China: Aldi's rival Lidl has Chinese apprentices

Discount Retail Chain Lidl has not opened a physical store in China, but has welcomed its first Chinese apprentice.

Beijing-based retailer Wumart Group recently unveiled its new hard discount supermarket format. Wumart X Super Value, with six stores opening simultaneously across the capital, aiming to attract consumers seeking low prices and high-frequency essentials amid a broader shift toward value-driven retail.

The new stores, located in five districts, mark Wumart's first foray into the discount sector and the first such chain in the Beijing market. The format emphasizes limited products, private-label dominance, direct sourcing and lean operations.

"The discount model of Wumart X Super Value is not only an innovation in retail formats, but also a pioneering breakthrough in the Beijing retail market," said Xu Lina, Wumart Group spokesperson. Hard discount stores offer products at more affordable prices by cutting down on marketing, merchandising and other operational costs, such as packaging, sales assistants, store space and air conditioning.

Each location offers fewer than 1,300 stock keeping units across six high-turnover categories: fresh produce, meat and seafood, baked goods, ready-to-eat meals, and daily-use goods. More than 60 percent of the assortment consists of Wumart private-label products, priced aggressively to undercut traditional supermarkets and big-box chains.

In order to provide affordable prices to consumers, Wumart X Super Value follows a low-cost structure through full-chain efficiency. Products are sourced directly from manufacturers, packaged in "factory-to-shelf" formats and stocked without secondary handling. The stores run entirely on self-service systems, eliminating service counters and trimming labor costs.

"We conduct category-wide reviews four to six times a year and benchmark prices weekly across platforms," Xu said. "There are no promotions, our pricing is low every day by design."

An industry insider believes that at present, from the perspective of store traffic flow, merchandise, visuals and other dimensions, Lidl, a long-established professional player in hard discounts, has indeed provided a set of basic and standardized underlying capabilities, which will help Wumart avoid detours. This also means that Wumart, which will officially enter the hard discount industry in the summer of 2025, is fully prepared and determined for this industry.

Xu Lina, spokesperson for Wumart Group, said: "Wumart's super-value hard discount model is not only an innovation and exploration of Wumart Group in the retail industry, but also a breakthrough in the Beijing retail market, which is expected to inject new vitality into Beijing's consumption."

What are Lidl's Chinese apprentices like?

Wumart Group, headquartered in Beijing, celebrated its 31st anniversary this year and currently has more than 1,800 stores of various formats across the country, including B&Q and Metro . Among them, there are about 200 hypermarkets and Chinese supermarkets in Beijing . Most of the "Wumart Super Value" stores expected to open before the end of this year are based on the transformation of existing supermarkets.

In 2025, Wumart began to upgrade its supermarkets, planning to launch 25 to 30 "Fat Reform Stores" across the country and 25 "Wumart Super Value" stores in Beijing before the end of the year.

Xu Lina revealed that the Wumart supermarket business model will be gradually iterated, and will basically be concentrated into two business models: Wumart's "Fat Reform Store" and "Wumart Super Value".

The "Good Value" logo has a striking yellow "X" between "Good Value" and "Great Value", implying that "Good Value" reflects "Great Value" exponentially, strengthening the mindset of cost-effectiveness .

The area of "Wumer Super Value" stores is basically set at about 800-1000 square meters, with a cooked food kitchen and fresh baking area, and no forced traffic lines. The total number of products is controlled within 1,300, 60% of which are private-label products, focusing on six categories: fruits and vegetables, fresh meat and fish, baking, in-out, fresh food, and groceries.

From the organizational perspective, part of the purchasing team of "Wumart Super Value" is shared with Wumart hypermarkets, while the operation team is independent. In terms of site selection, "Wumart Super Value" mainly focuses on community stores, and currently all of its locations are in densely populated communities with a population of one million.

Xu Lina revealed that "Great Value" has several distinct hard discount features.

First, streamlined SKU

"Broad categories and narrow products" means covering a wide range of commodity categories, but selecting the most core and most frequently used single products (SKU) in each category.

Currently, most of the products in the "Wumart Super Value" stores are selected from the top products in each category of Wumart hypermarkets. "Through intelligent AI selection, we can select products for customers and present them to them, which can save customers time and allow some high-efficiency people to spend money wisely. They will have a good choice when they come to our store."

Secondly, the proportion of "Wumart Value" own-private label branded products is 60%, which will gradually increase.

The own private label branded products mainly cover high-frequency categories such as baking, rice, flour, grain and oil, household cleaning paper products, dairy products and frozen products. The entry level is "Wumart Value", the middle level is "Wumart Selected", and the highest level is "Wumart Premium". Among the three levels, "the two ends will be less, and the number of Wumart Selected items in the middle will account for the majority."

"Wumart Super Value" or "Wumart Selection" currently mainly ensures low price and high quality by reducing middlemen, directly connecting with source factories, optimizing processes, and adopting "packaging that can be directly put on the shelves from factories to supermarkets", eliminating secondary packaging.

For example, a liter of non- GMO soy milk costs 5.9 yuan, a liter of grape juice costs 9.5 yuan, and a 3-kilogram bucket of laundry detergent costs 17.9 yuan. A box of 12 bottles of packaged drinking water costs only 5.5 yuan. The price of self-operated freshly baked goods is generally within 10 yuan.

Third, "good value for money" strives to build an efficient supply chain and operation model.

For example, the store operation team strives to be streamlined, with an average of about 20 employees in one store. They adopt a mixed-post model and, through training, allow each clerk to take on multiple roles and become a jack of all trades, these are the proven hard discount operation methods of Aldi and Lidl.

It is understood that Wumart Value plans to open 25 stores by the end of this year.

Read more: Aldi's rival Lidl has Chinese apprentices - iNEWS

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