---
title: "Walmart Wants to Spark a 'Simple' Wave with its 'Great Value' Private Brand"
description: "Walmart is actively promoting the refresh and upgrade of its private brand 'Great Value' (沃集鲜), clearly aiming to attract more consumers through it, but the underlying purpose goes far beyond that. On November 17, 2025, Walmart announced the brand refresh of 'Great Value', introducing new brand image, nearly a thousand new or upgraded products, and a brand philosophy centered on simplicity, quality, and value-for-money."
author: "吴文武"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2025-11-29"
categories: "Retail Formats"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/O3jGbMkcQshg2ymGRBmnrA"
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# Walmart Wants to Spark a 'Simple' Wave with its 'Great Value' Private Brand

> Walmart is actively promoting the refresh and upgrade of its private brand 'Great Value' (沃集鲜), clearly aiming to attract more consumers through it, but the underlying purpose goes far beyond that. On November 17, 2025, Walmart announced the brand refresh of 'Great Value', introducing new brand image, nearly a thousand new or upgraded products, and a brand philosophy centered on simplicity, quality, and value-for-money.

**Source** | New Distribution Finance & Economics
Walmart is actively promoting the refresh and upgrade of its private brand 'Great Value' (沃集鲜), clearly aiming to attract more consumers through it, but the underlying purpose goes far beyond that.

**Walmart's Private Brand 'Great Value' Refreshed and Upgraded**

In 2025, competition in the supermarket industry is extremely fierce. Major supermarket brands are pulling out all the stops, constantly telling new retail stories to the market to attract consumers, and even the world's retail giant is no exception.

The author noticed that on November 17, Walmart announced the refresh and upgrade of its private brand 'Great Value' (沃集鲜), which quickly sparked market attention and discussion.

In its official press release, Walmart provided a detailed introduction to the refresh and upgrade of 'Great Value', which overall has the following key points.

The first highlight is the brand image. First and foremost is the refreshed brand image of 'Great Value', which has been comprehensively upgraded in terms of brand identity, store design, and promotional displays, indeed making it visually appealing and significantly enhancing its attractiveness.

The second highlight is the product matrix. 'Great Value' has launched or upgraded nearly a thousand products, mainly concentrated in two core categories: food and fresh produce. These products primarily meet consumers' daily high-frequency living consumption needs, with a focus on product strength.

The third highlight is that 'Great Value' has, for the first time, communicated its brand philosophy to the outside world, especially to consumers. This upgrade of 'Great Value' has proclaimed three core principles: adhering to simple ingredients, adhering to cooperation with leading brands, and adhering to a stable price-performance ratio. Through a curated product strategy and a strict quality control system, it provides consumers with selected high-quality products.

In this upgrade, Walmart has also championed the concept of 'simplicity for freshness', adhering to a core principle of product development: no unnecessary additives, and minimal necessary additives. The ingredient formulas are simple, emphasizing simple ingredients, fresh raw materials, and fresh origin, ensuring product quality and making consumer purchasing decisions and experiences simple.

At the same time, the refreshed 'Great Value' has also done its homework in product quality control, using customer feedback as the standard, and implementing a full-chain management system for quality control that is executable, measurable, and traceable.

The fourth highlight is, of course, the value proposition of product quality and pricing. Walmart's slogan is 'Everyday Low Prices'. It chooses to continue deep cooperation with leading enterprises, while not limiting itself to brand-exclusive or OEM production cooperation methods, to achieve stable quality and supply in large-scale production, providing consumers with delicious and affordable selected products.

Zhu Jun, Senior Vice President of Walmart China and Chief Procurement Officer for Walmart formats, said in the press release: "'Customer first' is the strategic starting point of Walmart, and also the cornerstone and sole starting point of the business logic of 'Great Value'. 'Great Value' embodies Walmart's understanding of differentiated product strength - abandoning the 'retailer mindset', standing from the customer's perspective, returning to the customer value proposition, and conducting a thorough self-innovation and iteration."

"We hope to respond to customers' real needs with deep customer insights and a strict quality control system, ensuring that every healthy, safe, and high-value-for-money 'Great Value' product creates value for customers, thereby better fulfilling our corporate mission of 'Spend less, live better'."

A senior retail industry insider told the author that from Walmart's official announcement of the 'Great Value' brand refresh and its external communications, it is clear that Walmart China places particular importance on the future development of 'Great Value'. This also indicates that Walmart will focus on developing the 'Great Value' private brand in the future and will introduce more new market initiatives.

In the author's view, Walmart, as a retail giant in both the world and China, has industry-leading capabilities in developing private label products. Now focusing on 'Great Value' will naturally attract external attention and deserves industry attention.

**What Does Walmart Aim to Achieve by Refreshing 'Great Value'?**

'Great Value' is Walmart's private brand. Products under the 'Great Value' brand have been sold in Walmart stores, with the 'Great Value' trademark displayed in stores and advertisements on shelves.

In fact, before this brand refresh, Walmart had already been investing in the development and marketing of 'Great Value' products. The author noticed that Walmart placed community advertisements around its store in Tangxia Town, Dongguan, focusing on promoting 'Great Value' and its star products, and even the delivery riders' electric bikes were adorned with the 'Great Value' logo.

So why has Walmart chosen to refresh and upgrade the 'Great Value' private brand now? And what is its intention?

In the author's view, Walmart's decision to refresh 'Great Value' is driven by both external market environment changes and the company's own development needs.

First, looking at changes in the external market environment, overall, China's supermarket industry is accelerating its continuous iteration, and market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Walmart needs to actively adapt.

On one hand, in recent years, traditional hypermarkets have seen a wave of closures, but Walmart's overall store count still maintains a scale advantage.

On the other hand, many local Chinese new retail brands are rising. This year, internet giants like Meituan and JD.com have also entered the physical retail, community supermarket, and community discount store sectors, intensifying market competition.

At the same time, many consumers today have increasingly high requirements for the convenience of supermarket shopping, product quality, freshness, taste, packaging design, and health aspects.

In particular, middle-class families, small families, and singles living in first- and second-tier cities have fast-paced lives and busy work schedules. Most are well-educated and digitally savvy, with a high proportion of spending on food and beverages, and they exhibit clear characteristics of cautious consumption.

This type of consumer not only has demands for quality living but also seeks value for money, i.e., price-performance ratio or value ratio. They also need emotional value from shopping, product consumption, and the consumption and consumption of beverages and food. Life always needs a little 'small happiness'.

It is worth noting that the refreshed 'Great Value' promotes features such as 'reduced sugar, low sugar, and sugar-free'. For example, in the HPP fruit tea series represented by guava and olive tea, pear juice is used instead of white sugar, significantly reducing sweetness, which caters to consumers' health requirements for beverages, especially meeting the healthy consumption needs of young people.

Clearly, 'Great Value' aims to meet the needs of these core target consumer groups. To put it bluntly: Walmart wants to target and capture middle-class families, small families, and other consumer groups through 'Great Value', as they are the core consumer groups fiercely contested by major supermarket brands.

Furthermore, upgrading 'Great Value' also aligns with Walmart's need for sustainable development and strategic transformation in the Chinese market.

As mentioned above, Walmart has closed some traditional hypermarkets, and the remaining hypermarkets also need continuous innovation.

The author noted that Walmart has upgraded hypermarkets in multiple regions across the country, such as lowering shelves, increasing shelf spacing, brightening lighting, and making the shopping environment more transparent, giving consumers a fresh feeling.

Walmart's hypermarkets are already promoting 'Great Value' as a key product line, recommending and selling its series as flagship products. The essence and key of supermarket competition still lie in having sufficient product strength and merchandise strength, which requires continuous upgrading and development of 'Great Value'.

At the same time, Walmart has successfully piloted and begun to scale its new community store model in Shenzhen, which also prominently features 'Great Value', relying on it to create distinctiveness and differentiation.

Thus, Walmart's upgrade of 'Great Value' is both proactive, driven by strategic transformation needs, and reactive, to cope with market competition and meet the shopping needs and expectations of core consumer groups.

**The Era of Supermarket Private Label Products**

**It's Not Easy to Do Private Label Products Well**

From traditional supermarkets to the present, the industry has generally gone through three development stages, each with different operational characteristics.

The first stage is the shelf-thinking stage. In the traditional supermarket era, supermarket companies and stores mainly relied on shelf thinking, with traditional procurement methods. By renting out shelves, charging entry fees, and earning product price differences, they could live comfortably and even 'win without effort'.

The second development stage is the early private label stage. In this stage, more supermarkets launched private label products, with a notable feature being 'big brand alternatives', such as shampoo being cheaper than big brands. The focus was more on financial indicators: whether products sold well, profit performance, and the proportion of private label products.

Now we have entered the third development stage, where private label products are gradually increasing. Major supermarket brands have launched their own private label brands, with representative examples including Sam's Club, Walmart's membership warehouse, and Walmart's own 'Great Value'.

For example, Pang Dong Lai's big mooncakes and beer have become viral hit products. Hema has also launched a relatively high proportion of private label products, and Aldi, a German supermarket brand rapidly expanding in East China, has an even higher proportion of private label products.

Supermarkets develop private label products mainly to create differentiation and effectively control the supply chain. Behind this, a key goal is to achieve higher revenue and profitability.

In the author's view, although major supermarket brands are actively launching more and more private label products, truly doing private label products well and finely is not easy. To do private label products well, supermarkets must have the following capabilities, all of which are indispensable.

The first is the ability to understand customer demand for products. Consumers in different regions, cities, and communities have different needs for supermarket consumption, and even different needs across seasons and times.

This requires supermarket brands, when understanding customer consumption needs, to consider not only the national market's consumption demand but also regional consumer needs.

For example, daily necessities, high-frequency purchases of food, beverages, and some daily necessities are more suitable for Walmart community stores or Walmart stores closer to home, or other supermarket brands.

The second is precise product selection capability. Supermarket products have obvious homogeneity, with not only big-brand products but also more and more private label products. It is important to identify which products can meet the high-frequency consumption needs of core consumer groups.

High-frequency consumption products mainly include food, beverages, fresh produce, and ingredients. They seem simple, but actually doing them well is not easy. Take a bottle of juice as an example: some family consumers prefer large family-size bottles, while young consumers prefer small mini bottles. 'Great Value' has launched a pocket-sized small bottle of juice that is very popular among young people.

The third is supply chain control capability. Supply chain control involves not only the front-end, invisible control capabilities such as supplier admission mechanisms, screening, standard setting, dynamic quality control during production, product sampling, and supplier elimination, but also the visible aspects that consumers can see and perceive during the sales process, such as product appeal and service quality, which are equally crucial.

The fourth is the most critical and fundamental capability: food safety and quality control. The most vital aspect of supermarket private label products is food safety and quality control, which is also the most basic capability.

The author learned that Walmart has established a high-standard food safety, quality control, and compliance management system for the 'Great Value' brand, achieving full-chain, end-to-end quality control management through two dimensions (product control and supplier control) and three links (admission, production, and sales).

According to a Walmart quality control manager, Walmart combines domestic and international standards, adopting a food safety and quality control standard system far higher than industry and national standards, and strictly implements it, treating this as Walmart's moat. Coupled with Walmart's global procurement and local supply chain procurement and control capabilities, this becomes Walmart's unique advantage.

For example, in this 'Great Value' product series, there is a mung bean cake with a shelf life of only three days. It breaks the traditional round shape of mung bean cakes, creating a new design. Under the premise of food safety control, it achieves excellent color, aroma, and taste, innovatively using water chestnut and glutinous rice filling, and is low sugar. The ingredients include avocado puree, seasonal osmanthus, glutinous rice from Thailand, and mung beans from Myanmar. It is produced in South China and sold in stores nationwide, which places extremely high demands on dynamic food safety control and global supply chain procurement and operations.

In the author's view, Walmart's refresh of 'Great Value' emphasizes the concept of 'simplicity first', but what goes on behind the scenes is not simple. From the consumer's perspective, they want simple shopping. To some extent, Walmart wants to use 'Great Value' to spark a 'simple' wave.

The aforementioned industry veteran said that Walmart's 'Great Value' brand upgrade and its future development of private label products are worth attention from the market and local supermarket brands, as they can have a significant industry effect.

As consumers become more sophisticated and rational, but also emotional, in the long run, what truly tests a supermarket brand is its ability to continuously evolve and innovate, and how to keep up with the times.

From Walmart's brand refresh of 'Great Value', its continuous efforts in private label products, and the constant changes in Walmart store image and shopping experience, it is clear that Walmart is accelerating its transformation in the Chinese market. To borrow the phrase from IBM's successful strategic transformation: elephants can also dance.

The cover image and accompanying images in this article are from the internet, and the copyright belongs to the copyright owners. This article does not constitute any investment advice.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 吴文武
- Published: 2025-11-29
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/walmart-wants-to-spark-a-simple-wave-with-its-great-value-private-brand-3a824156/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/O3jGbMkcQshg2ymGRBmnrA

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