Behind the 675 million express shipments, maintaining quality and improving efficiency is the "lifelong career" of express delivery
Industry Watch
Ensuring service quality and improving service efficiency should be the "lifelong career" of the express industry.
The last round of Double Eleven has just ended. Domestic chopsticks are counting their shopping carts, and the express delivery industry has become the busiest group next.
According to the monitoring data of the State Post Bureau, from November 1st to 11th, the postal and express companies across the country processed 3.965 billion express mails, of which 675 million express mails were processed on November 11, a year-on-year increase of 26.16%, a record high.
This year, the express delivery industry has contracted more and more express items and the delivery speed has been getting faster and faster, and there are also discordant sounds.
According to an unannounced visit by the media to the Jinan Transfer Center of Yuantong, it was found that most of the operators were temporary workers, and the phenomenon of barbarous loading and unloading and violent sorting were widespread.
There are also related reports that this year many couriers generally report that because their express companies are contracting services at lower prices, their income commissions have also decreased. During the Double Eleven period, there will be no increase in work income and overload operation. The quality of service has deteriorated, and items are dropped and violent sorting occurs from time to time.
Behind this, in the face of the soaring number of pieces on Double Eleven, express companies may also have some "sorrow".
Since the beginning of this year, in order to cope with the increase in online consumer demand, especially at important nodes such as Double Eleven, major domestic express companies have continued an arms race. According to public information from Shentong, as of the first half of 2020, it has accumulated 194 sets of automated sorting equipment. Compared with 2019, 32 sets of automated cross-belt sorting equipment and 17 sets of swing arm equipment were newly added.
YTO said in its semi-annual report that it will accelerate the advancement of advanced equipment such as the automatic sorting system and automatic distributor (including swing arm and balance wheel) in the transfer center and the city distribution center.
As of the end of June, a total of nearly 4,700 automatic distributors have been installed, and 92 sets of automatic sorting equipment have been deployed in the transfer center, urban distribution center and construction and packaging center.
The new round of price wars launched by major express companies this year has also put themselves under pressure.
Data show that the average unit price of express delivery nationwide in August this year was 10.05 yuan, a year-on-year drop of 13.6% and a month-on-month drop of 3.6%, and the decline continued to expand from the previous month.
Among them, the unit price drop of intra-city plus inter-city business dropped by 18.1% to 6.23 yuan.
The price of express single-piece services is decreasing, and the result is that the revenue of express companies has risen and profits have fallen.
In the first three quarters of this year, in addition to the direct sales model of SF Holdings' net profit increased by 29.84% year-on-year, the net profit of Yunda and Shentong fell by 47.83% and 99.53% year-on-year, respectively, and YTO Express also only slightly increased by 0.69%.
In contrast, the volume of express delivery in the first three quarters increased, and the cumulative volume of express delivery in the first three quarters increased by 27.9% year-on-year, especially from May to September, the industry’s volume growth continued to hit a new high for more than three years.
This is the case for leading express delivery companies. Small and medium express delivery companies may have a harder life. They fall into a development vicious circle, that is, the more packages they collect, the greater their losses.
After all, personnel and site costs are rigid.
In order to reduce losses, express companies can only control manpower, such as increasing temporary employment, increasing per capita contract volume, etc. This will inevitably lead to uneven quality of couriers and reduced services due to excessive express delivery.
At present, the express delivery industry seems to have increased concentration, but several leading companies are still in the stage of large but not strong, and there is no real moat. Small and medium express companies rely more on price strategies than small and medium express companies. This makes the express industry a typical Red Sea market. .
Obviously, the double eleven of the express industry has mixed good and bad news. The exposed problems tell us that ensuring service quality and improving service efficiency are the "lifelong career" of the express industry.
□ Yuanshan (financial commentator)