Text | elegant
Edit | Peng Xiaoqiu
"The earth doesn't explode, we don't take a vacation; the universe doesn't restart, we don't rest." In the third Spring Festival under the epidemic, the total number of express deliveries that continue to operate has risen slightly.
According to the latest data on February 7, during this year's Spring Festival (January 31 to February 6), the national postal express industry received and delivered a total of 749 million express parcels, an increase of 16% over the same period last year's lunar calendar. Although this figure did not catch up with the explosive growth of 260% during the Spring Festival in 2021 (Chinese New Year's Eve to the sixth day of the first month of the first month), it still maintained an upward trend.
In the context of the local New Year and the network, the wanderers who can't go home try to move the "New Year's taste" online, not only the cloud to visit the New Year has become a new way to welcome the New Year, but also the cloud catch-up is also normalized.
The support behind the New Year on the cloud can be achieved, and it is the logistics infrastructure and express delivery brothers who "do not close during the Spring Festival". This is already the second year that the express delivery industry has not closed at all, obviously because of the experience of the previous year, the degree of cloudification in the New Year is also higher, and the enterprise is more skilled in operation. For example, in the "Taobao-style New Year" service guide, it is mentioned that 200,000 Taobao Tmall merchants ship as usual during the Spring Festival, covering 95% of the country's cities; 150,000 rookies are on duty during the Spring Festival, and 300 cities of Taobao Tmall consumers in the country receive goods as usual.
Taobao "Spring Festival does not close" activities
Express delivery companies that participated in the Spring Festival "do not close" include SF, an old player in the Spring Festival in 15 years, Jingdong, which still delivers goods for 10 consecutive years during the Spring Festival, the "three links and one reach" that have joined the battlefield after the epidemic, Jitu, Debon, etc. have also set up "business signboards". But at the same time, express delivery companies also need to spend more to ensure that the lights are always on. For example, Cainiao will invest more than 300 million yuan in incentive subsidies during the Spring Festival, directly distributed to the first-line industry employees of Cainiao on duty; Jingdong Logistics will invest nearly 400 million yuan to subsidize employees who stick to the front line during the Spring Festival; Zhongtong will issue holiday red envelopes to front-line courier brothers, operation employees, and staff on duty.
According to the data of the Beijing Municipal Postal Administration, there will be about 36,000 employees in the logistics industry during the Spring Festival in Beijing in 2022, with an on-the-job rate of more than 60%, and the on-the-job rate of major brand enterprises such as postal, SF and JD.com will exceed 80%. So, in the annual consumption feast of the Spring Festival shopping market, what are the express delivery companies that are still racing against the clock? Is "No Closing" a slogan or a true business? What new changes have taken place in the Lunar New Year under the epidemic for the express delivery industry?
In the past, the spring transport was the main transporter, and now there is a trend of transporting goods
Before the epidemic, the Lunar New Year was not a good time for the express delivery industry to do business.
This is mainly because the Spring Festival is the off-season of the express delivery industry - the demand for business is not large, and it costs more to keep it open. Taking the "three links and one arrival" of franchise outlets as an example, the labor cost during the Spring Festival is 2-3 times that of daily, and the outlets need to bear their own profits and losses at the same time, and the total business volume is often less than 10% of the daily. Therefore, I want to open business as usual in the "New Year's Seven Days", going in the opposite direction of open source and throttling, and the courier brother also wants to return to his hometown for the New Year, which increases the difficulty of the shortage of labor personnel.
But market demand is the first major consideration for corporate decision-making. After all, the "local New Year" policy initiative under the epidemic situation has become the norm, and the overall logistics industry continues to expand, so it has also increased consumer demand for "goods Spring Festival".
First of all, the overall volume of express delivery business in the mainland draws an upward curve. From 50.71 billion pieces in 2018, to 63.52 billion pieces in 2019, to 83 billion pieces in 2020, and then to December 8 last year, the annual business volume of mainland express delivery exceeded 100 billion, accounting for half of the world's total express delivery. The annual per capita use of express delivery has also increased from 4.2 to 59 in 10 years, realizing a huge logistics network of 700 million people per day.
Express delivery business volume in 2018-2020
The supporters behind this business volume first have express delivery brothers who are not willing to rush to the front line day and night, and the continuous improvement of logistics infrastructure. According to the data mentioned by Lin Hu, deputy director of the Department of Market Supervision of the State Post Bureau in October last year, at a regular press conference in the fourth quarter, there are 224,000 express delivery outlets in the mainland, and the coverage rate of township express delivery outlets nationwide has reached 98%.
According to the Ministry of Transport, a total of 1.18 billion passengers were sent during the Spring Festival in 2022, an increase of 35.6% over 2021, but this figure still fell by 60.4% compared with 2019 before the outbreak.
Young people who can't go home have begun to spend their year-end bonuses on purchasing New Year goods, and purchasing New Year goods in different places has become a common choice for young people. In the "Top Ten Ways to Celebrate the New Year on the Cloud" in the Year of the Tiger, Baidu's hot search big data inventory, the first place is "online shopping for New Year goods", and the popularity increased by 239% compared with last year's search.
Major e-commerce platforms have also launched cloud New Year services, for example, the Pinduo Multi-Year Goods Festival from January 6 to January 20, the Taobao New Year Goods Festival from January 7 to January 24, Jingdong's front line has been the longest, from January 9 to February 7.
As a result, this "New Year's Day does not close" hard work has not been in vain. According to the "2022 New Year Life Consumption Trend Report" jointly released by iResearch Consulting and Taobao Live, the transaction amount of the Taobao Live Broadcasting Festival (1.7-1.15) in 2022 maintained a growth trend, of which the turnover of the live broadcast channel increased by 20.5% compared with last year. It is worth mentioning that fresh agricultural products have long been the first choice for purchasing New Year goods, and the sales volume of Douyin e-commerce during the New Year Festival increased by 420% year-on-year.
In the context of young people going to central cities to work and study, and 490 million people "separating households", the purchase of New Year goods in different places has become a standard operation. Rushing to the Spring Festival is a day and night express delivery. Selling goods is not only e-commerce, express delivery is not only delivery
Another reason for the expansion of the express delivery business is the diversification and decentralization of e-commerce channels, which of course also intensifies the competition in the express delivery industry.
Represented by short videos and live broadcasts, content e-commerce is another e-commerce model that has sprung up in recent years. In 2020, the GMV of Douyin e-commerce exceeded 500 billion, achieving a 50-fold increase in the year; then in the first quarter of last year, the number of active buyers who had been fighting for many years with private domain traffic as the main battlefield reached 788.4 million, surpassing Taobao to become the largest e-commerce platform for domestic users; while Taobao's growth stagnated and diverted, and last year's express delivery orders from Alibaba e-commerce platform fell below 50% for the first time in nearly a decade.
The rise of a new model of e-commerce challenges the traditional e-commerce dividend, but also affects the nearest express delivery industry. In fact, the essence of content e-commerce is to reduce the cost of customer acquisition, improve the efficiency of people-goods matching, and change from "people looking for goods" to "goods looking for people". In the past, Tongda Express relied on the huge traffic of the Taobao platform to spread outlets in the form of joining, occupying 72% of the mainland express delivery market in 2019. New models of e-commerce such as Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou have undoubtedly created a new incremental market. For example, the "home delivery" service launched by Douyin e-commerce, Zhongtong, Yuantong, and Yunda have already been connected.
In the case of the beginning of the upstream division, the express delivery industry also needs to grasp the new stability and seize more market share in the incremental market. Therefore, in the past year, in the face of the restructured e-commerce market, the express delivery industry has also seized the market by compressing profits and fighting a price war.
This is also directly reflected in the sentiment of the stock market, last year, SF released the first quarter of the financial report, the stock price was more than 40% smaller than the high point, the total market value evaporated more than 200 billion yuan, the main reason is the net profit loss of 900 million yuan to 1.1 billion yuan, compared with the same period last year was 910 million yuan.
However, after all, the inner volume is not a long-term solution, if the last battle of e-commerce is service capabilities, then the quality of logistics will play a decisive factor, express delivery companies need to find a cornerstone to make themselves stable, which is the first thing is service. In other words, at this stage of the head express delivery company, no business can be simply regarded as express delivery, but should be considered a logistics service company.
Timeliness and the quality of service that can be achieved are the core competitive points of express delivery. In terms of service, express delivery changes with user needs, such as "reverse logistics" is one of the demand points, yunda has undertaken the return and exchange business of Pinduoduo.
In terms of timeliness, JD.com, SF, Zhongtong, Yuantong, etc. all launched new product lines last year.
- On April 1 alone, Zhongtong and Jingdong spoke out at the same time, and Zhongtong launched a "standard fast" product, implementing standard pricing while providing the next morning, every other morning, the next day, the next day, the next day and other time commitments; Jingdong announced the launch of the timeliness speed up to achieve a delivery experience of "sunset and morning" in the province and 24 hours of inter-provincial and inter-regional delivery;
- In the same month, SF also upgraded the "aging products" in the product system, and the upgraded timeliness section includes three major products such as SF Day, SF Express, and SF Express;
- Subsequently, ZTO launched regular delivery in October, aiming to create more accurate and differentiated services; YTO also launched the "Yuan zhunda" in December, which is mainly for customers such as e-commerce platforms and brand merchants, with timeliness upgrades and accurate delivery as the core.
- Even the postal service, which has always been Buddhist, launched a comprehensive speed increase in June, clearly indicating that the time limit for express mail delivery will be basically the same as that of competitors, and the gap between the time limit for express parcels and competitors will be reduced from 8 hours to 4 hours.
This is undoubtedly a racing battle, every second counts, and the Spring Festival is a key opportunity to shape word of mouth and improve user stickiness. The soaring volume of express delivery, the online "new year's taste", and the opponent who does not stop business have shaped one after another express delivery brother who has been rolled up and accelerated.
There is no nostalgia temptation in red envelopes, and terminal services are the most difficult to achieve
The ideal is very full, but the reality is very bone, and the operation of "not closing" is not so good to advance.
Even if the company throws money to keep people, the main labor courier brothers of the express delivery company are not willing to take this opportunity to make money. The reason is very simple, a courier told 36Kr that the income structure of couriers is often composed of basic salary + single amount, even if the amount of express delivery has increased during the Spring Festival, it still cannot reach the usual level, and in the case of a small amount, the actual income is far less than usual, "It is better to go home for the New Year." ”
Therefore, most of the express delivery companies that issued the "Spring Festival does not close" statement are just a slogan, when the end of the "last kilometer" service is difficult to achieve, the express delivery over the mountains can not reach the hands of consumers at the first time, can only be the progress information flashing in the logistics query. At the same time, due to the shortage of labor, the express delivery timeliness is also difficult to guarantee, and most of the voices that do not close are only passively involved in the "overtime team", so they can only cause formalism in the results.
In fact, compared with traditional express delivery, the business that is more in demand during the Spring Festival is instant delivery, such as Dingdong grocery shopping, Hungry Takeaway, Meituan Buying Vegetables and other fresh delivery, and the demand is more important and urgent.
According to Meituan takeaway data, since January 15 this year, the search volume for "Chinese New Year's Eve meals" on the Meituan platform has increased by 200% compared with the same period last year. A person in charge of Meituan takeaway also said that contrary to the low business turnover rate of Chinese New Year businesses in previous years, the business rate of restaurants during the Spring Festival this year reached nearly 70%.
Compared with previous years, the Spring Festival in the post-epidemic era is more lively and deserted. The cold is the physical distance that is difficult to touch, which can only be completed online, and there is less of the sound of firecrackers and the sense of ceremony of doing New Year goods; and the lively is that in the midst of thousands of lights, blue, yellow, and black electric vehicles shuttle through the winter night of the city, supporting a lunar New Year that must be reached on time.