Why are the quick schoolbags and Instacart on two road crossings?

Text/Competing network recently reported that the capital chain of the fast schoolbag has been close to breaking, fast bag founder Xu Zhiming is seeking to sell fast schoolbag. Fast schoolbag on-line in June 2010, with "One hour arrival" distribution services are well-known by the industry. Since 2010 on the line, the fast bag total of 20 million yuan, but financing to get the money does not help the fast schoolbag go farther. Not long ago, the same "one-hour delivery" of the American grocery delivery start-up company Instacart raised 210 million of dollars in financing, the valuation is as high as 2 billion U.S. dollars. Two companies have similarities in many places, but the end result is on two road crossings. The competing network has sorted out the difference points of these two companies, hoping to bring some enlightenment to the domestic start-up companies. Single point breakthrough, fast bag category of the war founder Xu Zhiming has been Sina Dragon Media company Mister, the University has "sell books" experience, since 1999, the introduction of the Media online bookstore, and later founded the "Fast Schoolbag", Xu Zhiming to "book" has a special preference. Perhaps because of the pride of the media, which led to the beginning of the fast schoolbag on the line only to do a category, and in Xu Zhiming it seems that this is because the book is a standardized product, can be a good comparison, but it completely ignores the book's profit compared to other categories of the lower the fact. Later, the fast bag derived a "love Grab goods" project, began to locate in the import of food and import commodities, but the time node has undoubtedly missed. Compared to Instacart's founder, Appa Meta, he was an Amazon engineer, responsible for developing complex computing programs to find the most efficient route for door-to-door delivery. From the beginning to the end of the logistics and supply chain has a very deep understanding, and the reason for the creation of Instacart, but also meta think Amazon's services are not very efficient. Instacart from the outset did not choose a single category as a breakthrough, but the choice of daily groceries as the focus of business. The groceries are instacart at the local grocery store and are only released via mobile phones, from farm products to cooked food, wine, snacks and cosmetics. From top to bottom such as Safeway (Safeway), Whole Foods (Whole Foods), Trader Joe ' s and the Good City (Costco) and other chain retailers, down to the smaller independent supermarkets inventory of goods. Variety of rich, category of complete, so that fast bag is a catch. Self-built or crowdsourcing, the efficient operation of logistics Xu Zhiming in the interview has been reflective, fast schoolbag has not solved the online purchase experience problems, fast schoolbag model and need to prepare their own stock, which makes the on-line one year since the fast schoolbag has been doing a thing, in one hour of distribution needs and products to find a balance. This is really a fast schoolbag the biggest problem, with a self-built warehousing mode to provide one hour logistics distribution, in the unit area to set up a distribution station to provide logistics services. For fast schoolbags, the user density of area per unit area is obviously unable to supportSupport the cost of warehousing services, and users outside the region can not carry out a single has a strong limitation. As to why the fast schoolbag loses money, the main reason is that the manpower of the distribution station is not effectively utilized. Many times, even if there is no order, you need to pay for the distribution staff. and Instacart in how to use the manpower, as well as logistics whether the building has too much to learn from the place. Once the customer has placed an order through the Instacart, the program notifies the individual shopper to tell them which store to go to, and in which shelf aisle the goods are purchased. To maximize efficiency, each shopper purchases goods at the same time on several orders, equivalent to one purchase of sixty or seventy items. If a customer orders goods from three stores, then Instacart will send three personal shopper to the three stores, so that they can meet after the shopping and bring together the goods they purchased. The well-trained delivery team is arranged in each area to provide fast delivery services as required after the customer orders. Instacart services are charged on a per-hour basis, and if you expect them to be delivered in an hourly rate, an extra 9.99 dollars is required, and if you expect to be delivered within 3 hours, you will need to pay an extra $3.99. All fees are paid directly using a mobile application without paying any fees at the time of delivery. Obviously, the distribution fee is Instacart's current main source of income, but it's not hard to imagine that they can also get income compensation through cooperation with the store, as well as the integration project, and their inventory comes from local grocery stores. In short, Instacart is not required to build a warehouse, set up a team, the only thing to do is for buyers and users to provide a trading platform, which is a crowdsourcing way to provide users with express service. Reflection and anxiety, maybe one hour delivery itself is a pseudo proposition. Over time, offline retailing of media, electronics, clothing and furniture has been subverted by E-commerce models, and online buying has become an important choice for people, but the largest category in retailing has never been shaken by the Internet-groceries. This is a very important opportunity for Internet practitioners. In the past, technology companies that tried to sell groceries through the Internet were always following the offline store model. End to end grocery sales, building warehouses, buying inventories and forming teams, the tragedy is that it costs a lot to replicate the grocery supply chain and not create disruptive innovations. Even more, they have difficulty in competing with offline physical stores. Whether the Instacart or the one-hour delivery of the Han Shu package does solve some kind of pain point, this is a good business model, but the demand for service based on human distribution is too high, and in a sense can only adapt to the regional market, once the scale of expansion will be plunged into the mire. Consumers do buy groceries, but the urgency of demand for these goods is clearly not too high, and they do want to be delivered as soon as possible, but moreThe hope is to get a low price. 1-hour delivery looks a bit too fast, and service quality can often be overlooked, challenging in terms of transportation costs, warehousing costs, and even the cost of the entire supply chain. And from the perspective of logistics development, the right is the best! Customer needs is the right time + appropriate location + appropriate service, to give customers as many logistics solutions as possible, 1 hours to, 1 days, 1 weeks to even 1 months to meet the needs of different customers. The future logistics development needs is the difference, as well as the scale of the differentiation. For now, one-hour delivery still looks more suitable for fast food and emergency supplies. Originally contained in the tiger sniffing nets, the original title "is also one hour delivery, quick schoolbags and Instacart why have embarked on two road?" 》