After that, in addition to Sam's Club store continued to accelerate the expansion of the layout in the country, a number of domestic retail brands such as Box horse, Yonghui, Jia Jia Yue, Sun Art retail, Fudi and so on have entered this track.
According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 11 existing domestic warehouse member store brands, and the number of stores exceeds 150. In addition, according to IIMedia Consulting data show that in 2021, China's warehouse member store industry increased by 12.3% year-on-year, the market size reached 30.43 billion yuan, the market size reached about 33.5 billion yuan in 2022, and it is expected to be close to 40 billion yuan by 2025.
In 2023, the accelerated Sam "stared" at the sinking market in China. It is understood that the stores signed by Sam in 2023 are located in Dongguan Liaobu, Jiaxing Jingkai, Shaoxing Yuecheng, Jinan Lixia, Wenzhou Lucheng and Jinjiang Pool stores. Among them, Jinjiang became the second Chinese county-level city to land Sam's Club after Kunshan. This shows that Sam, who has been in China for 27 years, is no longer limited to core cities such as first-tier and new first-tier cities. On the contrary, its expansion store location strategy has gradually sunk and refined, and second - and third-tier cities have become new strategic highlands.
In July 2020, the first Sam's Club store set up in a county-level city was opened in Kunshan, and on the same day, the store also set the highest turnover of Sam's new stores. Perhaps it is such consumption data and market performance that Sam chose to bet on the county-level market for the second time after three years - Jinjiang. In addition, as far as the current Sam has signed stores, only Dongguan is a new first-tier city, Wenzhou, Jiaxing, Shaoxing, Jinan and other prefecture-level cities, it is obvious that this is slightly different from the layout strategy of first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the past.
Since opening its first store in Shenzhen in 1996, as of June 30, 2023, Sam's Club has a total of 46 stores in China, and the number of paying members has exceeded 4 million. Newly opened stores include Qianhai flagship store in Shenzhen, Zhenru store in Shanghai, Cangshan store in Fuzhou, and Hanyang store in Wuhan. Together with the two new stores in Shanghai Jiading and Chengdu Wuhou that will be opened within the year, Sam will have 48 stores in the country by the end of 2023.
Despite the early entry time, Sam's expansion rate in previous years was not too fast, with 2013 as the cut-off point, and previously only expanded at an average rate of 1 every two years. After 2013, the increase in per capita income of domestic consumers and the maturity of super formats of membership manufacturers have prompted Sam to accelerate the pace of expansion and open stores at an average rate of 4-5 per year. It was also in the late period of rapid growth that Sam set his sights on the sinking market.
On June 14, 2023, the China Chain Management Association released the "China Top 100 Chain in 2022" list. After the list was released, the most eye-catching and hot discussion in the industry was the Costco opener, which entered the list for the first time. The list shows that in 2022, the number of Costco stores in China is 2, ranking 98th, with a total revenue of 3 billion, the average sales per store is up to 1.5 billion, and the daily sales of a single store exceeds 4 million.
Founded in 1983 in Seattle, Washington, USA, Costco is the world's second largest retailer after Walmart. At present, there are 849 stores in the world, more than 300,000 employees, distributed in 9 countries and regions. On May 23, 2022, Costco ranked 11th in the Fortune 500.
Although Costco does not have many stores in the mainland, the opening of each new store can trigger a phenomenal consumption boom.
Previously, the Ningbo store, which opened on June 20, 2023, has not officially opened, and has received more than 60,000 members, about 12 million (discount price 199 yuan) membership fees. In addition, the Ningbo store opened five days before the implementation of the reservation system, the daily flow limit of 20,000 people.
On April 28, 2023, after opening the first warehouse member store in Yangzhou, Sun Art Retail, the parent company of RT-Mart, seemed to taste the sweetness. On July 20, Sun Art Retail announced that its M member stores will open two new stores in Nanjing and Changzhou. The Nanjing store is expected to open in January 2024, and the Changzhou store will officially open in December 2023.
It is understood that the Nanjing store is located in Nanjing Jianye District Yingtian Street 866, by RT-Mart Yingtian store upgrade, Changzhou store is located in Tianning District Lanling Road 301, previously for RT-Mart Lanling store, after the completion of the upgrade will become Changzhou's first main urban warehouse membership store.
As a key layout of Sun Art Retail's second growth curve, the M member stores will operate in parallel with RT-Mart under the newly created independent brand. "Retail Circle" learned that in April this year, before the opening of the first store in Yangzhou, the number of members handled reached 30,000, and after opening, up to now, the Yangzhou store has created daily sales of more than 5 million for many consecutive days.
Previously, in an interview with the media, Sun Art Retail CEO Lin Xiaohai said that in the first year, he did not set performance targets for M member stores, only focused on the number of members, renewal rate, and put forward the Yangzhou store "not allowed to make profits within three years" requirements. In fiscal year 2024, Sun Art Retail will open three M member stores one after another. As Lin Xiaohai said in an interview with the media, M member stores are the key to Sun Art Retail to create a second growth curve. And this may also be the fourth possibility that Sun Art Retail is looking for after continuing the two formats of RT-Mart super and RT-Mart mini.
On September 9, 2021, the first member store of Beijing Hualian opened in Shanshan Outlet Square, Chengguan District, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. As a warehouse member store, Hualian member Store members are divided into individual members and business members, and the annual membership fee is 258 yuan. When the store opened, it covered five categories: imported goods, private brand goods, sensitive core goods, regular goods and differentiated goods, and purchased about 1,200 domestic and international head brand goods for members.
It is understood that the first warehouse member store closed by Beijing Hualian covers an area of more than 7,000 square meters and is equipped with more than 2,000 parking Spaces. The newly opened Sam Qianhai flagship store has a commercial volume of 30,000 square meters and more than 1,100 parking Spaces. Only by simple comparison of the data, the parking space of Beijing Hualian Lanzhou member store is obviously too much, and the passenger flow may be too optimistic, but this will increase the operating cost. Therefore, after more than two years of operation, BHG Beijing Hualian also closed its first warehouse member store in the country on July 28, 2023.
"Retail Circle" believes that warehouse member stores because of the fee system, to some extent, is to serve middle-class and above family consumers, generally in first-tier cities. Including Sam's site selection, the previous development has basically followed this principle, and the force in the sinking market is also the demand for scale effect in recent years. At the same time, subject to the impact of the coverage of the supply chain, it is generally based on a regional expansion, and the practice of Beijing Hualian placing its first store in the second-tier city of Lanzhou is indeed some inappropriate.
In October 2021, Carrefour China opened its first member store in Shanghai Pudong New Area. At the end of December of the same year, the second store was opened in Qingpu District of Shanghai; In early September 2022, the third Carrefour store in Jiading District of Shanghai will be opened. At the end of September, Carrefour Zhongshan Park Store was officially opened, which is not only Carrefour's fourth member store in China, but also its first urban member store, which is defined as Carrefour Member store 2.0 version store.
At the same time, Tian Rui, then CEO of Carrefour China, set a goal to expand 100 paid membership stores to first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the next three years and more new first-tier cities. Meanwhile, in Shanghai in three years, he says, consumers will drive 15 minutes past a Carrefour store.
However, two years later, Carrefour China is not only not getting closer to this goal, on the contrary, the number of its member stores is not increasing, and even the first member store in Shanghai Pudong New Area Chengshan Road store has been closed on April 28. At the same time, the Zhongshan Park store in Shanghai, which was once defined as the 2.0 version of Carrefour's membership store, was also closed in early April. Up to now, there are only two Carrefour member stores, namely Shanghai Qingpu District store and Nanxiang store.
The Retail Circle learned that Carrefour China officially entered the Chinese Mainland market in 1995 and was one of the first batch of foreign-funded retail enterprises to carry out business in China. Benefiting from the uniqueness of the "hypermarket" format, Carrefour developed rapidly in the Chinese market at the initial stage of development. In 2006, the number of Carrefour stores in mainland China exceeded 100, and in 2010, the number of stores reached 249.
In September 2019, Suning Easy Buy acquired 80% shares of Carrefour's China business with 4.8 billion yuan, becoming its largest shareholder. However, after the change of ownership, Carrefour's performance growth showed no signs of improvement. According to Suning's financial report, Carrefour China suffered a total loss of 304 million yuan in 2019, while as of the first half of this year, Carrefour China's net loss was about 1.1 billion yuan.
In October 2023, Dazhang Group, known as the "retail king of Western Henan", opened its first warehouse member supermarket - Changshen International Store in Dahui, Luolong District, Luoyang City.
It is understood that this store is located in Luoyang Jianxi District Liaoning Road and Lixin Road intersection, located in the core business circle of Luoyang City, is the upgrading of the original format of Dazhang Group, positioning classic, fashion, trend, international; There are 7 floors in total, 2 floors underground and 5 floors above ground, covering an area of 50,000 square meters, covering boutique supermarkets, fashion department stores, boutique clothing, accessories, shoes and bags, children's products, catering and other formats, equipped with parking Spaces. Among them, the new warehouse member supermarket, located on the negative floor, the store area of about 3200 square meters, mainly engaged in fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, grain and oil, drinks and beverages, leisure snacks, daily chemical department stores, etc.
In terms of membership fees, Dazhang Group Changshen International Store personal card and corporate card membership fees are 299 yuan/year, enjoy the same membership services. Although the annual personal fee is 39 yuan higher than Sam's 260 yuan/year, the annual corporate fee is 381 yuan cheaper than Sam's 680 yuan/year.
Dazhang Group was founded in 1992, headquartered in Luoyang Jianxi District, is a retail chain enterprise with more than 70 commercial outlets in the country, which has "Dazhang", "Shengdemei", "Changshen" and other operating brands, covering a comprehensive supermarket, standard supermarket, convenience store, clothing department store and other formats.
At present, Dazhang Group has set up nearly 100 retail stores, covering downtown Luoyang and suburban counties, and extending to Jiaozuo, Jiyuan, Sanmenxia, Zhengzhou, Luohe, Pingdingshan and Suzhou, Zhenjiang, Wuxi, Nanchang and other places outside the province, with more than 10,000 employees. In the top 100 Chinese supermarkets in 2022 released by the China Chain Store Association (CCFA), Henan Dazhang ranked 19th in the supermarket range in the country with a revenue of 8.683 billion yuan and 94 stores. This time, Dazhang's newly opened Changshen International store can be said to be another new attempt after supermarkets, convenience stores, clothing department stores and other formats.
fudi's first member store was born in 2021, in just over 2 years, the number of fudi members has reached the stage goal, the member service is becoming more accurate and detailed, and with the in-depth insight into the needs of local consumers, and to create a relaxed shopping scene, more than two years, the number of fudi members has reached 18.8W.
On May Day 2023, the first fudi+ opened in Beijing's Wudaokou Shopping Mall. On the day of 618, fudi opened a fudi+ Select supermarket in Joy City, West of Beijing. In Wukesong Wanda Square, about 10 kilometers away from fudi+ in West Beijing Joy City, a 15,000 square meter fudi member store will be opened in September. At that time, the complementary ecological prototype of fudi and fudi+ will be formed.
In recent years, the domestic member warehouse track has become very popular, including local players such as Hema, fudi and RT-Mart. "Retail Circle" believes that compared with the European and American member store brands that usually layout "outside the five rings", local member stores are obviously more flexible and have been exploring innovative models to adapt to the local market. As fudi tried the member service ecological model, in the urban market, when it is not easy to find the right property for large member stores, more medium-sized supermarkets will be used to serve members and provide brand multi-format and multi-scene services, which will significantly increase the consumption frequency of members.
"Retail Circle" learned that as of 2023, fudi has 3 warehouse member stores in Beijing, 2 fudi select supermarkets, and nearly 20 community supermarkets opened over the past few years, and plans to add 15 new stores in 2024.
Founded in 1964, Metro is Germany's first integrated "cash and carry" wholesale store. The so-called cash and carry, that is, cash transactions, self-select and self-transport, that is, restaurants, hotels, commodity retail stores, etc., can pick up their own goods in large supermarkets and pay for goods immediately. In 1996, Metro entered the Chinese market. After that, Metro will focus primarily on providing goods and services to B-terminal customers through 2021. In November 2011, Metro underwent a transformation to serve customers from the previous B-end customers, to serve both B-end customers and C-end members of the operating model.
"Retail Circle" noted that after opening to the C-end, Metro also made adjustments accordingly. First, it was streamlined on SKUs. In the past, there may have been 10,000 or 20,000 SKUs in Metro stores, but the number of SKUs in Metro member stores has been reduced to about 6,000, of which 40% are private brand imported or exclusive goods. At the same time, in the research and development of private brands, on the one hand, based on the upgrading of quality of life, to create a "Zhen Zhen" series of products, on the other hand, relying on the inherent advantages of B end, to create a high price of "Yike" series of products.
In addition, based on the characteristics that C-end members prefer to try new products compared to B-end members, while maintaining the same commodity price and quality control stability as B-end members in the past, Metro also continuously iterates and adjusts the SKUs in member stores.
"Retail Circle" learned that in the two years since the announcement of the comprehensive transformation of member stores, Metro has opened 24 member stores. In 2022, the number of paying members of Metro has exceeded 3 million, a growth rate of more than 50%. It is obvious that from the current domestic member store track players, Metro has been among the "first echelon".
Founded in March 2015, Hema is a new form of retail established through the three core technologies of big data, information technology and mobile Internet and the self-established logistics system, integrating supermarkets, restaurants and vegetable markets. The biggest difference with traditional supermarkets is that Hema relies on the big data accumulated in the e-commerce operation process of Ali for many years, with the help of mobile Internet, intelligent Internet of things, automation and other technologies and advanced equipment, to achieve the optimal match between people, goods and fields, from supply chain, warehousing to distribution, forming its own complete logistics system.
Exploring new formats has always been the main theme of Hema. Since its establishment, Hema has tried more than ten different formats, including Hema F2, Hema Vegetable market, Hema mini, Hema small station, Hema Mali, Hema Pick'n Go, covering almost all retail commercial formats.
In October 2020, Hema launched the warehouse member store - Hema X Member Store. After nearly 3 years of development, by 2023, Hema X member store has opened 10 stores, located in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou and other places, the number of members has exceeded 3 million in 3 years, can be said to be the fastest growing member store in the current domestic supermarket brand.
It is understood that in order to continue to improve competitiveness, Hema has also set up a purchasing department specifically for Hema X member stores to create exclusive products and supply chains, maintain lower gross margins and a more streamlined SKU, and further benefit consumers.
On October 27, 2023, Mingkang Hui Warehouse opened 7 stores on the same day, and the stores landed in Ningbo Yinzhou, Yuyao, Shaoxing Zhuji, Shengzhou, Jiaxing Haining and other regions. These stores include Zhuji Central Road store, Zhuji Datang Yongxin Road store, Zhuji Cross-Lake Road store, Haining Yucai Road store, Yinzhou Qiming South Road store, Yuyao Xinjian North Road store and Shengzhou Guanhenan Road store.
Mingkang Hui Ecological Agriculture Group, belongs to the world's top 500 enterprises Hailiang Group. The predecessor of Hailiang is a Zhejiang Zhuji County copper Material factory established in 1989, 7 years later, Zhejiang Hailiang Copper Group Co., LTD was established. In 1995, Hailiang formally entered the education industry and established Hailiang Education Group. In early 2003, Hailiang officially entered the real estate industry. Mingkang Hui is a new business that Hailiang Group continues to evolve and expand.
It is understood that at present, the business of Mingkang Hui mainly includes the B end and the C end. In the B end, it includes suppliers and catering enterprises, such as Haidilao, Zhejiang Lianhua Huashang, Sanjiang Shopping, etc., as well as the supply of school canteen ingredients such as Hailiang Education Group and Hangzhou Binjiang District Education Group; At the C end, it mainly includes three types: one is the campus convenience store in Hailiang Education School, the second is the joint counters in Lianhua supermarket, and the third is the community fresh retail store.
In addition, in the past three years, Mingkang Hui has maintained a rapid growth trend of doubling annual revenue. Across the country, Mingkang Hui has invested in the construction of 17 high-standard agricultural demonstration bases and more than 100 compact rural revitalization cooperation bases, helping Hailiang Group to win the honorary title of "National Advanced Collective in poverty Alleviation".
In the terminal market, the layout of Mingkang Hui has reached nearly 500 community Nissin fresh stores. These stores mainly cover consumers in the Yangtze River Delta region, of which more than 80% of fresh items are directly sourced from high-quality producing areas across the country. High quality and low price products make Mingkang Hui's offline and online consumers nearly 10 million people. The newly opened warehouse batch store of Mingkang Hui can be said to be another new attempt after the community fresh store format.