The iterative renewal of the retail industry is accelerating. Recently, at the former site of Wal Mart's Jianguo Road in Beijing, Hema's 10th X Club in China officially opened, which is also the second X Club in Beijing.
In recent years, the popularity of paid membership stores has been continuously increasing. Since the foreign membership store brand Costco opened stores in China, Sam's membership stores have also increased their opening speed. Afterwards, domestic retail enterprises such as Hema and Gaoxin Retail also followed suit and sought new growth curves.
However, for a long time, paid membership stores have usually been opened in suburban areas to reduce costs, and stores in urban centers are rare. Hema is the first local enterprise to open a membership store in the city center. It is understood that the newly opened Hema X membership store, Jianguo Road, covers an area of nearly 20000 square meters. Opening such a large-scale store in the CBD area of every inch of land and every inch of gold will further test the wisdom of operation and management.
Mom Shengyang, the director of operations at Hema X Club, told China Securities News in an interview: "Our priority is consumers. Driving in the central business district will lower the shopping threshold for consumers, and there is no need to drive specifically to the suburbs. You can easily buy on the way to and from work, saving a lot of time. At the same time, with the evacuation of traditional supermarkets, a large number of high-quality properties have been vacated, and rental prices have also significantly decreased, Hema has further reduced the cost of opening a store in the city center by simplifying decoration and digitizing.
Mother Shengyang stated that by reducing costs throughout the entire chain through direct procurement from the origin, simple packaging, warehousing display, and optimized logistics, the overall prices of products at Hema X member stores are usually cheaper than ordinary retail stores, meeting the needs of middle-income consumers who pursue "exquisite and frugal".
In addition to providing selected cost-effective products, in the view of Mother Shengyang, offline member stores should also provide consumers with unique services and experiences. The reporter noticed that in response to the high number of office workers in the CBD area, Hema X Club Jianguo Road Branch has also launched the "Hema X Member Free Lunch" activity, providing limited quantity free lunch to customers during the working days from 12:00 to 13:00 from October 20th to October 31st.
Compared to the scale of the global retail industry, there is still a lot of room for growth in China's retail industry. We believe that member stores have broad prospects in the domestic market, "said Mother Shengyang. In order to continue improving competitiveness, Hema has recently established a procurement department specifically for Hema X member stores, creating exclusive products and supply chains, maintaining lower gross profit margins and more streamlined SKUs, further benefiting consumers.