Alibaba’s Freshippo opens first membership-only store in Shanghai, challenging Costco and Sam’s Club
- Goods bought in the X store can be delivered within half a day to customers living within a 20-kilometre radius of the store
Freshippo, the grocery retail chain of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will open its first membership store in Shanghai on Thursday, challenging the American membership-only warehouse chain store Costco and Walmart’s wholesale division Sam’s Club in the city.
“We hope we can improve our capabilities quickly and effectively via directly competing with Costco and Sam’s Club,” said Hou Yi, president of Freshippo in a statement on Monday.
Freshippo, known as “Hema” in Chinese, also launched its own private brand Hema MAX, which sells a variety of products including rice, cooking oil, yogurt and nuts. Over 40 per cent of the products in the membership-only X store are Freshippo’s exclusive products, including those from Hema MAX, with 10 per cent from overseas factories, according to a company statement on Monday.
Goods bought in the X store can be delivered within half a day to customers living within a 20-kilometre radius of the store. Products bought in other Freshippo stores can be delivered to customers living within a 3 kilometres radius of a store and the delivery time can be as short as 30 minutes.
Freshippo is an important part of Alibaba’s “New Retail” initiative, which aims to combine the best elements of the online and offline shopping experience. The coronavirus pandemic and associated social distancing measures have also led to a surge in online consumption in China, with fewer people browsing stores in physical malls.