JD.com's 7Fresh Opens First "Seven Fun" Lifestyle Space + Convenience Store
JD.com, 12/24/19
Chinese B2C e-commerce platform JD.com (Nasdaq: JD)'s 7Fresh fresh food supermarket chain launched the first of its Seven Fun lifestyle spaces today in Beijing. Located in Galaxy SOHO on Beijing's second ring road, the new concept provides a unique combination of dining + drinking + social, with breakfast from 7:30am, drinks until midnight, and lunch, afternoon tea, snacks and daily groceries in between.
Seven Fun, a sub-brand of 7Fresh, is designed specifically to cater to working professionals aged between 26 to 45, with annual income of over RMB 100,000, in first-tier cities, providing not just a space but a lifestyle.
As global consumers are shifting from going to the store to buy products to going to the store to experience products and buy services, delivering experiences has been essential for retailers to attract and retain consumers. This was some of the thinking behind Seven Fun. With an area of around 1,000 square meters (approximately 10,000 sq.ft), Seven Fun is a destination offering networking and fun, rather than purely a destination to make a purchase.
The inaugural Seven Fun offers more than 3,500 different products such as fresh food, baked goods, fresh flowers, and groceries. It also features 12 selected eateries selling international delicacies, including three bars offering wine, Japanese sake and craft beer. In addition to providing mealtime solutions to the approximately 200,000 working professionals within a 1 km radius of the space, Seven Fun also serves as a gathering place that offers band performances, themed parties and more. It can even be rented out to serve as a socializing or networking space for personal or corporate events.
The alcohol selection at Seven Fun is much more extensive than that at the average bar, with more than 300 different types of sake and over 1,000 craft beers sourced via 7Fresh's supply chain offered over the course of a year annually at Seven Fun. Professional sommeliers are also available to guide consumers through an experience commensurate with what might be expected in a five-star hotel, but at an affordable price.
Seven Fun consumers can also order anything in the store from the 7Fresh app to be delivered to their doorstep.
Seven Fun also adopts a partner model that encourages the core team of Seven Fun to become store partners.
Editor's Note: JD.com's first Seven Fun store is open from 7:30am to midnight, but if customers are still eating at midnight, will remain open to accommodate them, and the store offers delivery from 7:30am to 9:15pm. In terms of payment options, consumer can pay in cash, or, after downloading the 7Fresh app, can enjoy self-checkout, scanning their purchases at a checkout terminal, and then paying with either Tencent's WeChat Pay or JD's own JD Pay mobile payment platform. Customers who have previously uploaded their photo to their JD.com account can also elect to pay by facial recognition scan (i.e. each payment terminal is equipped with a camera that can scan the user's face to authorize payment). As in other stores under the 7Fresh umbrella, the price tags displayed under each product - which look like traditional paper price tags, but in fact are digital displays - change dynamically to remain always in sync with pricing for the same item on the JD.com website.
Keywords: Seven Fun new retail e-commerce Internet B2C fresh food JD.com JD 7Fresh retail
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