As of 13 November 2026, Aldi had told local media it expects to reach 150 stores in China by the end of the year, roughly 60 of them opened in 2026 — about twice the pace the German hard-discount chain has run at since entering the market. The plan matters less for the headline count than for what it implies about store selection: a 1,000-square-metre box carrying about 2,000 SKUs only works if the trade area behind it is dense enough to support daily trips, and if the distribution network can replenish it often enough to keep shelves full.
Sixty openings, one warehouse logic
The sequence the company describes is supply chain first, stores second. Aldi opened its third East China distribution centre in Nanjing before pushing deeper into Jiangsu, a 24,000-square-metre facility developed with GLP that offers ambient and temperature-controlled storage. That order of operations is the opposite of what expansion stories usually emphasise, and it is the part that determines whether a new trade area can be served at the frequency a 2,000-SKU store needs.
Frequency is the constraint. A compact store carrying 2,000 items cannot hold deep inventory of anything, so it depends on replenishment several times a week. If the warehouse is two hours away, the store either carries more stock than its back room allows or accepts gaps on shelf. Neither is acceptable in a format whose entire promise is everyday low price on everyday items, and both show up as consumer demand shifting to the nearest competitor.
Where the ten-yuan shelf comes from
Private label is the price mechanism
More than 90 percent of the range is private label, which lets the retailer bypass distributors and control specification, pack size and cost. Between a quarter and a third of products sell below CNY10. The point is not that everything is cheap; it is that the cheapest items are the ones the store designs itself, so the price gap survives a competitor's promotion. Category growth in Chinese discount grocery is being driven by exactly this mechanism rather than by broad market size expansion.
The anchor price is a basket decision
Buyers quoted in Chinese media describe CNY9.90 to CNY12.90 as the band that triggers an extra item in the basket, with conversion falling sharply above CNY13. That is a merchandising rule, not a marketing one: it tells the store which price points must be defended on shelf, and which can be left to rotate.
What a store-selection check should record
The table below turns the format into four fields a retail team can actually fill before signing a lease. Sample values come from the public reporting cited here; replace them with your own city data.
| Check | Field example | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Trade area density | Households within a 10-minute walk | Whether daily trips are plausible |
| Replenishment distance | Minutes from the serving warehouse | Delivery frequency the store can hold |
| Private-label share | Target share of SKUs own-brand | How much price control you keep |
| Anchor price coverage | Share of SKUs under CNY10 | Whether the basket trigger exists |
The fourth row is the one teams skip. Anchor price coverage looks like a pricing decision but it is a selection decision: a trade area that cannot support enough daily-trip baskets will not hold a sub-CNY10 shelf, because the margin has to come from volume. Get the density wrong and the price architecture collapses into permanent promotion.
FAQ
Is 150 stores by year-end realistic?
It requires delivering the remaining pipeline of roughly 60 openings in the final weeks of the year. Public reporting does not include a monthly store count, so the number should be treated as a target until the company or its landlords confirm openings.
Why open a warehouse before the stores?
Because a 2,000-SKU store cannot hold deep inventory. Replenishment frequency, not store count, is what limits how far a discounter can expand; building the warehouse first sets that limit in advance rather than discovering it after signing leases.
Does the ten-yuan price point travel across cities?
It travels with density, not with income levels. The band works where shoppers pass a store often enough to buy one extra item; in low-frequency trade areas the same shelf needs deeper assortment instead, which breaks the format's logic.
What is the main competitive risk?
Copying. Domestic chains are already running limited-assortment private-label formats with faster local sourcing, and several compete at the same ten-yuan shelf. Holding the price position then depends on rotating products, not on cutting prices further.
