How to break the game of flower consumption "every festive season will burst orders"
In the "March 8th Festival" just past, fresh cut flowers such as roses and carnations hit the most expensive flower prices in history, and they were once on Weibo's hot search.
Since March 5th, many flower shops have kept increasing corporate orders. Flower shop employees sighed while staying up late and working overtime: “Others’ Goddess’ Day, our Labor’s Day!”
According to Zhang Jian, the vice president of the Yunnan Civil Aviation Agents Association, the price of fresh flowers has risen strongly this year, setting a record high, "to a large extent, it has something to do with abundant transportation capacity and smooth logistics."
my country's daily flower consumption accounts for only 5%, and some developed countries exceed 30%
"With these bottles and cans, I have survived the long epidemic." At the beginning of 2020, due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic and staying at home for a long time, Wan Wei felt bored.
So I bought some flowers on the Internet, and filled the house with bottles and jars. "The flowers changed my mood in an instant."
"In recent years, the domestic fresh-cut flower industry has developed rapidly. Those beautiful and peculiar flowers in foreign pictures can also be bought in China, and the price is acceptable." Wan Wei said, buying a bunch of them online, inserting them in a bottle, and swaying. The appearance and beauty are unacceptable.
At present, on social platforms such as Moments of Friends, after drying cats, dogs, babies and food, there are many people drying flowers.
From the perspective of industry insiders, as consumption upgrades, people's flower consumption is moving from a "pleasant economy" to a "pleasant economy".
Public data shows that in the Chinese market, flower consumption is mainly concentrated on birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and other festivals, weddings, conferences and other places, and daily flower consumption accounts for only 5%.
According to statistics from the Dutch Flower Association, the daily consumption of flowers in developed countries such as Japan and the United States accounts for 30%-40% of the flower market.
This also shows that the domestic daily flower market will have broad prospects in the future.
There have been many domestic e-commerce companies trying to cultivate the daily flower market through daily flower subscription services.
Holland Kelixian, which plays an important role in the world flower trade with flower plant care, has been cooperating with florists all over China for many years.
Guo Yanchun, her representative in China, believes that the rise of family subscription-style flowers represented by "Huajia" in 2015 has made her "feel the changes in the Chinese market."
"'Huajia' is here for the incremental market." Zhang Yu, partner and vice president of supply chain at Flowerplus, the first brand of flower e-commerce, said that those born in the 90s and 00s who do not leave their mobile phones will hardly go there before. Or no time to buy flowers.
But because there are companies like "Huajia", they can spend some fragmented time, such as clicking to buy flowers when taking the subway. This "fragmented time-saving consumption model" has brought new customer groups.
Zhang Yu believes that the "flower" of holidays is not a "flower", but a product with high added value.
The normal consumption of flowers should be: "holiday flowers are the price of holidays, and daily flowers are the price of daily flowers".
Compared with other industries, the flower industry has recovered rapidly
As one of the world's three emerging flower producing areas and the world's second largest fresh cut flower trading center, the production and sales volume of fresh cut flowers in Yunnan has ranked first in the country for 26 consecutive years, and 70% of fresh cut flowers in China come from Yunnan.
In 2020, because of the epidemic, tens of millions of roses in Yunnan were rotten in the ground. In February of that year, the supply, transaction rate, and market of fresh cut flowers fell to historical lows.
However, after entering March, the flower market in Yunnan began to pick up.
The price index of fresh cut flowers of Kunming International Flower Auction Trading Center Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Kunming Flower Auction Center") on March 16, 2020 shows that the overall supply of the auction market has recovered to 80% of the same period last year. Supply has also recovered to more than 70% in the same period last year.
After May, both of these figures exceeded the same period in 2019.
According to the preliminary statistics of the Yunnan Civil Aviation Agents Association, in 2020, the total transportation volume of Yunnan flowers (including potted flowers and seedlings) is 740,000 tons, an increase of 1.3% year-on-year.
Among them, cold chain truck transportation was 480,000 tons, an increase of 6.6%; air transportation was 120,000 tons, a decrease of 33.3%; express delivery was 110,000 tons, an increase of 57.1%.
"It proves once again that the flower industry has vigorous vitality." said Gao Rongmei, general manager of Kunming International Flower Auction and Trading Center.
Zhang Jian, vice president of the Yunnan Civil Aviation Agents Association, also believes that this is an "industry full of miracles."
Last year, many industries were affected by the epidemic.
Although only a slight increase of 1.3%, compared with other industries, the flower industry recovered rapidly.
Industry insiders believe that the development of flower e-commerce has boosted the flower industry.
According to statistics from iResearch, the flower e-commerce market in 2020 will reach more than 72.06 billion yuan, which will increase by more than 20 billion yuan compared with the 53.51 billion yuan market size of flower e-commerce in 2019.
The development of flower e-commerce has benefited from the support of logistics.
Professional logistics companies such as SF Express, Zhongtong, YTO, Yunda, Best Express, JD Logistics, and Debon Logistics have joined flower logistics, which has reduced the high logistics costs in the past.
This year's "New Year's Day", some express logistics companies "do not close during the Spring Festival" to ensure the logistics of fresh cut flowers during the Spring Festival and Valentine's Day.
"The flower industry has fierce competition and increased service requirements, and it is very cost-sensitive." Zhang Jian said that despite the downturn in the consumer market and various difficulties on the production side, the flower industry can still increase slightly, showing that the sharp drop in logistics pricing is right. The flower industry has a great role in promoting.
The level of logistics specialization will increase the consumption of flowers in second- and third-tier cities
In the eyes of industry insiders, the territory of "Yunhua" is drawn by airplanes with "wings".
"Where the plane departing from Kunming lands, there is always the shadow of'cloud flower'".
Yunnan's air logistics has greatly promoted the development of Yunnan's flower industry.
However, with the rapid development of Yunnan's flower industry, lack of capacity has become a major pain point for "Yunhua".
Zhang Jian said that in the past, the problem of insufficient air transport capacity has repeatedly been highlighted. During the peak festival trading period and other peak seasons for fresh outbound transportation in Yunnan, a large number of flowers could not be shipped out or delivered to the airport a few days later.
Although part of the traffic is diverted by railway transportation, the direct destination of "Yunhua" is limited by the railway passenger line and its terminal, as well as the route distribution and the number of flights at Kunming Airport, such as Bei, Shanghai and Guangzhou. As well as some other provincial capital cities, due to the relatively high flight density and relatively large capacity, these cities have become regional flower distribution centers or land-sale flower wholesale markets. The secondary wholesalers in these cities have a strong function and position.
The third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities far away from the distribution centers have spawned third- or fourth-tier wholesalers, which indirectly affected the formation of the flower consumer market in these areas.
"During that period, everyone was more concerned about how to'ship out' rather than'good luck'." Zhang Jian said that in order to save costs, the flowers were transported in large packages and the flower boxes were not standard. In order to keep the flowers in the box It is not easy to move. The wholesaler puts as many flowers as possible in a flower box. A flower box weighing 70-80 kg cannot be moved by one person; The box rolls, falls, and the flowers in the box are squeezed and deformed. The transportation loss of the flowers is very large, and the transportation cost increases.
After the rapid development of flower e-commerce, the extensive flower logistics model has caused various issues such as poor timeliness, large losses, poor quality, and high cost to be highly concerned in the consumer market.
From the beginning of its establishment, "Huajia" put forward the concept of full-process cold chain transportation and constant temperature, "to realize product value through supply chain management." Zhang Yu said, "Huajia" built a constant temperature flower factory covering an area of 1.5 square meters. Changed a unified carton and carried out the whole cold chain transportation.
"All operations are digitized, and each process has a traceable process and result."
On January 26 this year, Debon Express announced at the Kunming Huapai Center to launch "Next Day Delivery" and "Next Day Delivery" services for flower shops.
"Next day delivery" in some cities can realize the collection of the Kunming Dounan Flower Market before 4 a.m., and the delivery will be delivered to the customer's city in the afternoon of the same day.
"The diversification of flower logistics channels, the improvement of the level of specialization, and the refinement of reaching the target place will once again change the territory of'Yunhua'." Zhang Jian said, with high efficiency, low cost, low loss, multiple frequency and wide range. This has made cold chain automobile transportation more and more popular. The entire cold chain has occupied half of the way of flower transportation. At present, the number of cold chain routes has increased to 57, and the number of stops has increased to more than 230 cities.
With the increase in stop points, e-commerce flowers in second- and third-tier cities can purchase flowers directly from wholesalers in first- and second-tier cities. Costs are reduced, and consumer groups in second- and third-tier cities will increase accordingly.
In this regard, many people in the industry also believe that "every festive season will burst orders", "no daily demand, festivals in short supply" does not necessarily bring profit.
Only by improving services to increase daily flower consumption can the flower industry obtain greater profits, and consumers can also obtain higher-quality fresh cut flowers.
China Youth Daily · China Youth Daily reporter Zhang Wenling Source: China Youth Daily