---
title: "RT-Mart Founder Huang Mingduan: Online Sales Account for 24%, We Haven't Lost to the Era"
description: "At the recent Lianshang.com conference, RT-Mart founder Huang Mingduan was asked about the widely circulated phrase 'won against all competitors but lost to the era.' His witty response, along with insights from current CEO Lin Xiaohai, revealed RT-Mart's current status and future plans, including online sales accounting for 24% of revenue and the gradual rebranding of Auchan stores to RT-Mart."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2021-04-13"
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# RT-Mart Founder Huang Mingduan: Online Sales Account for 24%, We Haven't Lost to the Era

> At the recent Lianshang.com conference, RT-Mart founder Huang Mingduan was asked about the widely circulated phrase 'won against all competitors but lost to the era.' His witty response, along with insights from current CEO Lin Xiaohai, revealed RT-Mart's current status and future plans, including online sales accounting for 24% of revenue and the gradual rebranding of Auchan stores to RT-Mart.

**At the recent Lianshang.com conference, RT-Mart founder Huang Mingduan was asked about the widely circulated phrase 'won against all competitors but lost to the era.' His response was both witty and insightful. During a dialogue themed '20 Years of Chinese Retail: History and Future,' Huang Mingduan and current CEO Lin Xiaohai shared RT-Mart's current status and future development plans.**

**-01-**
**RT-Mart Founder Huang Mingduan: We Haven't Lost to the Era**

At the Lianshang.com conference, RT-Mart founder Huang Mingduan was once again asked about the widely circulated phrase 'won against all competitors but lost to the era,' which, in fact, did not originate from him. Huang expressed gratitude for the phrase's viral effect, which brought him more recognition, and made a pun: 'Lost to the era? Is the era still here?' (referring to a former supermarket chain called 'Era Supermarket').

Having founded and led RT-Mart for 23 years since 1996, surpassing foreign retailers like Carrefour and Walmart to become the top chain supermarket, Huang is known for his low profile but has earned the reputation of 'King of Land Warfare' in the industry. Today, RT-Mart has nearly 500 stores across more than 240 cities in China.

However, Huang candidly noted that the phrase became widespread due to RT-Mart's transformation. 'The 2012 Tmall Double 11 was a huge blow to us. That's when we decided to transform into e-commerce.' Huang also shared a story: while chatting with a peer about whether to transform, they concluded: 'Not transforming is waiting to die; transforming is seeking death. Rather than waiting to die, we might as well seek death.' It was under this context that RT-Mart launched Feiniu.com in 2013.

Since 2013, RT-Mart resolutely embarked on e-commerce, gaining an understanding of the internet, and eventually decided to introduce strategic investment from Alibaba. This led to the creation of online businesses like RT-Mart Youxian APP and Taoxianda. Today, online platform users exceed 69 million.

Huang revealed that **RT-Mart's online revenue has now exceeded 20 billion yuan, accounting for 24% of total revenue.** Fresh produce constitutes a significant portion. In fresh food e-commerce, very few achieve profitability, but RT-Mart is profitable.

'Quality is paramount; it determines whether customers come. Price determines whether customers buy. What about service? It determines whether customers buy or come. Additionally, efficiency represents cost and benefit, which determines whether you survive. Companies without efficiency cannot survive,' Huang said. Regardless of how the times change, these principles remain constant.

**-02-**
**RT-Mart CEO Lin Xiaohai: Auchan Gradually Rebranding to RT-Mart**

According to The Paper, at the 2021 Lianshang.com conference on April 8, RT-Mart CEO Lin Xiaohai stated, **'Alibaba and RT-Mart will definitely create chemical reactions, first by making RT-Mart independent.' According to his plan, RT-Mart is gradually renovating its stores nationwide and will gradually rebrand the Auchan brand, also under Sun Art Retail, to RT-Mart.**

Sun Art Retail is one of China's largest supermarket chains, **with two major brands, RT-Mart and Auchan. As of the end of 2020, it operated 484 hypermarkets and 6 medium-sized supermarkets in China,** with a total building area of approximately 13.07 million square meters, of which about 70.4% were leased and 29.6% were owned properties. According to Sun Art Retail's data from June 2020, among its nearly 500 stores, RT-Mart had over 400 stores.

In November 2017, Alibaba invested HK$22.4 billion in Sun Art Retail, holding a 36.16% stake. In December 2020, Lin Xiaohai succeeded founder Huang Mingduan, who had led RT-Mart for 23 years, as CEO of RT-Mart. Prior to this, Lin was Vice President of Alibaba Group, responsible for Lingshoutong business.

According to Sun Art Retail's latest financial data, for the 12 months ended December 31, 2020, the company's revenue was RMB 95.486 billion, a year-on-year increase of 0.1%; profit attributable to equity shareholders was RMB 2.872 billion, an increase of RMB 38 million from RMB 2.834 billion in the same period of 2019, an increase of 1.3%.

Lin revealed at the conference that **currently, 76% of RT-Mart's performance comes from offline, indicating that offline remains an important consumption scenario.** RT-Mart has been adjusting its product structure, especially investing heavily in categories that online cannot replace, including RT-Mart's unique shopping streets, which are transforming into community service centers. In the future, they will shift from being a place for traffic monetization to a traffic entry point.

The reporter learned from the conference that RT-Mart completed the restructuring of 50 stores last year. This year, the restructuring of hypermarkets will enter its second generation. **The Auchan store on Changjiang Road in Wuxi will be the first to undergo renovation. The Auchan brand is gradually being renamed to RT-Mart, with completion expected in the second half of this year.**

**'We still need to continuously restructure hypermarkets. RT-Mart's nearly 500 stores nationwide should become assets, not burdens,'** Lin said. The future of retail lies in online, small-scale, convenience, and community orientation. In this trend, RT-Mart will set sail anew and persist in multi-format, omni-channel development.

The so-called 'online, small-scale, convenience, and community' is more reflected in store opening models.

**-03-**
**Advancing Large, Medium, and Small RT-Mart Formats**
**Optimizing Store-Warehouse Services, Using Stores as Warehouses**

At the February 2020 annual report conference call for Sun Art Retail, Executive Director and CEO of RT-Mart China Lin Xiaohai stated that **the multi-format, omni-channel strategy will accelerate, while restructuring its own hypermarkets. It is hoped that the new strategy will bring RT-Mart back to high single-digit growth next fiscal year, and double-digit growth two years later.**

Lin said Sun Art Retail will shift from a passive and defensive strategy to an active offensive development, considering changes in customer needs and shopping habits, as well as industry competition trends. He noted that in terms of multi-format, the group has experimented with Zhongrunfa (i.e., RT-Mart Super), Xiaorunfa, and community group buying, and has now identified models.

As of December 31, 2020, six Zhongrunfa stores had been opened. Lin said Zhongrunfa will accelerate nationwide, with expectations to expand to 30-50 stores in 2021. Xiaorunfa currently has 30 stores and will continue to focus on second- and third-tier cities, with expectations of over 200 stores by fiscal year 2021. As for Feiniu Group Buying and Yifagou, after two years of testing, they will also advance together into rapid development.

Regarding the restructuring of hypermarkets, he pointed out that the group hopes to reconstruct reasons for customers to visit stores. **In the future, the focus will be on categories that e-commerce cannot replace, such as frozen and cooked food processing. In the long run, offline services are still needed to provide customers with different online shopping experiences. As offline customer flow changes and becomes unpredictable, the group also plans to change the shopping street model. In the future, shopping streets can add service, dining, and entertainment stores to attract customers to visit, as well as optimize store-warehouse services, using stores as warehouses.**

In addition, Sun Art Retail's community group buying business, in cooperation with Cainiao Post stations, has started in over 36 cities and more than 100 stores, with nearly 8,000 active stations. Sun Art Retail's self-developed stations have also landed in 125 cities, with over 220 stores launching community group buying services.

Source: Retail Circle (ID: retailsphere)
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