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Articles by 零售氪星球
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Freshippo's Super HeSuan NB Aims for Efficiency War
The hottest topic in China's supermarket industry has shifted from 'Pang Reform' to 'hard discount stores'. Freshippo's community discount supermarket, Freshippo NB, recently rebranded as 'Super HeSuan NB' and officially launched, with plans to open 300 stores in the Yangtze River Delta. The store, covering 1,000 square meters with 1,600 SKUs, targets price-sensitive consumers with ultra-cost-effective products.
零售氪星球Interview with Hema Buyers: 8 Trends for Hit Products
At Hema's 10th anniversary Fresh & Delicious Life Festival in August, category buyers showcased new products. The latest 'Hema 10th Anniversary Consumption Trend Insight' identifies 'fresh, healthy, self-pleasing' as the main battlefield for future product development. Interviews with buyers in bakery, low-GI, HPP, fruit, and snacks reveal new products and trends that can guide peers seeking differentiation.
零售氪星球How to View JD's 7FRESH Supermarket Accelerating Its 'Warehouse-Store' Expansion?
By the end of June this year, JD's 7FRESH supermarket will open 20 'warehouse-stores' in Tianjin, according to a JD insider. This signals an acceleration in JD's layout in the instant retail market, as it aims to cover all six districts and four suburbs of Tianjin, with a new model combining stores and warehouses.
零售氪星球Costco China Takes a Different Path in E-commerce
In April 2025, Costco announced same-city delivery across all its Chinese mainland store cities, promising delivery within 90 minutes in main urban areas. Unlike Sam's Club, Costco has not adopted a model with front warehouses, instead using a 'store-warehouse integration' approach and transparent delivery fees, reflecting a cautious and operationally pragmatic strategy.
零售氪星球First Retailers Focusing on 'Clean Ingredients' Have Already Reaped Rewards
In October last year, Sam's Club's 'One Little Tangerine' snack went viral and sold out immediately upon launch. 'Dole sold it for years without much traction, but Sam's sold it and it exploded,' an industry insider told the author. What exactly did Sam's do to 'One Little Tangerine'? Besides improving cost-effectiveness, Sam's 'radically revamped' the snack's ingredients, removing excessive food additives and flavorings, and reducing sugar by 30%. In the end, the ingredients were only mandarin oranges, white sugar, and citric acid, and the shelf life was shortened from 12 months to 5 months. Even the packaging proudly states: sodium benzoate 0%, potassium sorbate 0%, lemon yellow 0%, sunset yellow 0%, and flavoring 0%. The combination of high cost-effectiveness and clean ingredients made this snack break out and go viral.
零售氪星球The Key to Walmart's 'Radical Makeover' of Its Next-Generation Stores
Over the past three years, Walmart China has accelerated its transformation of hypermarkets. Days before the 2025 New Year, its 'next-generation stores' in Kunming, Yunnan—Longquan and Zhengda—officially opened. Walmart's chief merchandising officer for stores, Zhu Jun, told the author that these stores epitomize the company's recent transformation strategy. After completing the upgrade of 29 hypermarkets in 8 cities in late 2023, Walmart China further redefined its hypermarket strategy over the following year. If you visited the renovated Xuanwumen store in Beijing in early 2024 and then toured the two new Kunming stores at year-end, you would see that the world's largest retailer, while keeping 'customer first' unchanged, is fundamentally reshaping the traditional hypermarket and raising the bar for the current wave of supermarket overhauls in China.
零售氪星球RT-Mart Super to Become the Main Store Format for RT-Mart in the Future
RT-Mart, which has just turned profitable, has identified its future main store format: the smaller, more refined RT-Mart Super with community canteens. On the evening of November 12, RT-Mart's parent company, Sun Art Retail Group, released its interim results for fiscal year 2025 ending September 30, reporting revenue of RMB 34.708 billion and a net profit after tax of RMB 186 million, a year-on-year increase of RMB 564 million, turning losses into profits. A highlight was a 0.3% year-on-year increase in same-store sales. The RT-Mart Super store in Kunshan Huaqiao, which opened on November 2, announced a return to healthy growth...
零售氪星球Decoding ALDI China's 'Have It Both Ways' Low-Price Strategy
Who would have thought that the 9.9 yuan price point, which first gained traction in the coffee industry, would be executed so successfully by ALDI in the budget community supermarket segment? As of the end of August, ALDI stores had over 500 products priced at 9.9 yuan or below, accounting for about a quarter of all items. This year, ALDI has reduced prices on nearly 300 products cumulatively.
零售氪星球4 Years, 43 Stores: German ALDI Likely to Exceed 50 Stores in Shanghai This Year
Last week, on June 7, German hard-discount chain ALDI completed four years of operation in Shanghai. ALDI China emphasizes continuous innovation and localization, optimizing store expansion, product categories, and quality control. With more choices and better taste than convenience stores, and easier access and convenience than hypermarkets, ALDI has built its own fan base in Shanghai. An industry insider told Retail Kr Planet, "Local retail in Shanghai has nothing new, so every district hopes for Hema to open, with ALDI as the second choice." He revealed that with store formats and SKUs stabilizing, expansion is easier, saying, "50 stores this year is no problem; in the second half, Shanghai will add 10 more."
零售氪星球Local Membership Stores' Overtaking on the Curve
In the post-pandemic new normal, value-for-money consumption is increasingly evident across all consumer segments, especially among the middle class targeted by warehouse membership stores, who now prefer quality at affordable prices, fueling the boom of this retail format. After Costco's explosive debut in Shanghai in 2019, warehouse membership stores became a hot track, with local retailers like Hema, Metro, Carrefour, and fudi entering the fray. Sam's Club and Costco, under Walmart, remain the most seasoned and powerful foreign players. How can local players learn and eventually compete with these international giants?
零售氪星球