The outbreak brought about an outbreak of transaction traffic—

Is fresh food e-commerce ushering in "spring"?

The so-called "three years of Hedong, thirty years of Hexi", a fresh food e-commerce company that was sung by investment institutions at the end of last year, because of the inflection point of the epidemic, traffic flow broke out. Two months have passed. With the "dividend" of the epidemic slowly disappearing, can fresh food e-commerce keep the sudden "brilliance"?

Fresh food e-commerce "explosive" development

Data show that there are currently up to 117 APPs for various types of grocery shopping. Many fresh e-commerce companies have obtained the sum of traffic in the past two years within two months.

Data from Suning Vegetable Market showed that February saw a 7-fold increase in sales, the highest growth rate of single stores exceeded 10-fold, the repurchase rate of users reached 61%, and the proportion of orders placed in APP was nearly 60%. The hoarding consumption is more obviously affected by the epidemic situation, and the unit price of users has increased 6-7 times after the Spring Festival.

A person in charge of Hema Xiansheng said that the store ’s Xiao Er has been fully staffed for more than a month, and it has been loading goods seven or eight times a day, far exceeding the usual peak. Picking. "Daily Fresh said that during the first week of the New Year's holiday, vegetables were sold out at about 4 pm every day. Under normal circumstances, this is the amount of vegetables they need three to four days to sell.

Even Su Guo, who is the main offline player, is struggling to seize the runway on the line. During the epidemic, the daily order volume of third-party platforms on the Suguo store reached 4 times the usual. "At that time, all the back-office staff in the store came to participate in the picking, and each order was allocated as quickly as possible." The relevant person in charge of Suguo Store introduced.

The epidemic has precipitated the previous stock users of fresh food e-commerce. The average customer unit price has mentioned 120 yuan from 90 yuan before the epidemic, and the peak value has even reached 150 yuan. In terms of user increments, post-60s and post-70s began to buy food online; users who called takeaways began to cook in the past, and the proportion of fast-food and semi-finished foods is rising rapidly.

From the supply side, the surge in online orders has given merchants hope. Li Jianming of Hongjiu Fruit said, "In September last year, we started cooperation with the Suning shop to try online transformation. In October, we connected to the Suning vegetable market." Li Jianming said, "After the outbreak, our offline sales only The remaining one-third of previous years, some physical store sales directly fell by 60%, all supported by online orders. "Fresh food e-commerce home, store business model shows advantages. After the outbreak, Suning's vegetable market helped sell 2,000 kg of strawberry in Jiangning, 2,000 kg of Artemisia annua in Baguazhou, and 3,000 kg of Liuhe short-foot yellow ...

Demand surge tests business supply chain

However, if you look back at the "homework" during the epidemic, you will find that in the face of sudden surge in demand, not every fresh e-commerce company has an excellent performance.

The shortage of capacity behind the surge in orders is a problem encountered by every fresh food e-commerce company. During that time, the delivery time of almost every fresh food e-commerce company has been extended. For example, the daily delivery time of fresh food has changed from an ordinary one hour to four hours. The delivery time of Suning Vegetable Farm has also changed from "early morning delivery the next day" to "afternoon delivery the next day".

"Even if the service is even worse during an epidemic, as long as there is a supply, users will need it. As long as the simplest purchase can be completed, these new users can be satisfied." Suning vegetable market related person said, however, when the epidemic ended, catering merchants reopened , Supermarket vegetable markets and other businesses resume normal operations. Whether these new users are willing to continue to use the fresh e-commerce APP is a question mark.

In the industry's opinion, if the supply chain can keep up, the epidemic is an opportunity, but if the capacity is insufficient, customers may be lost after the epidemic dissipates. This is evident from the core cold chain logistics system in the supply chain. After a fresh fish e-commerce merchant bought twice the stink fish, the consumer Ms. Wang uninstalled the app in her mobile phone. "This fresh fish e-commerce business is still very good, but I still feel that there will be some trouble to go back. . "

The influx of front-end traffic and the explosive growth of orders, every fresh food industry practitioner sees the opportunity, and the loss of any link on the supply side will affect the quality of performance. "At the same time of the demand-side blowout, it also exposed the problem of the supply-side capability of the entire industry being challenged." Said Wang Youxian, a partner and CFO of Daily Fresh, a daily enlightenment that must be strengthened at the core of the supply side. ability. He divided the epidemic into two phases. The first phase was facing shortages, which tested the basic supply capacity of buyers and the rapid connection of origin resources. In the second phase, the epidemic situation became stable, the increase was less, and the core was around new precipitation. Users do product development.

People in the industry pointed out that the epidemic is indeed an opportunity for fresh e-commerce. On the one hand, it has cultivated the consumer habits of consumers. On the other hand, the supply chain has always been the biggest factor restricting fresh e-commerce. This epidemic is a test and action. The opportunity to strengthen the supply chain is conducive to attracting capital, but at the same time, it will accelerate the reshuffle of fresh e-commerce.

Spring has not really come after glory

Which way should fresh e-commerce companies go after the epidemic?

A few days ago, Huma Yi, President of Hema, and Wang You, a partner and CFO of Daily Fresh, broke out a saliva battle. The focus of the debate was "what model is the ultimate goal of fresh e-commerce".

Hou Yi announced that he would stop the front warehouse Hema station. In the future, some Hema stations will be converted to Hema Mini, and the remaining outlets will gradually withdraw from the market. Hema Mini is the "ultimate goal" of fresh food e-commerce.

In response, Wang Min wrote in a headline saying that the retail model does not have a "final format" statement. As an emerging format, the fresh food e-commerce business will experience ups and downs after changing from quantitative to qualitative changes. "The epidemic allows us to focus on supply-side capabilities. The awareness of organization and talent investment is strengthened. I just hope that through my own practice, we can run the existing model more smoothly, so that users and supplier partners can benefit more and have more choices. "

No matter which model is adopted, it is imperative for each fresh food e-commerce company to convert the new traffic obtained during the epidemic into its loyal users. After all, in 2019, according to incomplete statistics, more than 20 fresh e-commerce companies closed down. And when online is no longer the first choice for users, if fresh food e-commerce can't launch more preferential or higher-quality options by optimizing the supply chain, even if they have obtained cheap "new customers", users will eventually Will still leave.

Mo Yiqing, director and senior analyst of the online retail department of the e-commerce research center of Wangjingshe, said that the characteristics of many fresh food e-commerce platforms in terms of product types, service experience and distribution are not outstanding, and they are always burning money to cultivate the market and consumption. At the habitual stage, this mode of competition without core competitiveness will not be sustainable.

Obviously, for fresh food e-commerce, the real spring is far from here, and a very mature model has not yet appeared. The epidemic is finally over. When the epidemic recedes, fresh e-commerce players will eventually compete with each other's refined operation capabilities, as well as a comprehensive layout in the supply chain, warehousing, instant distribution, and even flow. Reporter Song Xiaohua