Yu Donglai lost 400,000 in two years: a boss openly prices his "emotions"

（Source: A Small Person Who Sees Through Everything）

胖东来 is the private enterprise in China with the best labor-management environment, without exception.

At 63 years old, founder Yu Donglai, his most recent sharing about corporate management is: in the past two years, he has already paid out more than 400,000 yuan because he lost his temper at subordinates.

At Pangdonglai, when a superior loses their temper at a subordinate, it can only be done after “paying the fee.”

For frontline management, it starts at 4,000 yuan;

For the founder, it’s 100,000 yuan per instance.

It’s pretty expensive—so expensive that even Yu Donglai began to do his utmost to control his own temper.

How does Pangdonglai manage to outperform the entire industry?

When discussing a certain issue in a company, you must start by looking at the company’s revenue performance.

In 2025, Pangdonglai’s sales were 23.531 billion yuan.

In the same period, other retail companies: Sam’s China 1200 billion yuan, Hema 1000 billion yuan (GMV). Judging purely by the numbers, Pangdonglai is not the strongest.

But what’s impressive about Pangdonglai’s sales performance is that it has only a dozen or so stores.

It’s not the case that the more stores you have, the more money you earn.

You can look at the counterexample of Yonghui Superstores—now it has 450 stores.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Yonghui’s net loss was 710 million yuan. On that basis alone, it closed 104 stores in just the third quarter.

Now look at another player: RT-Mart.

It made 386 million yuan in 2025, and in the 2026 fiscal year it will immediately post a loss of 127 million yuan.

Good performance is always revealed through comparison.

Where is Pangdonglai’s business doing better?

Transparency is a very important condition.

Starting in March 2025, Pangdonglai公開ed all of its revenue data, the number of employees, and other information on its official website.

A company that dares to tell consumers directly on its down jackets that its profit is 0.3 yuan is rare worldwide.

When merchants are transparent enough, it brings consumer trust.

Consumer trust shows up in the business of the stores.

On December 23, 2025, Pangdonglai’s “Three Pang Stores” opened their doors at 1:00 a.m., and their single-day sales broke 10.11 million yuan.

For retail stores that open at midnight, customers line up in long queues.

The starting point for achieving the above results is Yu Donglai’s decision to share 95% of profits with employees.

When an employee at a company “doesn’t want to leave”

In the retail industry, employee turnover rates can indirectly confirm the state of development in the industry.

In 2025, the annual resignation rate in the U.S. retail trade industry was about 2.6%.

How high is employee turnover in China’s retail industry?

You can look at Pangdonglai.

From January to July 2025, Pangdonglai’s employee turnover rate was only 0.94%.

What this number means is that over more than half a year, out of 100 Pangdonglai employees, only 1 person resigned.

In labor-intensive industries, this figure looks as if it has been polished.

They can achieve it because Pangdonglai treats employees as people.

First, it pays employees enough money.

In 2025, Pangdonglai’s average monthly income per employee was 9,400 yuan. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2025 the national average annual wage for employed persons in urban private units was about 68,000 yuan, with monthly pay of less than 5,700 yuan.

Second, it gives employees enough rest.

At Pangdonglai, if ordinary employees have one day off per week (single rest day), the total annual paid leave is close to 150 days.

Not being at the job for five months, while still receiving pay far above the industry average—who would choose to switch jobs under such treatment?

When bosses start paying for their own emotions

Over these years, Chinese companies have gotten used to “wolf-like” culture.

Yu Donglai’s 400,000 yuan “fine” is just proof of one thing: if employees are treated as an important part of the company, the business will only keep going from strength to strength.

Of Pangdonglai’s 23.5 billion yuan in sales, the 400,000 yuan “temper fee” is almost negligible.

Controlling emotions worth 400,000 yuan, in exchange for absolute employee loyalty and a high level of consumer trust.

The irony is that RT-Mart, BuBuGao (rights protection), Yonghui… they all tried to copy and adopt the essence of Pangdonglai, but none truly manages to put employees in the most important position first.

For Chinese private enterprise owners, they should ask themselves this: what cost are you willing to pay for your temper?

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