NEW DISTRIBUTION RESEARCH TOPIC
How is instant retail changing stores, platforms, and supply chains?
Coverage of flash warehouses, front warehouses, discount stores, supermarket transformation, and local commerce platforms in China.
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2996 articles · Page 105 of 125
Sending Money Is Dumb, Dining Is Low-Class: What Else Can You Do for Procurement Relations?
During the holiday season, when red envelopes are flying around, this article discusses why sending money to procurement is not a smart move, and why treating them to meals is also ineffective. Instead, it suggests thoughtful gift-giving within legal limits, focusing on small, practical items that show care and consideration, such as imported gum, throat lozenges, or honey, which align with the procurement's lifestyle and needs.
黄静Reflections of a 20-Year FMCG Veteran on Cross-Industry Transition
A veteran with nearly 20 years in the FMCG industry shares his journey through three distinct phases, from traditional sales to modern channels, and finally to a B2B startup. He reflects on the changing dynamics of the industry and the importance of learning agility over past experience, inspired by the book 'Creating JD' and his transition to a new role in the internet sector.
周峰Private Capital Circles Wuhan State-Owned Supermarkets: Joy City Grabs Hanshang, Yonghui Seizes Zhongbai, Intime Battles Wushang
Wuhan, historically a commercial hub, has four state-owned listed supermarket companies: E Wushang, Zhongbai Group, Wuhan Zhongshang, and Hanshang Group. Their dominance, undervaluation, and dispersed shareholding have repeatedly made them targets for private capital, including Intime, Xinguang, Yonghui, and Greenland.
徐霁Do You Really Know Why Supermarkets Offer Discounts?
We often see hundreds of products on sale at once in a store, yet rarely stop to think about why stores do this. If you think deeply, this promotional tactic seems puzzling. A big sale lowers the average price of goods; why not just lower prices by 5% all year instead of having two 30% off sales? Price changes cause trouble for stores as they need to update price tags and ads. So why do they bother? One explanation is that big sales are an effective way to position themselves.
New DistributionProduct Planning for the Milk Powder Category in Stores: A Matter of Survival
A maternal and baby store on the second floor of a commercial street quietly reduced its store area earlier this year after a period of booming business, with the owner citing high rent; a newly opened store in a residential area often sees few customers, with the owner blaming intense competition. The fundamental reason for the difficulties faced by terminal maternal and baby stores is not rising rents or market saturation, but operational issues. In the maternal and baby market, some stores are losing ground not because of poor objective conditions or market environment, but because of operational problems.
New DistributionRetail Transformation: Xunmao, Tmall, and JD Convenience Stores Achieve Record Single-Store Sales
In the booming convenience store wave, Xunmao, Tmall, and JD are seizing the offline market, with three giants competing and convenience stores springing up across China. Recent major events in China's retail sector, including entries by Alibaba and JD, along with pioneer Yunmei Xunmao, have brought dramatic changes, offering hope to industry players. On September 23, JD opened its first convenience store in South China in Guangzhou's Huadu district, with a 300-square-meter area reportedly achieving 40,000 yuan in sales on the first day.
New DistributionRanking Top with Auchan, JD.com, and Eibaby: How Does It Improve Supplier Satisfaction?
In September 2017, after three months of interviews with over 120 supplier executives, nearly 200,000 online votes, and a survey of 99 retail suppliers and B2B platforms, the 'Supplier Satisfaction Survey' conducted by the Shanghai Eastern Century Consumer Goods Development Promotion Center, affiliated with the Shanghai Economic and Information Technology Commission, was finally released. In this official report, covering eight business formats including chain hypermarkets, chain supermarkets, chain convenience stores, premium supermarkets, e-commerce retail, mother-and-baby chains, B2B, and potential new retail, Auchan, Nonggongshang Supermarket, FamilyMart, Ole' Premium Supermarket, JD.com, Eibaby, Dianda Mall, and Hema Fresh each topped their respective categories.
头条哥All Your Questions About Tmall Xiaodian Answered Here
Shortly after the launch of Tmall Xiaodian, it attracted keen attention from many store owners. Considering that many store owners still have numerous questions, the editor has compiled the most frequently asked questions to help everyone better understand Tmall Xiaodian.
阿里巴巴零售通Nongfu Spring, C'estbon, Wahaha Prices Hit Bottom: Seasonal Frenzy or the Start of Another Round of Madness?
The end of summer has not cooled the promotional fervor of bottled water companies. Recently, price wars continue in the bottled water market, with 12-bottle bulk packs breaking price bottom lines as companies cut prices to compete. Industry insiders believe that after summer, bottled water sales will decline sharply, and inventory will increase costs. To alleviate financial pressure, lowering prices for higher volume becomes a primary strategy. However, prolonged low prices could damage brand positioning.
钱瑜 王子扬Convenience Stores: The Path for Domestic 7-Eleven in the New Retail Era
Globally, East and Southeast Asia are the most suitable regions for convenience store development, and mainland China has the potential to give rise to several giants on the scale of 7-Eleven. Convenience stores are easy to learn but hard to master; the so-called 'invisible core competitiveness' requires domestic brands to continuously refine and iterate in the darkness before dawn to break through.
源码Are Distributors and E-commerce Platforms Destined to Perish Together?
E-commerce cannot easily kill distributors unless there is a major change in the form of production organization. Even if the C2B and C2M era arrives, it would not only be a disaster for distributors but also for e-commerce platforms, leading to mutual destruction. Currently, e-commerce has indeed removed some intermediate links, but e-commerce itself is essentially an intermediate link. Distributors play four cards: time, space, price, and quantity, each essentially about differences. In nicer terms, it's supply chain management plus supply chain finance.
李海平From Selling Old Rock Sugar to the Nationally Known Hualong Instant Noodles, Now the Brand Value Reaches 8 Billion!
He founded a nationally renowned food enterprise group. Over fifteen years, he expanded Jinmailang Group's scale and comprehensive strength by more than 1,000 times, creating the astonishing 'Hualong Speed' which the economic community dubbed the 'Hualong Phenomenon'. He is the founder of the former Hualong Group and the current chairman of Jinmailang - Fan Xianguo.
New DistributionOffline Convenience Stores Enter a Strong Expansion Era! Why Are They Unfazed by Online Shopping Impact?
Recently, an interesting thing happened in Nanjing: convenience store chain Lawson entered the city with five stores opening simultaneously, attracting long queues and selling out various foods, leading some to suspect a queue-marketing strategy. Regardless of the truth, this brand, ordinary in Shanghai's streets, became an instant hit in Nanjing. On Shanghai's streets, a street of less than 100 meters has a convenience store at each end; across a 10-meter-wide road, one on each side, the number of convenience stores is indeed high. The choices are also wide: if you don't like Lawson, there's FamilyMart; if not FamilyMart, there's 7-Eleven; if you don't like any of these, there are also Haode, Kuaike, and Kedi.
赵卿Lotte Wants to Sell Its Supermarkets in China for 4.8 Billion Yuan—Who Will Take Over?
Lotte Group, which had repeatedly denied withdrawing from China, has finally decided to sell its Chinese supermarket chain Lotte Mart. The sale of its 112 stores is not going smoothly, as buyers' offers are far below the book value of 830 billion won. The ongoing THAAD dispute has chilled Sino-Korean relations, and Lotte's 8 trillion won investment in China may face further difficulties.
陶凤In the Vending Machine Business, Japan's Today May Be China's Tomorrow
Japan has the highest density of vending machines in the world, but China is rapidly catching up. In 2017, capital investment and a surge of startups transformed the vending machine industry in China, driven by the potential for scale and profitability.
梁小妖Alibaba Retail Link's 99 Procurement Festival in Full Swing, Aiming to Create 'Shop Owners' Own Festival'
Alibaba Retail Link recently launched the 99 Procurement Festival for small shops nationwide, aiming to create a 'festival for shop owners.' The second wave of promotions, running from September 19 to 28, has officially begun, featuring a combination of top-selling products. This collaboration between Retail Link and brands follows the 828 strategy conference, offering more benefits to small shops. The core theme is Retail Link's promise to shop owners: 'Great value prices, guaranteed!' For more surprises, click 'Read More'...
零售通The Rise of New Channels: Convenience Stores, Office Shelves, Vending Machines, Unmanned Retail...
Cultural awareness and lifestyles are constantly changing, and retail channels are continuously iterating, from 'birds of a feather flock together' to 'people of similar interests gather', serving life with newer and more efficient circulation methods. Along with channel upgrades, new product systems, new consumer groups, new consumption scenarios, new data systems, and new organizational management will emerge. The first generation of offline retail includes department stores, supermarkets, shopping malls, convenience stores, specialty stores, and chain channels. The second generation of online retail includes platform e-commerce, vertical e-commerce, O2O platforms, community e-commerce, media e-commerce, and micro-businesses. The emerging new retail includes chain convenience stores, unmanned retail, office shelves, vending machines, SPA (private label), and Hema model.
Lulu YangWalmart Panics, Carrefour Can't Sit Still! Decoding Costco's Ten Amazing (Niu Bi) Traits
Costco, a supermarket that thinks about how to make less money rather than more, and accepts returns without questions, is finally opening its first store in mainland China on September 8, with its Tmall flagship store launching a week earlier. This news has unsettled competitors like Walmart and Carrefour.
李大为Analysis: After Stumbling, Can Blue Moon Regain Its Former Glory?
Three years after publicly breaking with major physical hypermarkets to focus on e-commerce, Blue Moon has quietly returned to some hypermarkets. Recently, it has also faced allegations of pyramid scheme involvement. China Business Journal learned from 51job that Blue Moon's recruitment account was suspended due to complaints questioning it as a pyramid scheme and using recruitment to sell products. Blue Moon did not respond to interview requests.
吴容Deep Dive: Traditional Distributors Transforming to B2B Is Not Just Moving Online!
Why haven't you made a profit after doing B2B e-commerce for so long? China's FMCG B2B sector began exploring business models from late 2014 to early 2015, reaching explosive growth by 2016. In this turf war, over 2,000 B2B companies are dividing the market, with more than 8,000 urban sites (including direct, franchise, and joint operations). In first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, hundreds or even thousands of B2B projects operate simultaneously, including numerous fresh food, beverage, and urban distribution ventures.
赵渤亮An Extra 400,000 Yuan in Gross Profit a Year? Should I Franchise a Tmall Store?
On August 28, the first Tmall convenience store opened in Hangzhou. Alibaba's announcement mentioned a 45% increase in sales, a 26% increase in foot traffic, and an expected annual gross profit increase of over 400,000 yuan. What does that really mean? A simple calculation: with a 20% gross margin (domestic convenience stores typically have 18%-20%), an extra 400,000 yuan in gross profit implies an additional 2 million yuan in annual sales, or about 5,500 yuan per day. Considering the higher margins on fresh food and ice cream, the actual new sales might be between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan per day. Even that alone exceeds the current sales of many small stores.
货圈全Dominating Central and Western China's Supermarkets for 28 Years, Is Zhongbai Now Selling Buildings, Land, and Banks to Survive?
Only those who have lived in or visited Wuhan know how densely Zhongbai is distributed across the city, with a store on nearly every street, near every business district, and at the entrance of every residential community. Starting from Wuhan, Zhongbai Group expanded deeply into Hubei and westward into Chongqing, becoming the largest supermarket chain in central and western China. However, in recent years, Zhongbai has been closing stores continuously, especially in Chongqing, exposing the pain that has plagued this regional retail king. Since 2012, Zhongbai's performance has declined, with 116 stores closed in 2016 alone and a net loss of 233 million yuan (excluding non-recurring items) last year, forcing it to sell assets to stay afloat.
徐霁Costco, the Supermarket Where Gross Margins Cannot Exceed 14%, Is Coming!
Ye Guofu, founder of Miniso, once provocatively said that if Costco came to mainland China, it would wipe out the current retail industry. Costco, the supermarket where gross margins above 14% require CEO approval, is finally entering China, with its first store planned for Shanghai.
New DistributionBreaking: Lotte Can't Hold On, Confirms Sale of Its Supermarket Business in China, After Playing 'Smoke and Mirrors'
According to South Korean media reports, due to the impact of the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, Lotte Mart's performance in China has been dismal and unsustainable, leading to the final decision to sell its supermarket operations in China. Lotte Group had previously wanted to maintain its operations in China, but due to a 'bleak future', it chose to dispose of Lotte Mart.
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