Self-service: The last kilometer of competition of electric dealer

A series of big moves by Amazon, led by the electric and logistics industries, makes self service a recent buzzword. In the recent year, the cat, Jing-dong, Dangdang and other mainstream electric dealers in different forms to carry out their own business, and this "line up and down the list, the line from the" "standard" service, can solve the last kilometer of embarrassment?

October 2012, Day cat set up a day Cat service station for customers to express themselves;

March 26, 2013, Amazon China announced and the Shanghai Family convenience store cooperation to promote their own services;

Suning also announced will be under the Suning line store pilot "easy to buy integrated service zone", support for easy to buy goods from the mention; Shentong Express recently announced the investment of 30 million yuan, in the community and schools to establish about 30,000 of their own containers ...

A series of big moves in the electrical and logistics industries have made self service a recent buzzword. Self-mention service is by the recipient of their own choice of time and service points to pick up a courier service, from sitting and other express to the designated service point to take delivery. And this new express delivery service can really give the electrical and logistics industry, consumers and convenience store-oriented terminals of the three to achieve a total win?

What is the service for testing water from various industries?

Over the past year, the major electric dealers experienced round after another round of price hand-to-hand combat, ushered in a new level of competition-the consumer experience. According to the "logistics" magazine and the market research company, the survey, online shopping Express service overall satisfaction is only 39.8%. Due to the unsatisfactory logistics services, many large electric dealers are moving to the road of self-construction logistics system.

Parcel from the courier distribution point to the customer's hands this distance, by the electric trader called "The Last Kilometer", which is the most difficult to control the online shopping process. Customer travel, mobile phone shutdown and other abnormal conditions caused by the poor contact, resulting in a large number of online shopping disputes. Customer business trip back, found that the parcel can not find a sign, courier did not in accordance with the agreed time delivery package, etc.

In the monitoring report, the "last kilometer" service is not optimistic, data show 14.5% of respondents complained about the courier company. This directly reduces the power of the company's customers in the minds of the impression. In addition, some customers for the protection of personal privacy considerations, do not want to courier delivery door-to-door. Some office workers, during the day no sign of home, sent to the company, work to worry about how to bring the goods home. Some customers choose to pick up the weekend, but the delivery time is not fixed, affecting the weekend's private activities. The reappearance of the service can meet the special needs of some people and give the customers the most independent choice. Many from the container and 24-hour convenience store of the self-mention service is to allow customers to receive express at any time, the speed is not necessarily slower than the courier. In addition, from 2010 onwards, the demographic dividend has disappeared, the distribution is a typical Laumer, no accumulation of jobs, the cost of human resources will only become higher.

However, the development of self-service has been difficult in China for many years. All kinds of factors restrict the convenience service which is popular in Taiwan in this morning.

How far is this "last mile"?

See Taiwan and the United States to bring their own services

According to the survey, as many as 90% of the users in Taiwan's online shopping community have used the Super Business Collection service (which includes shipping, payment, etc.), and the purchase of Super merchants has become Taiwan's most commonly selected logistics mode accounted for 61.8%. and logistics and super business distribution, in the cost can also reduce the cost of logistics self-built. Taiwan's largest online bookstore blog, the original use of the same as the unified group operated by the convenience of 7-11 as a national shopping pick-up point, opened a super business to take goods a new way of logistics. The biggest advantage compared to the customer's traditional pickup is that there is no time limit for picking up and a safer way to trade.

A survey from Taiwan's convenience stores shows that the profits generated by the value-added services of convenience stores account for the 60%~70% of turnover. At present, the value-added services of the convenience store include: (1) Telecommunications related services: All kinds of recharge cards, replacement SIM card and provide mobile phone charging. (2) Internet related services: Internet card, game points card and site points card. (3) Ticketing card services: Sports lottery, lottery betting cards, all kinds of tickets and parking cards. (4) Collection Registration Service: Agent for various types of training courses registration procedures. (5) Delivery service: According to different areas of customer demand, provide door-to-door service. (6) Ordering service: Purchasing test textbooks, fashion supplies, gifts and so on. (7) Traditional convenience services: selling newspapers, stamps, photocopying, facsimile, etc. (8) Payment service: The use of counter transaction characteristics, the provision of telephone, water, electricity, gas and other cost collection services. (9) Domestic services: The use of geographical advantages, the host community residents washing dishes, laundry, flowers and grass cultivation and other domestic clothing.

The US Amazon, in cooperation with the US's largest office-supply retailer Staples, installs lockers inside its chain stores, where users can mail their goods to a chain store and use a CAPTCHA to open a locker to remove the merchandise. Previously, Amazon has installed lockers in many grocery stores and convenience stores, including outlets, Safeway, etc. Amazon in the United States to sit the first e-commerce, its scope of service and influence so that it can cooperate with a number of convenience stores and ultra, in addition to sufficient funds, there is a high bargaining power. Automatic lift container has more convenient and assured operability; compared with the express interaction between the family convenience store and the supermarket salesman in the Amazon China, this unified standardized form also gave the user a better experience and promoted the brand image.

See an end point from three Origin

The so-called three Origin point refers to the three main links of the whole eco-chain: Online sales, logistics distribution, and terminal self mention. At present, the major electric power companies, self-built Logistics, Third-party logistics, convenience stores, community from the point, delivery cabinets and other parties to join are to enable customers to obtain the goods at this end of the most satisfactory experience. Many problems have been exposed in the process of innovation over the years.

Online sales: The cat issued a coupon to promote the Cat community service station and the day Cat Campus station, Beijing-east, Amazon China to reduce freight charges to push the service; Suning online sales line under the shop, the store functional transformation is difficult.

Terminal: Xi ' an Eurasian college set up its own campus logistics; Jingdong Mall of the subway since the trial six months after the closure, and Chengdu Wowo Convenience store cooperation between the "Jing dong element"; 100 of the city's community and campus distribution; Amazon China and the Shanghai Family Convenience store cooperation collection business, PetroChina Easy Czech convenience stores widely distributed but difficult to force.

Logistics: Shun Fung since the establishment of the convenience store has been closed, in February 2013 with the Chengdu WOWO Cooperation to send business, concessions 10%-20%; Shentong 30 million set up from the delivery counters, mainly distributed schools and communities.

From the actual operation, there are many factors that influence the business, mainly in price, cost, region, brand, consumption habits and other factors. The main performance is:

Price concessions

Consumers choose to mention the service should be mainly reflected in the price, the price of receiving and sending express also have obvious concessions.

Cost input

Convenience stores a single piece of the method to make its input cost is basically zero, since the cost of the delivery cabinets and regional rents, so that it becomes a convenience store auxiliary, but in the long run is a permanent solution.

Geographical differences

Days of cats mainly in Guangdong and Beijing, Beijing and Chengdu, the Wind in Guangdong and Chengdu, the Amazon in Shanghai, E-commerce development of regional differences in the factors leading to self-delivery services can only be in some cities, China's geographical scope and traffic restrictions also give this business a lot of difficulty.

Brand Impact

The brand awareness and reputation of the three parties of electric business, logistics and convenience stores are also the key parts of tripartite cooperation.

Consumption habits

Consumers have not yet from "Wait Express" to "take Express" to change, for delivery time strictly controlled logistics, self-service or belong to the second choice.

Convenience

The convenience of the subway, the community, the office building, the convenience store and so on is also a very important factor; According to the idea of feeding a convenience store per 3000 people, the convenience store coverage of a single brand cannot make the service truly convenient.

Functional

Self-mentioning terminals for the delivery of courier, return, and other value-added services to obtain the function is not mature.

Security

The security of the express itself and the security of the payment method, the convenience store is more advantageous.

How far is it from the end?

From the point of view of many electric dealers in the sky, many businesses in the freight transport have adopted the policy of packet-mail, there is no obvious preferential treatment for their own services, the overall role of issuing coupons is not obvious; other electrical freight concessions are still very effective. The addition of new logistics model has not played a significant role in the promotion of brand and sales, which increases the complexity of customer service pressure and logistics control, which makes the Merchant of the day cat platform prefer the traditional choice of door-to-door service. The unification of each electric dealer's sales end makes it difficult to form and change the traditional collection habits and concepts. Standardization of services has not been developed at the same time, customer experience building is weak.

Look at each convenience store, since the profit point of the service, in addition to a single piece of commission, for the promotion of convenience store sales and customer loyalty training also has a clear role, but the current convenience store value-added business needs to be further increased, or alone one or two value-added services, increase the cost of human investment has not produced more obvious benefits. This makes the convenience store's own business form and profit equally thin. In addition, China's current e-commerce is in a number of checks and balances, the third party Express is also competing for convenience stores, convenience stores, a single merchant, each business for convenience store requirements and allow limited business.

Finally, logistics, a large part of the logistics side because of the rapid expansion of business and the lack of strategic deployment in the early days, resulting in its management can not keep up with the data, the service is also the worse. For this need of efficient management, strong data analysis and standardization of the process of self-delivery services, some self-built logistics Third-party logistics have no competitive ability to bring the service. With less market competition, the business has been slow to move forward.

Staged and differentiated layout self-lifting terminals

In summary, the main points and questions of the service are analyzed, and the next step is how to layout their own service to the last kilometer? It is structured in stages and differentiated according to differences.

The establishment of the self-service is still a very expensive investment. For the selection of the network to collect data analysis, this is a large scale of work, for the order area for long-term geographical tracking analysis. In particular, the major electric platform to pin different areas of customers to buy the size, frequency of purchase, commodity categories for analysis, and then select the appropriate terminals, so as to optimize the layout of resources.

The campus has become the main layout point of the Shentong container, and this part is also the easiest to control, many schools for express irregular is also extremely opposed, automatic container in the campus to set up relatively is the most stable, it should be the largest electric dealers pick up the first part of the cabinet. However, the campus logistics is too concentrated also makes the number of delivery cabinets also increased correspondingly, the initial stage of the cost of large investment, and, with the entry of major electric dealers, campus this part of the service experience differentiation will gradually become less obvious. In addition, we have to say that, since the production cost of the delivery cabinet and rent is a considerable investment, although the automatic container can be recycled to other outlets, but the long-term rent is also a very high expenditure, only when the development of the mature service, resulting in high bargaining power, automatic container is really vigorously development of the time.

Community in the interim phase of the development of services, when the self-mention service has become the standard of the community, electricity, logistics, community property, the three parties will have a good intention to cooperate, the property side is very likely to take over the business; Community Express sign a lot of cases are by default by the property or community managers on behalf of the signing, so community-class self-mention service can be set up to slow down.

The

Convenience store is the most important terminal for all electric dealers ' layout, especially the one with self-built logistics. Convenience stores in the initial input cost is lower, but also because it is expanding its value-added business category, the two sides in a mutually cooperative situation test water this business, for mutual promotion, brand image maintenance, standardized services will be more attention. Furthermore, the regional awareness, trust and coverage of the convenience stores are all the points of service that meet the requirements of most of the electrical business customers. Therefore, early convenience store cooperation at this stage is particularly important. It is also through the convenience store slowly promote the Shangziti service and customer access to the concept of change, the diversification of their own services (such as automatic container) can be more smooth expansion.