“Fewer people are coming into stores; they just order on their phones, and prices are lower than ours. This business is impossible!” This is the most common and desperate feedback I've heard over the past two years. I've also seen countless community store owners struggling in anxiety and groping in confusion. When traditional FMCG tactics completely fail, how should China's millions of community stores survive? My solution is: regional B2B supply chain plus regional hard discount chain. To replicate this proven city model on a national scale, I organized this annual course. But before that, I want to open up my own wounds and explain why I dare to shout at this moment: “From 47 stores to 1 million community stores, I have three years left.” This confidence comes entirely from the four “struggles” I've endured over the past 15 years, paid for with real money and half my life. 15 Years of Blood and Tears: Fully Understanding the Essence of Regional Business

  1. With 400,000 yuan in hand, I wanted to monopolize community business In 2011, I retired from the military, and the state arranged a railway job for me, which was enough to support a stable and decent life. But the saying “Join the army in troubled times, go into business in prosperous times” lingered in my mind. Moreover, my family had run a supermarket early on, and I had long sensed that communities are the core entrance to offline traffic. Whoever gets the community gets the C-end; whoever gets the C-end gets the world. So I resolutely took my 100,000 yuan severance pay and borrowed another 300,000 yuan from my mother as startup capital. I opened my first store in a high-end community in Tangshan—Lianshang Community Service Center. This was a community third-party service platform combining housekeeping services with a grain and oil supermarket. Without professional operational knowledge, relying purely on daring and tenacity, I unexpectedly hit the pain point: among the 2,300 households in the community, over 700 signed up for annual cleaning cards, 80% of nannies were matched through us, and the supermarket business maintained an average daily turnover of 8,000 yuan. I thought I had found the way, so I immediately opened two more stores. But reality slapped me hard: without professional operations and management capabilities, chain expansion was just empty talk. The hired store managers were chaotic, housekeeping services couldn't be promoted, and inventory, sourcing channels, and store management were a mess. Customer complaints were constant, and accounts couldn't be reconciled. So in 2013, I closed those three stores myself.
  2. The collapse of 47 stores bought a bloody lesson After closing the stores, I embarked on a nationwide learning journey about convenience stores. I visited all Japanese-style convenience stores in China, as well as regional specialty stores and supermarkets. I also worked as a management trainee at a Japanese convenience store and a convenience store in Taiyuan, thoroughly learning the basics from store development to product operations. In 2015, I returned to Tangshan and started Beiquan Community Life Convenience Stores, while grafting an “Internet + community convenience store” model to provide delivery in communities. In two years, I opened 47 community stores (3 directly operated + 44 franchised). I thought I had caught the trend, but I failed again at the core link—the supply chain. At that time, my thinking was simple: first open direct stores, then franchise, and once the scale was big, go back and build the city supply chain. But without localized one-stop supply chain support, franchisees complained about supply issues, and their stickiness to me kept declining. Relying solely on franchise fees, the company couldn't survive. In the end, all 47 stores were closed. This also verified a logic: doing franchising first and then supply chain is very difficult to succeed.
  3. From riding high to falling into hell Relying on the store development and operations skills I had honed in previous years, in 2017, through an industry friend, I became a service provider for Tmall Store under Retail Link. We expanded crazily in 17 cities including Yantai, Weihai, and Tangshan, franchising over 1,300 stores in two years. At that time, I could be described as “riding high with a swift horse, seeing all the flowers of Chang'an in a day,” thinking I had finally found the way to nationalize community business. But the sudden shutdown of the Tmall Store project brought everything to an abrupt halt. Not only did I lose over 9 million yuan of investors' money, but I also had to close 17 companies within two months and disband my brothers who had fought alongside me. The immense psychological pressure broke me down. I developed gastrointestinal problems and lay in the hospital for three full months. That was the darkest moment of my life, falling from the clouds to the bottom of the valley.
  4. Cutting off my arm to survive again, fully understanding the essence of regional business After being discharged from the hospital, at the invitation of Mr. Yu from Tangshan Yihe, I served as the operator for their trade transformation. During 2019-2020, I calmed down and completed extensive validation of all theories and practices for transforming a trading company into B2b, opening up the underlying cognitive loop. But the fire in my bones didn't die. People who have done national business are always unwilling to be confined to one corner. In 2021, I founded the national B2b platform “Dianxiaomeng,” expanding to 117 cities with 300,000 registered stores. I also launched the community convenience store “Xiaomeng Linli” and started national franchising. Trying to build a national supply system, I failed again on “localization.” Relying on a model of national drop-shipping plus local resident merchants, lacking local one-stop supply chain support, I couldn't achieve next-day delivery, nor could I help stores optimize product structure or reduce inventory. Even if I solved the problem of selling goods, I couldn't truly help community stores solve their operational difficulties. This erroneous trial drained tens of millions in funds. Since the city model couldn't work, I painfully shut down the project again and finally figured it out completely: B2b business, without regional deep cultivation, talking about national empowerment is all nonsense.
  5. The final battle: anchoring the vision of one million community stores Having figured this out, starting in 2023, I entered the B2b consulting and coaching track. With lessons from countless failures and practical experience, I guided domestic distributors in transformation. In three years, I successfully coached 65 leading B2b supply chain distributors. Watching regional distributors go from confusion to clarity, from fighting alone to becoming the supply chain core of regional community business, I finally found the right way. Fifteen years, four entrepreneurial attempts, the pits I fell into and the tuition I paid have all become my confidence in deeply cultivating the B2b track. Standing at the node of 2026, I deeply know that distributor transformation to B2b is only the first step of a long march. Pure regional B2b is not the optimal model in cities. Only by building a regional supply chain plus regional chain (hard discount) can we completely solve the problem of high-quality B2b development and truly help millions of community small and medium stores live better and survive the cycle. This is the whole reason I'm holding this annual course. Old Tactics Completely Fail: The Industry Needs a Systematic Solution In the past 30 years, the core tactic of China's FMCG has been just four words: channel intensive cultivation (deep distribution). Manufacturers divide territories by street and district, requiring you to set up displays, hang strips, and do tastings; domestic retail learned a whole set of “front-end gross profit, back-end gross profit” tactics from foreign hypermarkets led by Carrefour, charging barcode fees, display fees, and activity fees. In the era when industry gross margins were still generous, this high-cost “intensive cultivation” could work. But today, this model directly leads to two fatal results: First, manufacturers' administrative divisions and a large number of brand exclusivity restrictions have cut all Chinese distributors into “small merchants” that can't grow. Second, all the huge link costs generated for “intensive cultivation” are ultimately added to the selling price of goods, paid by consumers. Today's consumers no longer pay for these high premiums. When channels like snack stores and discount stores that can sell low-priced goods appear in the market, traditional stores still selling at high prices are immediately and mercilessly abandoned. Low price is not just a slogan; low price is an extremely demanding capability. In today's brutal stock era, only total cost leadership can provide a true low-price advantage. And total cost leadership must rely on “scale” and “density,” which traditional small merchants simply don't have. Therefore, the entire industry chain must shift from “deep distribution” to “efficient distribution.” In this dead end, every link in our industry chain must be completely restructured: Community stores must abandon the “Japanese fantasy”; hard discount chain transformation is the only way. Chinese convenience stores have learned from Japan for 30 years, believing in the “high purchase, high sale, high gross profit + fresh food” model. But in China's highly developed dining and delivery ecosystem, this path has gone astray. To survive, stores must lower prices. Fighting alone can't get low prices; you must join a strong system and hand over purchasing rights for “collective procurement.” Only by buying low can you sell low. Distributors must tear down boundaries and transform into regional B2b. If you still stick to the small plot divided by manufacturers, you're doomed. Doing regional B2b means weakening the “city concept” and strengthening the “single warehouse concept.” Whether you have 300 or 1,000 stores, rely on one central warehouse and one set of goods to achieve next-day delivery. Break the limits of administrative regions and brands, and serve stores with full categories. On the surface, we're competing on price; in essence, we're competing on extreme efficiency. Facing such a life-and-death systemic restructuring, relying on today's fragmented sharing in the industry can't save FMCG at all. We need a complete, in-depth, systematic practical solution. 9 Hours of Hardcore Analysis: The Ultimate City Model to Survive the Cycle In October 2025, I held the first Distributor Annual Course in Nanjing, speaking for a full 9 hours and delivering 99 practical arguments, with nearly 500 distributor companies present. On March 17, 2026, I will hold the second Yunchuan Annual Course at the Chengdu CFC Conference—The Era Opportunity of Community Retail Store Collective Procurement. “9 hours, 6 major sections, 99 arguments,” completely revealing the solution to restructuring the industry chain.
  • Morning session: Break down the core logic of “efficient distribution can take us through the cycle” and analyze the necessary path of “hard discount chain transformation for community retail stores.”
  • Afternoon session: Deep dive into the “necessity of distributors upgrading to regional B2b” and provide the ultimate answer to survive the cycle—the “trade-B2b + chain store city model.”
  • Evening session: Solve the most practical growth issues: “category management and iteration of the product portfolio to drive growth,” and discuss the ultimate ecosystem of “brands achieving large-scale efficient coverage of community stores.” This ultimate city model is not imagined in an office; it was fought for with real money in the market. For this course, I invited the top practical experts in the country to form a strong guest speaker team:
  • Provincial-level regional supply chain—Jiapin Yunshi + regional hard discount chain—Lingmanduo
  • Prefecture-level supply chain—Tangshan Yihe + regional hard discount chain—Jijide
  • Provincial capital city trade—Shengxing Zhonghe + B2b—Guoran Shifen
  • Prefecture-level trade—Luoyang Hecai + B2b representative—Shendu Yigou They will use the most real operational data to verify on site: community store collective procurement not only works but can build an extremely formidable competitive barrier. From 47 Stores to 1 Million Community Stores: I Have Three Years Left Having seen the endgame clearly, the rest is just relentless effort. These are the three major projects I will devote all my energy to in the next three years: Distributor B2b Transformation Project: Find 220 slots nationwide to help traditional distributors break through regional and brand restrictions and achieve a breakthrough. Hard Discount Chain Project: With the country's leading regional B2b, deeply develop hard discount franchise chain business in the region. National Brand Distribution Project: Help truly excellent national brands cover community stores at the million level in the most efficient way. As a veteran, I'm used to locking onto a target and not letting go. From the defeat of 47 stores in Tangshan to the future goal of 1 million community stores, this road is difficult, but I've already flattened all the deep pits over 15 years. In this great transformation, no one can stand alone. Whether you're an anxious brand, a struggling distributor, or a retail store owner fighting for survival, in nine hours, I'll give you all the underlying knowledge and practical solutions without reservation. See you at the course.