Fresh electricity business Restless: Rob "fresh" logical white-collar to pay for high cost

Looks very beautiful, dry up very tired. How do fresh electricity dealers keep alive?

Suddenly, as the spring breeze comes, the current electric business, fresh upsurge surging.

In the spring of 2013, the online integrated supermarket store No. 1th added a fire to the craze. March 28, "No. 1th Orchard" High-profile online, shop 1th plan to start from the fruit, and then gradually to frozen food, vegetables and other categories of expansion. "Do the supermarket, not fresh, will lack a large part of the merchandise." "No. 1th store chairman Gege said.

2012 was dubbed "Fresh electricity Shangyuan". Last May, Shun Fung's "Shun Fung Optimization" announced the on-line, the sale of high-end food, including fresh, in June, Taobao Eco-agriculture channel online; almost at the same time, Amazon China and the "fresh Wharf" cooperation, curve test aquatic fresh; into the July, Beijing and east officially launched a fresh channel. This year, the original Life network and other vertical types of fresh electricity manufacturers have sprung up.

"These two years of fresh electricity business indeed is more inexplicably." Wang Wei was a bit abrupt about the surging fresh electricity business boom. Wang Wei, founder of every day Orchard net, once was it male. In 2009, he resigned from the management position of a US-owned company and began selling fruit online. The day of the website opening was chosen on April Fool's Day. It's a bit of a sign that "it's not a joke", after all, online selling fruit or a few trials.

Also in 2009, the engineer-born Liang Yaozu gave up the highly paid position of UT, and founded a fresh electric dealer in Shanghai, a main foreign and high-end crowd. It is said that Liang's parents were disappointed when they learned that he was going to sell vegetables. At that time, Jingdong is still in the main 3C business, shop number 1th is also a small company.

4 years down, every day orchards and Fu Tian net have been big scale quickly, but Wang Wei and Liang Yaozu also came to the similar conclusion: This business is not good.

Will the life of fresh electricity dealers be better?

Grab the "Fresh" logic

Urban white-collar in the net purchase of fresh accounted for the highest, reached 43.39%.

In the eyes of friends, this year's 35-Year-old Hui is a authentic cargo. He in the micro-letter friend Circle Hair and pictures are mostly related to eat, for example, dazzle him in the Zhengda World Net bought beef, or praise Taobao on the fruit bought.

Hui is an individual operator, has a family of three, wife engaged in advertising sales. He admits that most of the fresh food in the home comes from online shopping. "The main is no time, lazy." Hui said, "If the quality of the Internet can be guaranteed, and fast, and price fluctuations in my acceptable range, why not let them send it?" "

Users such as Hui have been "eyeing" the raw electricity dealers.

Of the 30 million registered members in shop 1th, the monthly income of more than 5000 yuan accounted for 37.8%. These people to enterprises and institutions of white-collar majority, the age between 25-40 years old. Gege said, shop 1th through research found that "even if consumers have been accustomed to shop 1th, but each month to go to the supermarket one or two times, because the number 1th shop line is missing fresh category." "

The rising demand for consumer net purchases, or the expectation of a rise in demand, is a common reason for a large number of electric-business platforms and entrepreneurs to get involved in the raw businesses.

At the beginning of 2013, a white paper on food online issued by Cofco, which I bought online and Analysys International, showed that, for the sake of saving time and cost, many people would buy daily fresh, and then switch from offline to online. The net buys the fresh youth mainly, the urban white-collar proportion highest, achieves 43.39%.

The rapid expansion of

's fresh electricity quotient is a testament to the surge in demand. Since 2012 on the line, the Beijing-East fresh business "year-on-year growth of more than 5 times times, the seller of cooperation has more than 300"; I bought the net in 2012 also achieved 300% annual sales growth and 36.7% composite growth rate.

But these figures are insignificant compared with China's huge raw consumer market. Fresh is still a piece of virgin land that has not been e-commerce, of which about 30% through the supermarket to achieve circulation, the remaining 70% through the farmers market sales to consumers.

At the beginning of the electric business landscape, for those who want to enter the electrical business of the new entrepreneur, this is a blood-sheet opportunity. For the minds of the Giants, this time to get involved in fresh, more like a card battle.

Shun Fung, through the "Shun Fung optimization" to sell fresh, once it is questionable, "a company that has never done retail can do the world's hardest retail?" "Shun Fung optimization President Li from April this year announced that Shun Fung Cross-border, in the cold chain logistics, which is the fastest growing segment of the express market."

Shop No. 1th is the first company in the electric business platform to operate fresh in proprietary mode. Guo Dongdong, its vice-president, said: "Fresh to shop 1th means an increase, because the proportion of fresh-line supermarkets is usually up to 18%-20%." "In addition, fresh also by the 1th store given the" drainage "function, with Guo Dongdong words," as a comprehensive online life supermarket, consumers want to shop here one-stop shopping, fresh consumption frequency is particularly high, can drive the sales of related products, and attract new customers in. "

And Jingdong and Taobao, the cat is just the role of the platform, the specific business by the third party business.

Cold Chain bottleneck

At present, domestic cold chain home with service supply is stretched.

For more than four years, the Liang Yaozu of the field has barely paid or rested. Every day the orchard Wang Wei also sigh said: "Fresh electricity business looks very beautiful, dry up very tired, is a laborer's work." "

One of the root causes of their hard work is that the life cycle of most fresh products is very short, especially fruits and vegetables, and the turnover cycle is very limited. For example, cherries are only 5-6 days, strawberries are only 1 days, and some fruits may go bad in one night. Therefore, if the procurement is not accurate, the void part means 100% of the loss, and the broken goods will affect the customer experience.

Liang Yaozu revealed that the field network has been due to the estimated deviation has been broken goods, paid a lot of tuition. On the other hand, Chinese agricultural products have a long way to go in standardization, branding and quality assurance.

The more thorny issue is warehousing and distribution. The freshness of the vulnerability makes it for warehousing, distribution requirements far higher than other categories.

Take every day orchard for example, most of its products are imported fruit. Wang Wei said that products from loading containers to the Shanghai Customs, the whole process must have temperature monitoring. After the entry into the cold storage, products directly before 12 o'clock the night before the orders, products in the morning will be packaged, out of the library, distribution. If it is summer, the transport vehicle should also be equipped with an air-conditioning and freezer, as far as possible to keep the fruit on the way to maintain a low temperature state. Products to customers at home, Courier will also remind customers to try to store in the fridge, the best to eat as soon as possible. If sent to a customer's office, especially in the summer, a dry ice bag should be distributed at the same time to keep the temperature from the office home.

This will undoubtedly increase the shipping cost of each single. Wang Wei estimates that the current supply of fresh electricity manufacturers each single distribution cost of 15-20 yuan. Even if the amount, each single cost will not drop a lot, "because of ice packs, packaging, vehicle fuel consumption, loss and other costs will not fall much, and each car distribution is limited."

The problem is that even with such a high cost, it is difficult for fresh electricity dealers to find a third party providing cold chain home service. and other categories of "last kilometer" express compared to domestic cold chain home with service supply is stretched. The Chinese market's food cold chain transport rate is only about 10%, far lower than Europe and the United States and other developed countries 80% 90% of the level.

According to our correspondent, "Black Cat House" is currently one of the few companies in the market to provide stable cold chain services. "Black Cat curtilage" is Japan's largest Third-party home service provider Tiamat Group's brand. February 2010, Jamado officially entered China's cold chain home market, and the first station is located in Shanghai.

In order to ensure the quality of service, the Black Cat house anxious to strictly limit the speed of expansion, currently only covers the Shanghai area, carrying capacity is limited, even the needs of the farm family can not be fully satisfied. With the volume of business climbing, many benefits farms have to build cold chain logistics.

Since the construction of the cold chain is the most fresh electricity manufacturers of the helpless choice, including every day orchard, Fu Tian Network, tuo tuo workers, shop 1th has also begun in Xiamen, Shenyang, Xian, Jinan and other sites to choose additional cold storage. But since the cost of building a cold chain logistics, a refrigerated car will be 200,000-300,000 yuan, cold storage, artificial, and so on, each item is expensive.

2008 by the Nine Chengguan Trade (nasdaq:nine) investment established Tuo Tuo industry from the construction of cold chain logistics, at the end of last year, its general manager Dufei revealed, Tuo tuo industry in the logistics of investment "nearly 100 million yuan." But the order volume obviously did not keep up with, 2012 Tuo tuo Work Society's revenue only about 23.5 million yuan, but this does not affect the nine city in the cold chain investment patience. The question is, how many shareholders can endure the huge investment of their fresh electricity dealers?

Who pays for the high cost?

Operating high-end products is the current health of fresh electricity dealers to cope with the high logistics costs of the common practice.

M6 is a chain-type community fresh supermarket, headquartered in Ningbo, since its establishment in 2004, has not been involved in the electrical business.

"Our team is very anxious, I am not anxious, for lack of reason to convince myself." You put a computer, a Web page, a bunch of people there to deliver goods, seems to be revolutionized the mode, in fact, the cost is very high. M6 Chairman Yevi said.

Are Chinese consumers, accustomed to being cheap, willing to pay for such high logistics costs? In 2012, a home distribution logistics forum, Beijing Express Line Logistics Chairman Liu Peijun put forward, cold chain home with the price than room temperature Curtilage 40% higher, the market is acceptable?

High-end products are currently fresh electricity manufacturers to cope with the high logistics costs of the common practice, Dorian Farm, No. 1th Shop, Fu Tian Net, every day, orchard, Tuo tuo Work Club without exception.

"We will do relatively high-end products, otherwise there is no way to support such a high transport costs." "No. 1th Shop vice President Guo Dongdong said," boutique "," organic "fresh will be the future direction of shop 1th, I hope the fresh customer unit price maintained at the level of 100-200 yuan. And Fu Tian Net, every day Orchard customer unit Price is more than 200 yuan.

Yevi wants to push the other way.

At present, M6 in Ningbo and Shanghai have a total of more than 40 stores, each store is usually "backed by a community, radiation 1-2 communities." In order to ensure the freshness of products, M6 four times a day for the store distribution.

2011, M6 received Yunfeng Fund, Yevi plan to the end of this year, the number of stores in Ningbo to 60, to form a modular effect, and then replicated to the country. It is one of the ways to enlarge the modular effect by combining with online merchants.

"If you like the products of Dolly's farm or store 1th, you can send the product to the M6 distribution center and send it to the store through the M6 logistics, which can be delivered to the store or distributed by the store." Dolly Farm or shop number 1th pay us some money, but the M6 increase in logistics costs is basically zero. "The combination of this O2O will not only help reduce the cost of distribution, but it may also burst into new business opportunities," Yevi.