Yonghui Superstores' core intention is to reuse the operational resources of 'stores as warehouses', opening a new battlefield through the 'time dimension', transforming full-category coverage and supply chain advantages into user experience barriers, further exploring incremental scenarios and releasing the nighttime economy dividend. The news of 'Yonghui Superstores piloting 24-hour delivery service' has attracted industry attention. In response, relevant staff at Yonghui Superstores stated that after in-depth market research and extensive user feedback collection, they learned that many residents still have urgent needs for daily necessities and emergency supplies during late-night hours. Therefore, Yonghui decided to open some warehouses and implement 24-hour uninterrupted business services. As long as you are within the coverage area of the pilot warehouses, you can easily purchase the goods you need at any time.

Image: Yonghui Life 24-hour delivery service

The author learned that currently, the coverage area for Yonghui Superstores' 24-hour full-category delivery service includes 11 warehouses in parts of Fuzhou's Gulou, Taijiang, Jin'an, Cangshan, Changle, and Minhou. Although full coverage is not yet possible, Yonghui Life stated that it will continue to optimize the overall operation model and expand service scope.

Cloud Warehouses Expand Increment

At this stage, Yonghui Superstores has opened 11 warehouses in the Fuzhou area for linkage, specifically including: Yonghui Fujian Fuzhou Shangdu Warehouse, Fuzhou Baihuazhou Warehouse, Fuzhou Yanshan Building Warehouse, Fuzhou Qunsheng Warehouse, Fuzhou Xiheli Warehouse, Fuzhou Tatou Warehouse, Fuzhou Binjiang Jinrong Warehouse, Fuzhou West Passenger Station Warehouse, Fuzhou Changle Wanxing Warehouse, Fuzhou Changle Zhenghe Warehouse, and Fuzhou Minhou Qingkou Warehouse.

Image: The 11 warehouses currently providing 24-hour full-category delivery service

Choosing the Fuzhou base as the first stop for piloting 24-hour operation and delivery services indicates that Yonghui is quite cautious in exploring all-time consumption scenarios. If the Fuzhou model proves successful, it is only a matter of time before supermarkets nationwide follow suit. Of course, this move reflects Yonghui's confidence in its supply chain capabilities and brand awareness in core regions, but it also indirectly reveals that the ongoing 'Pang Donglai-style' store renovations have not yet healed the pain of Yonghui's expected loss in 2024 (and the full-year operating situation has not improved significantly compared to 2023). This stems from the deep imprint of transformation anxiety among traditional supermarket enterprises and the determination to seek market increment.

As a retail enterprise also founded in Fuzhou, Pumu Supermarket is an unavoidable topic. It is also one of the typical representatives challenging the traditional supermarket model with its front-warehouse model. From this perspective, Yonghui's latest move is to some extent a defensive layout against front-warehouse players like Pumu, who seize the fresh food instant retail market with '30-minute delivery'. However, Yonghui's core intention is still to reuse the operational resources of 'stores as warehouses', opening a new battlefield through the 'time dimension', transforming full-category coverage and supply chain advantages into user experience barriers, further exploring incremental scenarios and releasing the nighttime economy dividend.

Yonghui Superstores' category advantage is particularly evident. Relevant data shows that Yonghui's single-store SKU exceeds 8,000, with fresh food accounting for over 50%, while Pumu's front-warehouse SKU is about 3,000-4,000 (fresh food accounting for 30%), and Jianfu convenience stores only have 1,000-2,000 (mainly standard products). Compared with common goods, Yonghui stores can stock more long-tail items for household emergencies. 24-hour delivery can tap into scenarios such as household emergencies (e.g., antipyretics, maternal and infant products) and late-night snacks (e.g., hot pot base, beer) to meet users' nighttime consumption needs, while front-warehouses and convenience stores are limited by storage space and cannot cover these.

Image: Non-24-hour delivery area (left) 24-hour delivery area (right)

Furthermore, Yonghui stores serve offline foot traffic during the day and switch to online order fulfillment at night. The 24-hour service will help Yonghui extend from 'planned purchasing' scenarios to 'immediate demand', increasing the frequency of users opening the APP/mini-program, and promoting the shift from 'weekly active' to 'daily active'. Of course, whether Yonghui Superstores can leverage the 'peak-shifting and valley-filling' effect of nighttime orders still depends on product quality and service fulfillment stability. In other words, the key to the success of Yonghui's 24-hour delivery service lies in achieving 'demand density > cost threshold' through data-driven approaches and establishing the image of a 'reliable nighttime supplier' in users' minds. If sales do not pick up, the idea of spreading marginal costs will be difficult to realize.

'Pang Donglai-style' Renovation Improves Services

Yonghui's 'Pang Donglai-ization' renovation is essentially an exploration of a 'high-experience, high-cost, high-premium' survival path in the fiercely competitive market. On May 5, 2024, Yonghui Superstores reached a consensus with Xuchang Pang Donglai, with Pang Donglai assisting Yonghui in store renovations. On May 30, the Zhengzhou Xinwan Plaza store closed for renovation. On June 19, the renovated store officially resumed operations, with first-day sales reaching 1.88 million yuan, 13.9 times the average daily sales before renovation, and customer traffic increasing 5.3 times.

Image source: Yonghui Tongdao

Since then, other Yonghui stores in Zhengzhou have also undergone renovations one after another, introducing Pang Donglai's product structure, supply chain capabilities, and service concepts. In August of the same year, Yonghui Superstores launched the first batch of self-initiated renovation stores learning from Pang Donglai, carrying out store upgrades in 10 cities including Hefei, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, and Chengdu. The renovated stores have significantly improved in products, services, and environment, attracting a large number of consumers. On February 11 this year, Yonghui also officially announced the first batch of renovation stores for the Year of the Snake, totaling 20 stores, involving 15 cities. Among them, 8 new renovation cities were added: Wuhan, Taiyuan, Nanning, Kaifeng, Wenzhou, Dongguan, Mianyang, and Fuqing. At that time, renovation stores will cover 26 cities, and the 'first-release economy' is expected to drive consumption upgrades in multiple business districts, benefiting more citizens with the business model of quality and happiness.

Image source: Yonghui Tongdao

Although the performance of renovated stores has improved, for the huge Yonghui Superstores, the success of a dozen or so stores is not enough to shake the overall performance, and the partial success has not completely reversed Yonghui Superstores' overall decline. Yonghui's 2024 performance pre-loss announcement released in January this year shows that the company's net profit attributable to the parent company is expected to be -1.40 billion yuan in 2024, and the non-GAAP net profit is expected to be -2.21 billion yuan, further widening the loss compared to last year. In fact, this situation was already reflected in the 2024 third-quarter report: Yonghui Superstores' revenue declined 16.40% year-on-year, with both net profit attributable to the parent company and non-GAAP net profit negative, and losses expanding year-on-year. Some industry analysts believe: Yonghui's loss is essentially the pain of the 'transition period between old and new models', not the failure of the model itself. Yonghui faces the contradiction of short-term cost pressure and long-term benefit lag during the 'Pang Donglai-style' renovation process. Therefore, to make Pang Donglai's model fully blossom and bear fruit in Yonghui Superstores, more time and larger-scale investment are still needed.

The transformation path of traditional retail is destined to walk on a knife's edge. The cruelty of the retail industry is that the trial-and-error window left for Yonghui may not exceed 18 months, and balancing 'survival' and 'evolution' is urgent. Yonghui, actively seeking change in crisis, the move of 'open stores by day, warehouses by night' has already shown that it will not put all its eggs in one basket. Looking back, perhaps as early as when Ye Guofu continued to be optimistic about the development prospects of instant retail and flash warehouse formats, and officially announced that Miniso would significantly increase its investment in '24H (hour) super stores' in the flash warehouse format, the groundwork was laid for the launch of Yonghui's 24-hour delivery service.

【New Order · Symbiosis】

The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference

Time: March 17-19, 2025

Location: Chengdu, China