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A supermarket David defeats Goliath in small-town China, outracing the times

With only a dozen stores in the Central city of Xuchang, Pang Donglai has become a modern legend for standing up to a flood of hypermarkets and online grocers.

By Lau Chi Hang

“We won all our battles but lost to the times. And when the times abandon you, they don’t even bother saying goodbye,” lamented Huang Ming-Tuan, chairman of Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. (6808.HK), whose RT-Mart chain was once a king of the hill in China’s huge but hotly contested supermarket sector.

The rise of online shopping has pushed aside such former giants, leaving their shopping carts far emptier than they were back in their heyday just a decade ago. Carrefour, once a leader in the pack, has closed 140 Chinese stores in recent years, as its French owner sold the chain to a local company. RT-Mart closed 13 stores last year alone, while Britain’s Tesco has abandoned the China market completely.

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