Information from auction platforms shows that assets related to multiple home furnishing and home appliance stores are about to be auctioned, with combined starting bids exceeding 240 million yuan. Chain store giants are also under continued operating pressure, with Red Star Macalline closing 5 stores in the first quarter and Easyhome reducing its number of traditional stores by a net 35 in 2025. As internet giants such as JD.com and Tmall expand offline, the pressure on traditional home furnishing stores is expected to keep increasing.
Stores in Zhangshu, Guangzhou, and Heyuan about to be auctioned
Combined starting bids exceeding 240 million yuan
Recently, multiple auction items related to home furnishing and home appliance stores have been listed on Alibaba’s judicial auction platform. Among them, assets related to the International Home Furnishing and Building Materials City at No. 2 Site Avenue, Zhangshu City, Jiangxi Province, were appraised at 129,126,200 yuan, with a starting bid of 82,640,768 yuan, and the auction will begin at 10:00 on July 1, 2026. The auction item for this sale is “a total of 56 properties at the International Home Furnishing and Building Materials City, No. 2 Site Avenue, Zhangshu City, Building B11, Nos. 130-147, 233-246, 301-312, and 401-412,” with a building area of 31,580.96 square meters. The building has a total of 4 floors, and the item is located on floors 1 through 4.
Public records show that the owner of this auction item is Jiangxi Sichuang Industrial Co., Ltd., which was placed on the list of dishonest persons subject to enforcement in October 2025, after which the company and its legal representative were subjected to restrictions on high consumption. In January 2026, the company was again listed as a person subject to enforcement, with an enforcement amount of 22,359,928.00 yuan. Currently, the auction item has been sealed by the court.
A commercial property within a home appliance store will also be auctioned in the near future. The auction item is named “Out-of-print central commercial complex in Huadu District, having operated a home appliance mall for over 20 years, with stable long-term returns from steady tenants such as Starbucks, and average annual rent of nearly 7 million!”, with a starting bid of 150,000,000 yuan, and the auction will begin at 10:00 on July 16, 2026. This store is located at “Light of Color Mall” in the core area of Huadu District, Guangzhou. From the interior of the 1st floor to the 3rd floor of the mall is the Light of Color Electrical Appliance Mall, with brands including JD.com, Midea, Kuka, Haier, Hisense, Mitsubishi, Skyworth, and others. The mall is currently operating normally.
In addition, another auction item is “Nos. 302 and 303, Wanlong Metropolis 100 Commercial Mall, on the south side of Construction Avenue and the east side of Wenchang Road, Xinshi District, Heyuan City,” with a starting bid of 19,295,948 yuan. The owner of the item is Heyuan Fengze Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. The item has currently been mortgaged to a bank and sealed by the court.
Chain store giants under continued pressure
Red Star Macalline closed 5 stores in the first quarter
According to information that was approved by the Department of Circulation Industry Development of the Ministry of Commerce and compiled and released by the China Building Materials Circulation Association, although the sales of building materials and home furnishing stores above designated size nationwide reached 128.694 billion yuan in May, up 15.07% month-on-month and 2.86% year-on-year, the total sales of building materials and home furnishing stores above designated size nationwide for the entire January-May period was 548.496 billion yuan, down 4.01% year-on-year.
Operating data disclosed by listed companies also shows that chain store giants are under continued operating pressure. According to Red Star Macalline’s first-quarter report, the company’s operating revenue from January to March 2026 was 1.548 billion yuan, a decrease of 67 million yuan from 1.615 billion yuan in the same period last year. Among this, revenue from the self-operated and leasing segment was 1.197 billion yuan, a slight year-on-year decline of 12 million yuan. The main reason for the decline in this segment’s revenue was a decrease in the number of self-operated and leased malls.
In the first quarter, Red Star Macalline closed 5 stores, including 1 self-operated mall, 4 managed malls, 1 strategic cooperation mall, and 2 franchise malls. As of March 31, 2026, Red Star Macalline operated 73 self-operated malls, 214 managed malls of varying management depth, and 6 home furnishing malls operated through strategic cooperation. In addition, the company licensed 17 franchised home furnishing and building materials projects through franchising, comprising a total of 336 home furnishing and building materials stores/industrial streets.
Although the other chain store giant, Easyhome, has not yet disclosed its current number of stores, data shows that it had a net reduction of 35 traditional home furnishing stores in 2025 (18 directly operated and 17 franchised), continuing to contract and offset stores.
Internet giants accelerate offline expansion,
Tmall and JD.com open stores at a rapid pace
Compared with traditional home furnishing stores, the offline expansion of internet retail giants can be described as having strong momentum. On June 18, on the opening day of JD MALL’s Wan Chai store in Hong Kong, the single-day single-store sales set a record for similar electrical appliance retail malls in Hong Kong. The mall is located in the Wan Chai business district, with a 30,000-square-foot ultra-large experiential operating space, ranking among the top professional electrical appliance retail malls in Hong Kong. Over the next three years, JD MALL plans to add 6 to 8 offline stores in Hong Kong, continuously improving the local offline retail network.
Earlier, in May, the Tmall Youpin Electrical Appliance Super Flagship Store also officially opened within Yuexing Home Furnishing in the Kazimen business district of Nanjing. This store is the highest-standard store type under the Taotian Group, with an operating area of 5,000 square meters, occupying three floors of core space, and is currently the largest Tmall Youpin Electrical Appliance Super Flagship Store in the country. Tmall Youpin is a national brand under the Taotian Group centered on home appliance and home furnishing retail, currently with tens of thousands of stores nationwide.
JD.com and Tmall, relying on their online influence, are accelerating their layout in the offline market, also bringing pressure to traditional home furnishing stores. Some companies have already accelerated the pace of transformation. For example, the aforementioned Easyhome recently revealed that the company continues to advance its intelligent and digital transformation, having opened and operated 32 smart home experience centers, and smart home has become an important category in the company’s stores. Red Star Macalline also revealed that its future strategic positioning is clearly defined as a “new commercial operator of home living and an ecosystem service provider for the home furnishing industry,” and that it will expand its second growth curve, develop home furnishing supply chain business by relying on its accumulated advantages, explore ecosystem-element-based businesses, broaden revenue sources, enhance risk resistance and resilience, and achieve a leap in full-ecosystem services.
Originally published in WeChat by Chu Wei Tou Tiao on 2026-06-24. Translated and edited for English-language readers.