Table Of ContentChina has become the most relevant market for luxury goods worldwide
and its effect is reshaping the industry well beyond its boundaries. At Puig
we have been present in China for many years, with the objective of build-
ing our brands with a long term perspective. It has been fascinating to
see at which pace consumer habits have evolved. What took decades in
other areas of the world, has taken just a few years in China. These highly
paced changes in consumer behavior linked to the fact that the ecosystem
is absolutely unique has posed a real challenge to many Western brand
owners developing their brands in this unique market. This book offers
very interesting insights on the different realities of this ecosystem and the
role of the different forces that interrelate in it. It has helped us get a better
understanding and a new perspective to what it takes to successfully build
your brands and your business in China.
– Javier Bach, COO of Puig Beauty & Fashion
FMCG executives all over the world need to understand how the Chinese
retail and digital ecosystem is already completely redefining consumers
expectations from their brands. This eye-opening and insightful book can
help you prepare for the new world coming your way.
– Patrice Bula, Executive Vice President Nestlé S.A.,
Head of Strategic Business Units, Marketing, Sales and
President Nespresso (2011–2021)
New retail is one of the most visible examples of China’s undisputed areas
of leadership. This book does an excellent job of describing what it is and
its various business models. More importantly through its comprehensive
analyses, it unfolds all its complexity and phenomenal impact within the
country and on the rest of the world.
New retail starts from consumer intimacy, is built upon excellence in
supply chain, uses creativity and technology to deliver the ultimate expe-
riential retail or “Retailtainment” as delineated and further prescribed by
the authors.
We live in times of constant disruption. Through this book everyone can
see how a profound transformation can be the only way forward.
– Gianfranco Casati, CEO of Accenture Growth Markets
In my 30 years of living and working in China, this is the first book that I
have read that fully articulates and analyzes the history and key players in-
volved in the e-commerce revolution in China. It is a must-read for anyone
or any company that wants to enter the China retail market, to expand its
presence in China, or to learn about global e-commerce trends.
– Mei-Wei Cheng, Former Chairman and CEO of GE (China)
and Ford Motor (China), President and CEO Siemens China, and
President and COO of AT&T China
The IMD authors understand in depth the Chinese business culture and
traditions, and are able to overlay this knowledge on the western ways of
doing business. The outcome is an inventory of opportunities to catch, of
potential threats to assess and anticipate, and often a wake-up call to re-
think strategies. China is way ahead when it comes down to e-commerce;
this is a fact. As I have observed in sectors like banking, insurance or tele-
coms, we in the West often hide ourselves behind excuses to explain why
we are behind. Different privacy concepts, stricter regulatory rules. Maybe,
but what about audacity, creativity and speed of action? It’s not too late to
read this book, and decide whether we want to be leaders or followers.
– Michel Demaré, Chairman of IMD Business School and
Deputy Chairman of Louis Dreyfus Company
Professor Nie and her coauthors have done a great service by articulating
clearly the incredible digital retail phenomenon happening in China. Our
company has been trying to crack the Chinese market in a big way for 30
years by extending our business model from the West into China. Now lev-
eraging the new retail trends, we build our Modern Agriculture Platform
to help farmers grow crops in a more environmentally friendly way and
to connect them directly to consumers. The ideas that this book articulates
can open up great growth opportunities in China for global companies. In
the future, some of these models can be applied outside China.
– J. Erik Fyrwald, CEO of Syngenta
Over the past two decades, millions of Chinese have become “modern”
shoppers and consumers for the first time, the boom growth phase in the
Chinese consumer economy has happened without the “legacy assets” and
traditions of Western markets’ retail format and platform technologies.
Free of these precursors a vibrant entrepreneurial commercial culture has
emerged that has scaled like nowhere earlier in economic world history,
and a leading edge and completely different retail, shopper and consumer
ecosystem has emerged for China. There is no longer a global standard
go-to-market model for developed economies. Companies seeking to suc-
ceed in China need to build a bespoke approach in China in order to win
for China in China. And whilst China continues to learn and sort out the
most valuable lessons very rapidly from the rest of the world, the world
needs to accelerate to learn much faster from the China experience – both
to succeed in China and to evolve existing retail structures in the Western
markets. I recommend reading The Future of Global Retail because the authors
explain the revolution of new retail coming from China and how that may
inspire and impact global retail leaders.
– Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Executive Chair, the LEGO Brand Group
While I experience the new retail as an active consumer living in China, I
must say that it is not always easy for anyone who lives in China to explain
the new phenomenon and make sense of what’s going on. The book does a
wonderful job explaining all the “messy” complications of the new retail.
As a digital native and Chinese netizen, I find the analysis of these new re-
tail developments refreshing and insightful. It helps me see the big picture.
– Rui Meng, China digital native/netizen
The Future of Global Retail: Learning from China’s Retail Revolution is a pioneering work
on tracing the evolution and future of retail in China. China is the consumer
story of the century and new retail is its major amplifier. Winning in new re-
tail, and in all its growth formats is critical for all global players as this market
shapes the future of consumer-led businesses in the world. The book makes
for a highly engaging read, with inspiring stories of retail revolutionaries and
how it all comes together. This is an extremely useful guide for all CPG ex-
ecutives who aspire to make sense, learn how to play and win in the most
innovative, digitized and complex retail market in the world.
– Rohit Jawa, Chairman Unilever China & EVP
Unilever North Asia
Having been running a business in Asia for the last 12 years, I noticed that
the more western executives are remote from China, geographically or in
terms of their responsibility, the more they are scared about it. This book will
help executives understand that the basic tenet running business in China is
not that different from other parts of the world – you must relentlessly win
your customers. The stories in this book demonstrate in a fantastic way that
real customer centricity drives success. This is truly inspiring for many entre-
preneurs in and out of China. The “scary” part is how these entrepreneurs in
China learn so fast, experiment so quickly, and scale up so rapidly.
– Frederic De Rougemont, CEO of USG BORAL
This book offers a fascinating look into the Chinese retail ecosystem and its
impacts on the future of global retail. The authors’ masterful analysis of thou-
sands of regional case studies provides a strategy blueprint essential for any
business keen to stay ahead of the curve. Their “Beyond” Value Chain Model
extrapolates local trends and ensures they are universally applicable, relevant
to companies irrespective of their geography. At X5, we have had the pleas-
ure of working with IMD through our New Retail program and have utilised
many of the insights featured to transform our business for future growth.
I believe it is now vital for industry leaders to pay close attention to China’s
road to success and learn from it. This book helps do just that.
– Igor Shekhterman, CEO of X5 Retail Group, Russia’s largest
food retailer
This book offers powerful insights. It challenges us in industries and re-
gions outsides China to learn from these developments. As boundaries of
service, product and market blur, this book compels us to ask hard ques-
tions and find dynamic solutions before it is too late.
– Chartsiri Sophonpanich, President,
Bangkok Bank Public Company
As an active participant in the Chinese new retail revolution, I witnessed
first-hand the push by capital market, the development of informational
technologies, the maturation of manufacturing, and the accompanying
growth of new business models. Along with it, there are of course the
blood and sweat of the forgotten practitioners of new retail revolution.
Survivors of this process are winners who can more efficiently address
consumers pain points and who have superior execution powers. Consum-
ers worldwide demand better solutions to their needs. I sincerely hope that
the solutions the Chinese entrepreneurs came up with, as conveyed in this
book, will be more widely known and bring about changes.
– Yihong Guan, Chairman and CEO of Jiumaojiu Group
THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL RETAIL
China’s new retail revolution will completely transform how the world
thinks about retail and digital innovation. But is the world ready yet? In
this book, the authors share an insider’s perspective on what is happening
in China to reveal the future for global retail, and a clear framework to help
you prepare.
The book presents a number of real-world cases, based on interviews
and first-hand consumer experience, to decode China’s retail revolution so
that you can understand what is happening and why, and what it means
for the rest of the world. Crucially, the book identifies five critical stages
in the development of new retail that global retail executives need to
grasp now: lifestyle commerce, Online-Merge-Offline retail, social retail,
livestream retail and invisible retail. To help the industry get ready for this
new, China-inspired paradigm in retail, the authors present a practical and
simple framework – a ten-year strategic roadmap for global retail execu-
tives, which they call the “Beyond” Value Chain Model.
China’s new retail is not just about fashion, cosmetics, snacks, data-driven
convenient stores and commercial live streaming. At a time when the world
of retail is being upended, it offers inspirational lessons in innovation,
purpose and agility for global executives across the entire retail spectrum.
Winter Nie is a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD
Business School, Switzerland. She is the co-author of Made in China: Secrets
of China’s Dynamic Entrepreneurs (2009) and In the Shadow of the Dragon: The Global
Expansion of Chinese Companies (2012). She started this research project in 2016.
Mark J. Greeven is a Chinese-speaking Dutch professor of innovation
and strategy at IMD Business School and former faculty at China’s lead-
ing innovation institute at Zhejiang University. He is the author of Pioneers,
Hidden Champions, Changemakers, and Underdogs (2019) and Business Ecosystems in China
(Routledge, 2017).
Yunfei Feng is a researcher at IMD Business School and had many in-depth
interviews and discussions with the Chinese executives. She has kept up
with the most cutting-edge development in China’s e-commerce and dig-
ital space. She had her own entrepreneurial venture in online business
education.
James Wang is an economist and a Professor of Finance at City University of
Hong Kong. His commentaries, written for hedge fund managers, on topics
such as Sino-American relations, style and substance of the 5th-generation
leaders of China, prospects of SOE reforms and other contemporary topics,
were collected in the book Early Innings of a Long Game.
THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL RETAIL
Learning from China’s
Retail Revolution
Winter Nie, Mark J. Greeven,
Yunfei Feng and James Wang
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Winter Nie, Mark J. Greeven, Yunfei Feng and James Wang
The right of Winter Nie, Mark J. Greeven, Yunfei Feng and James Wang to be
identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-032-07041-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-07042-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-20507-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003205074
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CONTENTS
1 Introduction: the new world of disruption 1
Part I: Four pillars of new retail 15
2 The rise of China’s E-commerce: a two-decade boom 17
3 The ubiquitous express delivery: the hidden power of retail 36
4 Third-party payment: turning China into a cashless society 53
5 Social media platforms: the new retail accelerator 65
Part II: Five stages of new retail 83
6 Location-based e-commerce: lifestyle remade 85
7 Fresh food: merging online and offline 105
8 Social e-commerce: reaching the bottom of the pyramid 125
9 Livestream celebrity selling: taking retail by storm 152
