E-commerce channel changes have been at the node

Zhao Na by reporter from Beijing

Recently, Suning Red Kids, Jingdong, Lynx and other electricity providers set off a big maternal and child category promotions, including imported milk powder to become involved protagonists.

In response, Pan Ning, general manager of Suning Red Kids, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter interviewed Road, offline channels in the procurement of imported milk powder required by the layers of overweight, while the e-commerce channels from the source supply chain, which Compress the middle of the logistics costs and channel costs, electricity suppliers in the field of imported milk with the "subversive" the original channel capacity.

Channel change has reached the node

Data show that changes in the milk powder industry has already begun.

According to a research report published by ACNielsen, the importance of China's infant formula in the three major channels of traditional retail channels, maternal and infant channels and e-commerce has changed in 2013, of which the sales of traditional retail channels still account for 36% Sales dropped 4%; maternal and child channel sales rose 42%, sales growth of 15%; e-commerce although sales accounted for 22%, but sales increased by up to 50%. In view of this, the report clearly states: "The strong growth trend of the e-commerce channel will enable the e-commerce channel to quickly catch up with the traditional retail and become the mainstream sales position."

It is noteworthy that even milk powder companies to abandon the traditional channels, specializing in e-commerce channels. For example, by the end of 2013, New Zealand infant formula Ruisheng Rui announced in the Chinese market will completely withdraw from the traditional sales channels, enabling e-commerce sales model.

The importance of e-commerce channels has risen, resulting in increased opportunities for e-commerce companies. Correspondingly, the control of e-commerce channels by milk powder companies has been declining.

"Daily Economic News" reporter found in the interview, milk powder business control of e-commerce channels began to weaken.

In addition, compared to the traditional channels offline, e-commerce channels also have the ability to adjust prices.

Pan Min pointed out that the offline channels in the procurement of imported milk powder, usually through the brand's general agent in China, the city agents and channel agents and other links, all aspects of at least get 3% to 5% commission, Throughout the process, the conservative calculation would cost 10% to 15% more than the price of getting goods directly from the factory.

Another practitioners pointed out that in the Chinese market, the cost of infant formula channel accounted for as high as 20% to 40%, much higher than other countries 4% to 14% level.

The competitive advantage of e-commerce companies is that they can expand their market share by reducing channel costs, reducing costs, and finally saving the money saved by countervailing consumers at a relatively lower price.

As close as possible to the upstream supply

Dairy industry experts Wang Ding Cotton has repeatedly told the media, the main reason for the high price of imported milk powder is not a tax factor, but the milk powder put on retail shelves, after a number of middlemen were fare increases. Wang Dingmian had publicly pointed out that the cost of producing the largest brand of infant formula in the country accounted for only 20% of the selling price and the remaining 80% was non-production costs.

One industry insider broke the news to the media that the cost structure of imported foreign milk powder included only 25% of "offshore costs" and 75% of "after-shore costs", the latter mainly from the channel costs that increased by layers.

The above argument is not supported by the authoritative survey data, but various claims on the channel cost of milk powder sales chain has not stopped.

At present, vertical or comprehensive e-commerce providers, such as Red Kidd and Jingdong, are trying to subvert the traditional mode chain by seeking direct cooperation with milk powder brand companies. In this regard, Analysys think tank analyst Liu Menglei in the "Daily Economic News" reporter interviewed that this approach is affected by two factors: the power of e-commerce and milk powder brand strategy. Some brands do not develop online shopping channels for brand protection, and do not release licenses. For brands that accept online sales, "the strength of the e-commerce platform determines their right to speak in negotiations."

It is worth noting that the electricity supplier to strengthen the competition in the field of milk powder, there may be another layer of strategic layout considerations - leveraging the entire mother and child market.

In this regard, Liu Menglei also raised the risk warning. She believes that for all types of electricity suppliers, to ensure the richness of maternal and child commodity categories is the primary task. "It's not a smart move to cut into and even control the mother-baby market," selling the milk powder is not the most profitable. "However, selling imported milk powder requires a lot of cost to maintain the supply chain and logistics.

In addition, there is a Jingdong, red children and other e-commerce channels can not be avoided, that is, the issue of genuine products.

For this issue, Pan Min said at a self-employed level, Suning Red Kids will check the milk storage and sealing of the product validity period. Packaging is not damaged is the premise of storage, there will be a strict sampling mechanism, in addition to the milk will usually be divided into three shelf-life monitoring period. For example, the shelf life of a milk powder is 18 months, the storage standard is within the first 1/3 of the milk powder, the sales standard is the first 2/3 of the milk powder valid. When the milk from the shelf life of only the last 1/3 of the cycle, the warehouse will "freeze" the product, no longer sales.

"Cross-border direct mail" to the open platform

In the original business idea of ​​imported milk powder, most current B2C e-commerce strategies are used "self + third-party merchants" mixed mode. Among them, self-employed mostly reduced the channels from the "source" cooperation, and the logistics cost was the main factor. Cross-border direct mail business was entrusted to third-party merchants such as Lynx Global's "Global Flash Purchase", Suning's "E ", Jingdong's" overseas purchase "are so.

In the view of Pan Min, Taobao purchasing upstream sellers opaque, the credibility of consumers need to be screened, in the event of problems rights maintenance is more troublesome; personal Amoy because of the processes involved in transshipment, from order to receipt may experience 3 to 4 weeks Of the time; cross-border direct mail business is the behavior between companies and companies, third-party merchants declaration and clearance in line with state regulations, higher credibility.

B2C e-commerce now have to attract third-party merchants settled, the original intention of more than the expansion of product categories to consider. It should be noted that, as the supervision of third-party merchants is not as good as the management of self-operated platforms, there are shortcomings in such aspects as business services, product quality, logistics and distribution and after-sales service.

Pan Min responded that the platform and third-party merchants are "spiral" common development logic, Suning red children on third-party businesses have a series of audit and management mechanism. At the same time, due to the initial goal of platform construction to cultivate business-oriented, at this stage in addition to milk powder and diaper business, the basic Suning children do not participate in sales of mother-baby businesses into.

Similarly, Lynx International's website also lists the basic conditions for the relocation of merchants and will charge merchants a deposit of USD25,000, an annual fee and a real-time deduction of technical service fees.

The Daily Economic News reporter continued by referring to "Lynx International 2014 rate table" learned that at present the technical service fee rate of milk powder business and Lynx domestic flat rate of 2%, but the rate of each category required "another Add 1% of Alipay cross-border payment costs ", another technical service fee for the annual fee of 5,000 US dollars (about 308,034 yuan).

Mother and baby electricity supplier O2O linkage

Pan Min and Liu Menglei think that in our country, milk powder as the representative of the maternal and child products market still has a huge space to be developed.

Analysys think tank release report shows that the first quarter of 2014 China B2C market size of maternal and child transactions was 12.69 billion yuan, compared with 5.56 billion yuan in the same period in 2013 increased 128.2%.

The Daily Economic News reporter found that most of the current vertical types of mother-and-child distributors have O2O genes. The reverse layout from offline to offline is another exploration. For example, the mother bought Bei Mei is a baby food brand Beaumont Group's electricity suppliers, milk powder category only sell their own products, but also many brands to run some other categories of goods; Music Friends pregnant baby is a maternal and child chain retail business Friends of music E-commerce platform.

Pan Min claimed that there is a strong demand for maternal and child consumer groups for knowledge acquisition and interaction. Therefore, the vertical e-commerce has the advantage of locking customers more accurately in front-end service delivery and higher shopping conversion rates.

Liu Menglei on the "Daily Economic News" reporter bluntly, for the vertical business of mothers and babies, "if the brand, users, products, prices are not shaping the core competitiveness, in the face of high traffic, strong brand effect Of the large-scale integrated e-commerce will be struggling. "

Liu Menglei added that vertical maternal and child electricity providers are divided into different types, with advantages should be offline and online linkage mode, which both have offline physical store also has an online sales platform, so that resources can be mobilized efficiently and even achieved Online and offline traffic conversion. In addition, the advantages of vertical e-commerce, which is developed by the mother-infant community platform, have a good user base and reputation and are guaranteed by traffic. However, the transition from community to e-commerce will be somewhat interdependent .

Liu Menglei finally portrayed the O2O path of mother-to-baby electricity supplier as: Through the influence of the brand, it guides the users to generate online and offline flows based on different needs such as product experiences, prices and services, and "to achieve efficient transmission of information flow, capital flow and logistics."