---
title: "Omnichannel New Retail: The Source of Digital Transformation, The Anchor of New Business Dynamics"
description: "From the current market landscape, instant retail is no longer just a sales channel but an integrated business model combining online and offline marketing, sales, supply chain, and data. Deep engagement in instant retail is essentially developing omnichannel retail with instant retail as the anchor. In the industry, there's a joke that the head of instant retail is like a mini-CEO, needing to judge changes in supply chain, market, and sales from an investment perspective, focusing not only on online and offline coverage but also on market analysis based on sales penetration. On March 14-16, at the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference, Chen Lihao, Executive Vice President of Omnichannel New Retail at Shanghai Heyin Network Technology Co., Ltd., shared insights on this topic."
author: "陈力浩"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-04-03"
language: "en"
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# Omnichannel New Retail: The Source of Digital Transformation, The Anchor of New Business Dynamics

> From the current market landscape, instant retail is no longer just a sales channel but an integrated business model combining online and offline marketing, sales, supply chain, and data. Deep engagement in instant retail is essentially developing omnichannel retail with instant retail as the anchor. In the industry, there's a joke that the head of instant retail is like a mini-CEO, needing to judge changes in supply chain, market, and sales from an investment perspective, focusing not only on online and offline coverage but also on market analysis based on sales penetration. On March 14-16, at the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference, Chen Lihao, Executive Vice President of Omnichannel New Retail at Shanghai Heyin Network Technology Co., Ltd., shared insights on this topic.

From the current market landscape, instant retail is no longer just a sales channel but an integrated business model combining online and offline marketing, sales, supply chain, and data.
Deep engagement in instant retail is essentially developing omnichannel retail with instant retail as the anchor.
In the industry, there's a joke that the head of instant retail is like a mini-CEO, needing to judge changes in supply chain, market, and sales from an investment perspective, focusing not only on online and offline coverage but also on market analysis based on sales penetration.
From March 14 to 16, the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference, the 2nd China FMCG Hard Discount Conference, and the 2nd China FMCG Distributor Conference concluded successfully in Chengdu!
At the instant retail forum, brand owners, platforms, and service providers discussed the development of instant retail. Among them, **Chen Lihao, Executive Vice President of Omnichannel New Retail at Shanghai Heyin Network Technology Co., Ltd.**, delivered a keynote speech titled "**Omnichannel New Retail: The Source of Digital Transformation, The Anchor of New Business Dynamics**," which sparked lively discussions among attendees.
"New Distribution" specially reports on the highlights for our readers.

**Instant retail is a highly certain demand**
Heyin Network summarizes instant retail in four characters: "**Heartbeat, Instant Gratification**."
Looking at the development of retail, all consumer marketing is essentially about creating "heartbeat" (desire).
In offline sales, brands engage in consumer promotions or marketing to make consumers feel the desire and then go to physical stores, convenience stores, or traditional shops to purchase—this can be called "desire-driven purchase."
With e-commerce, brands use consumer marketing to enable "desire-driven immediate purchase," where consumers can order immediately on e-commerce platforms but wait a day or two for delivery.
With instant retail, the consumer journey has been elevated to "desire-driven instant gratification."
For example, consider draft beer with a 7-day shelf life. Buying from e-commerce takes 2-3 days to arrive, leaving only 4 days of shelf life. If you plan a dinner with friends, by the time you enjoy it, only 2 days might remain. Also, carrying it from home means it goes from refrigerated to room temperature, affecting the taste.
But in an instant retail scenario, a consumer at a restaurant can open Meituan, order, and receive an ice-cold draft beer in less than half an hour, with maybe 5 days of shelf life remaining. This greatly satisfies the consumer's emotional value.
Today's young consumers have two characteristics: first, the "lazy economy," seeking more convenient and effortless shopping methods; second, they value emotional experiences, shifting from mere "purchase-use" to active participation and sharing.
**The shopping experience and instant gratification offered by instant retail have made it a highly certain demand.**

**Full-scenario reach, full-matrix breakthrough, full-domain conversion**
Whether online or offline, **scenarios** have always been a crucial part of the consumer journey.
For example, popcorn is rarely bought by consumers in daily life, but when they are at a physical cinema, the environment evokes the need for popcorn.
In instant retail, the combination of time and space is essentially a **layering of scenarios.** Heyin Network has summarized sixteen mental scenarios, such as grocery shopping for meals, weekend restocking, family companionship, heavy items delivery, emergencies, and out-of-town travel.
By creating mental scenarios, they convert them into corresponding sales scenarios distributed across various instant retail platforms like Meituan and Ele.me, then further segment into audience scenarios for precise targeting, ultimately forming a closed loop of consumer behavior.

**Achieving the retail endgame of "desire-driven instant gratification"**
**In instant retail, supply and data have become strongly correlated.**
In the past, offline supply in the sales process was about distributing as much as possible. Whether effective or ineffective outlets, products were distributed first, and then eliminated through distributors or retailers.
But in today's instant retail, through big data integration, it's possible to predict which products consumers need by combining time, weather, category, demographics, and consumer habits.
LBS-based instant retail tools can segment down to city, district, street, and even cell. For brand owners, this enables more efficient distribution and coverage from the dimensions of people, goods, and places.
Looking at the plans of the five major platforms, the trend is clear: instant retail aims to meet consumers' shopping needs across all categories, all times, and all scenarios.
**People, scenarios, regions, and supply are always the major strategic pillars of instant retail.**
In terms of people, Meituan has audience targeting and investment, JD has multi-point data sharing, and Douyin has precise product-to-person targeting. In supply, Meituan's flash warehouses and Ele.me's convenience warehouses are better matching supply. In scenarios, JD's home delivery scenarios, Douyin's content-driven scenarios, and Meituan's "Heartbeat Brand Day" are creating different marketing scenarios. In regions, platforms' city stations and KA activities are executing precise regional marketing.

**Growth engines for key instant retail platforms**
Heyin Network's sales growth engines for instant retail include four aspects: **omnichannel marketing, precise targeting, supply optimization, and channel strengthening**.

**First, omnichannel marketing, which is periodic marketing across three dimensions.**
**One: Daily and Weekly routine marketing mechanisms.** For example, outings, afternoon tea, and late-night snack scenarios, which can drive continuous order conversion on instant retail platforms.
For instance, Heyin Network created a late-night snack marketing chain for a brand, first dividing the audience into potential demand and explicit demand groups.
For potential demand groups, the need must be awakened. Through online media like OTV, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin, they evoke demand, highlight scenarios and products, then guide consumers to Meituan and Ele.me, combined with in-app RTB and coupons to enhance demand, finally completing purchase conversion.
For explicit demand groups, the focus is on search. They directly search for desired products on Meituan or Ele.me, so it's crucial to have effective in-app reception to achieve precise and efficient targeting.
**Two: Seasonal marketing mechanisms**, such as CNY, Mid-Autumn Festival, and National Day, requiring higher-frequency interaction between brands and consumers to deepen brand penetration.
**Three: Hot topic marketing mechanisms**, such as Harbin's sudden popularity or Beijing's heavy snow, requiring keen insight and immediate tracking.

**Second, precise targeting.** This is similar to traditional e-commerce and is divided into four parts: incremental exposure, scenario penetration, off-platform linkage, and new customer acquisition and repurchase.

**Third, supply optimization.** On one hand, strengthen traditional supply, such as KA optimization, focusing on product assortment, marketing, and consumer reach, with precise product selection and promotion. On the other hand, empower new scenarios with new supply, such as how flash warehouses and convenience stores can achieve precise distribution and reach.
Start with the end in mind, use demand to drive supply, and use data to optimize supply models. Heyin Network combines data from platforms like Meituan and Ele.me with its own data maps, using a brand supply-demand strategy diagnostic model to provide brands with intelligent distribution solutions.

**Fourth, channel strengthening.** Focus mainly on KA and CVS. Although these channels are currently facing growth challenges, KA has advantages in full product range and distribution, while CVS has advantages in extended operating hours and nighttime scenarios, making them still important for brands.

**Heyin Network's methodology for new product promotion in instant retail**
How should new products be promoted in instant retail?
Heyin Network divides it into four stages.
**Stage one: Comprehensive planning.** First, help brands conduct product-specific workshops. Through multi-dimensional research and analysis, combined with AIGC, fully empower the pre-launch preparation and positioning strategy for new products.
Typically, there are three important steps: first, actively participate in brand audits, especially channel audits; second, actively participate in or organize annual/quarterly O2O problem/opportunity discussions; third, co-host O2O new product planning workshops with the brand's marketing department and O2O channel marketing department to produce an O2O new product launch plan.
**Stage two: Establish availability.** Combine offline and O2O distribution, including flash warehouses and convenience warehouses, strengthen and optimize distribution rhythm, then use large-scale personalized marketing to quickly build awareness for the new product.
**Stage three: Accelerate conversion.** Link regional, KA, and O2O efforts to drive new product trials and accelerate O2O conversion.
In instant retail, there is an excellent sampling mechanism. Through big data, identify more precise consumers who fit the scenario and category needs, conduct effective sampling, and promote overall conversion.
**Stage four: Analysis and consolidation.** Based on the sales performance and conversion of the previous distribution mechanisms, including off-platform advertising data, consolidate audience and content assets. This feeds back into the next phase of content planning, marketing planning, and operational planning.
Through these four stages, new products can achieve an efficient and effective marketing closed loop in instant retail.
Finally, I'd like to share a phrase: Create omnichannel development together, embrace digital transformation! I hope all brands can more precisely and effectively enhance their new retail or instant retail business. I also welcome brands that are still on the sidelines to actively embrace instant retail.

_PS: For those interested in the on-site speech content, please follow the recent posts on the "New Distribution" WeChat official account. We will compile and publish all speakers' speeches for our readers._
_Click **Read the original text** to see more about the 9th China FMCG Innovation Conference, the 2nd China FMCG Hard Discount Conference, and the 2nd China FMCG Distributor Conference._


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