After Hong Kong people go north to buy Sam's, it will open Hong Kong's online business

Interface News

2024-05-13 12:54Posted on the official account of Zhejiang Jiemian News

Interface News Reporter | Zhao Xiaojuan

Interface News Editor | Ya Han Xiang

On May 12, the South China Morning Post reported that Sam's Club was about to launch an online business in Hong Kong. According to the report, two Sam's employees in Shenzhen said that they would open the service in the near future, and they could enjoy free delivery if they purchased more than 599 yuan (about 660 Hong Kong dollars).

On May 13, Jiemian News asked Sam for confirmation on this, and Sam did not deny that he was about to open an online business in Hong Kong. However, he could not reply to information such as whether to increase categories in the future and set up a front warehouse in Hong Kong, only saying, "Sam's will continue to improve our service capabilities through more and better ways." ”

Interface News saw on Sam's APP, if the address city is selected as Hong Kong, you can switch to the Sam's Hong Kong APP page, and the font will be automatically converted to traditional Chinese, and there is a column entrance of "Hong Kong people are buying" on the home page.

From the perspective of product categories, at present, the products that can be added to the shopping cart in Hong Kong are more limited to normal temperature packaging products, and low-temperature, frozen meat, eggs, milk and vegetables and other categories have all of them, "limited to store sales" labels, and the order process is similar to the experience operation of Sam's mainland version. However, in the payment link, there is a prompt that "the Hong Kong address does not support the order temporarily", and the order cannot be placed.

This is more like an upcoming beta version with shipping instructions.

Regarding delivery, Sam Hong Kong's online delivery time is the fastest next-day delivery, the last mile includes door-to-door delivery or self-pick-up of goods, the delivery standard will be different, the first weight standard of home delivery is 30 yuan within 1 kilogram, and 4.5 yuan for each additional kilogram, and the first weight standard for self-pickup is 18 yuan within 1 kilogram, and 4.5 yuan for each additional kilogram, and there is no free shipping amount at present.

There are also users on social platforms who shared the above purchase process, but in the comments, they claimed that "in the internal test, it is estimated to be online in 2-3 weeks".

On Sam's HK's online order page, it is not yet possible to place an order

In fact, before testing Hong Kong's online business, Sam's Shenzhen stores had been in a state of being bombarded by Hong Kong shoppers.

Affordability, cost-effectiveness and convenient transportation are the biggest attractions of mainland supermarkets to Hong Kong people, and Sam's stores in Shenzhen have become the beneficiaries of the proximity to the water. At the entrance of Sam's Shenzhen SCP Center store, there is also a self-service card office for Hong Kong and Macao residents, and there are staff to guide you to quickly apply for membership cards.

At the same time, since October last year, cross-border bus companies have successively launched special lines between Sam's stores in Shenzhen and Hong Kong - tourist buses or commercial buses will pick up passengers at Sam's Gate on time, and 100 yuan round trip can make Hong Kong residents from Mong Kok to Tuen Mun shopping "silky" and avoid the hard work of carrying heavy goods.

For this reason, not only ordinary Hong Kong families have dragged their families to come, but even Hong Kong stars such as Cai Shaofen, Chen Hao and Charmaine Sheh have also been photographed joining Sam's sweeping army, and even derived professional Sam's purchasing agents, specializing in helping Hong Kong people buy Sam's popular products.

According to the Hong Kong Immigration Department, as of December 30, 2023, Hong Kong residents had 53.34 million "northbound trips" throughout the year, of which more than 40 million left the country through the Shenzhen port. Of Hong Kong's 7.5 million people, the total number of outbound trips reached 9.3 million in March this year. This is the highest monthly figure since 1997.

Based on the buying tide and Sam's online business experience in the mainland for 6 years, the time to open Hong Kong's online business is also a matter of course, but every time a new business tests the water, Sam's starts to test the product category at room temperature.

Sam's front warehouse was tested in 2018 from Shenzhen Futian and Nanshan, and then extended to Shanghai stores, and finally successively promoted to stores across the country, these front warehouses are invested by Sam himself, but the system construction, warehouse management, etc. are jointly responsible for Sam's and JD Daojia, and the distribution is completed by Dada Express, at the same time, Sam's Walmart is also a shareholder of Dada, holding 9.1% of the shares, which makes the cooperation between the two sides closer.

Photo taken: Fan Jianlei of Interface News

Sam's has also ushered in an explosive period in China, and the online shopping characteristics and hoarding behavior during the epidemic have brought Sam's higher business volume. Retail observer Zhang Chenyong mentioned in an article on the official account in September last year that Sam's currently has about 500 front-end warehouses in China, and according to 45 stores, each store drives 11 front-end warehouses on average, with an average daily order of 1,000 orders and a customer unit price of about 230 yuan, which is far higher than the break-even point of 400 orders. On the whole, it is expected that the annual sales of Sam's front warehouse will be between 33 billion and 40 billion yuan.

In 2021, Sam's also opened a nationwide distribution service, in response to the characteristics of population flow during the Chinese New Year, as well as the needs of members for gifts, personal use, etc., Sam's sold products to cities and regions not covered by offline stores in this way, Sam's also launched a nationwide free shipping service of 299 yuan within a limited time, and if it is less than 299 yuan, the delivery fee will be charged according to weight.

Nowadays, even if the online shopping business in Hong Kong is opened, it also starts to test the water from room temperature products, but there are only room temperature products, and the fresh products that make Sam's more advantageous cannot reflect the cost performance.

Even so, Sam's is still Walmart's money-making machine in China, with public reports showing that Sam's will achieve sales of about 80 billion yuan in 2023, with online sales accounting for 47%. As of now, Sam's has a total of 48 stores across the country. Evenly divided by the number of stores, this means that the sales of each store in 2023 will reach 1.67 billion yuan.

Sam's official did not respond to the above figures, but according to Walmart's fiscal year 2024 results released in February this year, Walmart China's net sales for the entire fiscal year 2024 were 128.5 billion yuan.

Competition is also starting to become fierce, Sam's most important competitor is Costco, a membership-based supermarket brand also from the United States, which has a total of 6 stores in the Chinese mainland market, located in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shenzhen, and the upcoming Nanjing store is Costco's 7th store in the Chinese mainland market, of which the Nanjing store is also the first store in the Chinese mainland market to test the integrated service project of the water including refueling business.

In April this year, Costco officially launched the online platform "Costco to Home" business, covering Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and other cities, but the service is limited to 8 kilometers near the store, and the volume cannot match the orders generated by Sam's hundreds of pre-positions.

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