Selling vegetables on online platforms: a capital game?
The life-rich vegetable market has ushered in the challenge of Internet companies.
The picture shows a vegetable market in Nankai District.
Traditional vegetable markets still have advantages in terms of product selection and negotiable prices.
The picture shows a vegetable market stall.
An Internet company’s vegetable selling platform is burning money to subsidize consumers, and the price is relatively cheap.
You can buy fresh vegetables just by tapping the screen of your mobile phone at home. This is the Internet convenience that many citizens expect.
Recently, Internet companies are entering this market, but they have changed their name, called "community group buying."
In June of this year, the community group buying brand "Orange Heart Optimal" created by Didi went online; on July 7, Meituan announced the establishment of the "Optimal Business Unit" to enter the community group buying track; in August, the community group buying project of Pinduoduo, "Duo Duo" "Mai Cai" was launched, and the mini program "Duo Duo Cai" was also launched; in September, Ali announced the establishment of the Hema Optimal Business Unit to deploy community group buying.
It is reported that Jingdong is also planning a community group buying project "Jingdong Optimum".
In terms of investment, Alibaba participated in the investment in the community group buying platform Shi Hui Tuan, and Tencent participated in the investment in Xingsheng Optimal and Shixianghui.
Some people worry that Internet giants have begun to grab business in the vegetable market, and vendors will be driven away.
What is the current grocery shopping experience on the "community group buying" platform?
What kind of group of people is the "head" of the community?
How do the vendors in the vegetable market respond?
With doubts, the reporter launched an investigation.
1 Grocery shopping experience: No other advantages except "cheap"
Mr. Li, who lives in Nankai District, has recently seen news on the Internet that many Internet companies, especially well-known companies, have started selling vegetables online.
As the weather turned cold and the temperature kept dropping, he didn't want to go out and suffer the cold, so he tried to place a few orders with his mobile phone.
The first single was "Meituan Optimal", he chose eight kinds of vegetables.
The eight kinds of vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, ginger, cabbage, and beans, cost 24 yuan in total.
The platform needs Mr. Li to pay first, and then go to the self-pickup point next to the community to pick up the goods after 16:00 the next day, and then contact the community "leader".
The pick-up point given on the online platform is a convenience store next to Mr. Li's community.
After 16:00 the next day, Mr. Li hurried to the convenience store.
He has been wondering who this head is.
Wearing a yellow uniform like a Meituan takeaway?
Is the delivery an electric bike or a van?
When he saw the convenience store, there was no special staff to come. He had to ask the cashier in the supermarket, is this the preferred pick-up point for Meituan?
The cashier answered immediately, yes.
And he also said: "I am the team leader." This surprised Mr. Li. The community group buying "team leader" of the convenience store cashier part-time online platform does not affect his original job?
Next, the cashier began to take stock of the vegetables Mr. Li bought. After a closer look, the carrots and sweet potatoes were not delivered, and they were out of stock.
"Don't worry, I will refund you the money online now." The cashier said.
Soon, Mr. Li received the refund and returned home with the vegetables he bought on the Internet.
When he returned home, he found that the potatoes he bought were covered in a lot of mud. After washing off the mud, he saw that two of them had obvious defects and could only be thrown away.
He encountered such a situation as early as March this year.
At that time, due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the community was closed, he tried to buy it once on an online platform for vegetable distribution in restaurants. Among the vegetables and fruits delivered to the door, potatoes were small and covered in a lot of mud.
The grapefruit is squeezed and the taste becomes bitter and inedible.
The carrots are thin and short, with leaves, and throw away a lot.
Combining the two experiences, Mr. Li found that compared with the vegetable market and street vegetable shop, the online platform has no advantages other than cheaper food.
The dishes cannot be seen in kind, and what they are like when they are delivered can only be resigned.
Pay in advance and wait until 16:00 the next day to pick it up. There is no convenience of "buy as you go, use it when you go home" in the vegetable market.
I thought it would be able to deliver food to the door, but the result was self-promotion, and consumers did not get much convenience.
More importantly, consumers need to pay on the online platform first, which is equivalent to advance payment, which involves certain risks.
Some consumers have a worse experience, buying ribs that are close to spoilage and inedible fruits.
A netizen "you can only move forward" reported that he tried a few orders and found that two tomatoes were immature, the appearance was green, and the other was rotten.
The garlic sprouts are also very old and look like they have been stored for a long time.
The weight is also different from that marked on the network platform, and there are two shortcomings.
When he contacted the "Leader" again, the "Leader" did not answer the phone.
A netizen "Ms. Chen looking for bugs" reported that she bought three grapefruits, two dragon fruits, a box of grapes, 6 passion fruits, and a bottle of passion fruit wine through the online platform. The price was really cheap.
However, the quality of the fruit mentioned is poor, the grapes are not fresh, the dragon fruit is already wilted from the outside, the passion fruit is very sour, and the grapefruit has no taste.
With this experience, she "does not want to buy a second time."
2 "Heads" everywhere: mostly part-timers
The community group buying "group leader" Mr. Li met was a cashier in a convenience store.
The leader revealed that he has now joined the three platforms of Didi "Orange Heart Optimal", Pinduoduo "Duo Duo Cai" and Meituan's "Meituan Optimal", serving as the community group buying "leader" of the three platforms.
"On average three or four orders per day, the number is not very large." The head of the delegation said.
How do these dishes come from?
The head of the delegation revealed that it was sent by the "Cargo Lala" driver and there was a handover order.
"Huo Lala" drivers will account for the types and quantities that are out of stock, and check and check the delivered goods.
In addition to these "group leaders" with stores, community residents without stores can also apply to become "group leaders" online.
Some freelancers, after simple training and docking, become team leaders.
They will receive orders from community customers through the mobile phone platform every day. The next day they will receive the goods from the platform and store them in their own homes. They will contact the community customers one by one after 16:00 and ask the customers to pick up the goods at home.
Dai Lili is a resident of a community near Heiniucheng Road in Hexi District. Last month, she applied to become the community group leader of an online platform and has received a commission of more than 300 yuan.
Calculated at a ratio of 10%, the vegetables and fruits sold by her head of the group have already sold more than 3,000 yuan and served more than 100 people.
"Freelancers like me have no work pressure and free time. They are the best choice for community leaders. There are also many convenience store owners and cashiers who can apply to become leaders. They have stores and have certain advantages. "Dai Lili said.
These group leaders are also required to post links to Moments to promote the community group buying business of their platforms, and there will also be rewards and commissions.
Dai Lili introduced: "The group leader is the fulcrum of the platform in the community and has become the key to the development of the platform. Now there are many applicants, and they want to line up to become the group leader."
3 Vegetable vendors: more pressure from competition
There is no doubt that in this wave of Internet selling vegetables, the first one is the vegetable vendors in the vegetable market.
Some people exclaimed that Internet giants will drive these vegetable vendors away from the city.
Zhao Kai, a vegetable vendor in Wangdingdi, Nankai District, delivered vegetables to residents of surrounding communities during the closed management of the community earlier this year.
At that time, it was conducted in the form of WeChat group building.
In the group, the residents sent over the quantity and type of dishes, and he delivered them one by one.
Today, these residents still go to the market stalls to buy vegetables, and the WeChat group is slowly deserted.
This time, the online platform developed the vegetable selling business, and Zhao Kai also registered as the head of the team, but after three days of operation, he felt that a crisis was coming.
First of all, the dishes sold on these online platforms are not purchased from his booth. He is only responsible for receiving and delivering the goods, earning a 10% commission.
Seeing these foods that are cheaper than the ones on his own stall, he felt uncomfortable. If he continued to operate, consumers might not go to the physical stalls to buy food.
A week later, the platform asked Zhao Kai to post links to Moments to promote the online platform.
Zhao Kai thinks that he must not attract more customers to the online platform, which will cause his physical booth to lose more customers, which is a self-digging behavior.
The first thing he should do is to make the service of his physical booth more meticulous.
In order to save himself, he began to wash potatoes, carrots, and lotus roots with pureed vegetables, remove the leaves of green radishes and cauliflowers, separate the length of the beans and other vegetables, and set prices in different grades; sell some not-so-fresh vegetables at reduced prices.
If the customer has requirements, he can also provide peeling and cutting services, and customers can use it directly at home.
Zhao Kai re-activated the vegetable distribution WeChat group at the beginning of the year, sending pictures of vegetables from his stalls, types and prices to the group every day, asking the elderly and the disabled whether they need to be delivered to their homes.
Slowly, there are message replies in the group, and some customers place orders in advance, and then go to the vegetable market stalls to pick up the goods after get off work.
Consumer Mr. Li compared the experience of buying vegetables on the online platform and buying vegetables in the vegetable market. He believes that the traditional vegetable market still has huge competitive advantages, such as selection, communication, bargaining, one-handed payment, and one-handed delivery. .
The vegetable market is the place with the most breath of life. Consumers can experience the freedom of choice and the joy of life, which is not available on online platforms.
4 Core business outsourcing: Reap benefits without taking risks
Due to high fresh-keeping requirements and diversified customer needs, vegetables were once the most difficult commodity to be standardized and sold online.
In the field of selling vegetables online, there have been many start-up companies, but most of them ended in failure.
Six years ago, a start-up company called "Youth Caijun" began to vigorously set up outlets in Beijing and other central cities to sell semi-finished packaged vegetables, in order to solve the pain points of young people who do not have time to buy and do not want to wash vegetables, but less than two. The year ended in failure.
A company called "Meicai.com" was also founded in the same period. After a period of exploration, it was found that ordinary citizens order vegetables online. Each customer has personalized needs. The delivery is very difficult, and finally gave up to ordinary citizens. Vegetables sold online.
In the end, Meicai.com specializes in the vegetable distribution market in hotels and restaurants to survive.
The current online platform has not solved the problem of the supply chain of vegetable preservation and distribution, so it dared to burn money to subsidize the race enclosure, which is worrying.
It was also suggested that the reason why current Internet companies dare to do this is that they have a new set of operating methods. The core operating method is outsourcing.
At the source, Internet companies are connecting with large vegetable wholesale companies and even planting bases to lower supply prices, so that they can give consumers lower prices and compare them to vendors.
In terms of distribution, they contacted logistics platforms such as Huolala to enter the game, allowing registered drivers on the platform to undertake the cumbersome "errands" task.
In terms of the community location, they brought the "group leader" into the game, allowing the group leader to undertake the affairs of checking and distributing dishes, which became the first point of network platform in the community.
On the surface, the network platform has completed all the business.
But in fact, the online platform did not hire any driver or any team leader, and even in the supply chain, it did not hire anyone to undertake the vegetable washing and packaging business, but the vegetable supplier itself.
The funds paid by the online platform for vegetable supply companies were also prepaid by consumers to the online platform the day before.
In the case of core business outsourcing, the network platform can not directly take risks, and at the same time can harvest benefits, such a business model is worrying.
They are very likely to be like some bike-sharing companies, the money for buying bicycles is on credit, but the money for consumers is collected in advance.
In the past, the vegetable sales market had its own transaction and credit system. The core of this system was that each link was paid with one hand and delivered with one hand, with risks and benefits obtained.
Therefore, growers sell to distribution companies, distribute to vendors wholesale, and vendors go to the vegetable market to sell to the citizens. Each link professionalizes their services and obtains their own share of income.
Behind the Internet giants' money-burning subsidy war, there is the support of capital and the pursuit of profit.
At present, the traditional business of the Internet platform has reached the growth limit. The new business of community group buying can bring growth expectations and imagination, thereby creating room for appreciation for capital in the equity market.
Statistics also show that from January 2019 to November 26, 2020, a total of 26 investment and financing events occurred in the domestic community group buying e-commerce sector, with a total of more than 11.7 billion yuan in financing.
When the traditional vegetable supply chain is likely to be broken and reshaped by Internet giants, or even monopolized and controlled by capital, we need to worry about the security of advance payment for vegetable purchases.
After all, consumers have stepped on too many pits in this area.
From this perspective, when Internet giants develop community group purchases, they should provide detailed and practical services, and truly deliver door-to-door and cash on delivery, so that the Internet can benefit ordinary individuals.
Blindly using capital to support the burning of money, with the intention to control the supply chain, and let consumers fall into the quagmire of the prepayment model, will lead to a greater crisis.
This edition of the photo is taken by our reporter Li Jisen