Jiajiayue Group recently launched its '24-hour online life supermarket' service, with its W37 store fully listed on major e-commerce platforms such as Meituan, Ele.me, and JD.com on July 3. From official disclosures, this regional retailer, with 30 years of history, is fully betting on the instant retail track, transforming into a 24-hour 'all-round supermarket'. Lightning Warehouse: An 'Incremental Field' for Traditional Supermarkets It is reported that Jiajiayue's online supermarket (in the form of a lightning warehouse) operates 24/7, covering hours when traditional supermarkets are closed, such as early morning and late night. Consumers only need to search for 'Jiajiayue 24-hour Life Supermarket' on Meituan, Ele.me, or JD.com apps to purchase a full range of products including fresh produce, daily necessities, beverages, and snacks at any time. After order confirmation, delivery is promised within 30 minutes by riders, precisely addressing consumers' urgent needs or the inconvenience of late-night shopping. Image source: Jiajiayue News Video Account From the perspective of industry competition, the instant retail track that Jiajiayue's online supermarket enters has become a battleground for traditional supermarket transformation. As one of the solutions to promote 'supply-demand adaptation' in instant retail, the breakthrough of lightning warehouses is achieving full-category coverage, from daily necessities to digital appliances, from mother and baby products to beauty and personal care, meeting consumers' one-stop instant shopping needs. Image source: 'Instant Retail Front Warehouse Innovation Development Report' In depth, the 'full-category, full-time, full-region' service characteristics of lightning warehouses not only profoundly change consumer shopping habits but also provide traditional retailers and brand owners with new sales channels and 'incremental fields'. On one hand, relying on platform data analysis capabilities, merchants can gain deep insights into consumer behavior, optimize inventory management, and improve sales efficiency. On the other hand, through differentiated product portfolios, they can meet the needs of specific customer groups, thereby establishing competitive advantages. In recent years, we have seen lightning warehouses become a good business in the eyes of more and more large retailers. Companies are no longer纠结 about whether to enter, but are eager to 'open warehouses' with high quality. For Jiajiayue, choosing to increase investment in lightning warehouses at this time is both a defensive strategy to consolidate its Shandong market base and a tentative move to explore national expansion paths. It is worth mentioning that the launch of the lightning warehouse service comes with opening benefits (such as free shipping for orders over 24.9 yuan, 1-cent benefits, etc.), which synergizes with internet platforms' traffic support policies, helping to quickly capture consumer mindshare. Image: Jiajiayue Meituan Flash Purchase In my opinion, the business model of Jiajiayue's lightning warehouse is essentially the monetization of 'regional supply chain + platform traffic'. As a regional retail leader, Jiajiayue has a relatively complete supply chain system and abundant product resources, ensuring stable product supply for lightning warehouses. Especially in the fresh produce category, its supply chain advantages guarantee product freshness and quality. The digital operation system helps Jiajiayue accumulate consumer data, and through big data analysis, it guides product selection and marketing, which is conducive to the company's digital transformation. Image source: Jiajiayue News Video Account Of course, Jiajiayue's operation of a 24-hour 'all-round supermarket' still faces multiple challenges. First, operational costs: warehouse rental, personnel wages, and delivery fees constitute major costs. Delivery costs fluctuate with order volume, and pressure is significant when orders are not saturated; platform traffic competition is fierce, leading to high customer acquisition costs, affecting profitability; as the industry develops, regulatory requirements such as food safety and consumer rights protection become stricter, increasing compliance costs. Second, user experience: during peak hours, delivery delays and product stockouts are prone to occur; without offline physical store support, after-sales services (such as returns and exchanges) are inconvenient, and improper handling can lead to customer loss. Third, product homogenization: in the instant retail field, differences in product types and quality are small, and consumers pay more attention to price. Jiajiayue needs to highlight its differentiated advantages. The 'Ultimate Test' of the Supply Chain In the '2024 China Chain Top 100' list recently released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, Jiajiayue ranked 22nd with sales of 32.3 billion yuan (including franchise stores), with a total of 1,103 stores. Image source: China Chain Store & Franchise Association Combined with Jiajiayue's 2024 annual report data, the company's annual revenue was 18.256 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.77%, but net profit attributable to the parent company decreased by 3.26% year-on-year, and gross margin decreased by 0.57 percentage points to 23.30%, reflecting the balance challenge between revenue growth and profitability. Image: Jiajiayue's operating performance in the past three years During the reporting period, Jiajiayue opened 140 new stores, including 49 directly operated and 91 franchise stores. By business format, it opened 36 supermarket stores, 92 snack stores, 5 Haohuixing discount stores, and 7 convenience stores. By the end of the reporting period, the company had a total of 1,100 stores, including 957 directly operated and 143 franchise stores. Image source: Jiajiayue 2024 Annual Report Compared with national giants, Jiajiayue's nationalization process is relatively slow. In 2024, new stores were mainly concentrated in Shandong and surrounding provinces, and cross-regional synergies have not yet formed. From industry trends, competition in formats such as instant retail, discount stores, and bakeries is intensifying. Companies like Hema and Yonghui continue to capture market share through omnichannel layouts and private brand building, while Jiajiayue's multi-format synergies have not been fully realized. However, Jiajiayue is tireless in exploring new formats, such as the hard discount supermarket 'Haohuixing', the snack collection store 'Yueji·Haosnacks', and the bakery 'Jiayue Bakery'. It has also previously tried outlet and membership store formats. Image: Jiayue Bakery From membership stores to discount stores, from snack stores to bakeries, from supermarkets to lightning warehouses... Jiajiayue always adapts to market changes. Indeed, this is the core problem-solving approach for companies to survive cycles, but looking at Jiajiayue's operating conditions, it is not suitable for transformation paths with high investment costs. Although the lightning warehouse model is relatively asset-light, it particularly tests supply chain strength. As a regional leading enterprise, Jiajiayue's complete supply chain system is naturally a core competitiveness, but frequent food safety issues have also exposed weaknesses in its supply chain end-of-line management. Since this year, multiple stores of Shandong Jiajiayue Supermarket have been reported by regulatory authorities for food safety issues, including bananas (with fenbuconazole exceeding standards), cucumbers (with etoxazole residues), sea shrimp (with sulfur dioxide residues), and squid (with N-dimethylnitrosamine exceeding standards) sold at stores in Yantai, Qingdao, and other places, which failed random inspections. In addition to the market supervision department's random inspection notices, the national 12315 consumer complaint information disclosure platform shows that since 2025, complaints involving Jiajiayue-related stores have exceeded 100, covering food safety and many other specific issues. Clearly, Jiajiayue needs to strengthen supply chain traceability and quality inspection standardization. Image source: China Chain Store & Franchise Association 'The supply chain is like a 'script', and stores are the 'stage'. Without a good script, you cannot put on a good show.' Although Wang Peihuan, chairman of Jiajiayue Group Co., Ltd., profoundly pointed out the importance of the supply chain to supermarkets, at present, its 'customer demand-oriented' product operation and sales system still needs time to verify its execution effect. In general, the opening of Jiajiayue's lightning warehouse is an important measure to respond to the wave of instant retail. In the short term, it can increase online traffic and customer coverage, but long-term competitiveness still depends on refined supply chain operations and multi-format synergy capabilities. As the 'Shandong supermarket overlord', Jiajiayue can only occupy an advantageous position in the industry reshuffle by relying on supply chain resilience.