China’s former richest man Zhong Shanshan slams e-commerce platforms for stifling physical retail, worsening price wars
E-commerce platforms have become a new class of intermediaries, displacing traditional wholesalers and distributors while gaining greater influence over merchants through algorithm-driven systems, Zhong, founder of beverage giant Nongfu Spring, said earlier this month on state broadcaster CCTV’s Dialogue program. “Traditional distributors operated under relatively transparent and predictable fee structures,” Zhong said, as quoted by…