Per reporter: Wang Ziwei Per editor: Liu Xuemei
At the beginning of 2022, the community retail track has changed dramatically. There is news that Dingdong Grocery is making a major layoff in the core department, and the company immediately debunks rumors; on the other hand, Daily Excellent Fresh Convenience Purchase announced that it has fully acquired Beijing Downstairs Technology Co., Ltd.
On January 14, Daily Excellent Fresh confirmed to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the two sides have completed the acquisition procedures. After the completion of the acquisition, daily excellent fresh convenience purchase will have more than 10,000 points in 9 cities across the country.
Qixinbao information shows that downstairs is a community unmanned convenience store operator, the scope of business includes rental vending machines, food sales, etc., the company was founded in 2017, before the acquisition, downstairs has completed 4 rounds of financing by IDG Capital, Yuanjing Capital.
The "downstairs" vending machine downstairs in a certain residential area in Beijing was photographed by reporter Wang Ziwei
This acquisition is a "win-win" in the eyes of some industry insiders.
Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e-commerce industry and founder of Bailian Consulting, told the Daily Economic News reporter that he himself was optimistic about the acquisition. "The fresh e-commerce company downstairs and the front-end warehouse model will form an efficient synergy effect, and both sides can improve efficiency."
Daily Fresh told reporters that after the acquisition is completed, Daily Fresh Convenience Purchase will integrate the advantages of the community scene "downstairs", continue to exert efforts on unmanned shelf tracks, and make every effort to build a near-field retail network covering all scenes.
In 2017, daily excellent fresh convenience shopping was born, mainly covering office buildings and other scenes. Daily Youxian hopes to use convenience purchases to cover all user scenarios and form a two-way strategic synergy with the home business.
The market performance of the business in the following years was relatively quiet, but it was not obscure. According to the Q2 2021 financial report data of Daily Excellent Fresh, the other revenue of Daily Excellent Fresh in the quarter was 40.4 million yuan, an increase of 23.6% year-on-year, and this growth was mainly due to the increase in sales of its convenience shopping business products.
On the day of listing last year, Daily Excellent Fresh defined itself as the "first share of community retail e-commerce" and detailed the overall business model after the listing in the prospectus: (A+B) x N. A refers to the front warehouse instant retail, B is the smart vegetable farm, and N is the retail cloud.
This time, the daily excellent fresh convenience purchase and borrowing downstairs to explore the community. So, after the acquisition is completed, what kind of new exploration story can daily fresh tell in the track of community retail? Will the market buy it?
Explore community business through unmanned convenience
Is there a better way to get deep into the community?
According to a survey by Jiuqian Middle Office, many experts believe that the survival rate of the "middle layer" of the community group purchase model, pure front position, is low, and its profit margin is only 3% to 5%.
It seems that "group buying" is not a good choice for Daily Fresh to exert efforts in community retail. After previously determining the models of smart vegetable farms and retail clouds, Daily Excellent Fresh has bet on the unmanned retail model this time.
Downstairs, the main distribution is in the community, hospital and other crowded places, selling a variety of goods including milk drinks, instant food brine, bread and snacks, etc.
It was established in 2015 downstairs, and then obtained 4 rounds of financing intensively during the peak period of unmanned convenient development in 2017-2018. The participating capital includes well-known capital such as IDG and Yuanjing.
After the peak period, unmanned retail "countless deaths and injuries", the format of rapid decline. Zhuang Shuai analyzed to reporters that the purchase habits of unmanned retail have a long cycle of formation, and their own SKUs and inventory quantities are relatively small, and they cannot support large-scale purchases at present; high-frequency replenishment, large storage and hoarding will lead to damage rates, backlog costs, and damage costs, and the cost will inevitably go up.
"Unmanned retail must rely on the format that has been independently developed on a large scale to survive." Zhuang Shuai said.
The fresh pre-warehouse player represented by daily excellent fresh may be one of the "formats that can be relied on" in Zhuang Shuai's mouth. With the front position to charge in the front and technical support in the back, Daily Excellent Fresh broke through in the "Hundred Regiments War" of fresh players from 2015 to 2018.
Daily Fresh Bet Unmanned Retail Model Image Source: IC photo
But "gray humor" also came: the pre-position model made Daily Excellent fresh, but in turn restricted the profitability of Daily Excellent Fresh, until it was listed, it did not solve this problem.
In order to solve the problem of profitability, on the one hand, Daily Excellent Fresh carries out more refined polishing internally, and on the other hand, it excavates a broader business line, which looks at the huge growth space existing in the online retail of the community. According to iResearch data, in 2020, the online penetration rate of community retail in China is 20.9%, and by 2025, this figure is expected to increase to 45.5%, and the market size of digital community retail will reach 7.2 trillion yuan. This may be the online market with the largest increment and the fastest growth rate in The next few years.
After determining the entry into the community retail track, the layout of daily fresh food is constantly advancing. The acquisition is downstairs, which is bound to make the financial statements not good enough in the short term, but this is the price that Daily Fresh must pay in the process of community retail trial and error.
Can unmanned retail help make daily fresh profits?
Wei Jianhui, an analyst in the circulation industry of Analysys, told reporters that the acquisition will help it strengthen the layout of community scenarios, further reduce the cost of performance, and obtain new revenue growth.
As an industry research analyst, Zhuang Shuai is also a daily fresh and heavy user downstairs. "I've been using Daily Fresh for 6 years, and I've been using it downstairs for 2 years, and I've been thinking before that it's more appropriate to join hands with fresh e-commerce companies like Daily Fresh downstairs." He said.
Zhuang Shuai analyzed that "connecting with the fresh e-commerce in the front warehouse mode downstairs can improve the turnover rate of the former's goods; the distribution point downstairs can supplement the vacancies of daily excellent fresh in-depth community." This creates a very efficient synergy effect, and both sides can improve efficiency. ”
Li Chengdong, founder of Dolphin Society, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that after the acquisition is downstairs, the two sides will have a "joint value".
"If you have been in a state of loss downstairs, and the daily fresh acquisition will increase the (own) loss, then this acquisition is not necessary." Since the acquisition is a foregone conclusion, daily fresh in the supply chain, digitalization, turnover efficiency of support, perhaps the operating efficiency of these outlets will be greatly improved. ”
A data from Jiuqian Middle Platform pointed out that in 2017, the cost of daily excellent fresh information flow was 100 to 130 yuan / person, and the cost of customer acquisition in 2019 was 200 + yuan; in the early days, the daily excellent fresh single information flow channel could bring 10,000 to 20,000 new customers, but later, it could only bring 2,000 to 3,000 people.
In the case of increasingly difficult online customer acquisition, the 10,000 points downstairs throughout the community can allow Daily Fresh to directly obtain more community users, which can improve its distribution efficiency, reduce distribution costs, and improve competitiveness.
"On this basis, the repurchase usage rate of daily fresh users will also increase." The original users downstairs have developed shopping habits, which will also increase the turnover rate of daily excellent freshness, and I estimate that this turnover rate will be much higher than that of the front warehouse. Zhuang Shuai analyzed to reporters.
However, some industry insiders pointed out to reporters that unmanned retail can only be a supplement to community retail, and cannot be regarded as the only breakthrough in community retail. Zhuang Shuai also said, "If there is no other business model synergy in unmanned retail, it may have to face all the problems that have been encountered before." ”
Also holding a wait-and-see attitude is Lin Yue, chief consultant of Lingyan Management Consulting. He told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that this time, unmanned retail due to the epidemic, will not be due to the epidemic decline or unknown, fresh community retail is not easy to do, after all, the situation of each community is different and complex, the type and preference of the living population, economic conditions, surrounding shopping convenience, fresh e-commerce distribution capabilities and other factors, will make it difficult to standardize the variety of dishes, prices.
"Daily Fresh may focus on the core business at the moment, it may be better to make profits first and then expand, and unmanned retail still needs time to incubate, including consumption habits, but it will be a big trend." Lin Yue said.
Daily Fresh does not put eggs in one basket. In the layout of community retail, the business of smart vegetable farms and retail cloud is also stepping up step by step. According to the 2021 Q3 financial report, as of September 30, 2021, Daily Excellent Fresh has signed 73 vegetable farms in 18 cities, of which 52 smart vegetable farms in 13 cities have started operations; in terms of retail cloud, Daily Excellent Fresh has signed cooperation agreements with 11 customers.
Although the scale of daily excellent fresh has reached the head of the industry, the problem of profitability has been criticized. In the third quarter of 2021 alone, the loss of Daily Fresh was as high as 970 million yuan. In the face of market forecasts, "iResearch expects that the fresh retail market will continue to grow in the future, and the size of China's fresh retail market will reach 6.8 trillion yuan by 2025." ", how do players dig for gold? When to make a profit?
Zhuang Shuai judged that in the next 3 to 5 years, the players of the fresh track will still maintain a relatively fierce competitive situation; at the same time, the huge market also brings players a lot of room for growth. But at present, they are still in the investment stage, and they have not yet seen a definite time for the arrival of profit concentration.
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