Pleasant not to be called
Spring is here, but winter in boutique supermarkets is not over.
Following the sale of BHG, City’super from Hong Kong ’s boutique supermarket seems to be dying in this vertical field. City’super ’s operator, City Super Group ’s major shareholder, Sanhuang Group, is considering selling its equity in City’super. Domestic retail giants China Resources and Yonghui are willing to acquire their equity.
According to Bloomberg, Sanhuang Group plans to hold the first round of bidding in late March or early April with a purchase price of approximately US $ 300-400 million.
Offline retailers such as China Resources and Yonghui have also been strong players in the field of boutique supermarkets. Yonghui’s Super Species and China Resources Vanguard’s Ole boutique supermarkets are also well-known in the market.
City ’super was established in 1996. It started in Hong Kong and belongs to the City Super Group. In recent years, it has entered the mainland market. It has layouts in the core business districts such as Shanghai IFC Center and Industrial Taikoo Hui, focusing on high-end retail. City’super ’s in-store design is truly unique. The in-store products are sourced from all over the world and positioned as high-end. Consumers can get a one-stop high-end consumer experience in the store.
City Super Group has three major brands, namely boutique supermarket City’super, lifestyle boutique City ’super LOG-ON, and casual dining brand cookedDeli. Among them, City’ super is the most well-known in mainland China.
In recent years, the shopping experience of comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Jingdong has been continuously upgraded, and the performance capability has been steadily improved. As the categories become more complete, users can enjoy a one-stop shopping experience without leaving home. The living space of traditional hypermarkets.
Traditional hypermarkets also carry heavy burdens, such as large floor space, low flooring efficiency, and uneven product quality. These problems have been difficult to solve. Therefore, most traditional retailers have been passive in the struggle with e-commerce. status.
At the same time, the tide of consumption upgrades is surging, and many traditional retailers have entered the market segment of boutique supermarkets to seek differentiated competition. E-commerce platforms have also focused on this market and are actively carrying new retail. Even the real estate developers such as Greenland are eager to try. For a time, the track of boutique supermarkets becomes crowded.
Excessive competition is only the result. The root cause is that most players underestimate the difficulty of competition in this market segment. Although City’super is more cautious and only plans to open stores in East China outside of Shanghai, its development road is still full of thorns.
According to City’super’s official introduction, City’super’s target customers are high-price unit consumers, trying to contribute 70-80% of revenue with a small number of high-price unit consumers of 5% -10% So in operation,The layout has taken the high-end route. But things didn’t go as expected, City’super also encountered the same problems as friends: customers had the same experience, customers did not buy, customer flow was subject to brand positioning, revenue was limited and rental costs were extremely high.
The boutique supermarket model represented by City’super has indeed solved the problems of uneven product quality in traditional hypermarkets, but at the same time it has brought many new problems. In the final analysis, most boutique supermarkets are too Attaching importance to “excellent” without maintaining a good balance between high unit prices and operations, the concept is too advanced, and the positioning is also awkward.