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.

Related research and analysis

2996 articles · Page 66 of 125

Capital, Earnings & M&A

Ten Questions on Low-Alcohol Drinks: A Tax on Intelligence or a Real Trend?

Low-alcohol drinks are a booming startup trend, with 14 financing deals in 2020. Investors and entrepreneurs debate whether it's a good business, while questions remain about health claims and market potential.

深燃团队
E-commerce & Instant Retail

Avoiding the Sharp Edge and Striking the Weakness: Community Group Buying Spurs Accelerated Change in the Supermarket Industry

The frenzy of community group buying has reinforced the need for transformation in the supermarket industry. Despite first-quarter sales declines, many supermarkets now report steady improvement, with lower foot traffic but higher average transaction values and growing online sales. The impact of community group buying, coupled with regulatory intervention, is pushing supermarkets to optimize products and services to better meet consumer needs.

赵述评 赵驰
Management & Methods

Promotion in Practice: Don't Waste Money, Don't Misuse People, and Create Growth in Store Promotions!

Recently, I've been dealing with in-store promotions. Since our promotional activities are mostly managed by distributors, results vary, activities become mere formalities, and plans are simple and crude. Money is spent, but few things are accomplished. Today, let's sort out how to design a promotional activity. Essentially, promotional activities follow a fixed pattern, just like the eight steps of daily visits by route salespeople. First, let's look at the purpose of promotions: under any conditions of socialized mass production and commodity economy, on one hand, brand owners cannot fully know what products consumers need, where, when, and at what price they are willing to accept.

高级研究员 海游
Brand Marketing

How Should Distributors Sell Online Influencer Brands Offline?

Distributors may have noticed that while online influencer brands are emerging rapidly, few major brands have launched successful new products offline in recent years. This article discusses why distributors should consider selling influencer brands, how to find and select them, and strategies for selling them offline while addressing potential challenges.

赵波
Brand Marketing

Promotion in Practice: Can Store Promoters Be Franchised?

This year we became the national general agent for several Unilever products. As our distribution network expands into various retail outlets, the biggest challenge is improving promoter efficiency. After consulting with distributors of milk, daily chemicals, and ham, I've gained insights. Many companies rely heavily on in-store sales; for example, the well-known brand ZJ generates over 50% of its mushroom sauce sales in stores. In terms of staffing, many distributors have promoter teams several times larger than their marketing teams.

高级研究员 海游
Distribution & Channels

Three Digital Maps: Panorama, Roadmap, and Operations Map—Not One Can Be Missing

【Digital Practice Driving Business Growth: First Lesson】 is a comprehensive digital training course for CDOs, CIOs, digital directors, digital offices, and digital teams. It will propose a comprehensive digital blueprint (big, medium, and small maps), organize study tours to observe digital super benchmarks, share three benchmark cases, interpret six digital system modules, and provide a workshop for digital implementation practice. This summer, let us light the way for you, see the direction of digitalization clearly, and guide you step by step in drawing your own digital map!

刘春雄
Retail Formats

Expiring Food Stores: It's All About Scale

Rapid expansion to achieve economies of scale early is crucial for expiring food stores. After being featured on CCTV News and gaining industry attention, this retail format has recently moved from niche enthusiasm to mainstream visibility. The market size for expiring food is estimated at over 10 billion yuan in 2020, with the broader snack industry exceeding 3 trillion yuan, suggesting the expiring food sector could be over 100 billion yuan.

赵小米
E-commerce & Instant Retail

Every Enterprise Needs a Chief Digital Officer (CDO)

【Digital Practice Driving Business Growth: First Lesson】 is a comprehensive digital training for CDOs, CIOs, digital directors, digital offices, and digital teams: 1. It will propose a comprehensive digital blueprint for enterprises (big picture, medium picture, small picture); 2. Organize study tours to observe digital super benchmarks; 3. Share three digital benchmark cases; 4. Interpret six digital system modules; 5. Provide a digital implementation practice workshop. This summer! Let us light the way for you, see the direction of digitalization, and guide you hand-in-hand to draw your enterprise's digital map!

刘春雄
Brand Marketing

Can Online Selling Build a Brand?

The article discusses whether selling products online can build a brand, arguing that brand building involves emotional connection with consumers, and that awareness, reputation, and loyalty are not sequential but form a triangular relationship. It emphasizes that while marketing can boost awareness, true brand strength comes from product quality and emotional engagement, and warns against relying solely on exposure and sales.

Keny伟
E-commerce & Instant Retail

As Young People Increasingly Prioritize Health, Is Light Food a Real Demand or a Fake Trend?

From coffee to milk tea, fruit drinks, and low-fat light food, the trends driven by young people's appetites come one after another. The landscape of categories changes constantly, but the one thing that remains unchanged is the continuous growth of market scale. Data from food delivery platforms show that since before 2015, light food has become a popular category, with order growth rates reaching 16 times the same period, 5.3 times the growth rate of the overall delivery market. By 2017, order volume increased by over 123.55% compared to the same period last year, and the number of consumers grew 5 to 6 times, reaching a peak, but then it sharply declined and entered a trough. From a certain perspective...

百里
E-commerce & Instant Retail

A Warning for Today's Community Group Buying!

Community group buying in China has been developing for five or six years, yet no leading or mid-tier brand has truly achieved a profitable model. The author argues that platforms have not understood the underlying logic of fresh produce retail and are blindly competing with capital and traffic, creating a track with no end. This article offers personal observations on the current state and future direction of community group buying.

黄安理
Brand Marketing

Why Big Brands Fail Online and Innovative Brands Fail Offline?

This article explores why established brands struggle with online sales due to price conflicts with offline channels, and why innovative online brands fail offline due to the differences between limited and unlimited shelf space.

赵波
Retail Formats

Small Supermarkets Resist the Internet

The internet is powerful, but small supermarkets are resilient. Despite the wave of internet impacting offline retail, small supermarkets, including community stores, convenience stores, and mom-and-pop shops, have shown strong resistance, with over 75% of the 6.3 million such stores in China located in third-tier cities and below, contributing 40% of domestic FMCG shipments.

燃财经工作室
Brand Marketing

Why Are Ice Creams Getting More Expensive?

Ice cream is being reinvented with creative shapes and flavors, driving up prices. From cultural creative ice creams at scenic spots to new brands and healthier options, the industry is expanding rapidly, with market size expected to exceed 160 billion yuan by 2021.

王梓旭
Retail Formats

First Jingxi Convenience Store Opens in Jinan: Making Community Life More Affordable and Heartwarming

Today we take you to visit a brand-new convenience store—Jingxi Convenience Store (cooperation channel available via 'Read Original' at the end of the article). It's not just a convenience store; it hides many details and surprises that serve consumers. What makes it special? Let's find out together!

京喜连连的元宝君
E-commerce & Instant Retail

Supermarkets, Don't Panic! Is Community Group Buying Really Cheaper?

Low prices have become synonymous with community group buying, but is it truly cheaper than offline retail? This article analyzes the logic behind the 'cheap' label, reveals the real cost structure, and offers strategic advice for supermarkets to defend their market share.

李彬 何年
E-commerce & Instant Retail

The 3 Core Factors and 3 Core Links of Community Group Buying

Community group buying is a complex business, and this article argues that only three factors matter: scale, cost, and timeliness. Scale depends on price, which depends on cost and subsidies; cost depends on operations and supply side; timeliness depends on central warehouse and operations. The core links affecting cost are operations and supply side, while the core links affecting timeliness are central warehouse and operations.

陈维龙
E-commerce & Instant Retail

Community Group Buying: A Tough Summer

In 2020, community group buying saw explosive growth due to the pandemic and heavy subsidies from internet giants, but faced regulatory crackdowns. This summer, suppliers, platforms, group leaders, and service providers are all struggling with declining orders, profits, and margins, raising questions about the model's sustainability.

陈思廷
Retail Formats

Community Stores Eye Platform Interest, Platforms Eye Group-Buying Site Principal

In the seemingly calm community group-buying circle, a war without gunpowder has begun, and choosing sides has become a challenge for small merchants. As internet giants and retail supermarkets enter the fray, major community group-buying brands are leveraging convenience stores, laundromats, courier stations, and even beauty salons and tobacco stalls to grab market share. Meanwhile, these community stores have become pickup points, displaying promotional posters for various platforms. Some retail stores even neatly display ads for four or five community group-buying platforms, attempting multi-line development. However, as cooperation deepens, some operators are discovering that they may have been 'played' by the platforms, and the platforms are encroaching on their core business.

懂懂本尊
Dealer Operations

Community Group Buying: Neither Rejection nor Embrace Is the Best Choice!

Many friends have privately asked me about how to operate community group buying, but I declined to answer, partly because I don't understand it well enough to avoid misleading others, and partly because I'm not optimistic about it, so I see no need for in-depth research. Having recently had extensive contact with brand owners and distributors, I'd like to share their views on community group buying.

高级研究员 海游
Retail Formats

Battle for the Lower-Tier Market: Can Convenience Stores Outcompete Mom-and-Pop Shops?

As chain convenience stores rapidly expand, mom-and-pop shops are not standing still. The competition in lower-tier markets is intensifying, with both sides leveraging their strengths—chains offering quality and standardized service, while independent shops rely on flexibility and community ties.

王梓旭
Capital, Earnings & M&A

Didi Hopes Chengxin Youxuan Can 'Walk Independently'

Didi aims to upgrade from a mobility giant to an internet giant. Amid reports of its own US listing in July, news emerged that its community group buying project, Chengxin Youxuan, would also pursue an independent IPO in 2022 or 2023, with investment terms including a clause converting investor shares to Didi equity if no IPO occurs within five years.

赵小米
E-commerce & Instant Retail

Community Group Buying Cannot Do Without Group Leaders

Community group buying without group leaders is not attractive. Community group buying should be the most unique retail format at present. This track has released the quality of the model in the following characteristics: it is the first model that completely integrates online and offline seamlessly; the pre-sale wholesale retail based on group leaders controlling the front end helps precise supply chain efficiency; it conforms to the natural price advantage formed by simplifying the wholesale-retail relationship; and the model structure itself is not complex and is easy to evolve and transform in the long term. Since July 2020, leading internet companies have started to enter...

万德乾
Industry Trends

Heavyweight | Full Version of the "2020-2021 Research Report on B2B2C Cooperation of Retail Small Stores in Lower-Tier Markets" Released

As competition in first- and second-tier markets intensifies, lower-tier markets have become a breakthrough for consumer goods companies and internet companies seeking new growth. Major internet companies are also laying out strategies to seize the dividends of lower-tier markets through sharing and community group buying. Meanwhile, brand owners and distributors are actively seeking more store coverage and consumer reach through cooperation with new business formats such as B2B and community group buying. Correctly understanding lower-tier markets and their consumers has become a crucial prerequisite for FMCG companies and internet giants to win the battle in these markets, and the digitalization of retail stores in lower-tier markets has become a key lever.

New Distribution