--- title: "Mom-and-Pop Stores Won't Disappear" description: "In recent years, life has become increasingly difficult for small stores. Their core advantage is proximity. However, with the rise of instant retail, bulk discount stores, and membership clubs, their business is being eroded. Yet, small stores can survive by understanding customer tasks, leveraging regional supply chains, and forming strategic alliances with B2b platforms." author: "赵波" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2026-06-03" categories: "Retail Formats" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/mom-and-pop-stores-won-t-disappear-6b4f8859/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/mom-and-pop-stores-won-t-disappear-6b4f8859.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/64xh73_069qmy5EspdL5Zg" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%A4%AB%E5%A6%BB%E8%80%81%E5%A9%86%E5%BA%97-%E4%B8%8D%E4%BC%9A%E6%B6%88%E5%A4%B1-6b4f8859.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/mom-and-pop-stores-won-t-disappear-6b4f8859/" citation: "赵波. “Mom-and-Pop Stores Won't Disappear.” New Distribution, 2026-06-03. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/mom-and-pop-stores-won-t-disappear-6b4f8859/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Mom-and-Pop Stores Won't Disappear > In recent years, life has become increasingly difficult for small stores. Their core advantage is proximity. However, with the rise of instant retail, bulk discount stores, and membership clubs, their business is being eroded. Yet, small stores can survive by understanding customer tasks, leveraging regional supply chains, and forming strategic alliances with B2b platforms. In recent years, life has become increasingly difficult for small stores. The core advantage of small stores is proximity. With a convenience store downstairs, buying water, cigarettes, paper, or snacks is just a few steps away. The owner knows many people, credit is flexible, and if stock runs low, a quick call to the sales rep ensures fast delivery. But today, this business logic is no longer working smoothly. For beverages and alcohol, open an instant retail app and get delivery within half an hour; for snacks, bulk snack stores offer lower prices and more choices; for paper products, daily chemicals, and household restocking, hard discount stores and membership clubs offer bulk discounts. Small stores are caught in the middle, with their business being gradually carved up. What's more, the traditional model of distributors plus small stores relied on personal connections, credit terms, delivery, distribution, and local relationships. These capabilities still exist, but they are no longer sufficient. If small stores still wait for customers to come in, stock shelves with homogeneous standard products, and rely on the owner's experience for purchasing, this model will indeed become increasingly difficult. But this does not mean small stores have no way out. Personally, I think discussions about small stores today should not be led astray by the words "fast," "cheap," and "convenient." Speed is not the task, cheapness is not the task, and convenience is not the task. They are merely conditions for completing the task. Customers do not buy things for the sake of "speed." They buy because they are about to go out, their child is thirsty after school, there is no paper at home, they cannot go far while accompanying a patient in the hospital, they need hydration in the afternoon at a construction site, or they want to grab something on the way home in the evening. That is the task. Small stores need to clarify what task they are solving. Don't Say Small Stores Will Disappear Shanghai Still Has a Large Number of Mom-and-Pop Stores If small stores have no future, Shanghai, as a first-tier city, should be the first to eliminate them. Shanghai has the densest chain convenience stores, including FamilyMart, Lawson, and 7-Eleven, as well as numerous local convenience systems. Moreover, Shanghai's food delivery and instant retail are mature, with many discount stores, community supermarkets, membership clubs, and fresh food stores. Logically, mom-and-pop stores should struggle to survive in such an environment. But in reality, Shanghai still has a large number of mom-and-pop stores, tobacco and paper shops, and small community stores. Many franchised convenience stores are essentially operated by mom-and-pop couples. This is worth examining. Small stores in Shanghai survive not because they are more standardized than chains, nor because they are faster than platforms. Their core lies in understanding tasks. Many small stores in Shanghai are tucked into extremely niche community gaps: at the entrances of old residential areas, next to vegetable markets, near hospitals, beside schools, at alley entrances, on back streets of office buildings, and along residents' commuting routes. These stores are small and not aesthetically pleasing, but they are very close to daily life. The owners know how the people in the community live. They know which elderly people buy cigarettes, milk, newspapers, and biscuits every day; which office workers buy coffee, rice balls, and bread in the morning; and which parents buy water and ice cream for their children after school. This kind of understanding cannot be fully covered by a headquarters' standard product assortment. More importantly, these small stores in Shanghai are not completely isolated. They often rely on regional supply chain companies like Kuaikuai Zhanggui to achieve more efficient purchasing, a richer product source, and lower procurement costs. According to public reports, Kuaikuai Zhanggui early on served a large number of small mom-and-pop convenience stores in East China, helping them connect with upstream manufacturers and first-tier distributors through a self-operated B2b model. Some small stores also leverage shared convenience store brands, light franchise brands, or regional supply chain systems to enhance their external image, systems, and product sourcing. In other words, small stores in Shanghai do not survive by being "traditional mom-and-pop shops" but by three things: First, the owners themselves are very hardworking; Second, the stores are infinitely close to consumers; Third, they have regional supply chains and light brand systems providing external empowerment. This is the key. Why Meiyijia Finds It Hard to Replicate Its Southern China Model in Shanghai Strictly speaking, Meiyijia has not completely failed to enter Shanghai, but it is difficult to replicate its high-density, strong-franchise, strong-supply-chain expansion model from Southern China. The reasons are not just fierce competition, high rents, and strong Japanese convenience chains in Shanghai. The deeper reason is that Shanghai's small store ecosystem is already mature; it is not a blank market waiting for big brands to enter. Shanghai has dense chain convenience stores, mature community small stores, highly developed instant retail, supply chain service providers, and community relationships accumulated by local tobacco and paper shops and mom-and-pop stores. Many store owners are themselves very business-savvy and willing to use light brands, light systems, and supply chain platforms to improve their stores. In such a market, an external strong-franchise convenience system that still pushes standardized franchising, unified supply, and unified systems will encounter two problems. On one hand, it faces high costs and mature competition; On the other hand, it is difficult to replace the community task understanding that local small store owners have already built. Shanghai consumers do not lack convenience store options, nor do they lack a storefront brand. What many Shanghai communities truly lack is more accurate products, more appropriate prices, and services closer to local life. This is why many mom-and-pop franchise stores, small community stores, and shared-brand small stores can continue to survive in a fiercely competitive market like Shanghai. They do not win by scale but by high density, low cost, strong willingness to operate, and understanding of customer tasks. The Problem with the Traditional Distributor Plus Small Store Model Is That It Only Solves Stocking, Not Selling In the past, distributors serving small stores mainly solved how goods got to the store. They supplied goods, offered credit terms, helped with restocking, sometimes provided display support, and promoted new products. This model was effective in the past because small stores were the main purchasing points in communities, consumers had fewer choices, and as long as distributors stocked the shelves, small stores could naturally sell some products. Now that no longer works. What small stores truly lack is not just product supply, but operational judgment. Who are the people around this store? Who buys in the morning and who buys in the evening? Which products are for household emergency replenishment, which are suitable for students, which are suitable for hospital companions, which are just taking up inventory, which prices have been undercut by discount stores, which products should be listed on instant retail, and which regular customers deserve membership? These questions are rarely systematically answered by traditional distributors. Small store owners mostly rely on experience. Experience is useful, but without support from supply chains, data, systems, and operational methods, it is difficult to counter today's competition. Therefore, the distributor plus small store model needs to be restructured. It cannot remain at "supply and take goods." It must become a strategic alliance: * Small stores provide location, regular customers, customer relationships, and willingness to operate; * Regional B2b provides supply chain, product pool, systems, membership tools, and operational methods. Together, they should align product assortment, pricing, display, home delivery, and membership around the tasks of community customers. This is the new business logic. Small Stores and Regional B2b Should Form Strategic Alliances Going forward, the relationship between small stores and regional B2b can no longer be a simple upstream-downstream one. In the past: distributors supplied, small stores sold; distributors earned the margin, small stores earned retail gross profit. Whether sales were good or not depended mainly on the owner. In the future, it should become: regional B2b and small stores jointly serve community customer tasks, forming a strategic alliance. Small stores are responsible for being close to customers, while regional B2b is responsible for enhancing capabilities; small stores know who the customers are, and regional B2b helps turn customers into membership data; small stores know what products are being asked about, and regional B2b helps judge whether that demand can form a product assortment; small stores know which products sell well, and regional B2b helps optimize purchasing, pricing, display, and restocking; small stores know which regular customers have needs, and regional B2b helps with membership, home delivery, private domain, and bundled sales. The focus of this alliance is not to make small stores completely follow headquarters' arrangements, but to amplify the store owner's experience through systems. The Value of Regional B2b Is Not to Operate on Behalf of Small Stores But to Amplify the Capabilities of Small Store Owners Small store owners have an easily underestimated advantage: they are very close to real-life scenarios. They know what the elderly in a certain family like to buy, what sells quickly during school dismissal hours, which residential areas have more renters, who buys alcohol at night, and what products must never run out near a hospital. This information is simple but very real. The problem is that the experience of small store owners used to exist only in their heads. It cannot be accumulated, reviewed, replicated, or translated into supply chain actions. What regional B2b should do is organize this experience. It is not about forcibly transforming small stores into standard convenience stores, nor making all stores offer fresh food, coffee, ice cups, or O2O, but about making appropriate upgrades based on each store's scenario. Community stores should handle community tasks; school stores should handle student tasks; hospital stores should handle companion tasks; construction site stores should handle labor replenishment tasks; nighttime street stores should handle nighttime emergency and alcohol tasks. Regional B2b cannot replace small store owners, but it can help them do things more accurately. For example, it can help small stores establish a basic product assortment, task-based assortment, and seasonal assortment. It can help small stores integrate membership, knowing which customers buy breakfast daily, which buy alcohol at night, and which families restock paper products on weekends. It can use systems to remind about slow-moving products, out-of-stock items, price anomalies, and combinations suitable for instant retail. It can use data from similar stores in the region to help owners judge which products are worth trying and which should be cut. In this way, small store owners no longer operate by gut feeling but have the support of regional supply chain and data capabilities. Membership Is the Foundation for Task Insight Since we are talking about tasks, we need to know who the customers are. Without membership, small stores can only see transactions, not people. > Knowing that 20 bottles of milk were sold today, but not who bought them; > > Knowing that beer sells well at night, but not whether it's the same regular customers; > > Knowing that breakfast sells well, but not who comes every day; > > Knowing that paper products move well, but not whether it's household restocking, hospital companions, or daily needs of the elderly. With membership, stores can shift from a product perspective to a customer perspective. Membership is not for issuing coupons or points. The first value of membership is identifying customer tasks. For example, if a customer has a high breakfast frequency, breakfast should be done well; if nighttime demand is strong, nighttime products should be done well; if household restocking is obvious, paper products, dairy, beverages, and daily chemicals should be done well; if the customer is a hospital companion, there should be companion emergency kits; if the customer is a construction worker, there should be large bottles of water, energy drinks, convenience foods, and labor protection items. Membership, big data, AI, and systems all ultimately serve this goal: to understand tasks more accurately and meet needs more efficiently. The Future Product Assortment for Small Stores Should Not Be a Unified Assortment But a Task-Based Assortment Traditional small store assortments have two problems: one is too messy; the other is too homogeneous. A little bit of everything, but no clear main line. What can sell is not done well, and what doesn't sell takes up inventory. Products that should be there are missing, and products that shouldn't be there are piled up. The future small store assortment should be restructured according to tasks. Community family stores should have a household emergency replenishment assortment; school stores should have a student after-school assortment; hospital stores should have a companion emergency assortment; construction site stores should have a labor replenishment assortment; nighttime stores should have a late-night snack and alcohol assortment; old community stores should have a stable repeat purchase assortment for the elderly. This is not simply swapping a few products, but re-understanding the people around the store. Small stores should have fewer ineffective SKUs and more accurate products; less forced placement by brands and more real customer needs; less "big and comprehensive" and more "small and precise." Not All Small Stores Will Survive But a Batch Will Thrive It must be acknowledged that many small stores will be eliminated. Stores with poor locations, owners unwilling to change, long-term outdated products, no membership, no systems, no online presence, no price adjustments, and no inventory cleanup will find it hard to survive. But another batch of small stores will have opportunities. They have location, customer relationships, and willingness to operate. The owners are willing to learn, adjust shelves, implement membership, connect with regional B2b supply chains, and rebuild their assortment based on customer tasks. These small stores may not be faster than lightning warehouses, cheaper than hard discount stores, or have more products than snack stores, but they can be more accurate within their own communities. That is their path to survival. --- ## Citation metadata - Publisher: New Distribution - Author: 赵波 - Published: 2026-06-03 - Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/mom-and-pop-stores-won-t-disappear-6b4f8859/ - Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/64xh73_069qmy5EspdL5Zg ## 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