Recently, market news has spread that Guangzhou's first Costco (Kaishi Ke) is about to be located in Old Huangpu and build a commercial center covering an area of approximately 140000 square meters around Guangyuan Road and Fengle Road.
According to the "Leadership Message Board", in early March this year, the Huangpu government in Guangzhou responded by actively connecting with large warehousing supermarkets such as Costco's opening customers. Based on the investment intentions of the project party, we will coordinate and study the commercial layout of our district, and improve the level of regional commercial support.
It should be emphasized that as the world's largest chain retail and membership based warehouse style bulk store, the difference between Costco and Sam's operation is that Costco adopts a heavy asset operation model, first purchasing land and then building its own shopping mall. But there has been no news of Costco acquiring land in Guangzhou so far.
More subtly, the Guangzhou Zengcheng government also responded to netizens in November 2023, actively contacting Costco's relevant investment leaders multiple times, actively promoting a good business environment in Guangzhou, and hoping that Costco would settle down.
Zengcheng also stated that during the 6th China International Import Expo in 2023, the person in charge of Costco South China was invited to attend the Guangdong Province and Multinational Enterprise Cooperation and Exchange Conference. At the conference, the main leaders of Zengcheng District promoted the high-quality business environment in Zengcheng District and the major strategic deployment of Guangzhou to build the eastern center of Guangzhou, and had in-depth discussions with the person in charge of Costco South China.
In addition to actively introducing in Huangpu and Zengcheng, Liwan has actually taken action as early as 2021.
According to the "Liwan Release" in March 2021, Liwan will sign a memorandum of cooperation with Kaishike (China) Investment Co., Ltd. at the 7th Guangzhou International Investment Conference. At that time, Liwan stated that this meant that Costco chose Liwan as the first stop to enter the Guangzhou market, which would help Guangzhou build an international consumer center city.
But the memorandum of cooperation has no legal effect. It has been three years now, and the Costco project has not yet officially landed in Liwan. There is no news about the land planning, and the market is more inclined to be put on hold.
(Screenshot from Leadership Message Board)
Costco, also a membership based retail store from the United States, entered the Chinese market much slower than Sam's.
In 2019, Costco opened its first store in Chinese Mainland and landed in Minhang, Shanghai.
Two years later, in 2021, the second store landed in Huqiu, Suzhou. Another year later, in 2023, Costco opened three stores in Chinese Mainland, located in Pudong, Shanghai, Beicang, Ningbo and Xiaoshan, Hangzhou.
The interface news once reported the grand opening of Costco's first store in Chinese Mainland. Due to the huge flow of people on the first day that exceeded the store's expectations, the on-site management was chaotic, and Costco even sent a text message to notify consumers to suspend business in the afternoon.
The opening day of Costco's Hangzhou Xiaoshan store was also overcrowded. To prevent excessive foot traffic, the shopping mall, which was originally scheduled to open at 9 o'clock, has advanced its opening time by 40 minutes. And in order to compete with Sam's Club stores six kilometers away, some products are priced cheaper than Sam.
In January of this year, Costco's sixth store landed in Longhua, Shenzhen and officially opened before the Spring Festival. The seventh store is located in Jiangning, Nanjing and plans to open before June this year.
Even so, Costco has only seven stores in Chinese Mainland. On the contrary, competitor Sam is rapidly expanding in the Chinese market.
According to the latest financial report of Wal Mart (0R1W. L), by the end of 2023, Wal Mart had 47 Sam's Club stores in China. According to Sam's official website, there are 37 stores in Chinese Mainland. More importantly, the official account of Wal Mart China will release information in December 2023. It is estimated that 6 to 7 new stores will open every year (in the Chinese market).
Costco is not landing in Liwan, and some markets speculate that it is to avoid the Sam who has already landed in Liwan, which is the third Sam in Guangzhou.
According to a report by "Yangcheng Pai", in April 2023, Guangzhou Industrial Control Technology Industry Investment Group (hereinafter referred to as "Industrial Control Technology Industry") officially signed contracts with Sam's Club and JD MALL projects. The two stores will respectively enter the Lingnan V-Valley brand park in Liwan and Haizhu districts. At the end of the month, construction of the Liwan Sam's Shop began.
It is worth mentioning that Liwan Sam is positioned as the "Sam's Guangfo flagship store", which is consistent with the current positioning of other large commercial complexes in Liwan, and also highlights the regional advantage of the Guangfo border; And JD.com MALL is the first store in Guangzhou.
As early as 2009, Sam had already landed in Panyu, Guangzhou. In 2019, ten years later, the second Sam's shop in Guangzhou landed on the east side of Huangpu Avenue in Tianhe. These two stores, one has been operating for nearly 15 years, and the other has been tested by the epidemic for three years.
Costco in other cities has also opened less than 10 kilometers away from Sam, such as the Hangzhou Xiaoshan store mentioned earlier and the newly opened Shenzhen Longhua store.
Even Shenzhen Longhua's Costco is less than 4 kilometers away from the nearest Sam, making it a direct competitor. On top social media platforms, many consumers directly compare the foot traffic of two stores.
However, Costco will also face Metro AG from Germany in Guangzhou. Metro AG entered Guangzhou in 2006, and now it has opened 4 stores, respectively located in Huadu, Tianhe, Panyu and Baiyun. However, compared with Sam and Costco, Metro AG's online marketing and social attributes are weak, and topic attention has also declined significantly in recent years.