Beijing News Shell Financial News (reporter Chen Weicheng) On November 24, METRO announced the upgrading of its brand strategy and brand image, from the previous main service to B-end customers, to the operating model of serving both B-end customers and C-end members. And a comprehensive layout of the membership store, the year to open another 18 member stores.
Since entering China in 1996, METRO has long provided material supply services for international chain five-star hotels, international kindergartens, enterprises and institutions and other B-end customers. This time, the strategy has been upgraded to serve both B-end customers and C-end members.
"B-end customers have a common feature and have extremely high requirements for food safety and the stability of product quality. In the future process of serving C-end members, METRO will continue to uphold this insistence. Chen Zhiyu, deputy CEO of METRO China, said.
At the press conference, METRO announced that it will open 16 member stores in Beijing, Chengdu, Nanjing, Qingdao, Dalian, Wuxi, Changchun and Changzhou on November 27. Before the end of the year, METRO will also open 2 new member stores in Hebei and Anhui.
It is reported that METRO has opened 2 member stores in Beijing and Chengdu in June 2021, plus the 99 stores that METRO currently has, and the number of METRO Chinese mainland stores will increase to 101 at the end of the year. METRO has over 20 million members in China.
At present, METRO Club mainly focuses on more than 4,000 SKUs, of which more than 40% are imported and private brands. According to Wen Yubin, vice president and director of commodity management of METRO, the proportion of METRO imports, owned and exclusive brands will increase to 50% in the future.
The Beijing News Shell financial reporter noted that in recent years, the domestic supermarket member stores have heated up, Hema Fresh began to test the membership system in April 2018, and opened the first Hema X membership store in Shanghai in September 2020; Yonghui Supermarket is also exploring the membership store model. Recently, Carrefour's first member store opened in Shanghai, and it also shouted at veteran player Sam due to supply chain problems.
Proofread by Yang Xuli