美宜佳启示：连锁先扩张 后治理失效

This article outlines the full context of how Meiyijia, China's largest convenience store chain by size, was summoned by regulators over compliance violations, unpacks the root causes of the problem, and distills key takeaways and tips for general consumers.

1. Core event takeaways: Meiyijia currently operates more than 40,000 stores across over 240 Chinese cities. It has been exposed for widespread violations across its stores, including selling expired food and counterfeit cigarettes. Third-party testing found the carcinogen content in some counterfeit cigarettes was up to 47 times the legal limit. Between 2022 and 2025, consumer complaints related to Meiyijia reached 630, the highest among all Chinese convenience store chains. Ultimately, China's State Administration for Market Regulation summoned Meiyijia's headquarters and ordered company-wide full-chain rectification.

2. Root cause analysis: Meiyijia pursued an "expand first, regulate later" strategy: it opened up franchising on a large scale while putting almost no governance mechanisms in place. All its stores are operated by independent individual business owners; headquarters only collects branding fees, does not take responsibility for store quality control, and store inspection tours by supervisors have become a mere formality. This structural flaw is what led to the widespread non-compliance.

3. Consumer tips: When shopping at franchised convenience stores, consumers should always check product expiration dates and verify product sources, and preserve evidence promptly to protect their rights if they encounter violations.

This article offers profound lessons for all franchised chain brands, particularly retail chain brands, with actionable insights across brand building, channel expansion and business model selection.

1. Expansion: Low-threshold, asset-light franchising can help brands scale quickly and seize market share, but it creates multiple long-term risks. Unregulated expansion leads to over-saturation and cutthroat competition among franchisees within the same business district, dragging down per-store profitability. There is also an inherent conflict of interest between headquarters and franchisees that incentivizes franchisees to cut corners and violate rules for profit, eventually leading to systemic brand crisis.

2. Brand building: Store size is not a moat for a brand; standardized quality control and consumer trust are the real long-term barriers to competition. Sustained accumulation of negative public opinion can quickly erode brand premium built over years, turning net positive brand equity negative.

3. Business model and industry trends: Chain brands need to adopt a value co-creation model: if headquarters collects management fees, it must correspondingly take on responsibilities for quality control, franchisee enablement, and risk assumption. Amid ongoing segmentation and分流 of the retail market, traditional generalist convenience stores must build a differentiated matrix of private-label products to retain consumers.

This article outlines the core problems and risks of the Meiyijia model for prospective convenience store franchisees, highlights industry shifts and opportunities, and provides reference for franchising decision-making.

1. Core risk alert: The current Meiyijia model has multiple issues that hurt franchisees:统一进货 prices are 10-20% higher than local wholesale markets, squeezing terminal gross margins; longstanding lack of regional protection has led to dense store opening within the same community, intensifying cutthroat competition; industry data shows the average payback period for a single convenience store has extended to more than two years, and anecdotal online feedback claims "9 out of 10 Meiyijia franchisees lose money", with the thousands of yuan in monthly management fees delivering no corresponding enablement support.

2. Shifts in regulation and the industry: Regulators have shifted to penetrating accountability that requires brand headquarters to take primary responsibility, but under the loose franchising model, most operational risks and compliance costs are still borne by franchisees, the sellers in this context.

3. Decision-making tips: Before signing a franchise agreement, do not only evaluate brand size. Prioritize due diligence into the brand's regional protection policy, supply chain costs, and enablement system, and prefer brands that align interests with franchisees and can provide differentiated support.

This article sorts out current changes in the chain convenience store industry, identifies new commercial demands and opportunities for FMCG manufacturers and convenience store supply chain factories, and offers insights for digital transformation.

1. Shifts in product demand: As traffic for traditional generalist convenience stores is siphoned off by segmented formats and on-demand retail, leading chain brands are now pursuing differentiated competition, leading to surging demand for private-label products. Factories can partner with chain brands to develop customized private-label goods, helping brands build differentiated barriers while securing stable long-term orders.

2. Shifts in compliance demand: Regulators now require chain brands to build full-chain product traceability systems. Factories need to cooperate with brands to input product traceability information and adapt to digital systems such as near-expiry warning to meet regulatory requirements.

3. Commercial opportunities: Chain brands are currently restructuring their supply chains to eliminate excessive supplier price premiums. Traditional supply chains with inflated prices will gradually be replaced. Factories with clear cost advantages can meet brands' cost-reduction demands to gain larger market share. Meanwhile, the digital upgrade of chain brands is also driving digital transformation on the production side.

This article sorts out the core pain points and development trends of China's 10,000-store chain convenience store industry, and clarifies business directions for service providers serving the retail chain sector.

1. Core client pain points: Leading 10,000-store chain brands generally face a gap between their governance capabilities and their expansion speed. Key pain points include insufficient supervisor coverage and perfunctory inspections, inadequate full-chain quality control and traceability capabilities, misaligned interest distribution between headquarters and franchisees, supply chain opacity, and missing franchisee enablement systems.

2. Business opportunities: Service providers can develop targeted products and services. For example, they can build digital governance systems for franchised chains that cover modules such as near-expiry product warning, product traceability, and supervisor inspection management, to meet brands' needs for full-chain compliance governance. They can also offer tiered franchisee training services and supply chain optimization consulting, to help brands align interest distribution and rebuild a co-development system between headquarters and franchisees.

3. Industry trends: In the age of market maturity, a growing number of 10,000-store chain brands need in-depth rectification, so demand for professional third-party services will continue to rise, creating broad market space.

This article offers clear insights for chain convenience store platforms and retail franchising platforms on招商 operation and risk mitigation.

1. Franchise recruitment: Platforms should not lower entry barriers just to pursue expansion speed. They must strictly screen franchisee qualifications and enforce regional protection rules to avoid unregulated over-saturation in the same business district that intensifies cutthroat competition, triggers franchisee discontent and encourages rule-breaking behavior.

2. Operations management: Platforms must shift away from the "prioritize recruitment over governance" mindset. They have to build standardized systems for quality control, supply chain and franchisee enablement, use digital tools to build full-chain product traceability, and expand full-time supervisor teams to avoid systemic compliance issues caused by governance gaps.

3. Risk mitigation: Regulators have shifted to penetrating accountability, so platform headquarters must take primary responsibility and cannot use franchise contracts to shirk responsibility. Platforms need to align interest distribution between headquarters and franchisees, reduce franchisees' operational pressure, and fundamentally stop franchisees from sourcing unapproved goods illegally to make up for盈利 gaps. They also need to build a differentiated private-label product matrix to respond to traffic being siphoned off by segmented formats and on-demand retail.

This article exposes the core contradictions of the asset-light franchising model adopted by China's large 10,000-store chains, offers a representative case study for research on retail industry development, and sorts out new industrial trends and problems.

1. New industrial problems: The "expand first, govern later" low-threshold asset-light model that thrived in the era of market expansion has reached its end. The loose franchising model has irreconcilable inherent flaws: when brands only output trademarks and supply channels without building a co-development mechanism, all profits flow one-way to headquarters while all risks are passed on to franchisees and consumers. This will eventually lead to sustained erosion of brand equity and trigger systemic crisis, and the Meiyijia case is a perfect example.

2. Policy implications: In recent years, regulatory policy has shifted to penetrating accountability, requiring brand headquarters to take joint responsibility for compliance across their entire store network. This has completely closed the loophole that allowed brands to shift risk via franchise contracts, forcing the entire industry to accelerate model upgrading.

3. Future research directions for business models: The core of future business model upgrading for large 10,000-store chains is building a value co-creation system, and establishing a mechanism of risk-sharing and benefit-sharing between headquarters and franchisees, rather than one-way profit extraction by headquarters and risk shifting to others. This is the core proposition for the chain industry in the mature market era, and will be an important direction for future research.