Recently, Costco Kaike announced the official launch of its online platform "Kaike Daojia", providing consumers with convenient online shopping and delivery services. At present, this service has covered cities such as Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Ningbo, and will gradually expand its distribution scope in the future to meet the needs of more regional consumers.
Users can easily purchase products of the same quality as physical stores, including various fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs, seafood, dairy products, baked goods, and home furnishings, by searching for "customer to home delivery" through the WeChat mini program. As long as the order amount reaches 299 yuan and is located in the city where Costco stores are located, customers can enjoy the same day delivery service.
It is worth noting that in order to ensure service quality and freshness of products, online delivery services are limited to a range of 8 kilometers near the store. At present, Kaishike has opened a total of 6 stores in China, located in Minhang, Pudong, Suzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. The Nanjing store is about to open in the second quarter.
Retail Circle learned that last year, Kaishi Ke had collaborated with third-party service providers to open an online shopping mall, but the service scope was limited. However, the collaboration came to an end at the end of last year, and Tiaochou Shopping announced its closure, stating that due to adjustments in the online business of Kaike, the member online purchasing service will be terminated after February 28th this year.
The Retail Circle believes that the official launch of the Home to Home business after the previous trial period further demonstrates that the opening customer's business has been preliminarily established, and also demonstrates its high recognition of real-time retail.
In fact, from the current development of the warehouse membership store market, online business really needs to be tried boldly. Of course, we should also be prepared to meet challenges and failure. After all, as far as the development of e-commerce business in Chinese Mainland in recent years is concerned, it is very mature. If we do not have enough patience and ability to deal with challenges, the possibility of failure is far greater than the possibility of success.
With competitors such as Sam and Hema launching online ordering and instant delivery services, Costco is also launching an e-commerce platform for customers and launching instant retail services, which is an important move to cope with competition and localization.
What are the benefits of laying out online business for market opening customers? Firstly, it can increase the shopping frequency of members and indirectly increase the number of visitors. Without the support of shopping frequency, the renewal rate of membership stores will be very low, which is already the case for market opening customers in Chinese Mainland. Therefore, the addition of e-commerce services, especially instant delivery services, can play a positive role in driving consumption frequency and increasing membership consumption frequency in member stores. Because from the perspective of consumer groups, the main consumers of warehouse membership stores are young people, and online shopping has become an indispensable part of young people's lives.
In addition, in terms of the main competition faced by market opening customers in Chinese Mainland, one is the "throttling" of e-commerce, and the other is the "sneak attack" of local warehousing member stores. Because both have a common feature, which is to use relatively small packaging to lower the unit price. Therefore, in such a market environment, if the opening customers do not lay out their presence in e-commerce and do not engage in on-demand business, as market competition intensifies, they are likely to be diverted in the future, and even cut off larger cakes.
Secondly, it can enhance the further development of online business for opening customers. From the perspective of the current shopping channels in Chinese Mainland, most young people have taken online shopping as a part of their lives. Therefore, it can be said that there is no future if they can't continue to catch young people at the moment. In addition, to better attract customers and interact with young people, it is also necessary to have wired touchpoints and business. To better understand the younger consumer group, an online "database" is also needed.
However, from the perspective of the overall development of e-commerce in Chinese Mainland, it is not easy for market starters to succeed in e-commerce business. Because doing e-commerce requires a sustained ability to attract customers, if at some point in the future, the products of the opening customers lose their attractiveness and differentiation ability. So, its e-commerce business may also lose its attractiveness, and the previous investment will undoubtedly become a waste.
Meanwhile, the market share of Chinese e-commerce exceeds that of any other country in the world, and its internal competition is also extremely fierce. To make e-commerce in China, it does require two brushes. And this also means that on the road of e-commerce, the challenges that market makers need to face can only be more, not less.