---
title: "The Era of Retail Shelf-Selling Is Over"
description: "In the past two years, retail has undergone dramatic changes: snack stores and wholesale supermarkets have sprung up everywhere, engaging in successive low-price bombardments. Pangdonglai and Sam's Club have popularized 'divine service' and the 'warehouse membership model.' Yonghui and Jiajiayue have loudly advocated 'cutting out middlemen' and 'naked-price direct sourcing.' Aldi and Hema have prompted retail peers to follow suit with 'private labels.' Retail changes come one after another, leaving distributors deeply anxious. A boss who has been an agent for leisure snacks for 15 years told me: 'Some businesses are gone, some are barely surviving, but in the end, inventory still piles up! Payments still come in slowly! We middlemen, squeezed between brand pressure to stock up and terminal slow sales, are about to be dragged down...'"
author: "任文青Andy"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-07-29"
categories: "Dealer Operations, Retail Formats"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YjZG4RCe6If4CUZi7uhp2g"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E5%8D%96%E8%B4%A7%E6%9E%B6%E7%9A%84%E6%97%B6%E4%BB%A3%E7%BB%93%E6%9D%9F%E4%BA%86-650d8384.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-era-of-retail-shelf-selling-is-over-650d8384/"
citation: "任文青Andy. “The Era of Retail Shelf-Selling Is Over.” New Distribution, 2025-07-29. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-era-of-retail-shelf-selling-is-over-650d8384/"
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---

# The Era of Retail Shelf-Selling Is Over

> In the past two years, retail has undergone dramatic changes: snack stores and wholesale supermarkets have sprung up everywhere, engaging in successive low-price bombardments. Pangdonglai and Sam's Club have popularized 'divine service' and the 'warehouse membership model.' Yonghui and Jiajiayue have loudly advocated 'cutting out middlemen' and 'naked-price direct sourcing.' Aldi and Hema have prompted retail peers to follow suit with 'private labels.' Retail changes come one after another, leaving distributors deeply anxious. A boss who has been an agent for leisure snacks for 15 years told me: 'Some businesses are gone, some are barely surviving, but in the end, inventory still piles up! Payments still come in slowly! We middlemen, squeezed between brand pressure to stock up and terminal slow sales, are about to be dragged down...'

In the past two years, retail has undergone dramatic changes:
> Snack stores and wholesale supermarkets have sprung up everywhere, engaging in successive low-price bombardments.
>
> Pangdonglai and Sam's Club have popularized 'divine service' and the 'warehouse membership model.'
>
> Yonghui and Jiajiayue have loudly advocated 'cutting out middlemen' and 'naked-price direct sourcing.'
>
> Aldi and Hema have prompted retail peers to follow suit with 'private labels.'
Retail changes come one after another, leaving distributors deeply anxious.
A boss who has been an agent for leisure snacks for 15 years told me: "Some businesses are gone, some are barely surviving, but in the end, inventory still piles up! Payments still come in slowly! We middlemen, squeezed between brand pressure to stock up and terminal slow sales, are about to be dragged down......"
This distributor has voiced the plight of countless peers. The 'retail revolution' is being trumpeted loudly, but distributors know full well: the excitement is theirs; I only have inventory and anxiety.
In fact, it's not just distributors who are anxious. Brands, as the leaders of the distribution system, face no small challenges: streamlining SKUs, naked-price direct sourcing, and private labels—each is a precise strike against the brand-led industry order and distribution network.
What exactly is happening?
In reality, the various changes at the retail end are just the surface; the supply chain behind them is the true 'hidden battlefield.'
Going further, behind the noisy retail scene, a quiet and deep industrial upgrade is underway—a 'circulation modernization revolution' driven by efficiency!
Without the super express train of a modern circulation system and systematic upgrades, no matter how innovative retail stores are, they will only be a 'limping performance.'
We are at a major inflection point. A change involving production, supply, and sales is unfolding, and its intensity may be far greater than you imagine.
### **Retail is the interface; circulation is the system**
In June this year, 'New Distribution' led the Tower Alliance members to inspect Japan's distribution industry. During one conversation, the translator said: "Finally, someone has come to look at circulation."
He said that in the past, Chinese visitors to Japan mostly focused on retail terminals, product development, and consumption trends. But he always remembered that when he first came to Japan and heard Japanese people constantly talking about 'circulation,' he couldn't understand what they were saying......
"What is circulation? Isn't it just freight, wholesale, and distribution?"
Later, he realized: what Japan is truly good at is not the easily visible retail, but the complete set of product flow systems behind it, because it determines what products, through what paths, at what pace, and with what efficiency are delivered to target consumers.
At that moment, a sentence suddenly popped into my head:
Retail is the interface; circulation is the system.
To use an analogy, it's like a computer: it helps us solve various problems through screen interactions, but what actually works is the operating system behind it.
Another example is the ATM: we can withdraw money from it not because of the machine itself, but because it's connected to the banking system, databases, risk control systems, and capital networks behind it.
Of course, retail itself is also a complex 'system,' but the phrase 'retail is the interface, circulation is the system' in the context of the entire industry chain emphasizes that retail is the interface connecting products and consumers, and to achieve product reach, efficiency optimization, and experience management on this interface, it must rely on the larger circulation as the underlying support system.
You might say, isn't this just the retail supply chain?
The retail supply chain, after all, is still from the retail perspective. But the 'circulation' discussed here is a larger system: how products are defined, produced, efficiently flowed, and accepted by users—it determines the operational efficiency of the entire market, not just retail's affair.
Of course, to explain this clearly, starting from retail is the easiest.
### **Retailers growing against the trend all did one thing right**
In the past two years, we have researched many retail samples that have 'grown against the trend,' and found that they often share a common methodology:
Deeply cultivate specific users, build trust relationships, and strengthen the perception of 'I understand you.'
Once, when I communicated with the founder of Xianfeng Life, his words inspired me a lot.
He said that in the past, supermarkets served based on spatial dimensions, providing all-category services to everyone within a few kilometers. But today is different; supermarkets need to reclassify: who are you serving? You must first figure that out!
Xianfeng Life no longer does 'all-categories, all-people' but focuses on the middle-class demographic, delivering across all scenarios such as family, social, and work, creating a high-frequency interaction and exclusive trust interface.
People before products; demand defines supply.
For example, Aldi and Hema NB anchor urban middle-class families seeking value for money through private labels and discount pricing. They value quality, make rational decisions, and tend to prefer private-label products that offer a sense of certainty.
Another example is snack discount stores. They seem to sell 'cheap goods,' but in reality, they cater to young consumer groups, meeting their psychological account needs of 'instant pleasure + low-cost reward': multi-SKU combinations, small packaging, low thresholds, so users can 'grab a few items' and get surprise and satisfaction.
Such samples remind us:
The future of retail is no longer a shelf business but a user business.
What you truly sell is not a product but your ability to 'know what users want, how they want it, and why they buy.'
In an era of excessive choice, users are not facing 'what's missing' but whom to trust and which to choose. The core capability to build this 'trust interface' is reflected in three dimensions:
> 1. Whether you understand the user's 'psychological account': who they spend money for, who they wait for, and what they are sensitive to;
>
> 2. Whether you match the right circulation method: deliver products to them through the path and pace they accept;
>
> 3. Whether you become their 'default option': when they need it, their first reaction is you.
Whether you can become such a trust connection point determines a retailer's ceiling and its position in this major transformation.
What is the core here?
It's the product.
Because products are the carriers of value and what users truly consume, this inevitably involves the upstream of the industry chain, namely brands and distributors.
### **What's being restructured is not just retail**
### **But also the roles of brands and distributors**
How products are defined, how they flow, and how they are accepted by users—this is what circulation is about.
What was it in the past?
Brand production → distributor distribution → retail display → consumer purchase
When retail shifts from 'selling goods' to 'user connection,' it places new demands on the upstream:
Brands can no longer do business in the old way of 'advertising pull + task-based stocking.'
Distributors can no longer just be movers and rebate distributors.
We are seeing a brand-new phenomenon: some retailers, brands, and distributors, consciously or unconsciously, are beginning to build new circulation logic.
For example, brands are starting to co-build small-category trials with retail, customizing SKU combinations by city.
"In the past, customization and OEM were impossible; now channels come to us for these businesses, and we are very open."
It's more than openness. Some businesses, if you don't do them, others will. Even first-tier brands have to lower their posture and actively expand the customization and OEM businesses required by retail.
Another example: some distributors proactively develop new categories and do circulation design, rather than waiting for brand tasks.
A distributor boss said: "If we continue to focus on the big single products of ten years ago, no one will make money."
Together with the manufacturer, he completely changed the packaging of a core single product, changed the specification from 250ml to 200ml, and re-established a price system. The pilot results in the market were very positive.
Also, some retailers use digital systems to feed back upstream, making supply more precise.
Sam's Club, Pangdonglai, Aldi, Hema NB, and snack discount stores all follow this logic. Including Biyoute, a representative of traditional supermarket evolution, through Zhenshimei Supply Chain, it co-creates big single products with brands based on data, with remarkable results.
It's not 'you sell for me' or 'I press you to stock,' but jointly building a supply system that 'can move goods, make money, and be sustainable.'
This will be the direction of the evolution of production, supply, and sales roles, and it's just beginning now.
### **Great change, group anxiety, individual solutions**
From an industry perspective, almost everyone is saying 'too competitive,' 'can't sell,' 'profits are gone.'
But in times of great change, group anxiety, individual solutions!
On the surface, retail is undergoing drastic changes; looking deeper, the underlying logic of the entire circulation system is being restructured.
From an individual perspective, this is actually a systemic reshuffle and a window of opportunity brought by underlying restructuring.
This is not a tactical fine-tuning but a systemic shift. It's the formation of a new paradigm of 'user-defined products,' 'data feeding supply,' and 'production-supply-sales co-construction.'
To see the path of this transformation clearly, on August 20th, in Shanghai, at the 5th China FMCG Retail Innovation Conference, 'New Distribution' is joining forces with frontline industry operators and researchers to create an in-depth conference truly oriented toward 'future growth paths.' What we want to hold is not an 'anxiety exchange meeting' but a practical dialogue of 'structure reconstructors.'
We only answer two key questions: 'What exactly is happening?' and 'What to do?'!
  * Zhang Peiyan, founder of Every Day Convenience Store, will share on-site—Intensified involution: Can zero-supply integration become a solution for convenience stores?
  * Ding Jiachuan, Managing Director and Global Partner of Boston Consulting Group, will share on-site—2025 Consumer Trend Insights and New Growth Opportunities!
  * Lin Yongqiang, Chairman of Guanpai Ke, will share on-site—Big-brand hard discount: How to win the consumer battle through ultimate product selection and operations?
  * Zhang Huiying, National Sales Director of Oishi, will share on-site—Brand growth in the era of retail transformation: Oishi's practice and thinking
  * Zeng Cheng, CEO of Manxiaobao, will share on-site—Product-effect-sales: Sustainable growth from 'planting grass' to 'planting trees'
  * Zhou Xu, Vice President of Biyoute Commercial Group and Co-founder & General Manager of Zhenshimei Supply Chain Management Company, will share on-site—Serving 1000+ supermarket stores and acting as agent for 800+ brands, how does Zhenshimei co-create growth with brands?
  * Xu Liyue, Head of Instant Retail Food and Beverage Industry at Douyin E-commerce, will share on-site—The wave of instant FMCG: The retail revolution from 'shelf' to 'fingertip.'
  * Zhang Zhiqiang, Founder of Yuanzhi Category Management and co-author of 'Category Management,' will share on-site—Low-price competition is a misconception! How can supermarkets use category management to reshape zero-supply relationships?
  * Pan Jinju, Founding Partner of Kuanzhai Venture Capital, will share on-site—Trends in zero-supply system reform under the new consumption cycle.
  * Weng Bocheng, Founder and CEO of Maizima Food, will share on-site—Insight into new demands, creating a super single product with tenfold growth
  * Songgen, Head of Dewu Food, Health, and Pet Life, will share on-site—New retail paradigm: How Dewu builds a 'new FMCG field' trusted by young people
More guests, stay tuned!
On-site major release: 'China FMCG Production-Supply-Sales Transformation White Paper (Industry Insights 2025)'—a comprehensive, multi-dimensional report on the changes of the times in China's FMCG industry, providing directional guidance for supply-side collaborative matching under the major demand shift.
Also, a roundtable dialogue: 'Retail starts making private labels, what should brands do?' Focused on the core current issue, big names will collide fiercely and provide inspiration on-site.
****************************🔺


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 任文青Andy
- Published: 2025-07-29
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-era-of-retail-shelf-selling-is-over-650d8384/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YjZG4RCe6If4CUZi7uhp2g

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