By Lau Chi Hang
作者劉智恆，本文僅代表個人觀點
“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.
「我們贏盡對手，卻輸給時代，時代拋棄你時，連一聲再見都不會說。」高鑫零售(6808.HK)主席黃明端曾感慨萬千地說過這句話，大家聽來確實無限唏噓。
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.
事實網購的崛起，令昔日雄霸市場的大型超市無力招架，超市之王家樂福近年在內地接連關掉140間分店，高鑫旗下的大潤發，單去年就有13家分店結業，英國的Tesco PLC更是黯然退出內地市場。