A2 China Label Store Data, page-8

Hi Jossette,

Was meaning to post an update about this actually. A few days ago I rescraped the list and compared the old vs. the new one to look at the changes.

A couple of things I can see:

1) they removed 2,411 older/deactivated stores, majority of which had been originally added between 2015-2019;
2) they added 1,244 new stores, almost all of which were added between 01 Feb and 18 March 2022.

There were also a handful 'new' stores which actually appear to be previously deactivated stores that have come back into the directory again (as it still shows the original creation date for the store listing from years earlier).

Something else worth noting is that every store has a person listed down as 'Receiver' - what I figure a store manager or regional manager. It's quite common for a Receiver to be listed down for multiple stores that they are presumably the nominated purchaser for. In one case, there is a Super Receiver (my term) who is currently responsible for ~500 or so stores across several major cities in Liaoning province. But more often it is just a few stores and often what appear to be franchises or outlets in or around the same town.

So, another thing I noticed is when they removed the stores, more often then not the Receiver will still remain, with other stores they are affiliated with. So although the store count decreased by ~1.2k stores, this equate to probably around 300 or so receivers who were no longer in the distribution network. Similarly, though, alot of the new stores added are new additions for existing receivers.

Lastly, some of the changes just seem to be removing or updating vague addresses. Any time a new address is added it seems to require a new entry. For instance, below in red is a store listing that was removed in this update, whilst the green is one that was added. Same dealer, same phone number, seemingly similar location or area.



So my guess is that within a 7 year time span (since the first stores were added), alot of stores close or change location, but the directory only gets updated when the receiver updates the details, and then the company bothers to update the site. And I don't think they have been clearing obsolete records until very recently.