How Suning’s Digital Supply Chain Powers Rapid Home Delivery for Retailers

The “home‑delivery” (到家) business has surged since 2020. In the post‑pandemic era, small‑ and medium‑size retailers want to hop on the fast‑growing home‑delivery train and even enter the internet‑based “final round,” but they must master cost control, supply‑chain management, and traffic acquisition, which is difficult for many due to limited scale and technology investment.

Large retailers such as Suning have taken a different approach. Leveraging Carrefour’s “new community life center,” Suning adopts an online‑offline integration strategy, digitally upgrading Carrefour stores, accelerating smart‑supply‑chain integration, and concentrating traffic on Carrefour’s platforms. Since February, Carrefour has launched three home‑delivery products—Carrefour Mini‑Program, 3‑km 1‑hour delivery, and 10‑km half‑day delivery (“same‑city delivery”)—creating a low‑cost, high‑speed development path.

Using Points to Cover the Whole: Digital Near‑Field Network Connects All Scenarios

Suning and Carrefour have already integrated supply chain, logistics, and membership . For Suning, home‑delivery is both a new opportunity and a key lever for full‑scene integration, driving quality and efficiency improvements across all categories and channels once the service matures.

During the integration process, Suning not only enhances near‑field service capabilities but also expands the experience to promote full‑scene collaboration , building an end‑to‑end network from online to offline and from cities to rural areas, fully meeting consumer demand for both in‑store and at‑home services.

Suning’s Retail Technology Research Institute, together with Xinhua News Agency’s Economic Reference Newspaper, released the industry’s first “new‑infrastructure” deep‑dive report. The report notes that to meet the surge in home‑delivery demand during the pandemic, Sunian quickly built an end‑to‑end technical service framework—from front‑end to transaction middle‑platform to back‑end—offering merchants platform‑based services such as product management, promotion management, and logistics management , greatly improving convenience and user experience and further achieving O2O integration.

Today, business models like Suning‑Carrefour, cloud stores, Red‑Kid, small shops, and Yiguo all offer home‑delivery services. Through digital upgrades, these stores act not only as physical retail points but also as integrated online‑offline experience hubs and “warehouses,” allowing customers to order online and receive near‑by delivery.

Smart Supply Chain: Central Warehouse, Front‑Warehouse, Fast‑Pick Warehouse Cooperate

Regardless of how models evolve, successful retail fundamentally depends on an efficient supply chain. At a recent 618 Suning Cloud launch, Suning’s Vice President Gu Wei revealed a “cloud‑based” supply‑chain revolution that improves both price and service for consumers. By tracking big‑data consumption patterns, Suning identifies high‑frequency items and moves them to front‑warehouses closer to customers, dramatically boosting delivery efficiency. Currently, Suning has achieved half‑day delivery in 51 cities and next‑day delivery in 315 cities.

With the integration of Carrefour China’s businesses, Suning has built a store‑warehouse‑integrated fast‑moving‑goods supply chain. By the end of April, Suning completed fast‑pick warehouses and system upgrades in nearly 200 Carrefour stores . The fast‑pick system intelligently predicts replenishment needs based on sales trends and issues alerts when inventory falls below safety thresholds, ensuring optimal stock levels.

Data shows that the fast‑pick process saves nearly 50% of time in the picking‑and‑packing stage, significantly enhancing fulfillment capability and home‑delivery service levels. Carrefour’s home‑delivery speed has reached half‑hour delivery.

Suning’s performance demonstrates the impact: from January to April, Carrefour’s home‑delivery orders grew 412% , and the share of store‑based home‑delivery sales rose rapidly, reaching nearly 10% in March.

In the digital economy era, home‑delivery cannot rely on a single technology; it requires a real‑time IT interaction platform, intelligent supply chain, multi‑dimensional logistics, and continuous consumer interaction across pre‑, mid‑, and post‑sale stages to form a closed‑loop solution.

Represented by Suning, retail‑technology companies are reshaping the industry by merging digital technologies with practical scenarios, aggregating expertise, and eventually opening platform capabilities to the broader market, helping small retailers join the second wave of growth in the home‑delivery arena.