As the home base of Sam's Club, Shenzhen is about to welcome a strong challenger - Costco.
Costco announced
The Shenzhen store will open on January 12
Career Retail Network learned that on December 8, according to Costco's official WeChat, its Shenzhen store will open on January 12, 2024. This is the first store in South China and the sixth in Chinese mainland.
Costco Shenzhen Store is located at No. 617, New District Avenue, Minzhi Street, northwest of the intersection with Renmin Road, with a total area of 4450,000 square meters. The store has nearly 15,000 square meters of shopping space and offers more than 4,000 global products, including jewelry, toys, books, groceries, fresh fruits and vegetables, snack foods, etc., providing consumers with more product choices.
In order to facilitate shopping for consumers, Costco Shenzhen store provides a three-story parking lot, set up nearly 1,000 parking spaces, and is also equipped with charging piles.
The first flagship store in South China
As the first flagship store in South China, Costco Shenzhen Store has attracted strong attention from the market since it acquired the land.
According to our previous reports, on February 26, 2021, Shenzhen** and Longhua District** officially signed the "Land Transaction Confirmation" and the "Industrial Development Supervision Agreement" with Costco, the world's second largest retailer, and Galaxy Holding Group, and Galaxy Industrial and Costco opened at a reserve price of 223.2 billion yuan jointly won a commercial land in Longhua + second-class residential land A817-0613. This marks the successful completion of the Shenzhen Longhua Super Commercial Center Headquarters Project (hereinafter referred to as the "Longhua Costco Galaxy Project").
According to Galaxy Holdings, the Longhua Costco Galaxy project is expected to have a total investment of about 9 billion yuan (including 200 million US dollars in foreign investment), and the construction content includes warehousing stores, offices, hotels, and first-class talent housing. In particular, the project will also introduce Costco's South China regional headquarters in the United States and open Costco's first flagship store in South China.
It is understood that the construction of Costco's Shenzhen store lasted more than 3 years, which is similar to the construction time of the Shanghai Pudong store that opened in March this year, and it is all in cooperation with Galaxy Industrial.
In fact, as early as February 18, 2020, Galaxy Holdings and Costco jointly bid for a commercial land plot in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. Costco said that it will set up Costco's investment headquarters in China in Kangqiao, Pudong, and jointly build a membership club retail with Galaxy Holdings
The cooperation with Galaxy Holdings has undoubtedly provided a strong boost for Costco's expansion in the Chinese market, enabling it to gain a firm foothold faster.
Sam's Base Camp welcomes the challenger
Costco, the world's largest membership-based warehouse supermarket chain, entered the Chinese mainland market in 2019 with its first store in Shanghai's Minhang District. At present, it has more than 861 stores in 14 countries and regions around the world, including 5 stores in Chinese mainland, namely Shanghai Minhang, Shanghai Pudong, Suzhou, Ningbo and Hangzhou.
Since the beginning of this year, Costco has opened three new stores, namely Shanghai Pudong store, Ningbo store and Hangzhou store, which attracted huge customer flow on the opening day and stimulated great consumer enthusiasm of the local people. This is also the year in which Costco has opened the largest number of stores since it entered China.
At the press conference of this year's Hangzhou store, Zhang Sihan, president of Costco Asia, revealed that Costco's Shenzhen Longhua store will open in January 2024, and will also enter the Nanjing market next year, and its Nanjing store will be unveiled in May 2024. Based on this calculation, it is expected to have at least 7 stores in the mainland market by the first half of 2024.
Shenzhen is the home base of Sam's Club, and the two warehouse club giants will compete in the city.
We found thatThe upcoming Costco Longhua store is only 4 kilometers away from Sam's Club Longhua, which opened in 2017This will undoubtedly be the first competition between the two warehouse club giants in the South China market.
Shenzhen, as the headquarters of Sam's China, entered China in 1996 and opened its first store in Shenzhen, and has 46 stores nationwide, including 4 stores in Shenzhen and the 5th Bao'an store is still under construction.
Since 2023, Sam's has added 5 new stores in Shanghai Zhenru, Shenzhen Qianhai, Fuzhou Cangshan, Wuhan Hanyang, and Shanghai Jiading, of which the Shanghai Jiading store will open at the end of December, and the number of new stores this year will reach 5. By the end of 2023, Sam's will have 47 stores in China.
In addition, Walmart China mentioned in its WeChat*** that it is expected that 6-7 new Sam's Club stores will open every year in the future, indicating that Sam's Club will enter a period of rapid development.
However, Costco, as a latecomer, still has some way to go in competition with Sam's Club, which has an absolute advantage in the number of stores. However, Costco has won the love and trust of many consumers with its unique business model and unique products.
It is believed that the Shenzhen store in South China is just the beginning, and the competition between the two warehouse club giants in the South China market will intensify in the future. #costco#