Small stores rely on new retail revolution

The 49-year-old billionaire said he was inspired to support small businesses during a trip to Japan a few years ago, where he saw a tiny rice cake store with a sign saying "founded 147 years ago".

Intrigued, Ma gave his patronage to the store, run by an elderly lady, and said he started to "find the charm and beauty" that big businesses often lack today.

The first step in his support was to introduce the "double million" project, which aims to help 1 million small stores achieve annual sales of 1 million yuan.

Three months after Ma's speech, during the "double 12" one-day online sales extravaganza on Taobao — named after the date it fell on, Dec 12, which featured thousands of stores offering special bargains and sales offers — 80 percent of its 6 billion yuan turnover came from its "small and beautiful" stores, an "unprecedented" performance, said officials.

Jiang Peng, the president of Taobao, attributed the massive share of the business to the level of service these small stores can offer, which customers cannot find elsewhere.

Jiang said he believed the stores don't need to, and hardly ever do, grow very big because of the size of the market they are catering to.

That is certainly not He's plan for his pancake business.

A Manchurian, who named his eatery after his royal ancestors who started the last feudalistic dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), He says he wants to create a "new era just as my forefathers did, but mine is about pancakes."

He dreams his jianbing will be talked about in foreign countries without the suffix "the Chinese pancake".

He plans to open five to six Huangtaiji's in Beijing, and later expand to cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen or even New York and London.

What's more, He hopes that within five to seven years, he can also be self-sufficient in all the materials used to make his pancakes, already claimed to be "all-green" with no chemical or additives.