Text/Lu Xiaoguo Cao Xuantu/Courtesy of interviewee
On January 13, Zheng Feng, president of JD.com Qixian, appeared at the media exchange meeting. At the meeting, Zheng Feng interpreted the latest business strategic planning of Qixian and said that this year, Qixian will optimize and improve based on "service experience", "product quality" and "model innovation" and other aspects, and strive to rank among the first camp of China's chain retail industry in the next 5-7 years.
Innovative format: "Membership system" opens up the consumer network to become a unique competitive advantage
Founded in 2017, JD Seven Fresh is a new type of fresh supermarket based on the integration of online and offline. But in the past few years, Qixian has been relatively low-key and rarely speaks.
"After nearly a year of polishing, Qixian is ready." Zheng Feng said that in the past year, Qixian has made a series of strategic adjustments to focus on business priorities. Qixian's innovation strategy began with the introduction of a new membership system. It is reported that Qixian has launched a membership system (non-paid members) in September last year, which is divided into three levels: ordinary members, gold members and platinum members. As of December 2021, the percentage of Platinum members has reached 26%, accounting for 60% of total sales.
Later, Qixian officially launched paid PLUS members at the beginning of this year. Paid membership is not a new thing, foreign retail supermarkets such as Sam's, Costco, etc. use the paid membership system. As early as October 2020, Hema has opened the first Hema X membership store and fully entered the membership supermarket market.
Qixian's unique competitive advantage is that its members are common to JD PLUS members. This also means that becoming a Seven Fresh PLUS member will automatically become a JD PLUS member, in addition to enjoying the benefits of the 8 paid members provided by Seven Fresh, it will also enjoy 12 member rights such as free shipping for JD PLUS members, and JD PLUS members will also automatically become Seven Fresh Paid Members, sharing these 20 paid member rights.
The deeper significance of this strategy is to connect the high-frequency fresh value of Qixian with JD.com's massive commodity pool, competitive advantages of large-scale commodities such as 3C home appliances, self-operated commodity system and JD.com's logistics network.
The move is undoubtedly extremely attractive to consumers. Consumers can enjoy the high-frequency fresh value of seven fresh foods and get the advantages of JD.com's large-scale goods, and enjoy higher discounts and better services in the purchase process, and user stickiness can be increased. Another advantage of Qixian is that it is backed by JD.com's strong supply chain and logistics system, that is to say, Qixian does not need to carry out warehousing operations like traditional paid membership supermarkets, but can carry out community-based operations through Jingdong's supply chain. This greatly improves the shopping experience for consumers.
The new membership system is just the first step for Seven Fresh to focus on users. In terms of retail efficiency, Qixian launched the "store warehouse integration" optimization project, by reorganizing the picking process and designing the picking environment, shortening the movement line of the picker, 60%-70% of the single volume can be picked in less than 30 meters of the channel, so that the picking becomes efficient and the delivery speed is faster. In terms of products, Qixian further strengthened product development. For example, Qixian's self-developed special control card meal features "low card, light fat, delicious and rich", and the sales volume is gratifying.
According to Zheng Feng, Qixian's own brand started in April 2021, and the number of goods has reached nearly 200, and this number will continue to double by the end of 2022. Strengthen the ability of R&D and innovation internally, and there is no opportunity to stop cooperating with well-known brands externally. In November last year, China's first fresh compound store created by Seven Fresh and MUJI was officially opened in Shanghai, which attracted much attention from the industry.
Expanding the territory: The Greater Bay Area is the next goal
Under a series of innovative measures, the performance of Qixian this year has shown leapfrog growth. Zheng Feng said that all the stores that have been open for three consecutive years have achieved profitability, and a number of stores with business hours between two and three years have also been close to profitability.
Under the new situation of performance explosion, making a thick mass foundation and expanding the consumer market is the core plan of Qixian. In 2021, Qixian supermarkets will add more than 20 new stores, which is equivalent to the sum of the past three years. It is understood that as of now, the total number of stores in the country has reached 50, operating in 13 cities across the country, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Wuhan.
Zheng Feng revealed that in the future, the Seven Fresh Stores will focus on the layout around the two major regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Greater Bay Area. At present, Qixian's position is mainly in North China, and expanding the Greater Bay Area urban belt centered on Shenzhen and Guangzhou is the next goal of Qixian. Since April 30, 2021, Qixian has opened 8 new stores in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Talking about the overall development goals of the future seven fresh, Zheng Feng frankly said: "As long as the site selection requirements are met, the more the better." ”
For Qixian, the advantage of the Greater Bay Area is that it has a mature supply chain system, a rich talent reserve and a huge user base. In addition to Jingdong's original category layout, Qixian will select and purchase localized products according to the unique eating habits of local residents in the Greater Bay Area. As the main force leading the mainland's open economy, the user base of the Greater Bay Area is in line with the brand positioning and development strategy of Qixian, both in terms of consumption concept and consumption level. In addition, the administrative efficiency, business policies, and tolerance and support for innovation of the Government of the Greater Bay Area are also the support points for the rapid expansion of Qixian in the future.
Qixian's development ambitions go far beyond that. At present, Qixian has been laid out in the five major regions of North China, South China, East China, Central China and West China, covering 13 major cities in the country, and when Qixian has established differentiation and consumption mentality in existing areas, it will consider entering more cities. Zheng Feng said that he hopes to become the first camp of China's chain retail industry around 2027 and become the most trustworthy omni-channel retail leader. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News • Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Li Zhiwen