Articles by 黄国训

ALDI Enters Hangzhou: The Real Watershed for Chinese Discount Retail Has Arrived

Over the past two years, if one keyword were to summarize Chinese retail, it would be 'price.' From the rapid expansion of discount stores to the prolonged price suppression by community group buying, and even traditional supermarkets proactively lowering gross margins to survive, the entire industry is moving toward 'cheaper.' On the surface, this seems like an intuitive reaction: consumption is becoming more rational, demand is contracting, and using price to gain scale and traffic appears to be the most direct and market-accepted approach. But if we take a longer view and look back at operating results, an increasingly obvious phenomenon emerges: low prices are proliferating, but the number of truly profitable players is not increasing in tandem.