Hands-on or running errands, how do you buy groceries at your home? The
groceries app changes citizens' consumption habits and accelerates the transformation and upgrading of surrounding supermarkets and fresh food stores
Guangjing Observation
"Limited time spike ~ 50% off lychee." At 8 o'clock yesterday morning, Ms. Chen received a push message on the Meituan Maicai app on her mobile phone.
In addition to Meituan Maicai, Ms. Chen not only downloaded several fresh food e-commerce apps such as Dingdong Maicai and Daily Youxian, but was also pulled into the WeChat group.
"It's mainly to look at sales promotion, buy whichever is cheaper."
Beginning in the second half of last year, Internet giants started the "food shopping war" one after another, cutting into the community group buying track, selling mainly fresh products, and initially using low-price subsidy strategies to seize the market, which caused both the flow of customers and sales in supermarkets and hypermarkets. Shock.
The reporter has been investigating over the past several days and found that the "how fast and economical" grocery shopping app has not only changed the consumption habits of citizens, it has also accelerated the transformation and upgrading of surrounding supermarkets and fresh food stores.
Text, picture/Guangzhou Daily all-media reporters Ni Ming and Zhao Fangyuan
Ms. Chen, who lives in the same Fu Rui Mansion, is a loyal “fan” of online grocery shopping.
She told reporters that online grocery shopping orders are placed directly, and some platforms will be delivered on the same day, and the goods will be received the next day at the latest. This saves the time to go to the market to buy vegetables and is very suitable for office workers.
The reporter saw at the self-pickup point downstairs in a community in Haizhu District, a dazzling array of goods were filled with shelves.
Self-promotion boss Ms. Cheng told reporters that every evening, people would line up in front of her shop to "receive" food.
The owner of a nearby Nancun Meat Market stall, Fu, told reporters that there are now more people buying food online, and the number of customers coming to buy food has dropped by nearly half.
Not only the traditional meat and vegetable market, but also the Aunt Qian’s self-collecting cabinet at the entrance of the community and a small supermarket nearby have also closed.
Ms. Jing, who lives in Zhujiang New Town, said frankly that there are relatively more full-time housewives and elderly people nearby. Shopping and grocery shopping are hobbies. Therefore, the passenger flow of the surrounding vegetable markets and high-end supermarkets has not significantly decreased.
"Even I have joined the community group buying." Mr. Zhang, who lives in Dongpu, told reporters, "There are many people using community group buying in the surrounding area, and I can see many staff delivering food every day." Mr. Zhang noticed that the community group buying It has also accelerated the transformation of surrounding supermarkets and community fresh food stores.
"The most obvious is the improvement in quality, such as choosing fresher, healthier, and more popular varieties, suppliers or distribution chains for vegetables."
"Many community physical vegetable shops rely on their established reputation to develop side dishes. They just accompany and package the dishes, and customers can buy them and fry them. This extends the service from the vegetable market to the back kitchen." Mr. Zhang Said that the service has also been significantly improved, not only the friendly attitude of the staff in the physical store, the convenient and fast purchase process, and the greater frequency of sales promotion.
The reporter saw in Ms. Chen’s order that there are not a few lychee newcomers whose original price is 9.9 yuan after the first unit price is discounted for only one penny and one dime.
The 400ml Orchid Flower Ancient Small Pressed Peanut Oil is only 9.9 yuan after the discount.
The reporter searched the 400ml Orchid Flower ancient small pressed peanut oil in major supermarkets within a few kilometers through "XX Daojia" and found that its retail price was above 9.9 yuan; in the official flagship stores of Tmall and Jingdong, the same product The discounted price is also much higher than 9.9 yuan.
In order to increase the stickiness of old users and suppress opponents, many community group buying platforms often offer a single product to launch ultra-low price snap-up activities.
Although low prices are good, it is not uncommon to buy products of questionable quality.
After placing an order on an online grocery shopping platform, Ms. Chen received spoiled fruit. After several attempts to contact the online store, she gave up her rights protection.
Investigation: How can community fresh food stores and e-commerce front-end warehouses not lose money?
Community fresh food stores and e-commerce front-end warehouses, apart from the "subsidy war" to attract customers, who can be the final winner?
First-tier cities have a very rich fresh produce business and a well-developed distribution network. In particular, users have the most immediate needs and have high requirements for delivery timeliness. For grocery shopping, it is generally necessary to receive the goods immediately after the order is placed.
Therefore, the daily fresh food e-commerce companies such as Daily Fresh Food, Dingdong Food, and Meituan Food, which are pre-stored models and one-hour fresh food e-commerce, are mainly located in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Industry insiders told reporters that the main consumer groups for community group buying are in the community, and the advantage is that through the expansion of the community, it can bring neighboring customers together and achieve rapid marketing.
The layout of the fresh food store is also in the community, and marketing is carried out through daily interaction with the surrounding residents.
"There are similarities between the two, but compared with fresh food stores, community group buying has lower operating costs." The reporter found that fresh food stores mainly have high manual rental costs and high gross profit margins for some products, but large losses; the community; Group buying is mainly about customer acquisition and traffic costs. Although the cost is not high, the gross profit is very low.
A clerk of a fresh food store in a community in Jinshazhou, Baiyun District, told reporters that a fresh food store invested about 400,000 yuan at the beginning, and 6 employees are needed in the store. The monthly labor cost is more than 30,000 yuan, and the monthly rent is between 3,000 yuan and 5,000 yuan. There are also expenses such as utility bills, which means that a fresh food store must earn more than 2,000 yuan a day to basically cover its expenses.
The 300-square-meter front warehouse of fresh food e-commerce requires approximately 2 warehouse personnel and 10-15 distribution personnel.
According to the salary information of Dingdong Maicai on the recruitment website, the average salary of a delivery person is about 8,500 yuan.
Spread to every day, the warehouse management cost is about 700 yuan, and the distribution cost is about 4,000 yuan.
Due to the small area, the cost of water and electricity generated by air-conditioning cold chain and other equipment is lower than that of traditional supermarkets. The daily rental and operating costs of water, electricity, sanitation and sorting costs, shared costs and various losses total about 7000 yuan (excluding decoration costs) And marketing expenses such as platform push).
According to public data on its platform, Dingdong Maicai is located in the front warehouse in Guangzhou. The average daily order volume of a single warehouse is more than 1,200 orders and 1,500 orders on weekends. The average customer's single consumption is about 60 yuan.
Calculated at a gross profit margin of 20%, the gross profit per day is approximately RMB 14,400.
"The general consensus in the industry is that the platform may break the breakeven point when the number of orders per day exceeds 1,500 and the unit price per customer is about 70 yuan." Fresh food e-commerce sources revealed.
Impact: The performance of more than a dozen listed supermarkets has been impacted
The survey of Tianfeng Securities using 11 listed supermarkets such as Hongqi Chain and Yonghui Supermarket as a sample shows that from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, the overall revenue continued to decline, and the growth rate in the first quarter of 2021 was- 8.7%.
At the same time, a research report issued by the Shanxi Securities Research Institute on May 14 pointed out that my country's retail industry continued to pick up in the first quarter, but a sample of 13 listed supermarket companies began to decline in performance in the second half of 2020.
The Shanxi Securities Research Report believes that since the second half of last year, Internet giants have entered the community group buying track, selling mainly fresh products, and initially used low-price subsidies to seize the market, which has an impact on the flow of customers and sales of supermarkets and hypermarkets. .
In the first quarter of 2021, the passenger flow of supermarkets and hypermarkets dropped sharply, basically at a double-digit rate, and customer unit prices and sales also fell to varying degrees. Among them, fresh food was the most affected, and grain, oil, and beverages also fell.
In addition to community group buying, some vertical specialty fresh food stores have gradually penetrated into the community, which has also caused a further impact on the performance of supermarket hypermarkets.
Citizen Mr. Zhang believes that “community group buying is cheap and convenient, but it does not pose a threat to the high-end market for the time being. Judging from the choice of advertising carriers and the choice of community promotion, community group buying is mostly in areas with working-class and migrant populations. The focus is on the'battlefield.' Therefore, for ordinary vegetable markets and meat and vegetable markets, the impact of new models such as community group buying will be more obvious."
Prospects: Community group buying and fresh food stores may be integrated and developed
The reporter noticed that in the current community fresh food stores, some people open the store while others close down. In this regard, the industry believes that the key issue lies in the business model.
"At present, the whole fresh food industry's thinking of'strengthening the supply chain' has not changed. If this thinking continues in the future, its development will have certain limitations."
He gave an example. For example, a well-known community fresh food store, the operating expenses of the store are borne by the franchisees. The rent, water, electricity, and labor costs are about 50,000 to 60,000 yuan, and the gross profit of the store is 20%, which means that the average daily sales reaches 10,000 yuan. To be even.
If brand operators want to reduce their back-end operating costs, they can only move upstream and squeeze product bases or product suppliers.
"Blindly squeezing the upstream, the development space is very limited." Industry insiders said that at present, Aunt Qian and Roulian Gang are still the thinking mode of fighting the supply chain.
"The emergence of community group buying has activated the consumption thinking of the fresh food industry." Insiders believe that whether it is a supermarket, fresh food store or community group buying, the product is only at a price, and the quality is definitely unstable.
The industry insider said that in the future, fresh food stores can use stores as front-end warehouses, interact with consumers online and offline, bind customers and stores together, and gradually brand products.
"Community group buying is also a part of community retail. Community group buying and fresh food stores also have the opportunity to integrate, and there is a lot of room for the development of the fresh food industry in the future."