Source | Innovation Retail Society On February 11, 2026, Yu Donglai, founder of Pangdonglai, posted on social media: "After the Chinese New Year, I will officially retire and become a consultant. Pangdonglai's work will be led by the Pangdonglai Decision Committee." This news has drawn industry attention. As of press time, Pangdonglai's official channels have not yet released a formal personnel change announcement. As a recognized soul figure in China's retail industry, Yu Donglai's influence has long exceeded the boundaries of his company. Over thirty years of entrepreneurship, with almost obsessive idealism, he has polished a tiny supermarket into a nationally renowned business model, earning the respect of both the market and peers. With the founder stepping back, Pangdonglai is about to enter a new era driven by organizational systems. Let's look back thirty years to see how it built its current business order from a small 40-square-meter shop, and what survival soil and institutional foundation Yu Donglai left for the company. Pangdonglai's Development and Systems According to public data: Pangdonglai was founded in March 1995 in Xuchang, Henan, opening a 40-plus-square-meter shop called "Wangyue Tower Fatty Shop," mainly selling cigarettes, alcohol, and small general merchandise, with a strict promise of "no fake goods." In 1997, the company was renamed "Pangdonglai Cigarette and Alcohol Co., Ltd." and opened branch stores, quickly gaining fame in Xuchang for honest business practices. Entering the 21st century, Pangdonglai further improved its supply chain and organizational systems: Around 2001, it took the lead in initiating the "Four-Party Joint Procurement" regional procurement alliance. In 2006, it entered Xinxiang, introducing large comprehensive stores and aligning with international chain standards for suppliers. The company's development was not smooth sailing. From 2012 to 2015, due to management pressure from over-expansion, Pangdonglai once aggressively proposed plans to "close 13 stores in Xuchang" and "exit the Xinxiang market." However, after pleas from the government and the public, in October 2014, the board decided to cancel the store closure plans and instead focus on internal governance: implementing a full employee shareholding structure. During this period, Yu Donglai also announced he would gradually withdraw from daily management to focus on corporate spiritual and cultural construction. This crisis became a key turning point for Pangdonglai to shift from "getting bigger" to "getting better." After more than a decade of steady development, as of December 2025, Pangdonglai had 14 core stores in Xuchang and Xinxiang, Henan, including 5 comprehensive department stores, 7 medium-sized community supermarkets, 1 specialty clothing store, and a newly opened comprehensive commercial complex in Xinxiang. In terms of operating systems, Pangdonglai has always practiced the values of "employees first, customers first." Employee benefits: Founder Yu Donglai once proposed allocating 95% of operating profits to dividends. According to public data, the average monthly salary for ordinary positions reached around 5,000 yuan years ago, and in 2024, the officially disclosed average monthly income (including benefits) was about 9,000 yuan, far exceeding the industry average. Additionally, the company strictly implements policies such as "closed on Tuesdays" (for some stores) and two days off per week; Yu Donglai also mentioned multiple times in 2025 that in the future, weekly working hours would be compressed to under 36 hours, and annual leave increased to 40 days. Extreme service: Pangdonglai pioneered value-added services such as no-questions-asked returns, free purchasing agency, and covering cars in rain. In May 2025, the company further upgraded its service commitment, announcing that returns of high-value items like Hetian jade and jadeite would "not deduct handling fees or taxes," once again raising the ceiling for retail service. However, extreme commercial reputation is often a double-edged sword. This near-'altar' status also comes with significant costs. 2025: A Year of Turmoil in Public Opinion The past year, 2025, may have been the most severe year of "excessive scrutiny" for Yu Donglai: because Pangdonglai was too popular, his every word and action was placed under a microscope and magnified to the extreme. First, there were baseless accusations against the company. At the beginning of the year, an internet influencer posted a video on Douyin claiming that wearing "red women's underwear" bought at Pangdonglai caused an allergic reaction, and publicly accused the company. The incident quickly escalated, drawing widespread social attention. It wasn't until May 28 that the Weidu District People's Court in Xuchang ruled that the influencer had infringed on reputation rights, ordering a public apology and compensation of 400,000 yuan in economic losses to Pangdonglai. This "red underwear" controversy finally came to an end. No sooner had one wave subsided than another arose. In April, netizen "Chai Dui Dui" posted videos questioning Pangdonglai's profit model and jade business. Facing the doubts, Pangdonglai chose to complain to the platform. After verification, Douyin determined that 29 videos posted by the user were suspected of infringement, directly took them down and restricted the account. Subsequently, Pangdonglai formally filed a lawsuit against the user. These two incidents made Yu Donglai realize: The company is too popular and has become a 'target' for various traffic seekers. What frustrated him even more was the over-interpretation of his personal remarks. In June, after liking controversial comments by entrepreneur Nie Shengzhe about Dong Yuhui, Yu Donglai was drawn into a controversy. Some netizens mistakenly thought he was criticizing Dong Yuhui, forcing him to personally record a video to clarify: "I never said anything about Dong Yuhui because I don't know him well." In September, as the controversy between Luo Yonghao and Xibei Catering founder Jia Guolong escalated, Yu Donglai posted in support of Xibei, intending to call for industry unity, but it drew fierce criticism from some netizens. The pressure of public opinion forced him to urgently delete the relevant post, and in subsequent posts he lamented, "Return to your own world! Enjoy the beauty of every day," and his personal account was even briefly set to private. These successive incidents show: Yu Donglai's personal color is too strong, and this has become a double-edged sword. When every breath of the founder becomes news, and when an offhand remark can cause a huge uproar, it becomes difficult for the company to do business quietly. In his retirement statement on February 11, he specifically mentioned "letting young people bravely take on the mission," which to some extent is also to extricate himself from the endless whirlpool of public opinion and make the company no longer dependent on personal aura. However, no matter how fierce the online arguments, they didn't stop Pangdonglai from making money. On the contrary, its performance in 2025 rose instead of falling, giving Yu Donglai the confidence to completely let go. Another Kind of 'Entrepreneurial Spirit' Data is the best touchstone and validates the business logic Yu Donglai has championed for years. Even at the peak of the public opinion storm, Pangdonglai's business machine still ran the steepest growth curve in history—its 2025 operating performance report shows: annual revenue reached 23.531 billion yuan, a significant increase of 38.7% compared to 17 billion yuan in 2024. By business segment, the supermarket business remained core with revenue of 12.643 billion yuan; the jewelry segment performed outstandingly, with revenue exceeding 2.451 billion yuan; even the tea category achieved remarkable results, creating a record of 1.063 billion yuan. Among them, the top-performing single store, Times Square Store, achieved annual revenue of 6 billion yuan, a figure equivalent to the annual revenue of a medium-sized chain supermarket. This shows that consumers' votes with real money offset the online criticism. The foundation of this trust stems from the unique soul Yu Donglai gave the company—extreme altruism. In China's business landscape, Yu Donglai represents a distinctly different kind of entrepreneurial spirit. He does not pursue listing, does not pursue becoming the richest man, and even actively limits the company's expansion speed. The words he often uses are not profit margins or market share, but love, freedom, and dignity. In his view, business is not just a place for transactions, but a carrier for releasing goodwill. Whether it's the high salaries and "grievance awards" given to employees, or the "no-questions-asked returns" promised to customers, it's essentially about rebuilding the trust contract between people in commercial society. This "anti-involution" business philosophy was once seen as an outlier by peers, but ultimately formed Pangdonglai's deepest moat. When this culture is deeply ingrained, the company gains vitality beyond the individual. Yu Donglai's choice to retire now may be to complete the final step of this puzzle: transforming Yu Donglai's personal charm into Pangdonglai's organizational belief. He is trying to prove that this altruistic entrepreneurial spirit does not need to rely on the constant presence of an "all-powerful parent" but can self-replicate and thrive within an institutional framework. From this perspective, handing over the baton to the decision committee is not just a change of power, but also an ultimate stress test of the maturity of these values. Final Thoughts Yu Donglai emphasizes that Pangdonglai is essentially a "school," with the philosophy of "being true to oneself and living happily" as its genetic core. This decision is a brave attempt to push the company from "individual-driven" to "organization-driven." But challenges remain: without the founder's aura, can management continue to uphold that warm altruistic spirit in 2026? Will Yu Donglai truly fade into obscurity, or will he, like many predecessors, "retire but not really retire"? All this needs time to answer. Regardless, this is a respectable turn—because the best founders often choose to engrave their spiritual genes into the company's bones, while returning themselves to vast freedom.