METRO "catches up" with the club, and the operating model is upgraded

The momentum of brick-and-mortar retail transformation into warehouse-based member stores continues to be strong.

On December 29, 2021, METRO PLUS Yanjiao Club officially opened. Since june this year, it has transformed into a warehouse-based member store, which is already the 19th member store opened by METRO in China and the 100th store in China. Zhang Wenzhong, founder and chairman of Wumart Group, said at the opening ceremony that the opening of Yanjiao Club symbolizes that METRO Club has entered a new period of development. METRO will comply with the trend of consumption upgrading and bring high-quality lifestyles and services to local residents.

The comprehensive layout of the membership store marks that METRO has clearly upgraded from the 2B or 2C operating model in the past to a two-way development. "In the past, METRO mainly did B-end business in China, and later after transforming the C-end membership business, the corresponding brand positioning, publicity, etc. were copied and copied, and some consumers even read it as 'Mai Junlong' because they did not know METRO's logo," METRO insiders told Caijing Tianxia Weekly.

The transformation of the 2C operating model is the core development path of METRO's brand strategy upgrade conference held a month ago. As a new generation of member store model created by METRO under this idea, Yanjiao Club adopts a new brand design that is more suitable for young people, and in order to meet the needs of a new generation of middle-class family members, METRO Yanjiao Member Store sacrifices part of the store space, and specially creates children's playgrounds and coffee bars and other leisure and entertainment facilities to provide users with a differentiated shopping experience.

However, since Costco opened its first member store in Shanghai in 2019, the entire retail industry has rushed up and begun to lay out warehouse-type member stores, including Hema Fresh, Sam, Yonghui, etc. Metro, which clearly defines the two-way operation model of METRO has the meaning of "catching up". However, at the same time that various brands are catching up with each other and actively expanding stores, the doubts about the homogenization of products and the "skinning of warehouse-type member stores, in fact, hypermarkets" have risen and fallen, and even some brands have slowed down their expansion and closed stores.

In the view of Ding Liguo, a retail and marketing expert, "the retail industry must be the right way to transform warehouse-based retail, but there is still a gap between brands and Costco, and the final competition will fall on the creation of the supply chain." (Wen | Zhang Kexin, author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly, editor| Sun Yue)