Source | Retail Business Finance In the turbulent changes of the regional retail landscape, Wushang Group's (000501.SZ) recent moves have drawn close attention from industry insiders. In March 2025, Wushang Jiangtun Membership Store Warehousing Co., Ltd. was quietly established, marking the official entry of this veteran commercial group, deeply rooted in the Jingchu region for 65 years, into the warehouse membership store arena. Earlier, on the investor interaction platform, the company revealed that "Jiangtun Membership Store will adopt a paid membership model, located in Dongxihu District, Wuhan, and is planned to open within the year," pushing this long-brewing strategic transformation into the spotlight. For this local retail enterprise, known as "China's first commercial stock," this move is not only a proactive response to consumption trends but also a critical transformation attempt under the pressure of traditional business.
Traditional Retail Giant How to Solve the "Profit Dilemma"? Wushang Group has recently fallen into a predicament of declining revenue and profit. Looking back at Wushang Group's 2024 annual report, its operational pressures are clearly visible. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating revenue of 6.704 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.6%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 216 million yuan, a slight year-on-year increase of 3.31%, but after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, net profit was only 138 million yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 66.83%. Behind this is the reality of weak growth in main business: commodity retail revenue was 5.579 billion yuan, down 10.1% year-on-year, of which the supermarket business revenue was 2.066 billion yuan, a sharp decrease of 16.33% year-on-year, becoming the main factor dragging down performance. Image source: Wushang Group 2024 Annual Report More severely, the company closed 11 supermarket stores throughout the year, and the high operating costs of labor-intensive formats eroded the already limited profit space. Image source: Wushang Group 2024 Annual Report The store adjustment data directly reflects Wushang Group's proactive clearance of inefficient assets, but on the other hand, the desire to seek performance breakthroughs has become more urgent. Against this backdrop, warehouse membership stores, as a new format with high gross margins and high stickiness, have become a key strategic choice for Wushang Group to break the deadlock. Of course, looking at the regional competitive landscape in Wuhan, Hubei, the challenges facing Wushang Jiangtun Membership Store should not be underestimated. As a major consumption hub in Central China, Wuhan has long been a battleground for membership store giants. According to Sam's Club's official website, as of April 2025, it has three stores open in Wuhan (Qiaokou, Optics Valley, Hanyang), with a fourth Jiang'an store under construction. Its average daily customer traffic per store consistently ranks among the top nationally, and the 260 yuan/year membership fee threshold filters out high-spending customers, with renewal rates far exceeding the industry average. Image source: Sam's Club Sam's Club's competitive advantage stems from its strong supply chain capabilities: global direct sourcing accounts for 65% of products, and its Member's Mark private label surpassed 10 billion yuan in sales in 2024. Exclusive products such as Swiss rolls and beef rolls have become phenomenal products, combined with services like express delivery and free parking, building an难以复制的消费生态. In contrast, Wushang Group's own conditions present both advantages and disadvantages in facing Sam's Club head-on. As a commercial leader deeply rooted in Hubei for over 60 years, Wushang has an irreplaceable location advantage: 10 shopping malls covering core business districts in Wuhan and surrounding areas, with a total area of 2.272 million square meters, and self-owned properties accounting for over 90%. This stable property resource provides innate conditions for membership store site selection and scenario construction. In 2024, the newly established Jiangtun Digital Intelligence Technology Company laid the groundwork in digital marketing and supply chain management. Wushang Group's partial business Image source: Wushang Group However, the shortcomings cannot be ignored: Wushang's supermarket business continues to shrink, with 11 stores closed in 2024 (mostly leased properties, such as Zhuankou Store and Changqing Garden Store), reflecting insufficient asset-light operation capabilities; although its private label "Jiangtun Preferred" has been upgraded, it has not yet formed scale effects, still lagging behind Sam's Club's private label Member's Mark, which has annual sales exceeding 10 billion yuan. A more critical challenge lies in building the membership ecosystem. Sam's Club locks in users through the dual stickiness of "products + services": offline stores provide multi-product tasting, parent-child experience areas, free appliance installation, and other services; online, it relies on cloud warehouses to achieve express delivery in Wuhan's main urban areas. In contrast, although Wushang Group established Wushang Import & Export Trading (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. in 2024 to explore cross-border e-commerce, its logistics network is still in the early stages of construction, and membership benefits have not yet been effectively linked with existing commercial complexes (such as Dream Times and Wushang MALL) (e.g., exclusive points for cross-border e-commerce, offline pickup of cross-border goods). How to convert offline member traffic into cross-border e-commerce consumption remains an unresolved issue.
Multi-Dimensional Competition in the Membership Store Track From an industry perspective, warehouse membership stores have become one of the fastest-growing sub-tracks in retail. Foreign brands represented by Sam's Club and Costco continue to expand, firmly occupying the high-end membership store market with their mature global supply chains and cost-effective private labels. In contrast, among local players, Hema X Membership Store closed three stores in Shanghai in April 2025 due to supply chain shortcomings and operational adjustments, leaving only five stores nationwide; RT-Mart's M Membership Store is counterattacking by positioning itself in the Yangtze River Delta market. Image: Sam's Club With the debut of Wushang Jiangtun Membership Store, Wuhan will become one of the cities with the most intense competition in membership stores nationwide. So, how can it find living space in this complex environment? From a strategic layout perspective, Wushang's membership store breakthrough has three pillars: location strategic value, membership asset accumulation, and scenario operation genes. Specifically, Wuhan's Dongxihu District, as a logistics hub in Central China, can both reduce warehousing costs and radiate to emerging middle-class communities; the million-level high-net-worth user pool provides a foundation for conversion; and relying on the scenario-based operation experience accumulated from Wushang Dream Times' cultural and themed activities, it has the unique ability to graft the "commerce, culture, tourism, and sports" integration model onto the membership store scenario. But the challenges are equally significant. The first is the talent shortage: warehouse membership store operations require a composite team with both product buying capabilities and membership operation experience. Second, supply chain restructuring is extremely difficult: private label development has a long cycle and high investment, and how to form a differentiated product matrix in the short term tests decision-making wisdom. More severe is the challenge of cultivating consumption habits: Wuhan consumers' acceptance of the paid membership model has yet to be verified, especially when Sam's Club has already occupied the high ground in consumers' minds. From industry trends, leading warehouse membership store brands are constantly evolving. Costco has created an optical department, and Sam's Club has opened a health management center, both attempting to break through retail boundaries. This provides dual inspiration for Wushang: it must both consolidate product strength and build service soft barriers. In my opinion, in terms of product strength breakthrough, Wushang Group can focus on Hubei's characteristic agricultural products to develop a "geographical indication + scenario customization" product matrix, building a dual-wheel drive of "regional supply chain + global selection." For example, customized packaging for Caidian lotus root and Qianjiang crayfish can both strengthen local supply chain advantages and form differentiated competition. In terms of experience scenario reconstruction, it can transplant the "Dream Times" operation experience, embedding experience modules such as parent-child interaction and food workshops into the warehouse space to extend user dwell time. For ecosystem closure, it can connect the shopping mall points system with membership benefits, converting single transactions into continuous value accumulation. Image: Wushang Dream Times WS Dream Park's first "Children's Dream Drama Festival" It is worth noting that Wushang Group mentioned in its 2024 annual report the exploration of an "asset-light operation model," establishing a commercial operation management company to actively expand management output projects, which may lay the groundwork for rapid replication of membership stores. If it can combine a mature operation system with local supply chain advantages, it may form a scaled layout in Hubei and even Central China in the future, competing with Sam's Club and Costco in a differentiated way. As is well known, the membership store model has extremely high requirements for supply chain depth, digital capabilities, and user operations. Wushang Group still needs to make up for shortcomings in the short term: the gross margin of its supermarket business is significantly lower than the industry's top level, and improving supply chain efficiency remains a core issue; at the same time, how to attract members to pay without relying on price wars tests the team's scenario innovation and brand premium capabilities. Image source: Wushang Group In the second half of 2025, the opening of Wushang Jiangtun Membership Store's first store will become an important observation point. It not only carries Wushang Group's hope of breaking through performance bottlenecks but also epitomizes local retail enterprises' search for living space in the cracks between giants. Of course, in the wave of consumption stratification and format changes, only enterprises that truly understand member needs, root themselves in local supply chains, and continuously iterate consumption experiences can occupy a place in this long-term battle. As industry insiders have pointed out: "The membership store competition is essentially a long-term contest of supply chain efficiency and user loyalty. Whether Wushang's location advantages can be transformed into competitive barriers depends on whether it can build irreplaceability in the three dimensions of 'products, services, and ecosystem.'" This strategic layout, which concerns the development of the next decade, is quietly unfolding.