Seven rules for retail brands in China

THE world's largest and most ambitious grocery market is undergoing fast and forceful shifts, requiring consumer goods players to move equally fast and forcefully if they hope to grow and maintain their margins.

Physical retailers in China now find themselves responding to a dizzying array of consumer trends. There is the relentless rise of online purchasing at the expense of offline.

Bain & Company estimates that digital sales will expand by 41 per cent annually through 2020, while hypermarket sales will grow by at most 1 per cent per year, and supermarket sales by 4 per cent. There is also the big movement to mobile payments. In 2016, mobile payments by Chinese consumers were more than 50 times greater than those made by US shoppers.