---
title: "The 'New Retail' Led Astray by Jack Ma Is Finally Being Brought Back on Track by Pangdonglai and Others"
description: "Miao Qingxian argues that the 'new retail' concept was hyped without clear definition, but true new retail is about selling goods, experiences, and services rather than shelf space, traffic, or ads. Retailers like Pangdonglai and Sam's Club are leading this shift, which will reshape the entire supply chain and the roles of manufacturers and distributors."
author: "苗庆显"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-11-11"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-new-retail-led-astray-by-jack-ma-is-finally-being-brought-back-on-tr-78e4bc6c/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-new-retail-led-astray-by-jack-ma-is-finally-being-brought-back-on-tr-78e4bc6c.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FsllZrLUxKuz0zxi8RAwMg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%A2%AB%E9%A9%AC%E4%BA%91%E5%B8%A6%E8%B7%91%E5%81%8F%E7%9A%84-%E6%96%B0%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE-%E7%BB%88%E4%BA%8E%E8%A6%81%E8%A2%AB%E8%83%96%E4%B8%9C%E6%9D%A5%E4%BB%AC%E5%B8%A6%E5%9B%9E%E6%AD%A3%E9%81%93%E4%BA%86-78e4bc6c.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-new-retail-led-astray-by-jack-ma-is-finally-being-brought-back-on-tr-78e4bc6c/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# The 'New Retail' Led Astray by Jack Ma Is Finally Being Brought Back on Track by Pangdonglai and Others

> Miao Qingxian argues that the 'new retail' concept was hyped without clear definition, but true new retail is about selling goods, experiences, and services rather than shelf space, traffic, or ads. Retailers like Pangdonglai and Sam's Club are leading this shift, which will reshape the entire supply chain and the roles of manufacturers and distributors.

Miao Qingxian
In recent years, the explosion of the 'new retail' concept has been quite bewildering. Even Teacher Ma (Jack Ma) didn't clearly explain it, repeating only the 'reconstruction of people, goods, and places,' and the Alibaba Research Institute's lengthy report didn't clarify it either. Yet it became a craze—rushed and chaotic. Since no one understood it, everyone claimed the right to define it: e-commerce called itself 'new retail,' wechat business called itself new retail, O2O called itself new retail, B2B called itself new retail, live streaming called itself new retail, same-city life services called itself new retail, and private domain players also called themselves new retail... Everyone thought they were different from others. As long as there was something different, it was new retail. But clear-eyed people know: business concepts have positions, especially new ones. Teacher Ma's new retail stance is that of the platform. His 'reconstruction of people, goods, and places' is from the platform's perspective, aiming to reintegrate and even transform the entire supply chain and consumption scenarios, with the platform gaining dominance and becoming the biggest beneficiary. Others who jumped on the 'new retail' bandwagon were just making noise, or 'ducks learning Quanjude's thinking.'

Is there really new retail? Of course there is. The market is always changing, and new things always emerge. Today's new retail may become old retail tomorrow. To determine what today's 'new retail' should be, we must first understand what today's 'old retail' is. Mr. Kotler's famous saying is worth repeating every day and every month: 'Form is irrelevant; function is what matters.' Whether it's selling in physical stores or online, live streaming or seeding and traffic generation, these are forms. But whether it can provide experience, promotion, more effective display, immediate delivery, or bear transaction risks—these are functions. In recent years, old retail has had an important characteristic—'asset-light.' They used their advantage of being closer to customers to gain the greatest bargaining power in the supply chain, thereby transferring maximum risk to suppliers, i.e., payment on account, delaying payment to suppliers for three to four months or even a year. This seemingly 'guaranteed profit without loss' approach not only harmed suppliers but also hurt retailers themselves: once you don't bear the risk of 'selling goods,' over time, you inevitably lose the ability to 'sell goods' and the ability to grasp market demand. When a retailer loses the ability to 'sell goods,' they all turn to another function: **selling shelf space**. For years, almost all large retailers have relied on entry fees, barcode fees, special display fees, and DM fees to survive. Over time, these retailers have transformed into 'commercial real estate developers.' Their functional essence is merely renting a mall, dividing it into individual shelves, and subletting them at high prices to suppliers. Online retail platforms are the same; they sell 'traffic,' but essentially they still sell online shelf space. They are online commercial real estate plus advertisers. In recent years, most so-called 'new retail' has actually been 'new retail formats,' which are just 'shelves' in a different guise. For example, most live streaming and so-called interest e-commerce.

Why is the market economy great? Because every market entity is responsible for its own actions, so efficiency is naturally highest. Once a retailer is not responsible for retail results, it gradually loses market sensitivity. The characteristics of the trading area, customer needs, market changes—they become numb and indifferent, like walking dead. The fundamental feature of new retail is to pull old retail's 'selling shelf space,' 'selling traffic,' and 'selling ads' back to **'selling goods,' 'selling experiences,' and 'selling services.'** These are exactly what Pangdonglai is doing, what Sam's Club is doing, what snack discount stores are doing, what Costco is doing, and what MINISO is doing. So in old retail, supermarkets say: display, display, display; physical stores say: location, location, location; e-commerce says: traffic, traffic, traffic. This is all commercial real estate logic. But in new retail, they say: **customers, customers, customers**. This is the real retail. Over the years, the phenomenon of '**absence of retail entities**' in the business chain has truly begun to change. Pangdonglai is most praised in the industry for its efficient product planning and assortment. This comes partly from Mr. Donglai's ability and years of experience, and partly from the inevitable result of the new retail model: **as long as a company is responsible for the final retail results, the one that emerges in the market will be the one that best meets customer needs and provides the most retail value**.

The second impressive thing Pangdonglai and others have done is that they did not use the advantage of 'retailers being closest to customers' for risk transfer, but to build retailer brands. Thus, Pangdonglai has a brand, MINISO has a brand, Sam's Club has a brand, and through brands, they gain greater premium and supply chain advantages. Then came the 'obsessive' service to customers, the 'obsessive' care for employees, and then various internet topics and the 'Learn from Donglai' craze. The change from old to new retail is also accompanied by a collision of corporate values. Old retail that sells shelf space finds it hard to shake off the mindset of rapid expansion and quick monetization, while Pangdonglai and others may scoff at it. When Pangdonglai assisted Yonghui's transformation, as soon as there was a sign, Boss Zhang quickly sold a large number of shares to MINISO. It shows that the original Yonghui was not most concerned about business transformation, but about cashing out whenever possible. MINISO, on the other hand, shares similar values with Pangdonglai, and only companies with similar values can go far together. In the logic of commercial real estate, Pangdonglai's transformation of Yonghui may be nothing, just hard work. But in Ye Guofu's eyes, it's a real treasure. I wonder if the two bosses, when discussing the acquisition, secretly despised each other as fools. Whether or not they can truly learn, 'Learn from Donglai' has been advocated countless times in the industry, and the 'bare procurement' model has also been vigorously promoted. This is worth celebrating, because the rise of new retail and retail brands will not only affect the retail industry. Its impact on distributors and manufacturers will be profound, and it will shape the future business landscape. When retailers sell 'shelf space,' suppliers have to 'buy shelf space' and 'match shelf space,' so a manufacturer must produce enough products to occupy shelves, grab traffic, and convert shelf space (traffic), because 'display is the life of sales,' 'location is the life of stores,' and 'traffic is the life of e-commerce.' Distributors, in turn, have to treat manufacturers as their 'customers,' because retailers only provide 'shelf space,' and to monetize, they must help manufacturers 'occupy shelves' and 'sell goods.' Distributors often identify as 'agents of a certain brand.' Whatever the manufacturer produces, they are required to represent, and if they can't, they find another to supplement. They help manufacturers sell goods and earn money from promotion, so manufacturers are the 'real customers' of distributors, and slightly larger brands must be served. In the new retail era, everything will change. Whether suppliers can afford shelf space becomes irrelevant. A manufacturer producing a large number of products could previously buy shelf space to create 'more displays, more sales opportunities,' allowing an ordinary product to achieve decent sales. But now, if the product does not have stronger customer satisfaction, better scenario matching, and consumption experience, it will be abandoned by retailers. An ordinary brand may produce thousands of products, but often only one or two are unique in the industry. Previously, they could use 'buying shelf space' and 'buying traffic' to let these one or two products with absolute competitive advantages drive sales of at least a hundred other products. But for new retail companies, they may only need those one or two product categories. Ordinary products that are not absolutely leading or differentiated in the industry will lose the chance to even appear in the market. So many manufacturers will see a cliff-like decline, and their 'brands' accumulated over the years seem useless; they can only compete on price. New distributors will start treating retailers as their customers and begin calling themselves 'supply chain brands' instead of 'distributors of a certain brand.' They start to combine their product structures, provide differentiated services, and form their own 'products.' They have begun to refuse to represent all products of manufacturers, and even refuse to accept 'sales tasks' given by manufacturers. Those distributors who still rely on having a 'brand' or 'channel resources' will find that business is no longer viable.

Starting from new retail, each link in the channel chain will reshape its core functions. The division of labor becomes finer, values become more complementary, and each has its own competitiveness. Understanding this will help you see the industry landscape for consumer goods for at least the next decade.


---

## 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