Want to get a card for 30 million middle-class families? The road to the "METRO" membership store is not easy

(A METRO club in Beijing)

2021 is a year to witness the "decline" of offline supermarkets and the "rise" of member stores. Just in the last two days of 2021, interesting scenes are happening: on the one hand, the Sam's Club, which is lined up by consumers to refund tickets, and on the other hand, METRO, which is lottery for Xinjiang Apple on Weibo.

On December 31, 2021, METRO Ma On Shan Club will open soon, and the number of METRO clubs in China will reach 20 from the opening of the first club store in Beijing in June this year. However, when METRO began to rush to the member store, the players in this track have gathered giants: in addition to Sam, who is popular with Internet celebrities, hema X club backed by Ali, there are also market openers (Costco) who rushed to the hot search when they opened, and the layout of each member store in the Chinese market is earlier than METRO. In this case, as a "novice" of the club, what can METRO rely on to win over the middle class?

METRO is late

With the opening of METRO Ma On Shan On Shan on December 31, METRO already has 20 member stores nationwide.

As a representative of Ashkenazi supermarkets, METRO entered the Chinese market in 1996 and opened its first store in Shanghai. At that time, along with METRO, there were also foreign supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour entering China. More than 20 years have passed, METRO China has long distanced itself from Wal-Mart and Carrefour.

Originally, METRO also tried the club model, but later changed to a hypermarket model. In 2020, with the blessing of Internet dissemination and Internet celebrity punch card, the popularity of membership-based businesses has surpassed that of traditional hypermarkets, and more and more players have joined the membership-based track while it is hot, including METRO, which officially joined in June this year.

In fact, looking at the membership track of the current Retail Market of Chinese supermarkets, METRO is a bit late. In October last year, the first hema x member store opened, and media reports show that from December 8, 2021 to January 14, 2022, a total of four Hema X member stores opened in a five-week period, creating a record for the fastest frequency of opening stores in this new format of membership stores.

On September 26 this year, the world's largest Sam's member flagship store opened in Shanghai, which is already Sam's 35th store in China. In addition, on October 22 this year, Carrefour's first store in China has also opened, according to Carrefour's plan, it is planned to fully upgrade 100 of the 200 hypermarkets into paid membership stores.

The more the membership store opens, the more the participants have to face, the membership fee has built a high wall between the membership store and the consumer - the "threshold price" of this wall is also high or low: according to Sam's official pricing, the annual membership card is divided into 260 yuan / year and 680 yuan / year, the membership fee of the Hema X membership store is 258 yuan / year, and the membership fee of Carrefour is 258 yuan / year, in contrast, METRO's membership fee is much cheaper, according to the METRO Club Mini Program, METRO's membership fee is 199 rmb/year.

"The income of the membership store includes both the annual membership fee and the value-added service income provided to the member, and the main part should be the value-added service income, after all, the annual membership fee is only to cover part of the cost of providing services to members." Shen Meng, executive director of Chanson Capital, analyzed, "The membership card is not the most important thing for the membership store, but mainly to establish a closer relationship with consumers. ”

Card or return card

The target group of membership-based supermarkets is mostly located in China's middle class.

According to the "White Paper on China's New Middle Class Circle" released by the Hurun Research Institute, Hurun defines the middle class as having high consumption and investment capacity after excluding basic living expenses such as households, food, clothing, housing and transportation. Specifically, the annual household income of first-tier cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen is more than 300,000, and other cities are more than 200,000, while the assets of 3 million are called middle class, and according to this standard, there are only 33.2 million middle-class households in China.

According to Chen Zhiyu, deputy CEO of METRO China, in an interview with the media, the number of households with spending power in China is about 30 million, and the membership store format around the needs of middle-class families is in the market stage of grabbing land and "cutting land".

The target group is 30 million households, the membership system supermarket is accelerating the race, and the competition for paid members is becoming increasingly fierce.

According to Official Walmart data, as of November 2021, the number of paid members of Sam's Club In China exceeded 4 million; A few days ago, some media disclosed data that at present, the total number of Hema X members has approached 2 million, which means that Hema already has nearly 2 million paid members. In addition, media reports in the middle of this year showed that METRO launched a 199 yuan paid membership card in December last year, and the number of paid members had reached millions by that time.

However, in the past of the membership boom, the phenomenon of card withdrawal is also difficult to avoid, in addition to the recent Sam card withdrawal boom, the previously explosive market openers have also appeared in the queue of members to return the card.

In 2019, Market Opener opened its first store in China. At the time of the opening, the people of Shanghai were responsible for snapping up the purchases, and netizens were responsible for discussing when to open to their doors. However, as the discount promotion cooled down, the group of people who had queued up to get a card also became the people who queued up to return the card. The reasons for returning the card include "not very suitable for their own consumption habits", "the amount of goods is too large", "people are too crowded to experience the consumption experience is not good", "too far from home, the number of shopping times is not much use for the card" and so on.

Can you rush to the "final round"

Metro's return to the club, although it is fundamentally promoted by society, it is difficult to escape the reality of its own poor development.

Previously, METRO's traditional hypermarket business in China mainly focused on ToB to provide services for enterprises. However, the follow-up because of the development of Internet e-commerce, to its operation has brought a huge impact, changed to hypermarket after the poor operation, and finally METRO to "sell the body" road, in 2019 METRO China sold its body, Wumart in the joint venture company established by the two sides to hold 80% of the shares, METRO continues to hold 20% of the shares.

This time METRO entered the membership track, but also with the help of wumei Dongfeng. It is understood that METRO's first member store in Beijing was transformed on the basis of Wumart hypermarket. "Hypermarkets and member stores are just different forms of retail, if the revenue growth and contribution of hypermarkets are not as expected, and the transformation and upgrading into a more closely related and higher value-added member store, the effect depends on how to operate, not that the hypermarket will increase revenue significantly when it is changed to a member store." Shen Meng analyzed.

"METRO's own advantage is that it was previously oriented to the B-side, so it has an advantage in purchasing products, and the product is a very critical point for the member store." Retail expert Hu Chuncai thinks.

It is undeniable that there are more and more competitors in the membership track. The head enterprise has advantages in marketing and promotion, entry time, and METRO, which is late in coming, can it occupy a place in the fight of the membership system in the future?

In this regard, Shen Meng analysis believes that "business operation is a long-term economic activity, even if the late starter invests in the club, if it can make competitive differentiation characteristics, enough to attract consumers, there are still opportunities." METRO and the Wumart behind it have an advantage in understanding the needs of local consumers, while the degree of understanding of the loyalty store model is its disadvantage. ”

"Due to the impact of the current structural changes in the Chinese market, the membership system has room for development at present, and it will be one of the forms of retail formats in China in the future, but it will not become the only one, nor will it become the main retail format." Bao Yuezhong, a new retail expert, said in an interview with the "China Times" reporter: "Metro's member store, what kind of results can be made, it is difficult to say, at present, it still needs time to test." ”

For METRO's next store opening plan and what advantages it has in the membership track, China Times contacted METRO, but as of press time, it has not received a reply.

Responsible Editor: Huang Xingli Editor-in-Chief: Han Feng