Zhang Feng of MultiPoint Digital Intelligence: Can AI Solve the Challenges in the Retail Industry? | Exclusive Interview by 36Kr

Author | Chen Sizhu

Editor | Xie Yunzi

Cover Source | VCG

After experiencing "major ups and downs" in life, in 2015, Zhang Wenzhong, the founder of Wumart Group, founded Dmall. At that time, Zhang Wenzhong believed that the future of the retail industry was to achieve the integration of online and offline on the basis of digitalization.

After the "black swan" event of the pandemic, the demand for online grocery shopping among consumers soared, and the enthusiasm of physical retail for digitalization reached its peak. However, the complexity of China's physical retail soon poured cold water on the industry.

Once, a senior executive of a retail supermarket frankly told 36Kr that fully investing in digitalization was the "biggest pitfall" he had ever encountered. While enterprises spare no effort in digital transformation, they also fall into the trap of "overstaffing, difficulty in implementing technology, and imbalance between costs and revenues."

In 2024, the physical retail industry entered a gloomy period. According to previous media reports, at least 12,000 stores in China closed down that year, including well - known large supermarket brands such as RT - Mart, Walmart, and Yonghui. When the entire industry began to save itself, Fat Donglai, which always focuses on "quality retail", almost became the learning object of "everyone". The cooperation between Dmall and Fat Donglai can be traced back even earlier.

In December last year, Dmall was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. After nearly a decade of development, this startup with a physical retail gene has long been able to stand on its own, and its business has expanded overseas.

On March 18th, Dmall released its financial report. In the previous year, its revenue reached 1.859 billion yuan. Among them, the revenue of the retail core service cloud business reached 1.8 billion yuan, and the proportion of high - margin businesses continued to increase. In the secondary market, since 2025, Dmall's stock price has cumulatively risen by more than 100%, which also reflects the capital market's positive expectations for its performance growth.

The following is a conversation between 36Kr and Zhang Feng, the co - founder and president of Dmall, covering topics such as Dmall's development, the application of AI technology, cooperation with Fat Donglai, and the future of digitalization in the retail industry.

From left to right: Ren Zhongwei, partner of Dmall; Yu Donglai, founder of Fat Donglai Group; Zhang Feng, president of Dmall

01 "Inclusion in Connectivity" and Profit Cycle

36Kr: Why did you join Dmall at that time?

Zhang Feng: The industry says that retail is an age - old industry. From the perspective of that time (2015), people needed both online services and in - store consumption. The entire market was large and fragmented, and a third - party company was needed to provide solutions.

36Kr: What kind of communication did you have with Zhang Wenzhong at that time?

Zhang Feng: We had a lot of discussions on strategy. We hoped to build a "deep, refined, and innovative" digital underlying system to help retail enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, which is also what Dmall has always adhered to.

36Kr: How did you feel when Dmall was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December last year?

Zhang Feng: In 2015 or even earlier, there was a group of digital enterprises similar to Dmall that did not achieve good results. It took ten years to forge a sword. I think Dmall's successful listing shows that the company's development direction is correct.

36Kr: How do you view the recent fluctuations in the stock price?

Zhang Feng: One reason is "inclusion in Connectivity". After inclusion, the liquidity and attention of the stock have increased. Secondly, Dmall has strong customer stickiness, and its revenue will continue to grow. Finally, and more importantly, Dmall has been using AI technology to help retail enterprises solve problems. Based on these, Dmall's stock price may have a relatively good increase in the near future.

36Kr: Are you satisfied with the 2024 financial report?

Zhang Feng: The growth of revenue and profit basically achieved the expected goals.

36Kr: But Dmall is still in a loss state. It seems that the profit cycle of digital service - type enterprises is always long.

Zhang Feng: This is indeed a common problem faced by the industry. First of all, digital service enterprises have high marketing and customer acquisition costs, and the customer retention rate may not be good either. Second, there are many customized services, and the human - resource input is also relatively large.

However, Dmall serves the vertical retail industry. Its product standardization is well - done, and there is basically no user churn. In the past two years, we have also achieved a certain revenue volume overseas, obtaining better profit margins than our peers.

36Kr: Has Dmall achieved self - sufficiency and solved the survival problem?

Zhang Feng: Yes, the survival problem has been solved. In 2025, Dmall's profit and revenue will definitely have a more substantial increase. I believe that Dmall can achieve annual profitability this year.

Screenshot from Dmall's financial report

02 Specific Steps of Digitalization

36Kr: How to understand Dmall's digital system?

Zhang Feng: Our operating system is called Dmall OS, which is a one - stop omnichannel digital solution.

Omnichannel is easy to understand. One - stop means that the entire system is modular and can be spliced like building blocks to serve the different needs of each retail enterprise. For example, convenience stores and hypermarkets have very different digital requirements. Users can choose modules according to their needs.

36Kr: Did Dmall decide to build a modular system from the beginning?

Zhang Feng: Yes, since its establishment, Dmall has been an independent company. We didn't want to just serve Wumart but many retail enterprises.

36Kr: But Wumart must be Dmall's biggest test field. What difficulties did Dmall encounter when digitizing the first Wumart store?

Zhang Feng: As the various modules of Dmall OS were continuously established, in 2018, the entire system achieved a closed - loop. In 2019, the Wumart store in Zhongguancun Science and Trade Center became the first store to use the full - system.

During the running - in process, we also encountered many problems. For example, there were network problems. Since the new system needed to upload and download data in real - time, the network became unstable, and there were malfunctions during the critical stage of system migration. To solve this problem, we worked with Wumart's IT department to debug the store's network to meet the requirements of the new system.

Another example is that there are differences in unit settings between different systems. The purchase units of fresh products are different in the old and new systems. If the order clerk is a little careless, there will be "box - by - box" errors, which will affect inventory counting. For such problems, we could only strengthen training, stabilize the emotions of the store and clerks, and adjust the internal communication process.

36Kr: Who was the second customer?

Zhang Feng: Zhongbai Group. Zhongbai is a large - scale chain supermarket in Hubei and also a listed company. At that time, they were more concerned about how to promote their online business. After seeing the good results of Wumart after using Dmall, they hoped to cooperate.

36Kr: There must be many differences between Zhongbai and Wumart.

Zhang Feng: There are differences, but not many. Some of Zhongbai's products are jointly operated. Maybe a dozen products share one barcode, and it is impossible to fully associate offline products with online ones, and the inventory accuracy is also low. So we had to do a lot of basic work to split these jointly - operated products into "one product, one code".

There are indeed differences in the operation models, product structures, and customer groups of different retail supermarkets, which requires customized solutions and places high demands on system service providers.

36Kr: If 7 - Eleven wants to cooperate with Dmall, what is the specific process?

Zhang Feng: In fact, we have a cooperation with 7 - Eleven in Guangdong. Before the formal cooperation, Dmall will first provide consulting services to understand the merchant's operation status, problems faced, and future plans as much as possible. Then, based on experience, we will find the corresponding modules for users, such as store operation, supply chain, and membership system, and customize a practical solution.

During the subsequent cooperation stage, Dmall will also continuously co - create new modules with users. Dmall co - created a franchisee system module with 7 - Eleven in Guangdong, realizing the digitalization of franchisee assets; it also launched an intelligent warehousing and logistics management system, improving the sorting efficiency.

03 Can AI Solve Retail Problems?

36Kr: Generally, after the Dmall OS system is launched, how much does the store's revenue increase?

Zhang Feng: The online transaction volume can increase by 35% from a relatively small base; the increase in offline transactions is also relatively high. After getting familiar with the system operation, some stores will turn losses into profits in the short term. The total annual sales of ordinary stores will increase by at least 5% to 10%.

36Kr: Dmall has successively launched Dmall OS 2.0 and 3.0. What are the differences between different versions?

Zhang Feng: Dmall OS 1.0 is about digitalization; 2.0 adds intelligent content, improving decision - making and analysis capabilities through technologies such as big data; 3.0 is an AI - driven OS system with deep - learning capabilities. Of course, this is an iterative process. Digitalization is the foundation of everything. AI has significant effects in some current modules, but full - scale AI is definitely still on the way.

36Kr: In retail supermarkets, in which specific scenarios is AI applied?

Zhang Feng: In terms of operational efficiency, AI can help users achieve exponential improvement.

For example, in terms of clearance, short - shelf - life products such as fresh produce will become a loss if they are not sold on the same day. To balance the loss, merchants will offer discounts. If the discount time is not right, they will lose gross profit.

Through AI, it can calculate the most appropriate time to offer discounts, increasing the regular - price rate of products. The gross profit of the fresh produce category in stores can basically increase by 3% to 4%. According to previous statistics, the application of the AI module can help Wumart save more than one million yuan in profit every year.

36Kr: Have you had any communication with Zhang Wenzhong about AI?

Zhang Feng: He has foresight in AI and firmly believes that AI is the future.

36Kr: Dmall has also connected to DeepSeek. Is the efficiency improvement of AI products obvious?

Zhang Feng: We have tried many underlying large - language models, including OpenAI and Doubao. Now we call DeepSeek more often, and the speed - up effect is obvious.

36Kr: For retail supermarkets, the biggest challenge in digitalization is implementation.

Zhang Feng: Yes. Recently, I communicated with a retail enterprise. His biggest perception was that system service providers don't understand the business. If the system provider can't even clarify what problems the users want to solve, it's even more impossible to talk about implementation.

Dmall was founded by Dr. Zhang Wenzhong. We resonate with retail enterprises and speak the same language. The modular system can also better achieve customization.

36Kr: The fact that the revenue proportion of affiliated companies such as Wumart is too high has always been a concern of the outside world.

Zhang Feng: Wumart was the first partner to launch the Dmall system. Among all our cooperation users, Wumart also has the largest volume, so the initial revenue proportion was definitely high. As of the end of 2024, the total number of Dmall's users has reached 591, and Wumart's revenue proportion has significantly decreased.

From the 2024 financial report, in the revenue brought by the Dmall OS operating system, Wumart's proportion is only a little over 40%, showing a continuous downward trend. However, last year, Dmall's AI solutions achieved extremely high revenue growth, and we choose to launch each new business on Wumart first. So overall, Wumart's revenue proportion exceeds 70%.

36Kr: It seems that Dmall has separated its e - commerce business.

Zhang Feng: For retail supermarkets, e - commerce is just the initial demand for digitalization. Dmall mainly plays the role of a coach. We set an example, and once they can catch the "crabs" on their own, we don't need to do it for them anymore.

36Kr: Will this affect the overall revenue?

Zhang Feng: There will be a little impact, but it is basically controllable. Our revenue structure is mainly divided into two major sectors: "basic retail" and "intelligent IoT". Basic retail refers to the OS system and AI value - added services, and this sector accounts for more than 90%. Intelligent IoT is the connection of in - store hardware, such as POS machines. We are also exploring new user needs and hope to go deeper and more thoroughly in hardware.

Screenshot from Dmall's financial report

04 Fat Donglai, Product Power, and Going Global

36Kr: When did Dmall start to cooperate with Fat Donglai?

Zhang Feng: More than two years ago, it also started from the online business. Brother Donglai (Yu Donglai) thinks that Dmall is the "soulmate" of retail enterprises. At the end of last year, Fat Donglai fully cooperated with the Dmall OS system. We will also communicate more deeply to see how we can help them solve practical problems.

For example, Fat Donglai has always hoped to implement real - name membership and improve the chaos of purchasing agents. Fat Donglai has always done a good job in quality control, but it has been based on experience and management. Now they hope to digitalize and modernize quality control, and we are also having continuous communication.

36Kr: How do you view the trend of retail enterprises learning from Fat Donglai?

Zhang Feng: The current store renovation has achieved relatively good results. The problem