I came across an interesting startup called Aonic Club that's trying to change how we shop. For $99 a year, members can supposedly buy products at the cost of manufacturing and shipping, without the usual retail markup. The company claims its products can be 20–80% cheaper than name-brand alternatives. Right now, it's only selling protein and supplements, but the plan is to expand into other categories.
What interests me isn't necessarily the AI. It's the business model. Instead of making money by marking up every product, Aonic wants to make money from memberships. The idea is that AI and automation can help keep operating costs low enough to make that work.
Of course, there's a catch. The savings are company claims, the product selection is limited, and you'd have to save more than $99 annually just to justify the membership. Still, I think it's an interesting concept. Costco has already shown that consumers will pay for access to lower prices. What happens if AI allows a much leaner company to take that model further?
Would you pay $99 a year for access to products at cost, or is this just another subscription dressed up as a bargain?
I don't understand this business model. They are having distributors pick and ship individual orders directly to consumers? Why would they want to do that when they can ship truckloads of stuff to walmart, amazon and costco.
It's ok for niche online items where brands are used to selling direct to consumer. Then they just send brands the orders and probably take a small cut but I don't get how they are planning to displace the largest retailers in the world unless they are going to handle distribution themselves which we are quite a ways away from AI and robotics being able to totally automate.
You're right. AI might cut some overhead, but it doesn't solve the distribution problem. I can see this working for niche products with high markups, but scaling to compete with Walmart or Costco at scale seems pretty unrealistic...they move products in bulk for a reason.
I'd also be curious about how much of the claimed savings survives after factoring fulfillment costs and the $99 membership.
It will be interesting to see how it works out for them.