Source 丨 Public Number Station
Wen 丨 Station Old Ghost
At the end of 2021, the old ghost wrote a set of articles, the protagonist is a rookie, to be precise, the current and future rookies, respectively, asked and discussed four topics: What is a rookie? How does Cainiao do logistics? Who is Cainiao Logistics' customer base? What does a rookie not do?
No matter how you look at the rookie inside and outside the circle, in the express delivery and logistics jianghu, it is a existence that cannot be despised or underestimated. Combing through the growth trajectory of rookies, we can see a very obvious shift - getting heavier and heavier. From the beginning of the "logistics rookie" to the current "rookie logistics", the rookie has long ceased to be a platform. In other words, the current rookie has jumped out of the so-called platform strategy and quietly grown into a real logistics company.
Taking this year's Spring Festival not closing as an example, among the logistics guarantee measures announced by Cainiao, the most prominent core is: relying on self-built and self-operated logistics systems at home and abroad, to ensure that Taobao Tmall consumers in 300 cities across the country receive goods as usual.
Self-built and self-operated, the weight of these four words is self-evident.
01
New track, autonomous logistics operation
In 2013, when the rookie was first "born", no one knew whether it could fly, how far it could fly, and where it should fly.
Interestingly, at that time, Cainiao was still in the exploration period, because after its establishment, it frequently took land, but it was misunderstood by many people to do "logistics real estate". Nowadays, it seems that thanks to Cainiao's heavy investment in logistics facilities in the early stage, it has laid the foundation for its independent operation of logistics services.
Ali has always wanted rookie to "do what others can't do." For example, in the early days of taking land to build warehouses, this kind of investment of tens of billions of dollars was something that others could not do or did not do at that time, so the rookie would increase investment.
By this logic, rookie is actually entering a new track: complementing each other with other couriers, rather than trading between them and each other.
For example, the door-to-door delivery service of Tmall Supermarket is the warehouse and distribution integrated logistics independently operated by Cainiao. Up to now, the intelligent warehousing facilities operated by Cainiao have spread all over the country, and have their own high-quality landing team, which can be combined to serve Tmall's various industry line merchants and Tmall supermarkets, while providing urban distribution services for customers with high requirements for experience certainty. Among them, the promise of "home delivery, no must lose", is a representative of the high standard logistics services of the Tao system platform.
Please note that the delivery mode of Tmall Supermarket is high frequency, short distance, fast, and the order is received and sent. At present, the model adopted by Taobao merchants is that merchants independently choose express delivery companies to deliver goods to achieve long-distance transshipment and distribution.
Sorting out the principles followed by Cainiao's independent operation of logistics, we will look back at Cainiao's growth in the past 8 years, and we will find that with its digital advantages, Cainiao insists on making long-term investment in the logistics industry, and has "grown" new logistics service capabilities on new tracks such as the smart supply chain, international logistics and community services aimed at.
For domestic merchants, Cainiao focuses on serving good merchants through smart supply chain services, including seamless manufacturing, connecting the real economy, providing industrial belt solutions, and providing end-to-end omni-channel solutions for brand parties.
Brand merchant supply chain: Help brand merchants integrate online and offline inventory, achieve "one plate of goods" operation, help brands open up the inventory of Tmall stores, Tmall supermarkets, Hema and Retail Pass, and other e-commerce platforms and offline channels, carry out national sub-warehouse clothing, accurate adjustment and replenishment, provide same-day delivery, next-day delivery, door-to-door delivery and other services, and enhance consumer experience and brand repurchase rate.
Industrial supply chain: Together with Taote, the supply chain service is deeply rooted in the manufacturing industry, and the warehouse and distribution integration service is provided through the production warehouse, and the goods manufactured by the factory can be directly sent to consumers, and 80% of the packages sent from the Cainiao origin warehouse can be delivered every other day.
For example, Cainiao and Taote C2M model (Customer-to-Manufacturer user direct manufacturing, designed to lead consumers to obtain cheap goods at factory direct supply prices), to provide a super supply chain for the super factory, a 14.9 yuan national free shipping electric toothbrush, merchants can also earn good profits, which is inseparable from the ultimate cost performance of Cainiao Logistics.
Provide end-to-end logistics supply chain services for global merchants. Cainiao International Logistics Service is helping merchants go global through China's strong production capacity, manufacturing capacity and supply chain capabilities.
Facing overseas merchants entering China, Cainiao cooperates with Tmall International and Koala Sea Purchase to provide import supply chain services, and independently operates bonded warehouses and central warehouses in more than 30 ports across the country, from overseas collection, trunk transportation, port receipt, central warehouse distribution, bonded warehouse delivery, to the end of the signing to provide end-to-end services, overseas brands can enter the huge Chinese market with peace of mind.
For export e-commerce, Cainiao International Express Logistics launched its own "5 US dollars and 10 days" product in order to facilitate domestic goods to go to sea, which currently covers nearly 20 countries, allowing more small and medium-sized businesses to send packages overseas at the price of a cup of coffee. In addition, "2 US dollars 20 days" is expected to cover 50 countries this year.
Up to now, the shortage of global transportation capacity has not fundamentally improved, but Cainiao's import and export logistics can maintain full speed operation, providing stable and cost-effective services for cross-border trade of enterprises, relying on Cainiao's hard core strength accumulated over the years in the global logistics industry.
02
Heavy investment, "real money and silver" lay the foundation
If you review the improvement path of Cainiao's own logistics capabilities, it is not difficult to find that Cainiao has not used any strange tricks, just like an "iron man", continuing to invest in the construction and operation of logistics.
To put it bluntly, it is to take the battalion step by step and fight steadily and steadily, which can be summarized into two strategies: to form a hard village and fight a stupid battle.
Specifically, the hard village is to make the foundation solid, such as hubs, warehousing, trunk lines; to fight a sluggish battle is to avoid quick success, do a good job in products and services, step by step, and gradually build a combination of "points, lines, surfaces" and multi-dimensional international layout.
1. Stiffened village
8 years of heavy investment, rookie wings are gradually enriched, first look at a few typical key nodes and several sets of basic data -
Point on the force: that is, Cainiao global construction of warehousing resources, including smart logistics hub (eHub), overseas distribution center, overseas warehouse, bonded warehouse, central warehouse, etc. According to the financial report, as of September 30, Cainiao directly operated more than 3 million square meters of cross-border logistics warehouses, which are distributed in Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, South America and other regions around the world and China's bonded areas.
Online extension: that is, the global trunk network, or the global intelligent backbone network. Currently, Cainiao averages more than 240 trunk charter flights per month to ship packages and cargo around the world. Since the beginning of this year, the layout of Cainiao's global parcel network has been frequent, and many new air, sea, and highway routes have been added, such as the Zhengzhou-Budapest direct cargo aircraft route, the China-South Korea 5-day cross-border shipping line, and the China-Europe highway leaving Khorgos.
Surface co-ordination: that is, the international terminal network, the implementation of parcel regional distribution. Cainiao has built 7 distribution centers in Europe. At the same time, in countries including Russia, Spain, France, and Poland, nearly 5,000 groups of self-built self-pick-up cabinets have been invested.
And that's not all. Cainiao is also bringing cost reduction and efficiency improvement of logistics systems through digital means. At present, Cainiao and more than 50 ports around the world have cooperated to establish an intelligent customs clearance system to achieve second-level customs clearance, bringing seamless connection and circulation.
2. Fight a dumb battle
"Fighting a stupid battle" seems like a very stupid method, but it is through continuous accumulation to finally achieve strategic goals. It is based on the long-term investment of dots and lines, once the hard village of Cainiao is formed, it is like a mule and horse changing cars, allowing global merchants to gallop on the highway built by Cainiao, and the cost advantages and aggregation advantages brought by cainiao are becoming more and more obvious.
For example, in response to the fast-growing South American market in recent years, Cainiao opened a seven-week China-South America charter flight to ensure direct flights of Chinese goods to Brazil, and parcels shipped to Brazil in September increased by more than 200% year-on-year.
In addition to the increase in business volume, Cainiao's global supply chain has greatly reduced the cost and efficiency of domestic and international merchants: by improving efficiency and reducing inventory, it helps sellers save 20% of the overall supply chain cost. Imported cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Tmall International and Koala Haigou have chosen to use Cainiao's global supply chain services more than most merchants.
"Cainiao's investment in the underlying logistics capabilities will ultimately be reflected in Cainiao's logistics capabilities to serve customers." Next, Cainiao will continue to increase investment in overseas logistics infrastructure to maintain a continuous lead in global logistics capabilities. On the Ali Investor Day, Cainiao CEO Wan Lin said.
03
Reject the inner roll and make the "new cake" bigger
Looking closely at the bottom of the mainland logistics industry, an unavoidable status quo is that the body of China's logistics industry has grown strong enough, but it has not yet matured enough to match its body.
For example, Made in China has created one "world first" after another, but Chinese logistics enterprises are quite weak in the process of global layout with "Made in China". The latest global top 50 ranking of freight companies shows that there is not a single Chinese private express logistics company in the top three in the world.
In order to solve this "card neck" problem, on December 6, 2021, China Logistics Group Co., Ltd. was officially established, benchmarking global logistics giants, the integrated China Logistics Group is called "Big Mac", the five companies involved, covering many logistics subdivisions, the strength should not be underestimated, it can be seen that the country's determination and strength in building an integrated logistics "national team" is great, and it also plays an leading role in the industry.
When the development of an industry is elevated to "national action", the companies in it will inevitably benefit. Under the development of the "national team", it is also a rare opportunity for domestic private express logistics companies such as Cainiao to participate and temper.
In the previous article, we listed Cainiao's investment in strengthening the key elements of logistics autonomous operation, and along the way, Cainiao has been raising professional service barriers. Combing through the main business of Cainiao, you will find that its revenue main body, taking Cainiao's external income in fiscal year 2021 as an example, mainly comes from two business units: one is the smart supply chain, and the other is international logistics.
Neither of these are the main businesses of traditional express delivery. From this, we may understand that Cainiao re-invests in the establishment of independent logistics capabilities, and does not focus on the existing cake. It is also more understandable why the rookie will choose to pioneer on the new track, with digital advantages, and do logistics on its own.
In Wanlin's view, logistics is a large and systematic industry. "We believe that by building a worldwide logistics hub, overseas warehouses and overseas distribution centers throughout key markets, and building a dense trunk line and overseas terminal distribution network, we can participate in building supply chain advantages that match the advantages of China's industrial chain in the future."
However, we must also clearly see that in the future, the head of the large company will no longer be a simple "market share" and "price" competition, but the competition of the industrial chain, all-scenario products and even integrated logistics, which lies in value innovation. The international express delivery giants led by the "three majors" have dominated the global market for decades, and the "moat" they have built in terms of network layout, air capacity, information capabilities, talent management, and customer service is both wide and deep.
In contrast, in China, enterprises that can truly explore digitalization, continuously deepen the logistics industry and continuously improve their logistics strength are indeed rare - domestic franchise express delivery has ushered in a new development inflection point in the price war. SF's focus is still in the domestic market, and going to sea has just begun to increase its pace. Another "platform-level" player, JD Logistics, compared with the mature self-operated warehouse distribution service, the global layout has not yet become the focus of investment.
Some things can escape the shackles of time; but some things must be tempered by time. Logistics, that is, the latter. Whether it is construction or operation, it takes time to accumulate and precipitate.
The Internet has entered the industry and done logistics in a down-to-earth manner. The rookie after the "breaking the circle" may be the biggest variable in the express logistics industry in 2022.