Author丨Jiangshangjiu
Editor丨Wending
In 2015, Pinduoduo emerged and caught traditional e-commerce platforms off guard with the core strategy of huge subsidies + low prices.
Ten years later, Pinduoduo would not have thought that the low-price style that he once proud of was imitated by his predecessors. But this time the battlefield has come from online to offline.
JD.com has made a high-profile move recently. On August 30, four JD discount stores opened in several core business districts in Suqian. On the day of opening alone, 300,000 customers were poured into the four stores, and what attracted them was not only JD.com's brand, but also cost-effective prices.
9.9 yuan 30 eggs, 7.99 yuan 24 bottles of mineral water, 18.9 yuan per pound of golden pillow durian... In the face of the real "hard discount", men, women, young and old can't help but shout "It's really fragrant".
The JD discount store has a slogan of "low prices every day"
The carnival of hard discounts is not only staged in Suqian. Just one day ago, in Hangzhou, 530 kilometers away from Suqian, Meituan's hard discount brand "Happy Monkey" also officially opened. 4 egg tarts cost 4.9 yuan, 10 jin of Wuchang rice cost 39.9 yuan, and 30 sterile eggs cost only 11.5 yuan. This pricing also refreshes Hangzhou residents' awareness of price in new first-tier cities.
Happy Monkey's Sterile Eggs, 30 pieces cost only 11.5 yuan
As the e-commerce big brother Alibaba, naturally, she is not willing to fall behind. On August 29, Hema, a subsidiary of Alibaba, announced that it would upgrade some Hema NB stores to "super box calculation NB", which is homophonic to "super cost-effective". It opened at 17 stores in 10 cities on the same day, launching a new exploration of hard discounts.
Some Hema NB stores have been transformed into super box calculation NB
Why do the three major platforms choose to layout discount stores offline? In Paidai's view, this is actually a concrete spillover manifestation of the strong supply chain capabilities of e-commerce platforms. In contrast, Pinduoduo and Douyin have relatively weak supply chain capabilities, so they have not entered the market recently.
The three platforms hold high the banner of "low prices every day", and consumers have indeed gained benefits, but for e-commerce platforms, can this discount store model continue?
Behind the "hard discount", there are actually many bonuses
According to Paidai, in the business model of discount stores, there can be roughly divided into two types, namely "soft discount" and "hard discount".
For example, traditional discount brands represented by Hi Special Shopping and Good Sale are called "soft discounts". The profit logic is: purchase the last product or the product that is broken down from big brands at a low price, and then give the profit to customers at a discount, and finally make a profit from it. This profit model is somewhat similar to Vipshop.
Haite Purchased soft discount stores rely on big-name tailored goods
Compared with "soft discounts" relying on big brands, "hard discounts" are more about optimizing costs from the supply chain link, or actively reducing prices for their own brands, forming a cost advantage, thereby achieving concessions to customers.
For example, JD discount store is backed by a powerful JD logistics system, which reduces the overall operating costs through the optimization of the supply chain link; for example, Super Box NB, which has a large number of private brands, and the premium part of the products that are positioned at mid-to-high-end products will naturally have a premium part, and actively reducing the price of these products will naturally form a space for concessions.
So, unlike the logic of "soft discount", "hard discount" does not rely on last-date goods or expired products, but achieves low prices by streamlining the supply chain, creating own brands, and compressing operating costs. In this logic, both the stability of SKU and the daily supply of products will be more stable.
In Paidai's observation, in the matter of making discounts, the three platforms have their own advantages. Who will win? This also needs to be analyzed from multiple dimensions such as store size, SKU, customer base positioning, and store number.
First of all, in terms of land area and number of SKUs, JD discount stores are obviously the largest in scale, with an average land area of more than 5,000 square meters, and SKUs exceeding 5,000 types, covering almost all categories of daily life.
In contrast, Happy Monkey and Super Box count NBs have much smaller areas, generally no more than 1,000 square meters. The choice of SKU is not like the "big bag" of JD discount stores, but will focus more on it, and the product selection will be more inclined to "wide narrow products", with only about 1,200-1,500 types.
Submit agency sorting, compare the store area of the three platforms with SKU
Secondly, from the price dimension, it can be seen from the comparison of several basic items that the discount of JD convenience store is the largest among the three, and Happy Monkey and Super Box are equal. It is worth noting that in the official caliber of Happy Monkey, its pricing level is 10-30% lower than that of Hema NB before the upgrade.
Submit agency to organize, compare prices of some products in the three discount stores
However, it is worth noting that although the average price of superbox calculation NB does not have a significant advantage among the three companies, about 60% of the SKU distribution of superbox calculation NB are owned brands, and these products are often positioned at mid-to-high-end and have a brand premium. Once superbox calculation NB chooses to give concessions to this part of the products, the situation may reverse.
Lastly, in terms of the number of stores, Happy Monkey is currently the most conservative, with only one store in Hangzhou, and a second store in Beijing in the near future; JD discount stores currently have 7, except for the 4 in Suqian, there are 2 stores in Fangshan, Beijing and 1 store in Zhuozhou, Hebei.
As for super-box calculations, it is quite special. Since the brand was upgraded from the original Hema NB, under the rapid transformation, there are currently more than 300 stores nationwide, which is the largest number of stores among the three platforms.
Submit agency organization, site selection characteristics of three discount stores
From the perspective of urban distribution, the strategic positioning of the three major platforms can also be seen. JD discount stores tend to open stores in cities "outside the Fifth Ring Road", with the goal of replacing traditional comprehensive supermarkets; Happy Monkey is aimed at the core areas of the first-tier and new first-tier cities. In addition to meeting the community economy, it is more important to target the needs of office workers; Super Box Calculation NB inherits the location selection of Hema NB, and its positioning is still focused on the community economy, widely deployed in cities at all levels in China, achieving all-round coverage.
In terms of the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that although all the three platforms are building discount stores, there is actually a big gap in both the brand positioning and the targeted market.
So what industry opportunities did the platform see in this layout and attempt to "hard discounts"? Compared with the traditional retail model, what are the advantages of discount positions?
China's offline retail is undergoing a reconstruction
In 2022, Yonghui Supermarket ushered in the darkest moment. In just one year, nearly 60 stores were closed nationwide, and this phenomenon also foreshadows that the retail model of traditional comprehensive supermarkets is on a downward trend.
At the same time, new retail represented by Hema and Sam are rising rapidly. Sam successfully opened 6 stores in China this year, and Hema is even more exaggerated. He opened 46 stores this year, and was elected as the "store champion" of the year.
What is the bottleneck of traditional comprehensive retail? Why can new retail make rapid progress? In Paidai's view, the biggest difference between the two is its ability to anchor the customer base.
Unlike the all-encompassing of traditional comprehensive supermarkets, the SKU of new retail will be more focused. Under the membership system, stores have natural screening capabilities for customers, and with more differentiated and accurate products, profit margins are also generated.
Sam Supermarket, filtering customers with membership mechanism
So, based on the same logic, the greatest significance of the emergence of discount stores is also to anchor the crowd. But unlike member stores, the positioning of discount stores is to achieve the ultimate cost-effectiveness.
For the three platforms' plans to layout discount stores, Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the "retail e-commerce" of Paidai think tank and founder of Bailian Consulting, believes that in the current consumer format, whether it is traditional comprehensive supermarkets or convenience stores, they are facing an important node for transformation and upgrading, and the layout of the three platforms is to capture this wave of dividends.
Zhuang Shuai believes that through offline layout, e-commerce platforms can build a new "grid and warehouse integration" new retail model, thereby expanding their advantages in the retail industry.
In the observation of Xu Xiaohui, an expert in the "brand marketing" of Paidai think tank and founder of Tianwu Tianze Marketing Consulting, based on the advantages of supply chain, e-commerce platforms conduct offline retail, regardless of their profit or efficiency, is much greater than the traditional retail model.
When talking about the advantages of new retail, Xu Xiaohui commented: "High-frequency consumption in the entire ecosystem, combined with the efficiency brought by systematicity, is far greater than a single discount business scenario. For the traditional retail model, it will be a dimensionality reduction blow."
As long as discount stores can ensure the stability of the supply chain, they can gain an absolute advantage in the price dimension. Under the "low prices every day", customer flow will naturally gradually shift from traditional retail to new retail.
At the same time, Xu Xiaohui also noticed a phenomenon, that is, the layout of the three platforms on the "hard discount" model will not only have an impact on the traditional retail model, but also have a certain impact on the "soft discount" retail stores on the market. "The advantage of hard discounts is the ultimate cost-effectiveness and the ultimate supply chain logic, which is far from being able to achieve soft discounts."
So, as a natural forward warehouse for each platform, can discount stores fill the ecological niche of instant retail to a certain extent?
In this regard, Zhuang Shuai said that these three platforms have mature rider delivery systems, so to a certain extent, the existence of discount stores is not only to seize the ecological niche of the retail industry, but also a supplement to the instant retail ecosystem.
Xu Xiaohui also held a similar view. He told Paidai: "Offline stores have the advantages of forward warehouses, the brand advantages of the store themselves, and can also meet offline sales scenarios. In fact, it is an omni-channel instant retail + forward warehouse model."
But there are still many complex problems to be solved in this process. Lao Zhang, an expert in the "Instant Retail" think tank and author of "Instant Retail Biography", said that he still maintains a wait-and-see attitude. In his opinion, profitability will be a big problem after discount positions are included in the instant retail system.
In Lao Zhang's calculation, instant retail has very high requirements for the profit margin of goods. A single delivery fee is a huge cost that cannot be ignored, and the positioning of a discount store determines that its own profit is relatively limited.
So, Lao Zhang's attitude is: "If discount stores want to conduct instant retail, it is crucial to make profits run. Whether they can combine them or not, they still need further verification of the store's business practice."
Online retail is becoming more and more saturated, and offline may become a new breakthrough point
Lao Fang, the founder of Inman, once pointed out sharply in an interview with Paidai that you will not live long without being an offline e-commerce brand.
This view reveals the dilemma that e-commerce platforms are facing.
Since the beginning of 2025, Alibaba, Meituan and JD have faced each other in a huge subsidy war around the field of takeaway. However, after half a year of hard fighting, they found that they were all trapped in the quagmire.
After the second quarter report was released, several platforms were in a bleak state. Meituan's operating profit plummeted by 98%, JD.com's net profit margin was directly cut in half. Although Alibaba's profit margin remained stable, the profit on the book also dropped by about 10 billion.
Pictures are quoted from Finance Magazine, Comparison of profit margins in previous years of Meituan, Alibaba and JD.com
The three platforms realized that they wanted to replicate the logic of huge subsidies for growth ten years ago, and that they would no longer work in the stock market. Several platforms may have thought of one thing: if you want to break the shackles of growth, the breakthrough point will not be online, but offline.
In Xu Xiaohui's view, online and offline retail is now showing a clear trend of integration. To stabilize the advantages of the online, offline layout is indispensable. In the post-e-commerce era, whether it is online retail or offline retail, the test of supply chain is becoming increasingly strict. Whoever can get a cost advantage at the source will be able to occupy the future market.
The offline layout of several platforms happens to be a concrete manifestation of the spillover of supply chain capabilities. As Lao Fang observed, the e-commerce environment is becoming more and more rugged, and under cost pressure, small and medium-sized merchants will be more and more sad. Looking at China's retail share, offline still occupies the majority. Therefore, for the e-commerce industry, there are still many opportunities offline.
At the same time, Lao Fang also emphasized that the traditional offline retail gameplay must not work. If you want to break the situation offline, you must find a new gameplay. The so-called new gameplay is nothing more than two points. E-commerce platforms can either accurately layer the customer base or build a new brand mind. These two advantages are just available.
Therefore, in this round of retail transformation, e-commerce platforms have naturally become the first to launch a breakthrough, and for some production-oriented merchants, this is not a new wave of dividends.
Zhuang Shuai believes that for merchants with product advantages and supply chain advantages, they can actively seek cooperation with major retail brands, and may find new growth opportunities under long-term and stable supply demand.
Xu Xiaohui also said that in the future retail scenarios, the ultimate cost-effectiveness and controllable product quality may become a new development trend in the retail industry, and it will be a huge benefit for brands or merchants with strong supply chain capabilities.
To sum up, the layout of e-commerce platforms in the "hard discount" business model may become an important turning point in the retail industry. At present, when online competition is becoming saturated, the competition for offline retail may release a new round of dividends.
Whether it is a member store, a discount store, or other business model that can accurately anchor customer groups, based on more diverse retail scenarios, more growth opportunities may be explored in the future. This is not only worthy of the heavy investment of e-commerce platforms, but also worthy of the attention of small and medium-sized merchants.
