We continue to stabilize the business. You can say that now, besides the price, we can also see that value has already become a key focus of the majority of the consumers. Whereas, you can say that we also continue to see the emerging of the new consumption scenario, which is accelerating the evolution of the consumption structure to some extent. We believe that good products need compelling stories to support them. We also need effective presentation methods and the lifecycle management to truly convey the value of the brands and products. Currently, industry opportunities still exist, but seizing those opportunities has become more challenging than before. Against this backdrop, Topsports has remained committed in advancing our core strategy and actively adapting to changes in market conditions and consumer demands. Externally speaking, we continue to expand our brand partnership ecosystem and evolve our capacity metrics.
Internally, we persistently refine our omnichannel retail agility as well as operational efficiency. Despite the challenging external environment, we'll still be able to achieve our planned performance in each one of these years. Look ahead of the second year. We will remain a product business approach while keeping a resolutely optimistic attitude. We will gain market insights from core diverse perspectives, respond to external challenges with great agility, and continue to enrich Topsports' role and value within the industrial ecosystem. Coming next, I will hand over the floor to Rebecca, please.
Thank you. Please allow me to update you on the financial performance for each one of these years. Overly speaking, we achieved our planned performance as expected, which has been mentioned by Mr. Yu, which also exceeds the market expectations we observed from the capital market.
Where from the revenue perspective, affected by the weak consumer demand and air flight traffic fluctuations, overall revenue declined 5.8% to RMB 12.3 billion. By category, retail business declined by 3% worldwide in each one of these years. Wholesale business declined by 20.3%. By brand, core brand sales revenue decreased by 4.8%, reaching RMB 10.8 billion, where other brand sales revenue declined by 12.2%, reaching RMB 1.4 billion. The performance of other brands was primarily affected by lifestyle sports brands. Though overall performance of the specialized vertical brands remained the best, comprehensive sports and life sports category. At the GP margin level, specific affecting factors including one negative factor and two positive factors. Regarding the negative factor, we have a deeper discount rate worldwide, which has a negative impact on the GP margin, which is also indeed the same as what we mentioned to you.
There are a few factors leading to the infection. As you can see, we still have an ever-increasing number of the business. Especially in China, the online sales discount is more than what we have for the offline channel. That's the reason the online channel sales continue to go up, which will indeed have a negative impact over the GP margin as a whole. At the same time, as we have already mentioned, the deeper discount has been further ramped up, but still compared with the second half of fiscal year 2025, there's a narrow jump. Meanwhile, we can see the revenue from the retail business contribution started to go up. You can also see that the brand partner support can also be supportive to our GP margin. With the two positive factors, to some extent, it's diluted the negative factor's burden.
In other words, resulting in the overall GP margin declined only by 0.1%, reaching 41%. At the percentage ratio perspective, during the period, revenue declined by 5.8%, total expenses decreased by 5.5%, with expense ratio only increasing slightly by 0.1%, reaching 33.2%. In the challenging environment, we hope to alleviate offline operating expenses pressure through the omnichannel deployment and refined cost efficiency management. Overall estimated rental expenses, from the value perspective, have been decreased by 12.1% on a worldwide basis. Rental expense ratio declined by 0.8% point, which was the biggest contributor to the overall expense ratio control. For the offline channel, we continue the structured optimization in offline channel to reduce losses and improve efficiency. With operating as well as openings and renovation efficiency improved on a worldwide basis. The second point is channel mix changes. The online and offline channel indeed perform different for GP margin and cost.
Online channel has a lower expense ratio. Where we have more revenue from the online channel, it also helps to further lower the overall expense ratio. Regarding the employment, we maintain a staffing aligned with omnichannel deployment needs, building an agile and efficient talent pipeline to consolidate our cost efficiency advantage. Overall employee headcount decreased by 16% worldwide. Total employee cost decreased by 5.2%. The expense ratio has been quite stable, only increasing 0.1%, reaching 10.5%. This is mainly due to two reasons. First of all, we aim to provide long-term development support to quality talents. Average productivity improved during this period. At the same time, we also made our organizational efficiency optimization work in each one of these years, which will be demonstrated in cost efficiency going forward. Other expenses increased by 1.6% on a worldwide basis, mainly including property, plant and equipment depreciation, platform services, and logistics services.
With rapid online business sales growth during the fiscal year, the corresponding platform operating expenses also increased. From an overall business progress perspective, negative factors mainly included operating negative leverage impact from the air flight traffic fluctuation. This impact was partially offset by continued optimization of the air flight network and increased the proportion of the online rental business. Let's also take a look at the net profit changes, the trajectory from the net profit trend chart on the left. You can see the main factor affecting the net profit was the decline in gross profit margin and impact of other incomes. The remaining items, including total expenses, the net financing cost, and the tax expenses, provided a positive contribution.
You can also see on the right side of this slide, the gross profit margin deduction along with the decline in gross profit margin, slight increase in the expense ratio, and the decline in other incomes were negative factors. Net financing cost and tax expenses provided positive contributions. Excluding the impact of other income, net profit declined by 6% on a worldwide basis, consistent with 5.8% worldwide basis. Our net profit rate was only reduced by 0.3%, reaching 6.4%. We continue to further improve the negative leverage that may impact our overall business operation. Coming next, let me discuss our working capital efficiency. During the fiscal year, inventory management has been our key focus. We adhere to the principle of maximizing merchandise efficiency, conducting omnichannel inventory circulation management. Inventory amount decreased by 4.7%, with inventory tenure days increased slightly from 148.3 days to 150 days.
Trade receivable reduced by 1.5%, tenure days declined by 3.5 days, reaching 12.6 days. Trade payable decreased by 64%, tenure days declined 6.5 days, reaching 8.2 days. Payable related to the merchandise procurement reduced, which will also lead to the inventory reduction at the end of August. Regarding the working capital efficiency, the revenue decline continued to be thin, but the average working capital as a percentage to revenue remained flat. We continue to maintain essential efficient working capital management. Let's now move to the cash generation capacities. Net operating cash flow was RMB 1.35 billion, down by 48.2% due to a few factors. Let me just share with you those factors. There are two reasons. The change was mainly due to the Chinese New Year timing between the two years, which actually have RMB 1 billion of the receivables and trade payables.
First of all, let me see regarding the receivables. In each one of these years, we need to calculate the worldwide difference from February to August of this year regarding the operational capital. It's actually a six-month compilation. Performance in February has been essential. At the same time, for February, the performance will be impacted by the Chinese Spring Festival. In 2024, the Spring Festival was in February. The peak sales reason the cash collection happened in March of 2024, but actually in 2025, the Spring Festival was in January. The peak cash collection happens in February of 2025. That's the reason on the month-on-month perspective, you can see that receivables by the end of 2025 February is lower than what we have for the same period of 2024.
Indeed, for receivables, different Chinese New Year timing between the two years affecting the worldwide comparison of the sequential changes in receivables. At the same time, we also see impact from different procurement cadence on payable changes. Payable changes have everything to do with products we've procured. We have reduced inventories, so as the payables. The second point is regarding the brand support and the collaboration. It's more like a synergy between brands and us, including the rebates and also payment, payroll, and product refund. As we can see for the past few years, all those factors are not going to perform the same on a yearly basis. Where we always continue to maintain good communication with the brand company to have collaborations, to make strategies according to the landscape we have by then. I was talking about the two factors impacting our operation cash flow.
Free cash flow was RMB 1.22 billion. During the period, dividend payout payments were RMB 868 million, representing 34% of the beginning cash. Period end cash was RMB 2.538 billion, down by 1.9%, essentially flat. Net cash was RMB 1.27 billion. During the period, we maintained robust cash generation capacity. Last but not least, I'd like to talk about our dividend payout ratio. Based upon our cash generation capacity, there are three ways for capital allocation. First of all, supporting organic business growth. Second, investing in scale expansion opportunity. Third, excellent shareholder cash returns. We have constantly maintained this approach. Based upon the actual cash position of the fiscal year, after funding requirements for the first two items, we still remain substantial cash reserved to support future business growth.
During the period, our free cash flow was RMB 1.22 billion, representing 1.5 times the net profit for the same period, which provides a solid foundation of our dividend payment. Therefore, the board has resolved to declare the interim dividend of RMB flat or consistent to maintain the same with last year. We hope we can leverage our high efficiency operations and continue to provide a positive cash return through our efficient operation, creating sustainable shareholder return value. Coming next, let me just welcome Rebecca Zhang to work, Mr. Zhang, to walk you through the business review section.
Thank you very much. Review each one of these years. Micro retail market demand fluctuates. Social retail data show that textile and apparel industry grew by 2.5%, slightly faster than last year. Recovery pace was lower than the growth rate of the total social consumer goods retail sales.
Industrial growth is no longer universal. It stems from the specific scenario and the demographic. In omnichannel retail, we now have instant retail. The broader and deeper channel deployment. The experience economy has risen, with consumer purchasing not only product, but also series, content, and emotional connections. Technology innovation also plays a crucial enabling role in both backend operation and frontend interactions. Where for sports industry, consumer segmentation has been more subdivided and been more diverse, shifting from a general sports population to specialized vertical interest communities. Professional functionality has become the key direction for product upgrades, with consumer pursuing high performance and the scientific support. Meanwhile, whereas domains have been deeply integrated, sports scene has been connected to lifestyle, social interactions, and technologies.
Facing such environments, industrial leading companies generally focus on core strategies, invest in product R&D to build technology barriers, capture segmented demand through brand and category metrics expansion, advance operational lean management, improving resources conversion efficiency. We're facing the external challenges. Topsports adapts to trends, refine internal capacity, and enhance our corporate resilience through forward-looking strategy positionings and angel execution. Against the backdrop of coexisting opportunities and challenges, we have made two reinforcements, reinforcing expansion into emerging scenarios and high potential areas. Our brand metrics cover the comprehensive sports, lifestyle sports, professional sports, and IP culture, and we continue to expand brand deployment in running and outdoor. Committed to become an omnichannel one-stop operational partner for more partners in China's market on the diversified sports landscape. We also have three major iterations. In omnichannel retail, we comprehensively focus on continuous lean improvement of the offline and online efficiency.
In talent strategy, we have reduced Topsports talent philosophy of ambitious, self-driven, disruptive, self-reflective, responsible, and mutually achieving, focusing on building a growth-oriented team with both innovation and practical capacity. In technology upgrades, we continue to advance our digital intelligence strategy, optimize and expand the application of diversified tools, improving multichannel digital operational efficiency. During the period, facing continued evolving consumer habits and scenario demands, we expanded and optimized our omnichannel retail capacities based upon the offline and online synergy plus differentiated channel operations. We proactively drove traditional stores to break through single rows to comprehensively deploy one-plus and diversified operating models. One physical store as a core extending to an online consumption scenario through the minuscule expansion, embracing new platforms and methods of connecting with consumers.
By period end, our offline store has extended to online operational touchpoints covering multichannels, including constant e-commerce, private domain operations, local lifestyle, and instant retail, leveraging the multipoint deployment and merchandise advantage. With coordinated support from merchandise management, user service, and digital intelligence, we will be able to capture differentiated demands across various consumption contexts, building a flexible and efficient online operational system to support the high-quality growth of the online business. Where in terms of the store layout, facing the market environment with the fluctuating offline traffic, we use operational efficiency as our core angle, potentially advancing optimization of underperforming tile stores, adapting to the demand changes through flexible layout adjustment. We are the share to the optimize plus principle, optimizing and deploying one brand, one strategy, retail store structural adjustment strategy based upon brand partners, differentiated characteristics, target consumer profile, and product attributes.
More importantly, by building an integrated omnichannel retail network, Topsports has provided consumers with seamless connected full scenario service experience. As the end of August 2025, we operated 4,688 directly operated stores, with a store count down by 90.4%, sales area down by 40.1%. Compared with February 28th of 2025, store count down by 6.6%, total sales area down by 4.6%, average sales area per store increased by 6.5%, consistent with 4.8% trend from the same period of last year. Due to our more focused resources allocation, capital expenditure decreased by 36%, selling and distribution expenses ratio decreased by 0.2%. Overall speaking, we recognize the essential role a physical store plays in the sports industry. We operate a store with potential value. We're also actively expanding offline store online capacity, seeking ideal alignment between experimental value presentation and the store performance.
Against the backdrop of complex and variable retail markets and consumer behavior, Topsports remains strategic foresights. Continue to work with our upstream and downstream partners to explore diversified offline value, providing Chinese consumers with rich experience and good product recommendation across all scenarios. This year, we jointly launched and implemented MBA Star China Tour activity with major brand partners, covering the key CBD area in Shenzhen, Chengdu, and other cities. Fan enthusiasm was high at the event venue, further highlighting our value as an active co-contributor of the diverse culture. Meanwhile, we launched new concept stores with multiple brand partners. Serving as exclusive collaborator and leading facilitator, we're working with brands on localization strategy, creating fresher and more cutting-edge product and store experience for young consumer groups.
We also deeply practice sustainability concepts, partnering with emerging pet brand Honest Brand to launch the used clothing recycling charity initiatives in stores, advocating circular economy principle, and engaging more than 10,000 consumers. Regarding the online business, we advance refined channel operation, optimizing overall metrics strategy based upon the scenario characteristics. During the period, retail online business sales, including both public and private domain, achieved double-digit growth worldwide. Let's take a look at operational factors for each channel. For e-commerce platform, we focus on store cluster metrics, omnichannel expansion, leveraging multi-brand advantage to enhance efficiency through merchandise support. In content e-commerce, we use account metrics and building product synergy and to build a hit product to penetrate into target demographics through an interest-based approach. Private domain operation deepens user connections through precise and customized community service.
The newly added instant retail during the period leverages our store network to provide instant need, instant purchase, and instant fulfillment consumer experience. By period end, we have 800 Douyin and WeChat video accounts, more than 2,300 Xiaohongshu accounts, with more than 3,600 mini program stores and 3,700 stores participating in instant retail. During the period, we continue to maintain first place on Douyin Sports and Outdoor ranking. Our private domain mini program also maintains first place on Tencent Official WeChat Popular mini program sports and outdoor category rankings. Through the above deployment, Topsports online business can now comprehensively cover consumers' four major purchase scenarios as planned interest-based, recommendation-based, and instant need purchase, achieving effective extension and systematic organization of the online business. That concludes my sharing. Let me just pass on the floor to Ms. Huijing Zhang to review our initiatives and achievements in user operation and digitalization.
Thank you. As many of you can already see, Topsports is committed to building a diversified user value system. We're deeply mining user potential value to form a virtuous circle development ecosystem to continue to deepen the user relationship. Where in user acquisition, we have a very targeted focus. We focus on omnichannel expansion, combining the omnichannel scenario-based interactions, engaging marketing, and cross-industry collaboration to engage new users. At the same time, we also drive multi-platform user information integration and consolidation, improving omnichannel user profile to ensure users enjoy consistent benefits across all scenarios. In existing user operation, we upgraded and refreshed the naming and benefits of Topsports membership tier system, deepening emotional connections with users. Meanwhile, we also built an omnichannel integrated operational closed loop using product, content, and coupons as entry points to continuously enrich and cultivate user value.
Whether users are in-store or after busy, we maintain omnichannel operation thinking closely for the characteristics of each stage in user lifecycle to achieve precise reach and efficient conversion, further enhancing user belongings and brand affinity. Where till now, Topsports user base has steadily grown to 89 million, we focus on refined deployment matching and continue to give my user value. We deeply integrated our original membership IP Tao Xiaoxia into city scenarios like travel, shopping, and Q&A. During the May Day holiday, online interactive activities awakened more than 1 million private domain users, contributed more than $100 million in sales, beyond regular membership activities. We launched money-saving season cards for high-frequency members, addressing their high-frequency consumption effectiveness pain points. Results show that card purchase has a significant repurchase rate than regular users. Those above initiatives can allow the user to maintain consistent high stickiness and loyalty across all scenarios.
Total member accounts reaching 92.9% of the sales in offline store and WeChat mini programs, with repeated purchase members contributing to 60%. We also achieved positive results in high-value member operation, though they only represent a mid and single-digit % of the total consuming member, but their value contribution is approaching 35%. High-value member average order value constantly and significantly exceeds the membership average, reaching six times of the average member order value, demonstrating strong consumption potential and user stickiness. At the same time, we also built a digital platform as our key strategy. In each one of these years, our digital platform evolved towards a more intelligent strategy. We're constantly guided by precision plus efficient thinking, combined with business strategy to focus on scale expansion and cost reduction and efficiency improvement across omnichannel dimensions.
We refine and strengthen efforts across three themes, including omnichannel integration intelligence and the paradigmic view, building Topsports' smart retail ecosystem. To be specific, omnichannel integration comprehensively connects business processes across five dimensions, including product, members, marketing, service, and data. In product dimension, we focus on building a system that can maximize inventory sharing, ensuring omnichannel merchandise visibility, scalability, and fulfillment capacity. In members, we drive universality and value maximization of the traffic acquisition and operation, enabling members to achieve consistent and quality service across different touchpoints. In marketing, we actually provide strong momentum into business development through diversified coupons and combinations, supporting user value mining and sales conversion. In service, we achieve the consistent efficiency in consumer service tickets, significantly improving the user service response speed and quality. We achieve data mid-well upgrades and migration, improving system utilization and operating speed while delivering efficiency optimization.
At the same time, we are also improving our sales efficiency. As you can see, in omnichannel intelligence, we continue to further improve the onshelfing efficiency, while at the same time, we will be able to continue to improve the inventory listing and the utilizing of efficiency through end-to-end supply chain timeless control. At intelligent marketing and sales, we drive dynamic upgrades in product listing while forming automatic process communications with AIGC content creation and copy AI-assisted product selection recommendation. At the intelligent operation and decision-making, we complete the leap from the passive analysis to proactive intelligence, advancing store operations towards automation and precision. In omnichannel paradigmic views, we rely on digital intelligence capacity to achieve deep constructions of the user ecosystem and value enhancement on the AI-empowered ecosystem.
By building various user operational mode support that match user value growth curves, we support the development of the user ecosystem across all time periods, scenarios, and lifecycles. Meanwhile, accelerated AI technology penetration also brings new momentum to. Thank you. Affected by the external environment, the Chinese consumers are now becoming more cautious, where consumption motivation shifted from purely practical to pursuing emotional value and other multidimensional aspects. Combined with a rising running enthusiasm, consumer demand for sports equipment has been upgraded to dual requirements of professional and quality. Value in both segmented scenario enhancement experience motivation, working with brand partners to tap the market potential, achieve effective connections with the target user, and sustainable healthy brand development. Currently, those brands are proceeding with orderly expansion based upon their distinctive features through a differentiated approach and plans.
They attract new users through the major events and the circle activities, building social media metrics with leading star products to achieve cross-scenario brand mature, cultivation, and precise demographic service. In channel, they adapt a multi-channel development strategy, successfully opening the offshore online flagship stores, while also flexibly utilizing the offline pop-up stores and bio stores to meet the Chinese consumers. In deploying those brands, we continue to explore to bring consumers with more diverse and distinctive experiential value across all domains. During the period, the Nodal brand operated by Topsports debuted at the 2025 Yunqiu Mountain Trail Race, creating a scenario-based independent retail space emphasizing on trial experience, featuring minimalist artistics and strong design, attracting numerous runners for the onsite inductions.
Sequentially, Nodal successfully held the first brand event in China at Azalea Jiangling, the Bond Brace Guided, and the World Pass to Zhin, connecting with domestic running communities to accelerate their presence in the China market. As an innovative attempt to invest in more heavy running tracks and retail formats, we hope to connect runner brands and cultures through running lifestyle brands. Recently, we actually have our running concept store, Aptus, in Shanghai, reconnecting the traditional offline retail language with runner needs as a core, emphasizing our integration into community and runner lives to increase user stickiness. The store's social infrastructure provides runners with one-stop service. In product selection, we emphasize on professional logic, using professionalism to resolve consumer pain points, while introducing the unique product to maintain user freshness.
Where we focus on the community operations and content co-creation, transforming the store positioning from a single run equipment sales venue to become Aptus, a platform for spreading running culture and promoting exchange and growth among the running enthusiasts. We hope to achieve good products and services through Aptus, building reputation and influence in the domestic and international running industry, making Aptus an indispensable operational platform for understanding Chinese running culture, therefore engaging more brands to open their new stores in China. Going forward, we're optimistic about the running subdivision and will have more deployments in these regards. Currently, the sports consumption industry is facing the opportunities and the challenges aimed at the intensified competition. Facing such situations, we will actively adapt to the trends and confront market challenges. We'll refine our competitiveness in the sports retail industry through a forward-looking strategy, as well as agile execution.
Looking to the second half of the fiscal year, we're going to focus on the four parts. Focus on omnichannel scenarios, user innovative formats and service, positioning for long-term growth. Continue focus on consolidating efficiency, forging fundamental resilience of the retail platform, optimize precise products, efficient digital intelligence empowerment support, practice ESG principle, building sustainable pathways for ecological co-construction and value co-winning. That's all for the presentation. We're now happy to start the Q&A session. We welcome the online investors to ask questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to open the floor for questions. Right before you raise a question, please identify yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to raise a question, please press star and one. Please press star and one. When you hear the beep sound, please start your question. Coming next, let's welcome Wu Xiao Bo from CTI.
Can all of you hear me?
Yes, please.
I have two questions. My first question is regarding your key partners. A few weeks ago, your U.S. partner, Nike, has made some very interesting comments on the China market in their quarterly report. They specifically emphasize they're going to have a major investment in the China market. Mr. Zhang, in your presentation, you already mentioned Topsports continue to actually refine our omnichannel operation and also to help to tap into the online value of the offline stores. Just as was being mentioned by Nike, for Nike Global Direct E-commerce, the Chinese partner dilemmas are facing the offline operation dilemma. Nike's online retail business is not 100% aligned with the China market needs.
In other words, as far as I believe that Nike is going to invest more for the offline channel, is it possible for the Topsports management team to comment on what would be the future of Nike in China? What about the partnership strategies? What about the order and the product you see from Nike? At the same time, my second question, in your interim report, your GP margin resilience is much better than what we expected. You have already mentioned part of the reason is because of the brand support. How sustainable the brand's support would be? This is my first question. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for Mr. Wei. I clearly notice for Nike Global, it has already disclosed its comment for the Chinese market. It was mentioning its business structure product in China. Its business recovery in China is much slower than its business development in other countries. In Nike's statement, it was mentioning the online platform and online business in China has been quite chaotic. People are all competing over the price. That's the reason that Nike started to roll out its management and plan for online channel. They are going to further reduce discounted products for e-commerce sales, which has been mentioned by Nike. We are being supportive to Nike's initiative, we are helping them.
While at the same time, it also mentioned it's going to invest for the offline channel, because sometimes if you operate a single brand store, the churn would be pretty low, including store selections, GFA decisions, the shelvings, listings, and the product presentations. All the offline store operation has been further challenged with more adjustments being needed. We are in the process with Nike for negotiation.
Some have already generated good further results, or some are still in negotiation. Let me just give you an example based upon the existing sales and the market landscape. Topsports already narrowed down the GFA for many of our own stores because you can clearly see the offline traffic has been changing. That's the reason we are actually narrowing the GFA for many of our stores, which would also be aligned for the future new openings and renovations we have for our stores. At the same time, we also continue to further reduce the acquisition cost. Let me just give you an example.
For Category 1 Jordan store, for a single store, the traditional decoration criteria cost is being reduced by 45%, where for Store 750, actually the decoration cost is being further reduced by 42%, which can also help to further reduce offline store operation expenses, which can further improve the operation of the physical stores. There's another improvement on the product or merchandise. By embracing the sports brands, we already see two significant improvements on two categories. The first one is a running category, and you can see that our product continues to perform above the industrial average. Starting from Q3, we invested in Merrell Plus, and its single-month sell-out is close to 50% to 60%. In other words, it has already been picked as the best selling product, which actually further improves the selling rate of the new product. In winter, we actually have the Merrell Premium.
With just three months after the product debut, the authorization is already more than 40%, or the sell rate is already more than 40%. We do see for the running shoes, some of the new products and functional products are actually having very good sales performance. For the basketball category, the hobby product sales rate was also outstanding. You can see for the functional product series, no matter for running or for basketball, the key flagship series all see very nice selling performance of the new product and highlight of the new product. While at the same time, for Topsports, in order to make sure we can respond to consumer needs in a more efficient way, as we are working with Nike for their next highlight flagship product, and that is the outdoor Nike ACG product. For the outdoor Nike ACG product, it's an independent brand.
For Topsports, we are also an important partner of the independent outdoor brand Nike ACG for Nike. Till now, we have already nailed down the first five stores. The first one is the Beijing Sanlitun store. It's been operated by Nike, but the top two to top five stores were all being operated by Topsports. Stores being located in Nanjing, Zhou, Zhou, and Changsha. The location has already been selected, and the commencement time has already been confirmed. We are actually working with the brand to further explore their offline potentials.
Thank you. I have the second question regarding your brand metrics. Especially for the past one year, we see your brand metrics being further expanded with accelerated pace. For example, the management mentioned you are engaging more brands for partnership, and the cooperation ways being more innovative, for example, Nodal, Aptus. I really would like to know, with those new models for the emerging brands besides Nike and Adidas, for example, like Nodal, Aptus, Adidas, and Norrøna, what would be your future target? Do you have any qualitative or quantitative target that you can share with us?
Thanks for Mr. Wei. This is also a very good question. Let me just respond to a question from a different perspective. If you have any ongoing questions, please send me a message. First of all, for the past one year, as many of the friends already see, we are accelerating our pace for brand metrics expansion. You see it from the result we share with you, but actually, it's not a short-term action. It's been a long-term commitment. Many of the brands, especially the emerging brands, we have already engaged with them for 2.5 or even 3 years.
It happened they've just been released within the past 12 months. We have already had a long engagement and commitment or negotiation with those brands many years ago. For my second point, let me just share with you how I comment on the brand metrics and the brand family. If you are the one who followed our company for many years, you probably still remember when we go for IPO roadshows. We tell people we're more like a combination fund or just like the portfolio you may have. For many of the ETF shares, we're going to talk about the tracking arrow. Tracking arrow can actually reflect whether you can effectively tell the market changes. We are also bringing the tracking arrow thinking to see whether our brand metrics would be able to tell the brand the future development market dynamics or showcasing the segment with new potentials.
By having such a thinking in our mind, we continue to think about and review what are those brands we can work sustainably to bring them into our brand metrics. Generally, for our brand deployment, to a great extent, it also shows the changes we have to the market dynamics. Our focus on segmented outlets with new highlights. If we believe there's any segment with good short-term, long-term development value, we'll continue to buy into this segment to make a continued investment to showcase our confidence. To be more specific, for example, in the secondary market, you may actually have the circulations, no matter for consumables or industrial products or technologies. We hope that in the areas we're supposed to have our presence, we then would like to have more leadership in that segment. Especially for Topsports, we are a platform by having the omnichannel presence.
We need to continue to leverage our advantage. We indeed have the platform and the scale-up capacities to work with different brands for partnership. That's the reason from this perspective, it can also help you to truly understand why we continue to expand our brand metrics. Mr. Wei, I remember you also have the second part of your question regarding our vision and our target. Where for vision, you probably have been already inspired by what I mentioned, how you understand our brand metrics and market development. What we do now is to leverage our partnership with brands to continue to support them. Besides retail operations, we also provide brand management support and initiative to the brands. I hope that the capital market could be more patient because at a new stage, we'd like to take baby steps to make every step counted to consolidate our business.
For any new business transformation, we also keep an eye on the new model besides traditional retail operations. Truly hope to have a more refined product or business model. A new business model provides more promising opportunities to us and to brands to tap into more market potentials. Three points from my response. You can understand our brand combination as the product portfolio, which showcases the market dynamics, our confidence, and our investment of the market. Secondly, we hope that by having the ownership and the leadership in our key areas, the brand we're working with is also emphasizing our business shift from traditional retail operation to brand management. We are still focused on the product, making the business model right to lay a solid foundation for our future sustainable growth. Hope I helped to answer your questions.
Thank you.
Thanks for Mr. Wei. I find out there are still two questions you may need some answer from me. Let me just share with you how sustainable the brand support is going to be, and then what about the order. Let me see for support sustainability. The market is not performing well. We get more support from the brand partners. We're looking into the future. I truly believe as the largest and best partners with brands, we're surely going to have more support, more than others get. Regarding the product order, for the past two quarters, you can see that the order has been decreased on a worldwide basis. The majority of our brands are adapting the flexible supply chain. In flexible supply chain, there are opportunities for us to have more order placement.
You can see in the actual seasonal sales, our actual sales or product arrival is actually higher than the order we placed. That is my answer to your question. Thank you.
Thanks for the management team.
Coming next, let's welcome Ding Xu Jie from Guoxing Securities.
Hello. Thank you. Thanks for giving me the chance to raise a question. I'd like to ask the company, what would be the outlook you have for H2 of this fiscal year or even next fiscal year? We also noticed the wholesale revenue for Nike in the China market was declining for the past few quarters, but the decline has been further narrowed down. As someone older from Nike, where Topsports shares with us, what would be the breakdown of the new product or the overall product you ordered from Nike?
Whether any updates you may have on the discount or product sales from Nike? My third question or supplementary Aptus project, we see that we have more consumers who've been deeply engaged in running, but still there are some pain points for shopping, for example, the brand preference and the know-how of the salesperson. We are very interested in Aptus. Is it possible for you to share more on the product Aptus, how its future development is being planned? Thank you.
Let me just respond to your question regarding H2 of this fiscal year. As you can see from our presentation, communication, or what you can see from the industry, you notice the industry still faces challenges even in recent weeks. In such a challenging micro environment, in this fiscal year, what we are committed to is to fulfill our full-year guidelines that we provided in May of this year. In other words, in fiscal year 2026, we hope the net profit could be flat. Net profit rate could be improved on a worldwide basis. This is also the commitment we still uphold now. Regarding fiscal year 2027, as many of you know, we only give the outlook when we hold the annual release. It's too early to provide the fiscal year 2027 outlook. Let me ask Mr. Zhang to respond to the inventory metrics to you.
Thank you. For Nike product, around 70% to 80% of the products are the new product, which is healthy and which is also the level we are keeping now. We're going to keep it in the near future. For the key brands, what the key brand is doing now is that they are actually leveraging three strategies. For example, we maintain the discount rate. The discount rate has been quite stabilized. You can also see that the sales of the running related products have been continuing to go up, which is indeed supporting the new product sales, which can also benefit our gross profit margin to some extent. This is what we are having now.
Thank you. Thanks for the questions. All the questions are quite professional and well-targeted. That really makes me truly inspired. Those questions are quite good, so please allow me to share with you some of my ideas by responding to the questions. Let me try to give a few comments on the questions I heard before. For Aptus, Aptus indeed is a business or a more accurate manifestation we have for our commitment into this business. Topsports' investment or commitment in running has been further manifested by Aptus. For Aptus stores, what is happening for the project and to our stores?
What are those content or business going to be presented by Aptus? From the physical format, Aptus is more like a multi-brand retail space in the physical channel. When we started a trial operation from the 1st of October to now, it's around more than 20 days. Besides selling the exclusive product ready to be seen by the market, Aptus has already become and evolved into a hub that can connect the people who are in love with running. For example, we have KOLs who come to the store for visit. We have the runners who come to the stores to talk to us. In our Aptus, we call ourselves as a social infrastructure. It's a social infrastructure concept. What do we mean by saying social infrastructure? For example, there's one corner in the Aptus store that's going to open to our memberships in Zhongshan Parks in Changning District.
We do have the coastal running pathways. Our store can provide the storage locker and the 24/7 bathroom service to our runners, hoping that we'll be able to have direct reach to the runners for more communication and interactions. At the same time, for Aptus, we also have some top runners from Shanghai. They are not coming to Aptus for store visits or shopping. They just take Aptus as a place for their appointment or engagement, just like the social space we have in Europe. Just what Starbucks presented to the community is actually a connection hub of the community. I think for Aptus, not only bringing more product sales, engaging more brands, for the past two to three weeks, there are more sports brands connecting us, hoping that we can have some co-branded events or running their brand communities in Aptus, or helping them to share more content.
Actually, Aptus is a diversified hub rather than being limited on the physical space. It already goes beyond its physical format. How Aptus is going to develop in the near future? I think it was not contradictory with what we have already mentioned when Mr. Wei was reading the question. I have already shared with you, we're not only going to limit ourselves for the retail operation or omnichannel deployment. We are now shifting to brand management too. All those initiatives, when we combine together, we are, in other words, continue to embrace brand management with a physical platform and ready-to-go strategies. In other words, Aptus is indeed our store, a physical store, or manifestation of our commitment for the running sectors, where it's going to be parallel to our single-brand business. More emerging business or more connection service would be available at Aptus.
In other words, let me just use one sentence to summarize my comment. Aptus is not only a new store of shelving the new brand or new product. If you have any further questions, I welcome you to read the questions now or after the meeting. Thank you.
Coming next, let's welcome Dustin Wei from Morgan Stanley, please.
Thank you. Thanks for the management team for having the chance to meet. Recently, a trend update would be my first question. Double 11 has already been started, and I know you have many good online sales. Do you have any trend to update us? My second question is a long-term question. For retail market in China, offline and online has been changing all the time. Right after COVID-19 in 2023, offline traffic has been recovered. In 2024, 2025, offline traffic has been kept at a very low level.
I know you closed some underperforming stores, but still the offline traffic continued to go down. I see it's actually a structural change of the consumer behavior. I'm not sure whether I'm making the right statement. Now your online sales are already 40% to 45%. Maybe in three to five years, it's going to be 70% of your overall sales. From our membership data, can you indeed see that the majority of the young consumers under the age of 30 still purchase online rather than go for an offline store? If such things happen in the next three to five years, then for Topsports, were we already taking the right strategy to improve our digital capacity? Whether this is going to generate some good opportunities or setbacks to our GP margin or business model. My third question is regarding your new business models.
For example, you have exclusive partnerships from a few niche emerging brands. Let me just ask you, for example, like Nodal, Aurora, are you contracting those brands for exclusive partnership or may within that agreement term? You help them to take care of all the commercials in China, for example, distributions, self-directed stores. Does the exclusive partnership look like this? I know that the company has a very strong cash flow capacity. If you really would like to engage those brands in the long run, did you consider GV or equity investment as a way of being a part of the emerging brand operation? Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for Dustin. Let me respond to your question. The first question is regarding the market landscape now, where you can see the market data or market sentiment.
I think you can already observe that as a consumer or even you talk to other peer companies, you probably already feel what the market may look like. I see there are more challenges in the market. Where from Topsports, especially from our fiscal year Q3 to mid-October, in other words, from the beginning of September to mid-October, in just six weeks, the sales are very much in line with the Q2 performance of the previous fiscal year. I mean, from June to August. Online offline performance is also quite consistent with before. I was talking about the sales, were regarding the discount and inventories. Let me see that for inventories, Topsports still maintains a very strong control of the inventory. The inventory level is pretty healthy and controllable, which has already been mentioned by Mr. Zhang in his presentation.
Regarding the discount rate, for the past six weeks in Q3, the discount rate has still been deepened. The attitude of the deepening has been narrowed down compared to what we saw in Q2. These are the latest observation updates. Regarding the overall market, still we see the challenges. For Topsports, we always maintain our own cadence. In H2 of the fiscal year, we're going to be more priority-oriented. Right after moving into H2 of the fiscal year, our business or the actions we take are still going to be in line with our overall roadmap and expectations. Let me just ask Mr. Zhang to respond to a question regarding the evolving landscape of online and offline business.
Thank you, Justin. I noticed the observation you mentioned in your question. We see the challenge for the offline channel is truly huge. This is how we comment on the online opportunity.
First of all, the traditional channel expansion used to only focus on the store number, but now we focus on the omnichannel operation. For example, one physical store will need to have 10 online stores. For one store, it has one physical store and 10 online stores. That is to make sure the offline store can develop their online capacity. Especially when we have the traffic drainage for the offline channel, we have to find self-rescue strategies. First of all, we need to build our private domain. By having a private domain to engage the traffic, we will be able to find a way for offsetting the traffic drainage in the offline channel, retain the consumer, continue to enrich touch points and conversion. Besides the private domain, we also have the content e-commerce. That is basically rested with Douyin and Redbook.
We're also going to have the key stores and the flagship stores on the social platform, engaging more public traffic to seize opportunity for sales. The third part is Dianping.com or TikTok localized. They can actually direct the traffic to the stores. We also have our store presence, sales coupon, interaction with consumers, supporting them to come to our physical store for consumption. The fourth part, which should I say is the most emerging and also one of the most important parts, is the instant retail. Instant retail can actually leverage the offline discount, providing more convenience to the online consumers. It's just like the food takeaway service of delivering Topsports' product to consumer hands, which can have a faster fulfillment by providing the localized solution.
Those are all indeed the strategies we have in order to support our offline stores to develop their online store capacity, to offset the traffic drainage in the physical channel. Those are indeed the initiatives we are adapting now. Okay. Justin, let me just respond to your final question. I think you have already made a very few important points. Same as you mentioned for the contracting relationship within certain geographic regions. For some brands partnering with us in Greater China or even in Chinese mainland areas, that is an exclusive partnership we reached with the brands. Just one more comment I'd like to make on that. We never exclude the possibility of having some equity cooperations with those brands. Let me just point it out. Being an equity investor is just a tool rather than the final objective.
What we are going to do is to share the interest with the brand to have a deep collaboration. We hope that when we were working with different brands, each brand has very different backgrounds, history, development milestones. If equity investment would be a way to deepen such a partnership, if other parties are being open for negotiation, then for sure we are happy to have the negotiation. If the timing is not right, we are still quite patient and be fully committed to supporting the brands to prove to each other we are the right partners for long and sustainable growth. Thank you.
Thank you for your answer.
Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, let's welcome the final question. Let's welcome Sammy Wang from UBS to raise the final question, please.
Thank you. Thanks for the management team. I'm Sammy Wang from UBS. I have a question for the management team. The sales revenue decline is kind of significant in H1 of this year. Would you mind to elaborate on the reason? My second question, you now have 89 million users. You must have generated some good insights from the user. Did you see any new trends? For example, outdoor and running categories still register fast growth, where for other categories, whether basketball is being pressured or is it being remitted, or for other sports, for example, like tennis, like badminton, or like golf? Do you have any trends or dynamics updates with us? My final question is regarding the new brands. What about their sales contribution to your overall sales? And what about their profit or even the net profit contribution to our overall business? Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for, Sammy. Let me just try to answer your question.
I mean the first two questions. I will then ask my colleague to respond to your final question regarding new brands. My first response to your first question, wholesale revenue decline in H1 of this year. First of all, it has been planned for the full year. This is also within our expectation. You know that for wholesale users, they are in the top tier cities or tier one cities. From the management perspective, I mean, if we consider efficiency, if the efficiency is not in the right timing, we may have some wholesale users or consumers. You know that for wholesale, the offline are the key for wholesale. The majority of our wholesale consumers, they have many offline stores. The offline traffic has been heavily impacted for this year. Our wholesale partner, I think their revenue has been heavily impacted.
When we are dealing or handling with the wholesale customers, we would like to focus on their sustainable and healthy development. This is a strategy we have with our wholesale partners. Let me just complement on that. Because the overall microenvironment is not looking right, wholesale consumer confidence being impacted, order continues to go down. There is another reason we have to notice, the market is facing ferocious competition. The online product price and the sport product price have been quite chaotic. I mean, the pricing system. For some of the wholesalers, they actually order less from the wholesale channel. They believe they will be able to get a better discount by having temporary small batch orders. That is the reason the wholesale business was going down.
Hi, Sammy. I didn't get your question very clear. You were asked about the insights from the membership to new brands. Are you asking me to comment on the new brands or are you asking me to talk about new brands' deployment and strategy? Would you mind to repeat the question again?
No problem. My question is that you have 89 million users. You must have some user insights data. Did you see that the category difference, for example, running outdoors, the growth rate was looking pretty right? Basketball used to be pressured, whether the pressure is being elevated or for some of the niche sports, like badminton, tennis, like golf. Do you see there's any brand who has a promising future with nice growth or any category who may have similar performance as outdoor in the near future? My second question, a third question regarding new brands. What about the new brand sales contribution and profit contribution or the net profit rate? Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, first of all, sales contribution from a new brand or niche brand. You see, Topsports is a large company. Here now, the niche brands contribute less to the profit. You can almost neglect that. Running those niche brands or emerging brands is our strategy or our business pilots for future growth opportunities. Regarding profitability, you can see all the brands we're working with are having exclusive partnerships with us. For those niche brands, we hope we can help them to have a good and high-quality debut in China, consolidate their future growth opportunities in China. Profit and discount control over those emerging brands being well done by Topsports. Those are the two responses I have regarding your new brands' question. Let me just be brave in showcasing the promising verticals or the categories. I will ask my colleagues to give you more comments.
First of all, as we can see, the sports industry is being highly integrated, no matter from sports or from brands. With this precondition for the past one decade, you can see that we have domestic and international brands continue to show up. To some extent, it was showcasing differentiation, people's interest, and the booth preference being further sparked. This is actually one thing for your reference. Based upon that, you asked me what are the categories or what are those niche sports can grow. First of all, some of the so-called non-niche segments may not be niche in the near future. It may engage in more consumers in the near future. Based upon that, you see what would be the category that may likely to become the outdoor category. Just like the secondary market, you need to have the alpha and beta.
Alpha shows the sports development, and beta actually means the market dynamics that may lead to the brand growth in short runs. You have to consider both factors together. Regarding the alpha, there are some niche markets or sports who have a very strong momentum for future growth. We have already made the corresponding resources allocation. For beta, it's more like a marketing campaign. You just follow that, keep it online, and be a part of that. That's my response. Let me welcome Mr. Zhang to say a few words.
Thank you. Responding to your question on category. In the category we're operating now, we see demographics and the consumption data is truly aligned. The largest category is still running. Running is still the best and still growing segment we see. It's also a category that all brands are in competing ways.
For running shoes now, I mean, for the lightweight running shoes, people just want to make it less than 200 grams. Adidas made a running shoe weighted less than 200 grams. It's going to be a one-time marathon running shoes. Performance being extreme. The surface is quite breathable and thin, and making sure it has very good elasticity. In other words, all brands have been competing over technology innovation and material progress. All brands have been working for running market. It's still the largest application with every growing market momentum. It's still a place with a new product on a daily basis. All brands are actually taking running as a focus area of development. Let's talk about the outdoor segment. Outdoor category is more like a high-rising bamboo. Even if it was riding fast, this market is still a vertical market with focused demographics.
No matter like North Face or other brands, they actually made substantial growth in the outdoor categories, which is truly well demonstrated with very nice growth. There are other segments, including basketball. Basketball is more like the inventory market. For basketball, we actually focus on the junior high school and the senior high school, or even sometimes primary school students. Many of those target users are the on-campus students. The brand allocation in the basketball won't change that much. Nike probably be the charm taker, where other brands are taking the corresponding shares. It's actually a relatively fixed market with nice inventories led by Nike. The basketball markets being led by Nike and other brands just take care of the rest part of the market shares. For the niche market, tennis was registered very nice growth, especially Nike tennis series.
When Nike sponsored Zhang Xinwen, where in the tennis global competition, we have many new rising stars from China. Would actually be a great momentum among the public. We see such growth momentum from tennis, but the contribution and volume is quite limited. I see the growth momentum from tennis is looking good. For football, football doesn't have too much promising potential for the professional product lines. For viewers of the football or the people who play football, in other words, we have more people watch football games rather than play football. The football lifestyle product do register nice growth for the past two years. That would be the category dynamics I'm happy to share with you. Thank you.
Thanks for the management team.
Thanks.
Okay. Due to the time constraint, ladies and gentlemen, here comes to the end of our presentation. Our management and our team will continue to engage our friends from the capital market. Thanks for your time, and thanks for supporting Topsports.