Leading Chinese supermarket chain, Yonghui Superstores is planning to set up discount stores and add discount areas on its online app and WeChat mini-program.
Instead of offering discounts for near-expired commodities, Yonghui will now evaluate their performance through digital means and select new, trending, and conventional products for the discount area to sell at 30, 50 and 70 percent discount.
Discount stores are a retail format which mainly sells goods of private brands with a fast turnover and limited varieties, whose primary purpose is to provide consumers with value-for-money products.
Annual sales of goods through discount stores jumped over 10% last year, while those via traditional and e-commerce channels rose only 7.2% and 5.6% respectively, according to Kantar Worldpanel. Discount stores were the segment with the fastest growth for the first time last year.
Other players like Alibaba Group Holding’s supermarket chain Freshippo has also tapped into the discount retail industry. Freshippo had 68 discount stores in China as of June 2023.
