Miaopai & Yiduo Forge New Retail Strategic Partnership to Capture Offline Maternal & Child Market

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on January 19, the “Sweet Embrace, Together All the Way” Miaoya-Yiduo New Retail Strategic Cooperation Press Conference, jointly hosted by Miaoya Group and Yiduo Group, was held in the Liuyang High-Tech Zone, Hunan Province. The two parties will join hands to empower new retail.In 2018, the two parties planned to open 200 new stores in Hunan Province., opened 100 new stores and 300 half-stores outside the province, while establishing 100 demonstration stores.

Mia was founded in 2011 by Liu Nan. In 2014, the cross-border vertical e-commerce platform for maternal and infant products, “Mia Baby,” officially launched and completed its Series C financing round by the end of that year. In July 2015, Mia upgraded to a “family-oriented consumer platform,” and in September of the same year, it completed a funding round led by Baidu, with participation from existing shareholders such as Sequoia Capital and H Capital, as well as several U.S.-based private equity firms.Series D Financing Round of up to $150 Million。

Data shows that from November 2016 toSeries E Financing Closed in September 2017, with investors being central state-owned enterprises under the “Zhong” prefix. Currently, Miya Group has developed intoA maternal and child health company with both online and offline business formats, as well as its own brand.。

From the earliest import-only, time-limited flash sale model for maternal and infant products to the launch of its own private-label brands“Tutou Mama Select,” and then expanding into the Miya Paradise business,Liu Nan believes that in the retail industry, companies should continuously break through their boundaries by adhering to the principle of “high quality, affordable prices, and excellent service.” In the internet era, strategic expansion of corporate boundaries should be driven by user needs, with efficiency serving as the key metric for evaluation.

In September 2017, Liu Nan wrote on Weibo: “Prudence and radicalism. Sometimes, prudence can be even more dangerous. For instance, on the Titanic, playing it safe led to a dignified death, while taking radical action allowed one to survive in disgrace. Yet, ten years later, those memories would be recalled with dignity. Entrepreneurship is no different; the shift between prudence and radicalism should be determined by timing and circumstances, requiring one to shatter their habitual ways of handling matters. And the hardest thing for anyone is to break themselves apart.”

According to Liu Nan, founder and CEO of the group, against the backdrop of continuous innovation, transformation, and upgrading in retail enterprises, along with a sustained strengthening of the recovery trend in physical retail,Mia.com to Go All Out in Offline New Retail in 2018, while Duo Hua Group is a provincial-level high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D, production, and sales of baby paper products and feminine hygiene paper products. As the largest diaper manufacturer in Central China and one of the top three in China, it boasts strong offline resources. This collaboration marks the beginning of Mia’s strategic layout in the new retail era.

Liu Nan stated that Mia and Yiduo will join forces to create a"Scenario-based, Experiential"Storefront models with [etc.] as entry points comprehensively empower the Yiduo New Retail strategic cooperation project—Mia Yiduo Tianxia Maternal and Child Lifestyle Store—through personalized and branded store renovations, diversified product structures, professional value-added services, and intelligent store management.

Regarding this collaboration, Liu Xiangfu, Chairman and CEO of Hunan Yiduo Daily Necessities Co., Ltd., stated, “Mia and Yiduo will jointly promote the establishment of new formats in quality retail and smart retail, effectively enhance the quality and efficiency of supply, and make new contributions to the development of the maternal and infant economy.”

Data shows that Yiduo Group established the industry’s first dual-academician workstation in 2016, with Academician Zhou Qifeng, former President of Peking University, and Academician Yang Wantai, former Dean of the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, serving as its lead scientists. In October of the same year, Yiduo also built its own factory-to-storeF2C New Retail Channel System Project, namely Yiduo Tianxia Maternal and Infant Brand Factory Store. Currently, there are over 600 operating franchise stores, with several benchmark stores established as models of operational excellence.

Liu Xiangfu stated that the Mia New Retail Strategic Cooperation Project will leverage Mia’s advantages in capital, supply chain, big data-driven intelligent management, and value-added operational services, together withThe Powerful Synergy and Complementary Advantages of Yiduo’s Offline Retail Channel System: Investment Promotion, Marketing, Paper Product Category, and Outlet Network Strengths, vigorously promote quality retail and smart retail.

He stated that the next step for both parties would not only involve comprehensively advancing the upgrade of existing partner stores—enhancing their competitiveness and single-store profitability through improvements in products, management systems, training, and operations—but also launching investment promotion and preparatory work for the "Mia Yiduo Tianxia" Maternal and Child Lifestyle Stores.