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Traditional supermarkets have entered the transformation stage one after another. On August 27, a Beijing Business Daily reporter visited and found that many stores such as Hualian Life Supermarket, CP Lotus, Wumart, and Yonghui have entered the adjustment period one after another. Among them, CP Lotus Tongzhou Store will be transformed into a community mall, positioned as a "neighborhood living space" and a "food landmark at the doorstep." Creating a scene with a sense of fireworks and strengthening the power of goods have become a weapon for these brands to tap into community consumption. Analysis points out that the transformation of stores should always revolve around the relationship between "people, goods, and places". Through scene creation, it will help attract more consumers back to offline, convert customer flow into sales, and further improve performance.

Hypermarkets are undergoing a "reform"

Supermarkets such as Hualian Life Supermarket, Yonghui, and Wumart have all entered the renovation period. Beijing Business Daily reporters visited and saw that many Hualian Life Supermarkets in Beijing were closed for renovation. The content released by the Haidian District Bureau of Commerce showed that the company adjusted the store business across the city, including the adjustment of product categories and the renovation of store soft furnishings. Among them, Hualian Life Supermarket Tiantongyuan Store opened for trial operation on August 9 after the adjustment. Beijing Business Daily reporters visited and learned that this upgrade mainly replaced the suppliers of some products, and the overall store environment did not change.

At the same time, the next adjustment direction of the CP Lotus Tongzhou store has also been clarified. Beijing Business Daily reporters learned that the CP Lotus Tongzhou store, which had previously been stagnant in its renovation, has basically determined the renovation plan. CP Lotus is a retail brand under the Charoen Pokphand Group. The relevant person in charge of Charoen Pokphand Foods revealed that the CP Lotus Tongzhou store is planned to be transformed into a community mall format, with the overall positioning of "neighborhood living space" and "food landmark at the doorstep". The project aims to provide residents within 3 kilometers of the surrounding area with a living service space that can meet the needs of purchasing food and daily necessities, gathering with friends, family life, and parent-child leisure. The overall plan includes comprehensive formats such as boutique supermarkets, catering, life services, children's entertainment, and cinemas.

In addition, Yonghui Supermarket has been optimizing its stores around "goods, scenes, and services" since last year, and has built a yellow-themed "new product incubation station" and a red-themed "authentic discount store" in the Tongzhou Wanda store. In line with the increasingly popular trends of outdoor activities and camping, Yonghui has also launched a "camping barbecue" theme scene layout in some stores in Beijing, using related products and scene elements to build theme displays. Wumart Supermarket has crossed over to catering and tried out Wumart Canteen in its stores, offering two buffet options of 13 yuan and 19.9 yuan to attract consumers and working people in the surrounding communities. Wumart Canteen Zhongguancun store achieved a single-day turnover of nearly 20,000 yuan in the early days of its opening, and drove the growth of store traffic.

Exploring the consumption potential of communities

Judging from the direction of the above-mentioned project adjustments, how to maximize community consumption has become a major trend. Previously, CP Lotus Supermarket was mainly a retail store, providing consumers with fresh food, daily necessities and other commodities. This time, the project was repositioned as a community mall format, and catering, leisure and living spaces were planned based on the supermarket, providing consumers with leisure and entertainment scenes in addition to shopping. From combining shopping and catering functions to integrating leisure and life services, the possibilities of supermarkets are increasing.

Even Suning is trying to impress consumers with life scenarios, and has launched a number of new stores focusing on "family scenario solutions", such as Suning Yijia Max and Suning Yiguo Pro. In the view of Zhang Yanguang, general manager of Suning Yiguo Beijing Region, focusing on the personalized needs of consumers and launching a series of family scenario solutions such as professional scenario design will provide users with more diverse and high-quality products, more realistic and immersive shopping scenarios, and more efficient and convenient home furnishing experience.

Financial commentator Zhang Xuefeng believes that under the new consumer demand, the retail industry has undergone unprecedented changes, which has brought new challenges to both traditional and new retail. He said that with the diversification of consumption scenarios, many supermarket companies have turned to community consumption and built stores that are close to the community and consumer lifestyles. Such stores are usually more able to respond to the needs of surrounding residents more quickly, becoming the direction of transformation for traditional supermarkets.

New and old retail "competition"

Traditional retail is experiencing a "reform" trend, while the once booming new retail is now losing momentum. Founder Hou Yi retired, and Hema, which has been involved in more than a dozen formats, is caught up in rumors of being "sold"; Alibaba recalled Lin Xiaohai, an executive sent to RT-Mart supermarkets, JD Seven Fresh supermarkets once stopped expanding, and Meituan Xiaoxiang now only does online business and has long stopped opening stores. "New retailers" are looking for a more stable development path amid ups and downs.

At the same time, brands that have emerged from traditional retail, such as Sam's Club and Pang Donglai, have performed exceptionally well. Walmart's second-quarter financial report released not long ago showed that Walmart China achieved net sales of US$4.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%, comparable sales increased by 13.8%, and e-commerce net sales increased by 23%. Among them, Sam's format and e-commerce business continued to perform strongly. According to data from the China Chain Store Association (CCFA), Pang Donglai achieved sales of 4.6 billion yuan with 12 stores in 2023, with an average annual sales of 380 million yuan per store.

It is worth noting that the product structure of Sam's Club, Pang Donglai, and Costco has a significant proportion of private brands. Public data shows that the number of SKUs of private brands of Costco and Sam's Club accounts for more than 30%, while Pang Donglai's popular products such as "Internet celebrity mooncakes" and craft beer are all its own brands, and even gave birth to the purchasing business. This also provides a reference for the transformation of other companies. Pang Donglai has exported a large number of private brand products when helping supermarket companies adjust, such as the adjusted BBK Meixihu store and Yonghui Supermarket Xinwan Plaza store, and the product structure has reached 90% of Pang Donglai.

Regardless of whether they are new or old, they must eventually return to the essence of retail and build a "place" that connects "people" and "goods". Bai Wenxi, vice chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Alliance, believes that creating diverse scenarios and strengthening supply chain construction are precisely the manifestation of efforts around "people, goods and places". "Differentiated scenarios can give consumers a unique experience, and focusing on transforming the supply chain can use private brands to meet consumers' demand for exclusive and special products, and better control product quality and improve product freshness."

Beijing Business Daily reporter Hu Jingrong