of price quality and category completeness. For example, fresh food categories are directly sourced through orchard contracts, directly connecting with farmers or suppliers, reducing intermediate markups, ensuring freshness and lowering costs. Daily necessities, household cleaning, and personal care categories use factory direct shipping, removing distributor links and strengthening quality control; they also collaborate with brands like 蒙牛 (Mengniu) and 胡姬花 (Hujihua) to launch customized products, such as 6.18L peanut oil, further lowering prices. 2. Extremely efficient operations management: amplifying competitive advantage with "fast turnover." If the supply chain is the "low price foundation," then efficient operations management is the guarantee of "sustainable low prices." JD reuses its omni-channel experience in discount supermarkets, relying on the 京西南 (Jingxinan) logistics hub to shorten delivery radius while improving supply chain response speed; through big data analysis of product purchase and repurchase rates to predict sales, reducing inventory costs while ensuring operations. These cost savings ultimately translate into low product prices. This "low price" is not a "fake low price" achieved by substituting inferior goods or shortchanging, but rather by extreme operations, continuously "squeezing water" from the supply chain, and passing on the savings from extreme efficiency to users and partners. This approach does not rely on extreme subsidies to attract traffic but provides stable "good products + good prices" through an excellent supply chain, precisely matching contemporary consumers' core demand for "good and cheap," ultimately forming a virtuous cycle of "cost reduction → price reduction → customer flow growth → scale expansion → further cost reduction." Conclusion: According to relevant data from the "2025 China Retail Industry Outlook," in 2024, China's hard discount market size successfully exceeded the 200 billion yuan mark, but its market penetration rate was only 8%, far behind mature markets like Germany (42%) and Japan (31%), indicating huge growth potential. In terms of growth rate, over the next decade, China's hard discount format is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 5.6%, significantly surpassing the 2.5% growth of hypermarkets and even slightly higher than the 5.5% growth of convenience stores. At the same time, changes in the consumption environment have become an important catalyst for the hard discount market. In 2024, the growth rate of domestic per capita disposable income slowed to 5.1%. Against this backdrop, the concept of "rational consumption" has gradually taken root, and the size of the price-sensitive customer group has expanded rapidly. The continuous growth of China's hard discount market size and the rational consumption concept driven by changes in the consumption environment have created rare development opportunities for the discount supermarket format. JD Discount Supermarket fully integrates the high efficiency of hard discount, the strong flexibility of local supply chains, and digital operation capabilities. Based on Chinese consumers' demand for "one-stop shopping," it innovatively creates the "large-scale full-category hard discount supermarket" model. This model precisely aligns with industry development trends. JD Discount Supermarket is expected to stand out in the rapidly growing market, take a leading position, and thus rewrite the existing landscape of China's discount retail industry.