The simple business war is playing out again!
Recently, the two leading warehouse member supermarkets Hema and Sam have fought a price war, and the "war" has burned from Shanghai to Beijing.
With the rapid development of domestic warehouse member supermarkets, Sam and Hema as typical representatives, the smell of gunpowder between the two sides has become stronger and stronger in recent years.
Walmart executives said in recent internal speeches that the only possible competition for Sam at the moment is Freshippo. In this regard, Hou Yi, founder and CEO of Freshippo, bluntly said that in the near future, Hema must be Sam's biggest market competitor.
Hou Yi also said that consumers are very realistic, who has better product quality and price will choose whom, consumers must vote with their feet.
The "business war" triggered by durian mille-feuille cake
Recently, many netizens posted that the price of Hema and Sam's durian mille-feuille cakes in Shanghai has been repeatedly adjusted.
It is understood that durian mille-feuille cake was originally Sam's hot selling commodity, with a price tag of 128 yuan. On August 9, a netizen posted that he suggested that friends in Shanghai pay attention to the "business war" of Hema Sam. He said that a few days ago, Hema launched the "moving mountain price", directly hitting the price of durian mille-feuille cake to 99 yuan. Sam immediately responded after discovering it, and changed it to 98.9 yuan for a dime cheaper. Then Hema continued to reduce the price to 89 yuan a piece, Sam responded again, first a dollar cheaper to 88 yuan; Later, because Hema dropped to 86 yuan, Sam dropped it to 85 yuan again.
At present, in addition to durian mille-feuille cake, watermelon, eggs, snacks and other commodities are participating in this price war. According to the latest "war report" sent by Shanghai netizens, Hema yesterday hit the price of durian mille-feuille cake to 42 yuan.
Beijing officially launched "moving mountain price"
Fund Jun found that the "fire" of this commercial war had "burned" to Beijing yesterday.
On August 11, Hema officially launched the "Moving Mountain Price" in Beijing. The event products cover cake baking, seafood, meat and poultry, grain and oil, milk drinks, snacks and many other categories.
For the "moving mountain price", Hema also specially remarked "more, fresher, more affordable" on the promotion page, saying that it would "give full play to the craftsmanship spirit of moving mountains and strive to bring the world's best and most cost-effective products to Hema users". It is reported that the current "moving mountain price" activity in Beijing is from August 11 to August 17.
Rush to the hot search, netizens: fight!
After the news fermented, on August 11, the relevant terms appeared on Baidu's hot search, and as of press time, the related Weibo topic has been read more than 90 million times.
Netizens left messages saying, "fight", "a few more days cheaper", "consumers can rush", and some netizens asked when the "business war" began in their area...
CEO of Freshippo:
The future must be Sam's biggest competitor
In recent years, domestic warehousing member supermarkets have developed rapidly. According to iiMedia Research, the market size of China's warehousing member supermarket industry has always remained above 20 billion yuan from 2012 to 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 10.1% in 2022, and the market size will reach 33.50 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 38.78 billion yuan in 2024.
It is in this continuously growing market that Sam and Hema are typical representatives, and the smell of gunpowder between the two sides has become stronger and stronger in recent years.
According to foreign media reports, Walmart executives said in internal speeches recently that the only thing that may compete with Sam's in China's membership-based supermarket market is Alibaba's new retail supermarket brand Freshippo, because it has significant advantages in the food supply chain.
From the perspective of development, Sam's Club belongs to the world's top 500 enterprises Wal-Mart company, opened the first branch in Asia in Shenzhen in 1996, and currently has 50 stores nationwide, covering 14 provinces. According to the Moon Fox iBrand, Sam's has more than 4 million paid members in China.
Founded in 2015 and officially opened its first store in January 2016, Hema is regarded as Alibaba's new retail sample. By 2020, Hema had accumulated 25 million active buyer users. According to Yuehu iBrand, the number of Hema offline stores has reached 351, covering 19 provinces, with an average daily customer flow of up to 456,440.
Since the beginning of this year, the monthly activity of the two users has basically shown a positive growth trend, but at the same time, the two users have also experienced a high degree of overlap. According to the data of the Moon Fox iAPP, as of June this year, the overlap rate between Sam's and Hema users reached 43.1%, which means that nearly half of Sam's users have also installed Hema . From the perspective of penetration rate, Sam's whole network penetration rate has been about 2% lower than that of Hema for a long time.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Walmart executives see Hema as Sam's only competitor. In this regard, Hou Yi, founder and CEO of Freshippo, recently said in an interview with Lianshang that he believes that Hema will be able to surpass the giants in some aspects or even all aspects in the future. "The opportunities for the future are huge for us. In the near future, Hema must be Sam's biggest market competitor. ”
Hou Yi said that the competition between Hema and Sam and Costco is not a competition between member stores, but a competition between the entire format of Hema and them. Because everyone is targeting the same customer group - the consumer group above the middle class. "These people are either buying at Hema or buying in Sam, and that's the challenge we face today." For example, how can Hema Fresh further strengthen the ability to differentiate its products and further reduce prices. ”
Hou Yi believes that if the Chinese retail industry wants to compete with Sam and Costco. First, it is necessary to build differentiated competitiveness with category as the core and consumer insight as the drive; Second, with the integration of the supply chain, all intermediate links should be eliminated to improve commodity price competitiveness; The third is to have global procurement capabilities, Sam and Costco based on the global supply chain to purchase goods, the quality of far exceeds that of peers.
"If you don't meet the above three goals, the competition must be at a disadvantage. Consumers are very realistic, who has better product quality and price will choose whom, consumers must vote with their feet. Hou Yi said.
This article is from China Fund News