In the early 90s of the 20th century, Japan's economic growth was sluggish, unemployment rate was rising, and domestic commercial consumption turned into a negative growth stage, entering the "lost thirty years"; At the same time, changes in consumption power and consumption concepts have also given rise to a series of new anti-cyclical formats that meet emerging consumer demand. What are the implications for the underlying competitiveness of these formats in the Chinese consumer market?
The following content is mainly from China Merchants**"What are the common characteristics and capabilities of Japan's retail formats that have risen since the 90s? , edited and collated.
A review of the retail format that emerged in Japan after the 90sJapan has gone through three economic development cycles:
1) 50s - early 70s of the 20th centuryThe post-war scientific and technological revolution and economic reform led to the rapid recovery of Japan's post-war economy, and the growth of industrial investment and durable goods consumption led Japan to become the world's second largest economy, and the economic growth rate reached 10-15% during this period, the level of urbanization accelerated, and the total consumption expanded rapidly.
2) 70s-early 90s of the 20th centuryAffected by the oil crisis and the friction between Japan and the United States, Japan's economy has turned into a low-speed growth, with an average annual GDP growth rate of about 5%, and at the same time, in order to eliminate the "yen appreciation depression", Japan has begun to relax the monetary system, Japan has entered the era of bubble economy, and real estate has soared, and enterprises have carried out substantial mergers and acquisitions, and the capital of overseas investment has grown rapidly, and the domestic industrial chain has been hollowed out.
3) 90s of the 20th century to the present:** With the real estate market under pressure, many companies have closed, unemployment has risen, and GDP growth has begun to turn negative, and the Japanese economy has entered the "lost three decades". 
Focusing on the fundamentals of the "lost 30 years", one of the characteristics of this is the decline in total consumption: ** and the real estate market **, which has caused the rapid shrinkage of Japanese residents' wealth, coupled with the widening of income disparity, has jointly contributed to the shrinkage of consumptionJapan's domestic business consumption has been negative for 10 consecutive years.
But at the same time,From 1994 to 2023, the rise and fall of the Japanese ** sector can be seen that the retail** and wholesale** sectors as a whole are growing positively. 
Looking specifically at Japan's various subdivisions of retail formats, the subdivisions are rich in types, covering the mid-to-high-end sinking market.
Among them, traditional retail enterprises are mainly concentrated in the mid-range to high-end** range, mainly represented by large-scale supermarkets and high-end category stores, while emerging formats such as 100-yuan stores and discount stores, which have gradually gained market attention during the economic slowdown, mainly focus on the low-price market, which is more in line with the consumption capacity of residents.
Cost-effective retail is the mainstream format of the retail industry in Japan since the 90s, among which soft discount stores, 100-yen stores, and vertical affordable retail stores are the main representative subdivisions.
The core competitiveness of cost-effective retailBased on the analysis of the representative retailers of the three major formats, the source of their cost performance can be summarized as: chain ability, management ability, and strategic decision-making ability. 1) *Chain capacity: the bottom layer is "product selection" and "scale".
a) Selection:In the Internet era, information circulation is developed, and the retail market is generally faced with the problem of homogeneous products and shortened commodity life cycles.
Excluding enterprises with irreplaceable product development technology, generally speaking, the technical barriers of retailers themselves are not strong; Enterprises with strong selection often win"Strategically and absolutely attach importance to + tactically fully mobilize the resources of the first chain and the ability of the team to operate".
Take Sam's Club as an example:
Strategic levelInternally, it lists product selection as the first priority of the annual strategy, configures a team of 100 professional buyers, and sets up a large-test, mid-to-middle and small test mechanism to evaluate specific product selection, new product replacement and repurchase rate, and shapes a mechanism for extreme attention to goods.
Tactical levelSam's fully mobilizes the resources of the first chain to ensure that each SKU is either unique (there is no mature merchant of similar goods in the market), or has obvious advantages (for example, Sam's through the global chain advantage and concessions, so that the SK-II*** with a counter price of 1540 yuan can achieve a price of 700 yuan), and then give full play to the drainage value of the limited SKU.
b) Scale: the core variables and barriers of the retail chain
Taking Daiso as an example, it adopted the correct product selection strategy and business model in the early stage, and at the stage when the industry operated the 100-yuan store with low price, low quality and impulsive consumption concept, it innovatively chose the model of improving quality and matching profit and loss categories, and obtained the first wave of trust through product differentiation, and then had a higher voice on the ** chain with the advantage of initial scale. 
2) Management ability: focus on improving human efficiency and creating stable profitability
Retail companies typically run through the upstream, midstream and downstream of consumer goods, have complex and diverse organizational hierarchies, and are based on a large network of offline stores, which is more labor-intensive than other industries.
The operation and management of retail enterprises cover many links such as business management, inventory management, store management, employee management, etc., and an efficient operation system is of great significance to the cost improvement and efficiency improvement of enterprises.
Excellent retail companies such as Uniqlo and Muji have achieved extremely high labor productivity per capita with excellent operation and managementIts per capita output value exceeds that of many Internet technology companies, creating a big era with low-profit business. 
3) Strategic decision-making: "province" is the most effective way to drain traffic
No matter how successful a retailer is, it usually only satisfies a subset of the consumer's demands for "how fast, how much to save".
Affordable retailers represented by Don Quijote, Daiso and Uniqlo took low prices as the core value dimension at the beginning, but gradually changed to "province + good" as the main tone of mind in the development, superimposed the efficient ** chain and operation management of the back-end, and finally verified the correctness of the decision. 
In the "lost 30 years", Japan's cost-effective retail has risen rapidly, and the traditional business represented by supermarkets has also maintained its competitiveness through product innovation and business innovation, and has embarked on the road of sustainable development. What can Chinese supermarket companies learn from Japan's experience? On March 7, a number of representatives of China's supermarket industry will attend the 2024 First China-Japan Distribution Conference in Tokyo, *Japan's experience enlightens Chinese enterprises, and ** the outlook of China's supermarket industry this year based on the sales performance of the Spring Festival in 2024.
[Roundtable Topic].Under the consumption crunch, what should Chinese supermarket companies learn from Japan?
Moderator] Chen Liping, professor of Capital University of Economics.
Panelists] (in alphabetical order): Li Yanchuan, Tian Jianzhong, former chairman of Beijing Supermarket Development Chain Co., Ltd., Jia Jianquan, chairman of Ant Business Alliance, and chairman of a pro-supermarket in Qinghai.
Lian Qingda, chairman of Xiamen Yuanchu Food Co., Ltd.