On June 18, in addition to the carnival of major e-commerce, Box Horse announced that it would open two stores in Beijing and Shanghai, ready to replicate the success of the first store in Shanghai last year and officially enter the member store copy.
Warehouse-style member stores originated in the Netherlands in the last century, and later developed to the United States and other places, characterized by a large number and low prices, mainly for middle-class families. Among them, well-known retail brands such as Costco and Sam have accumulated a large number of loyal members around the world and have hundreds of stores.
The huge potential of China market attracts foreign retailers. Sam opened its first branch in China 25 years ago, but this format is obviously not to the appetite of domestic consumers, and people can't understand why they have to pay in advance to buy things in shopping malls. Sam has been patiently paving the way for warehouse members and has never given up his efforts for more than 20 years.
In fact, local retail enterprises have also considered warehouse-type member stores, and some enterprises have tried it from 20 15. Perhaps the rapid development of e-commerce at that time led to the weakness of offline retail, or the lack of consumption level of most consumers, which eventually led to a bleak exit.
With the continuous improvement and upgrading of domestic consumption level, the e-commerce track has basically been finalized, and major retail enterprises have begun to consider the possibility of warehousing member stores.
From 2065438 to 2009, Costco, a retail giant, settled in Shanghai, which led a number of retail enterprises to make moves one after another. Yonghui, Carrefour and Defoe all began to lay out plans to seize the market, and Boxma Xiansheng even directly shouted the slogan of benchmarking Costco and Sam.
The concept of new retail was put forward by Ma Yun as early as 20 16. In recent years, the popularity of attracting players from all walks of life to join the war has been heating up. Box horse fresh life is the result of Ali's interpretation of new retail.
Compared with traditional retail, Boxma Xiansheng creatively launched a new model integrating supermarket, vegetable market and catering. Through the dual efforts of online and offline, offline retailing does not forget the true face of e-commerce. The biggest feature is that it is delivered to your door within three kilometers and half an hour after placing an order online. Therefore, the residential area around the box horse shop is nicknamed "box house", but it is bound to face some problems.
The freshness of fresh food is always the most concerned thing for consumers. In 2020 alone, Box Horse was repeatedly named by relevant departments for food safety issues. In May this year, Box Horse was named again for food safety issues.
The main product of box horse is fresh. If the food safety problem cannot be completely solved, every complaint will be an obstacle to the future development of Box Horse.
In addition to food safety issues, the X member launched by Box Horse in recent years has also caused a lot of controversy. Different from other brand membership systems, Box Horse adopts the mode of first enjoying and then deducting fees. When the rights and interests enjoyed by members in the first year are less than 2 18 yuan, they will be deducted according to the part they have enjoyed. If it exceeds 2 18 yuan, only 2 18 yuan will be deducted.
This mode of fee deduction became "free in the first year" in the mouth of front-line staff, but it did not further explain the specific rules of fee deduction, which led many consumers to complain that they were induced by the clerk to open a "free" membership card, but the membership fee was deducted in the second year. The original intention of X member is to improve consumer stickiness, but the problem of "induced card handling" has attracted Bosnia and Herzegovina Box Horse.
The after-sales service of box horse has also been frequently vomited. Many consumers said that the after-sales service of Box Horse was ignored or prevaricated, which could not solve the problem at all.
On a third-party complaint platform, we can see that there are as many as 1263 complaints from Boxma Xiansheng, most of which involve product quality and inexplicably detained membership fees. And the data of "replied" and "completed" are all 0, which is on the black list of the fresh plate of the platform.
The fresh e-commerce track is in full swing, and the reputation of Boxma Xiansheng is obviously not as good as other brands, but he is still full of confidence, not because of the moat, but because of the idea of leaning against the tree to enjoy the cool.
The most striking feature of fresh e-commerce is burning money. Every fresh e-commerce company can't avoid burning money, but the box horse has been backed by Ali's traffic from the beginning, and it has absorbed Ali's funds.
The biggest difference between fresh e-commerce and other e-commerce is "fresh", which has strict requirements on transportation speed and loss in transportation, and this requirement requires enterprises to invest a lot of money in the early stage to establish transportation networks and open up supply chains, especially cold chain transportation. It is not unreasonable to say that it burns money.
Although the box horse is backed by Ali and the source of funds is sufficient, profit is still an eternal topic. Compared with other fresh e-commerce, the goal of Box Horse is more clear, and the target consumer group is people who have certain spending power and have certain needs for quality of life. The take-away food delivered to the door has increased the appetite, and it is difficult for consumers to stay in physical stores for a long time, which means that the main position of box horses is in first-and second-tier cities, followed by rent pressure.
In order to camp around consumers, Box Horse had to open the store near the business circle. The greater the passenger flow, the more expensive the rent. At the same time, it shoulders the heavy responsibilities of warehousing, processing and catering. Thousands of square meters is just the standard, plus decoration and other expenses. The upfront cost of a store may need tens of millions.
The 3 km limit set by Box Horse also requires store density. Originally, getting through the supply chain in the early stage was the biggest cost, but if it is operated on a large scale in the later stage, the cost can be diluted in theory. However, if the restriction of 3 kilometers is added, it is required that Box Horse must increase the density of stores to cover consumers of sufficient scale. In other words, it is hopeless to reduce the marginal cost by scale, and it is difficult for a store to make a profit in the short term.
In order to alleviate this pressure, Boxma Xiansheng launched the Cloud Nest on 20 18, hoping to make up for the shortage of offline through online, so that it can only meet the order today and deliver the goods the next day. There are too many platforms that can meet the next-day delivery of online orders. Even Tmall Supermarket, also from Ali, can satisfy it. The biggest feature of the box horse has disappeared in the cloud nest.
In order to find a moat that suits him, Box Horse began to study its own brand. All the international retail giants are absent from the track of their own brands. From Wal-Mart to Japan's largest retailer Rong Chain Group, private brands are regarded as the moat of retailers.
There is no need for suppliers to share a piece of cake, and the cost of private brands is greatly reduced. With the gross profit margin unchanged, the commodity price can be reduced by 10%. Low price and high quality can strengthen consumer stickiness, and retailers are more emboldened when talking with suppliers about the prices of other goods, forming a virtuous circle. Even so, its own brand has not become a moat for box horses.
Box Horse's early main seafood has made many consumers have an inherent impression on Box Horse, but it has suppressed the highlights of newly developed own products in the later period. Most consumers' impression of box horse still stays on the big seafood of box horse, and they have no loyalty to the brand of box horse.
Box horse still needs moat.
Warehouse member stores are still in the blue ocean in the domestic market, and the whole track is still in its infancy. The target consumer group of member stores is the middle class, which has a certain demand for quality of life and is insensitive to price. However, most domestic consumers are used to shopping around, brand loyalty is very low, and member stores are a little acclimatized in the domestic market. Cost performance is always the first choice for consumers.
It seems a little premature for Box Horse to directly challenge international retail giants such as Costco and Sam. Costco and Sam have hundreds of stores around the world and the global supply chain is basically open. The procurement channels accumulated over the years are also very strong, and the biggest dependence of Box Horse is only Ali.
Nowadays, Box Horse is facing the international giants that have already formed. In the warehouse membership store industry, Box Horse is just a new student. Box Horse hopes to shake the reputation of consumers and create its own characteristics by increasing the proportion of fresh products. However, the procurement, transportation and storage of fresh products are all problems, and consumers pay more and more attention to food safety. Whether the quality control of box horses can complete the task has become a new problem.
The success of Costco and Sam cannot be duplicated. The large population of foreign families and the sparsely populated land make most families accustomed to driving to do centralized shopping on weekends, and many families also have special storage rooms to hoard materials. Costco and Sam both adopt the wholesale system, the biggest feature of which is large quantity and low price.
Domestic consumers' warehouse shopping habits have not yet been developed. For domestic consumers, small families are the mainstream, and small and piecemeal shopping habits are difficult for small families to digest.
Shopping channels in China are very diverse, which also causes domestic consumers to be generally sensitive to prices and have low brand loyalty. At the same time, online e-commerce is relatively mature, and offline warehouse member stores are not attractive to users.
The biggest feature of member stores is that they only provide services for members. If members don't rely on offline, is it necessary to have a membership-based physical store?
The dual efforts of localization and online and offline may really win this battle. Box Horse hopes to make efforts in packaging specifications and product selection by virtue of its own understanding of domestic living habits, and try to create a product category system that is more suitable for the domestic market.
3000SKU is not much. The SKU of Sam's member store is around 4000, and Costco is around 3500. Moreover, Box Horse has increased the proportion of fresh products, which has led to further compression of other product categories. That is to say, Box Horse X member store is still not separated from the business of "selling vegetables", and it is really inappropriate to label Costco and Sam as the main daily necessities.
At present, the format of warehouse members is still unknown, and the step of box horse is to test the water and explore. The success of one or two companies doesn't explain anything. Whether this retail model can really adapt to the domestic market will take time to tell us.