Purchase seasonal peony flowers in the “flower plus” applet; Purchase the newly listed chelizi on the “daily Youxian” app; Buy vegetables to be cooked in the evening at “box horse fresh”… More and more people’s lives are relying on fresh e-commerce.
While changing our lives, the pattern of fresh e-commerce industry is also quietly changing.
In 2021, “daily excellent fresh” and “Ding Dong buy vegetables” were listed; “Stay Radish” announced the closure; Meicai.com is exposed to layoffs and business contraction… The fresh e-commerce track is crowded and lively, with broad prospects and cruel competition. Can many players break the dilemma?
I. the transaction scale exceeded 400 billion yuan for the first time, and the industry penetration rate reached 7.9%
In March 3rd, China China’s one belt, one road TOP10 social impact think tank, the electronic commerce research center of the economic and social research agency, released the “2021 China fresh electricity market data report”, which showed that the scale of fresh electricity business transactions in 2021 reached 465 billion 810 million yuan, up 27.92% over the same period last year. From 2014 to 2020, the growth rate of fresh e-commerce was 123.07%, 86.89%, 68.63%, 53.47%, 39%, 31% and 42.54% respectively.
According to the “dianshubao” of ecosoc.com, the penetration rate of fresh e-commerce industry reached 7.91% in 2021, and the penetration rates from 2014 to 2020 were 0.59%, 1.29%, 2.02%, 2.97%, 3.8%, 4.67% and 5.98% respectively.
It can be seen from the data that with the outbreak of mobile Internet traffic, online consumers further sink, the development momentum of fresh e-commerce is gradually strong, and the industry has broad prospects.
II. 8 financing events with a total amount of over 8 billion yuan
In 2021, there were 8 investment and financing events in China’s fresh e-commerce industry, with a total financing amount of 8.05 billion yuan. The platforms involved are: T11, senguoyun, pupu supermarket, dingdong shopping, flying bear fresh, rabbit fresh and cost-effective.
In 2021, there were two fresh e-commerce “unicorns”, namely Yipin fresh and Baiguoyuan, with a valuation of US $3.4 billion and US $1.462 billion respectively, with a total valuation of US $4.862 billion. (Note: Daily Youxian will be removed from the list due to listing)
China Merchants Bank Co.Ltd(600036) Research Institute pointed out that in recent years, the fresh e-commerce circuit has experienced two rounds of industry reshuffle, and is now entering the third round. In the first round, under the background of the cold winter of the capital market in 2019, many once star fresh e-commerce platforms such as dairadish, squirrel pinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpinpin. In the second round, in the environment of hot e-commerce of fresh food catalyzed by the epidemic, Internet giants entered the market strongly. A number of community group buying platforms represented by food and enjoyment club and the same journey life were overwhelmed by giants and forced to withdraw from the competitive track. The third round is a tug of war between giants, which has just begun.
III. obvious hierarchical differentiation of users
So, what is the current situation of fresh e-commerce? Fresh e-commerce is a branch under the retail e-commerce track. It takes fresh products such as vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry and eggs as its core commodities, and uses the Internet to deliver fresh products through traditional express delivery such as e-commerce warehouse, or to reach consumers through store, home, community group purchase, cycle purchase and other modes.
The data shows that the echelon differentiation of the number of active users of fresh e-commerce app is obvious:
The first echelon (monthly active population 10 million) mainly includes community group purchase platform orange heart optimization, meituan optimization, buy more vegetables, prosperity optimization, and HEMA in the integrated mode of Shihui group and warehouse store;
The second echelon (10 million monthly active population 3 million) is daily excellent fresh food, Ding Dong shopping, Yonghui life, etc;
The third echelon (3 million monthly active population 1 million) includes Pu Pu, RT Mart excellent fresh, fresh food, meituan shopping, etc.
From a month on month perspective, the number of daily excellent fresh food, Ding Dong buying vegetables, Pu Pu and other monthly activities in the front warehouse mode increased significantly.
IV. increase in complaints of savage growth
According to the cases of user rights protection accepted by the well-known online consumption dispute mediation platform “diansuibao”, refund, commodity quality, delivery, Overlord terms, after-sales service, false promotion, order problems, customer service problems, online fraud, online fake sales, overtime meal delivery are the main problems of fresh e-commerce complaints in 2021.
According to the statistics, in 2021, according to the number of complaints, the fresh e-commerce platforms involved include dingdong shopping, Yiguo fresh food, daily excellent fresh food, original life, Shunfeng preferred food, HEMA fresh food, Xingsheng preferred food, pupu, Jingdong home, meicai.com, flowerplus Huajia, Shihui group, Yonghui Superstores Co.Ltd(601933) , RT Mart excellent fresh food , etc.
The complaint is only a small problem faced by fresh e-commerce. More fresh e-commerce faces the problem of how to make profits after burning money. According to the data released by China e-commerce research center, 99% of China’s existing more than 4000 fresh e-commerce businesses are losing money.
For fresh e-commerce players, the challenges ahead are huge – non-standard, consumable and low gross profit margin.
Compared with other common online shopping commodities, the road of standardization of fresh products is not optimistic. It is difficult to realize standardization in terms of specification, variety, freshness, quality and so on.
Easy consumption is also a big problem for fresh e-commerce players. According to statistics, the logistics loss of fresh e-commerce is generally 5% – 8%, some even more than 10%, while the distribution cost is basically more than 20%. The particularity of fresh products leads to high requirements for timeliness and professionalism of logistics. Cold chain logistics came into being, but it is more expensive than traditional logistics.
At the same time, the low gross profit margin is also a major problem perplexing the industry. The customer order price of consumers is often unable to offset the operating costs of businesses themselves.
At present, industry pioneers have emerged. The daily excellent fresh food, which has been the selling point before, has been transitioning to asset light modes such as digital vegetable market before listing; Ding Dong shopping said in the Q4 financial report that it had achieved regional profits in Shanghai in December 2021, and to explore the reasons for its profits, Ding Dong shopping said that increasing the customer unit price through its own brand and prefabricated vegetables is one of the reasons for realizing regional profits.
