In 2025, changes in the FMCG industry are no longer about 'a certain channel being hotter' or 'a certain category being more competitive,' but a more fundamental shift: the sources of growth, the distribution of profits, and the threshold of capabilities are all changing. On one hand, consumers are more cautious, more fragmented, and more in pursuit of certainty; on the other hand, platforms, retailers, brands, and distributors are accelerating cross-border role swaps, rewriting the previously clear division of labor into new forms of collaboration. We see instant retail moving from accelerated growth to ecosystem warfare, private brands evolving from supplementary items to strategic pillars, major players entering the fray, integration of supply and retail, emotional consumption, going global, AI implementation... These changes are not isolated but collectively drive the reconfiguration of the industry's value chain. Based on continuous observation of industry trends, New Distribution has compiled the 'Top Ten Keywords for the FMCG Industry in 2025' for practitioners' reference.
Instant Retail 2025 is widely recognized as the first year of the explosion of instant retail, with JD.com, Alibaba, and Meituan launching an all-out war to determine the 'local life entrance.' In March, JD.com aggressively entered with its food delivery business, merging 'hourly delivery' and 'home delivery' into 'JD Seconds Delivery,' leveraging JD's supply chain and delivery network to achieve 'fastest 9-minute delivery' in core business districts, building a dual advantage of 'inventory + timeliness,' with daily order volume exceeding 25 million within 90 days of launch. Alibaba then entered with 50 billion yuan in subsidies and launched the 'Large Consumption Platform' strategy in June, integrating Ele.me and Fliggy. By August, the number of flash warehouses exceeded 50,000, and by the end of the year, the Ele.me app was fully revamped into 'Taobao Flash Purchase.' Taobao leveraged its massive e-commerce traffic pool to directly convert into instant retail orders, solving the problem of 'having goods but no traffic' for offline stores. Facing the siege, Meituan shut down non-core businesses, elevated 'Meituan Flash Purchase' to a first-level entrance on its homepage, and built 'flash warehouses' on a large scale. By June, Meituan and its partners had built over 50,000 flash warehouses, greatly enriching product supply. Overall, this war has elevated the competitive dimension of instant retail from simple delivery speed to the height of full-ecosystem collaborative operations. New Distribution Comment: The 2025 battle situation shows that simple subsidies can no longer build barriers. Instant retail has evolved from the early 'food delivery' to 'digital local retail infrastructure,' a structural change driven by technology, shifting consumer habits, and supply chain reshaping. For brands, the platform war means drastic changes in channel landscape and rewriting of traffic rules. They must reassess the weight of each platform in their omni-channel strategy and adapt to the new normal of 'multi-platform, instant' operations. This is not just adding a sales channel but reconstructing the relationship of 'people, goods, and places'—wherever consumers are, the shelf extends.
Private Brands In 2025, private brands upgraded from a differentiation option for retailers to a core strategic pillar for survival. Companies such as Pangdonglai, Bubugao, and Hongqi Chain all highlighted private brand progress in their financial reports. Bubugao achieved profitability in the first half of the year through store adjustments and private brand development; Hongqi Chain continued to expand its 'Hongqi Preferred' series. In addition, Yonghui's 'Quality Yonghui' series launched in 2025 strictly follows Pangdonglai's 'fair pricing method' development logic, first calculating the optimal quality cost, then passing profits to consumers. RT-Mart innovatively launched a dual-brand matrix of 'Super Save + RT-Mart Select' to precisely meet the needs of different consumer groups. Wumart launched its hard discount store 'Wumart Super Value' in July 2025, with private brands accounting for over 60%, but adhering to the principle of 'low price but not low quality.' Walmart systematically launched its new private brand 'Wo Ji Xian' in the Chinese market, focusing on fresh food categories, aiming to enhance user stickiness through better ingredient supply chains. In 2025, private brand development has entered a new stage of branding, quality, and ecosystemization, shifting from pure price competition to value creation. For long-term development, private brands must adhere to quality bottom lines, build brand trust, innovate consumer experiences, and deepen from 'channel innovation' to 'category upgrade' and 'product innovation' to win consumer mindshare and loyalty in fierce market competition. New Distribution Comment: In 2025, private brands in the FMCG industry have upgraded from traditional 'price substitutes' to 'core strategic forces for brands.' Through high cost-performance, differentiated positioning, supply chain advantages, and consumer experience design, private brands have emerged in fierce market competition, becoming an important force driving retail growth and a key path for 'incremental market and brand reshaping' in the FMCG industry. Private brands are undergoing several trend changes:
Quality improvement and brand positioning: no longer purchased solely for low prices, but with expectations of stable 'good user experience';
Differentiated category strategies: turning distinctive categories into bestsellers, such as localized flavors and proprietary formulas;
Integrated online-offline marketing: leveraging platform traffic tools, membership systems, and social content to enhance user stickiness.
Internet Giants Open Offline Supermarkets 2025 marks a critical juncture for China's retail industry entering deep omni-channel integration. As online traffic dividends peak, e-commerce platforms, seeking new growth curves, have broken through the 'virtual' boundary and are penetrating offline physical retail on a large scale and in multiple dimensions. In 2025, JD.com launched 'Qixian Xiaochu,' a new community dining format, leveraging its fresh food supply chain advantages, adopting a 'fresh cooking + takeout self-pickup' model, and rapidly capturing the community dining market through a 'partner system'; JD Discount Supermarket entered daily consumer goods with 'extreme cost-performance,' and its first store nationwide attracted market attention upon opening. Taobao Flash Purchase launched the 'Taobao Convenience Store' brand, incorporating offline convenience stores into its instant retail system by outputting brand authorization, digital systems, and supply chain support, achieving a closed loop of 'platform as channel, channel as store.' Instant retail platforms represented by Meituan and Pupu Supermarket began transitioning from 'pure online warehouses' to 'physical stores' to improve fulfillment efficiency and consumer experience. Meituan launched its self-operated community supermarket brand 'Happy Monkey,' entering with medium-sized stores of 800-1,000 square meters, focusing on high cost-performance daily necessities, aiming to enhance user stickiness through physical presence. Pupu Supermarket, as a representative of the front-warehouse model, is preparing to open a large offline experience store of 5,000-6,000 square meters in Fuzhou. This marks its transformation from a front-warehouse model focused solely on 'efficiency' to a comprehensive supermarket model balancing 'experience' and 'efficiency.' The 'offline migration' of online e-commerce platforms in 2025 is essentially the inevitable result of the retail industry moving from 'online-offline channel competition' to 'omni-channel integration and symbiosis.' New Distribution Comment: In 2025, online e-commerce entering offline is not to 'defeat' physical retail but to 'evolve' a more efficient and consumer-centric new retail form. This not only promotes traditional retail upgrade but also reshapes consumer shopping journeys, bringing new growth space to the FMCG industry. E-commerce entering offline retail is not simply about importing online traffic offline but reconstructing 'goods' and 'places' around the needs of 'people.' The key is to use data insights to optimize supply chains and ultimately improve efficiency and experience across the entire chain. Offline stores are no longer just sales points but are transforming into brand experience centers, user service centers, and instant fulfillment hubs. For traditional offline retail, this is both a life-or-death challenge and the last window to leverage digital transformation.
Emotional Consumption In 2025, emotional consumption, represented by the 'goods economy' (Goods, referring to derivative products around anime, games, etc.), was selected as one of the top ten buzzwords of the year. The trendy toy IP LABUBU experienced phenomenal popularity in 2025, becoming the annual benchmark for interpreting 'emotional consumption.' In June 2025, a rare mint-colored first-generation LABUBU collectible sold at a Yongle auction for a record 1.08 million yuan. The 'mini LABUBU' blind box launched in August sold out instantly on major platforms, with its secondary market price quickly soaring to several times the original price. LABUBU's explosion reveals the business logic of the 'emotional consumption' era: emotional resonance is competitiveness. Its unique 'ugly-cute' design precisely hits young people's emotional needs for individuality and identity, making the product itself a social symbol for expressing attitudes. Many brands have also begun to focus on providing emotions when selling products. For example, Haowangshui precisely targets young people's 'metaphysical' psychology, with auspicious phrases like 'Wang Xing Fu' and 'Wang Mei Hao' on bottles, directly addressing their desire for 'good luck'; Liangpinpuzi launched a 'self-reward' snack gift box with inspirational quotes printed on the packaging, giving consumers a 'being encouraged' psychological massage the moment they open the snack. At the same time, more functional emotional consumer products, such as sleep-aid gummies and good-night yogurt, are selling well, marking the deepening of emotional consumption from 'healing' to 'daily care.' These products combine emotional value with practical functions, meeting consumers' deep needs for inner balance and spiritual comfort. New Distribution Comment: The constant pressure of life and work makes 'paying for emotions' no longer an occasional indulgence but a daily consumption habit increasingly integrated into daily life. In 2025, the consumer market is divided into two paths: 'emotional fast charging' (short-term emotional satisfaction) and 'long-term peace of mind' (long-term value needs), with emotional fast charging becoming a new growth driver for trendy toys, snacks, beverages, and other FMCG products. The widespread outbreak of emotional consumption in the FMCG industry in 2025 has several common driving factors: The economic environment is full of uncertainty, and consumers need immediate pleasure to relieve stress; Generation Z's emphasis on self-expression and identity makes consumption behavior more emotional; intensified product homogenization prompts brands to differentiate through emotional communication. In 2025, FMCG products are no longer just selling products but are selling emotions, connecting experiences and psychological satisfaction, and building emotional resonance with consumers.
Going Global In 2025, Chinese FMCG brands entering the global market entered a new stage, with going global changing from an 'option' to a 'required question.' Many brands are no longer simply 'selling goods' but are establishing a firm foothold in global markets through cultural export, deep localization, and supply chain innovation. In 2025, Xiangpiaopiao became a 'viral' myth in the Russian market, with its Meco fruit tea achieving 80-fold sales growth in two years. In Russia, it gradually penetrated from large supermarkets to high-end supermarkets, adding panda elements to packaging, retaining Chinese characteristics while catering to local aesthetics. Currently, its products cover more than 30 countries including Europe, America, and Southeast Asia. Weilong was selected for Forbes China's Top 30 Globalization Brands in 2025. Its spicy strips not only sell well in Southeast Asia but have also successfully entered markets in Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea. Weilong has formulated a clear 'three-step' strategy, starting from Southeast Asia, entering developed countries, and planning to achieve deep globalization through localized supply chains. Over three years, its overseas revenue has doubled. Chinese FMCG going global has undergone a qualitative shift: from 'selling products' to 'selling lifestyles.' True 'glocalization' is no longer about simply replicating the Chinese model but deeply integrating into local culture, supply chains, and channels. Among these, strong supply chain capabilities are key to supporting brands to 'survive' and profit overseas. New Distribution Comment: The intense competition in the domestic market and narrowing profit margins force companies to seek a second growth curve. Currently, Chinese FMCG brands going global are still in a blue ocean stage, and this stage has not yet entered a period of rapid development, with generally insufficient corporate awareness. Therefore, from a trend perspective, the opportunities are significant. But going global tests enterprises' localization capabilities, cultural understanding, and supply chain resilience. Brands need to shift from 'Made in China' to 'Global Brands,' achieving innovative integration while respecting local consumption habits. Chinese enterprises going global have bid farewell to the initial stage of 'product export' and shifted to localized supply chain layout and cultural adaptation. Southeast Asia and the Middle East have become new growth poles, but cultural cognitive differences and compliance costs remain major challenges.
Integration of Supply and Retail In 2025, the trend of supply-retail integration has indeed become more apparent, with the traditional boundaries between retailers and suppliers blurring. The linear relationship of 'brand-manufacturer-distributor-retailer' is dissolving, replaced by an integrated ecosystem of 'production-supply-marketing integration.' This integration is mainly reflected in two directions of 'cross-border': First, retailers extend upstream, personally engaging in supply chain or even production; second, brand manufacturers and distributors go downstream, deeply involving themselves in retail terminal operations. Retailers doing supply chain: Retailers are no longer satisfied with earning purchase-sale price differences but use terminal data advantages to deeply involve themselves in product production, inventory, and distribution management, even directly acquiring or holding upstream production capacity. Biyoute is a supply chain empowerment model for local retail, using its mature store model and supply chain advantages to empower other small retail enterprises. Through a self-built supply chain model, it helps small retail enterprises with adjustment and transformation. Yonghui's adjustment actions in 2025 essentially reshape competitiveness by mastering supply chain pricing power. Yonghui promotes the 'Quality Yonghui' private brand series and introduces Pangdonglai's 'fair pricing method' logic. It cut a large number of intermediate fees and promoted a 'naked procurement' model. This model allows its private brands to maintain high quality while prices are far lower than similar competing products in the market, directly mastering pricing power. Brands and distributors doing retail: From 'behind the scenes' to 'front stage': Facing channel fragmentation, brands find that relying solely on distributors for 'distribution' is no longer enough; they must personally engage in mastering terminals. Three Squirrels, as an internet snack giant, showed strong 'offline aggressiveness' in 2025. It acquired offline snack chain brands 'Ai Lingshi' and 'Ai Zhekou' and participated in the snack category adjustment of Meiyijia. Three Squirrels uses its data advantages in e-commerce and supply chain to help offline convenience stores optimize product selection and operations. By controlling terminals, it directly reaches consumers, avoiding traffic interception by platforms. Meituan and Taobao, although they are platforms, played the dual role of 'super distributor + retailer' on the instant retail battlefield in 2025. By laying out 'flash warehouses' on a large scale and using data and technology, they directly reconstructed the 'distributor-retailer' chain, turning themselves into the most efficient circulation hubs. The 'supply-retail integration' in 2025 is not a simple return but an upgrade based on digitalization. Brand manufacturers, distributors, and retailers are transforming from the traditional 'game-style distribution relationship' to a 'collaborative co-creation supply chain system,' which helps improve inventory turnover and product sell-through, and also highlights consumer-demand-oriented product development. New Distribution Comment: In 2025, what we see is no longer a game between retailers and suppliers but deep collaboration based on digital capabilities. The future winners will be those who 'understand both supply chains and consumers.' For retailers: Future competitiveness lies not in how many stores they own but in whether they have the capability of 'supply chain as a service' and can use data and technology to make product circulation more efficient. For suppliers: The future survival rule is no longer pure capacity output but whether they have 'retail operations' thinking and can directly create value for consumers. This trend marks the official entry of China's retail industry from the era of 'channel is king' into a new era of 'efficiency and value symbiosis.'
Reconstruction of Manufacturer-Dealer Relations In 2025, the manufacturer-dealer relationship in the FMCG industry indeed underwent a profound 'chemical reaction.' Against the backdrop of overall stock competition and extreme channel fragmentation, the traditional 'buy-sell relationship' and 'inventory pressure model' are no longer sustainable. 'Symbiosis,' 'digital collaboration,' and 'interest bundling' have become new keywords between manufacturers and dealers. In March 2025, Jinsha Wine Industry held a conference on the community of shared future for manufacturers and dealers, clearly stating that all strategies revolve around 'how to enable partners to profit sustainably in the long term.' It introduced a 'dealer advisory committee operating mechanism,' allowing dealers to participate in the company's decision-making process, elevating the manufacturer-dealer relationship from a 'transactional relationship' to a 'strategic alliance.' Brands no longer simply pursue their own high growth but prioritize dealers' profitability and survival space, achieving risk-sharing and benefit-sharing through mechanism design. Dayao established a 'creative co-creation mechanism' in 2025, allowing dealers to participate in product feedback and market creative proposals. Relying on seven intelligent production bases, it provides dealers with stable supply guarantees and lower logistics costs. It shifted dealer evaluation from 'resource orientation' to 'capability orientation,' with brands transforming from 'managers' to 'servicers' and 'empowerers.' Brands began to break organizational boundaries, using digital means or organizational changes to help dealers reduce costs and increase efficiency, or even directly take over some operational functions. Genki Forest jumped out of the 'client-vendor' mindset and proposed the eight-character principle of 'partnership, closeness, cost reduction, and openness.' It regards dealers as 'long-term partners.' Through digital means, brands skip redundant intermediate links, directly grasp terminal sell-through data, and form an 'iron triangle' relationship with dealers. New Distribution Comment: In 2025, the reconstruction of manufacturer-dealer relations means that brands, dealers, and even retail are no longer upstream and downstream but should become 'left and right hands' collaborating around the demand loop. In the past, manufacturers managed dealers through 'inventory pressure' and 'fines'; now, manufacturers bind dealers through 'empowerment' (digital tools, capacity), 'profit sharing' (profit guarantees, fixed returns), and 'risk sharing' (inventory data sharing, C-end traffic guidance). For enterprises in this transformation, whoever can first establish a new manufacturer-dealer relationship 'based on data and win-win' will grasp the initiative in the stock market of 2025.
Supermarket Adjustment 2025 is undoubtedly the most intense year for 'adjustment' (transformation and upgrade) in the supermarket industry. During this year, the 'Pangdonglai model' became the benchmark for industry transformation, but major supermarkets did not simply copy it; they combined it with their own genes for localized innovation. Yonghui and Bubugao implemented comprehensive 'Pangdonglai-style' adjustments, with the core being learning Pangdonglai's trinity model of 'product structure + employee welfare + service details.' 2025 was the acceleration year for Yonghui's 'Pangdonglai-style' adjustment. From dozens of stores at the beginning of the year to 222 stores completed by the end of October, covering core cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. Products underwent a major overhaul, introducing a large number of Pangdonglai private brand zones, increasing fresh food, implementing the 'Craftsman Plan,' raising frontline employee salaries, shortening working hours, and even allowing store managers to share in dividends. Bubugao's adjustment in 2025 placed more emphasis on 'community service' attributes. In the fresh food area, it implemented 'clear pricing + origin traceability,' and even promised that fresh meat not sold the same day would be given away (not sold); it added 'neighborhood service centers' providing services like blood pressure measurement and bus card recharge. Customer unit price increased by 12% year-on-year, retaining surrounding housewives and elderly groups through increased service stickiness. Wumart and Duodian, while learning from Pangdonglai, emphasized their digital genes, attempting to solve 'people efficiency' and 'supply chain' issues with AI and digital means. Wumart took two paths in 2025: First, high-end: launching 'AI New Quality Retail' stores (such as the Xueqing Road store), using AI for product selection and display optimization; second, extreme cost-performance: launching 'Wumart Super Value' hard discount stores. Although the product structure also benchmarks Pangdonglai, Wumart emphasizes 'wide categories, narrow products' and 'naked price direct procurement.' RT-Mart chose 'cutting off' and 'new business formats' layout, which is a structural adjustment. In fiscal year 2025, RT-Mart proactively closed 9 long-term loss-making remote stores, no longer blindly pursuing store numbers. M membership stores accelerated expansion, with membership fee revenue growing significantly year-on-year. RT-Mart Super: launched medium-sized supermarkets, reducing area to 1,500-3,000 square meters, focusing on fresh food essentials. The supermarket adjustment in 2025 has moved from the initial 'imitation stage' into the 'deep water zone,' with all adjustments ultimately pointing to supply chain reconstruction. New Distribution Comment: The supermarket adjustment in 2025 is a watershed for China's retail industry, returning from 'rough growth' to 'intensive cultivation.' It proves that 'good products + good service' remains the ultimate rule of retail. Supermarket adjustment is not simple patching but a comprehensive strategic reshaping of the retail industry against market weakness, consumption differentiation, and channel changes. It shifts from single product sales to composite consumption scenarios; upgrades from 'price competition' to 'service and experience competition'; digital and AI-driven operations become core means to improve efficiency; localization and regional deepening replace simple scale expansion.
AI In 2025, the application of AI in the FMCG industry has completely moved from the 'concept validation' stage to the 'industrial implementation' and 'deep reconstruction' stage. This year, AI is no longer just an auxiliary tool but has become the core engine for enterprise growth, profoundly changing the entire chain from production supply chain to marketing. In 2025, supply chain competition is no longer about whose warehouse is bigger but whose inventory turnover is faster and who responds more agilely to the market. AI-driven 'digital twins' and 'intelligent agent clusters' have become standard. Offline terminals were once a 'blind spot' for brands. In 2025, through AI image recognition and process mining technology, brands achieved real-time control of terminals. C&S Paper, facing high offline retail closure rates, used AI algorithms to analyze national regions and accurately screen 'high-potential stores.' By matching product combinations with AI, these stores' single-store sell-through efficiency increased by more than 30%. In 2025, AI in the FMCG industry has changed from 'icing on the cake' to 'necessary for survival.' Those enterprises that can deeply integrate AI into supply chain decisions, product R&D, and terminal execution are harvesting market dividends through 'dimensional reduction attacks,' while those sticking to traditional models face the risk of being marginalized. New Distribution Comment: In 2025, the application of artificial intelligence in the FMCG industry has evolved from single-point attempts to a core force driving full-chain transformation. On the production side, AI intervention makes decisions more precise and operations more efficient; on the marketing and sales side, AI technology is driving a paradigm shift from 'spreading a wide net' to 'precise targeting.' AI promotes the intelligent upgrade of the FMCG industry, transforming from a cost-reduction tool to an important engine for creating new growth; from single-point pilots to systematic collaboration, from efficiency improvement to intelligent decision-making.
Quality-Price Ratio In recent years, consumers no longer blindly pursue 'low prices' but have shifted to rational expectations of 'quality-price ratio.' This trend drives enterprises to break out of the 'cost-performance involution' and shift to comprehensive competition centered on product strength, brand power, and supply chain efficiency. Jinxing Tea Beer is positioned in the 13-15 yuan price band, featuring a 'jasmine tea + beer' blend, with female consumers accounting for 57%. In a similar price band, it provides sensory and emotional value far exceeding traditional beer, achieving 'higher quality at the same price, more interesting at the same quality.' It successfully transformed a mass beverage into a lifestyle product 'with a story, design, and emotion.' Brands such as Songxianxian and Totole launched seasonings containing matsutake ingredients. Although their market share is less than 0.5%, their unit prices are three times that of traditional products. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for 'no additives' and 'medicine and food homology.' Consumers no longer only look at 'unit price' but evaluate 'unit health value.' A bottle of seasoning may be expensive, but because it is 'less additive, natural, and health-preserving,' it is seen as a 'kitchen health investment,' achieving a leap from 'functional consumption' to 'value-based consumption.' Against the backdrop of rational consumption, 'quality-price ratio' has become a core weapon for brands to win user trust and break through homogeneous competition. New Distribution Comment: In 2025, 'quality-price ratio' means consumers are sensitive to both price and quality. Consumers' focus has shifted from simple 'low price' to 'quality,' no longer paying solely for brand halo but focusing more on the product's ingredient composition, functional utility, and actual experience. For industry participants, the key lies in: Deepening product strength: excavate and strengthen the product's core functions and differentiated value, rather than relying solely on brand marketing; Optimizing supply chain: through extreme improvement of supply chain efficiency, provide consumers with 'good but not expensive' product choices. Precise channel layout: embrace emerging channels such as snack collection stores and warehouse membership stores, and vigorously develop high-quality private brands. Valuing lower-tier markets: treat third- to fifth-tier cities as core battlefields for growth, providing products and services that match local consumption habits and value expectations. The FMCG market in 2025 is entering a new stage of high-quality development that is more pragmatic, efficient, and centered on consumer value.
Final Thoughts Looking back at 2025, behind these ten keywords, they actually point to the same main line: the FMCG industry is moving from channel competition to systemic competition. What matters is no longer who distributes more widely or advertises better, but who can turn demand insight, supply organization, and fulfillment efficiency into a replicable closed loop. In a market where uncertainty is the norm, what is truly scarce is not traffic or channels, but the systemic ability to turn complexity into simplicity and volatility into stability. Whoever can find a new balance between efficiency and value will be the first to cross the cycle and get a ticket to the next round of growth.
【Moving Toward the C-End】The 11th China FMCG Conference Time: March 16-18, 2026 Location: Chengdu, China