Tmall's new business looks too much like JD.com inside and out.
On February 17, the reporter's investigation found that the Tmall App had a new domestic and international self-operated business of "Cat Enjoyment", which was shipped by SF or Dan bird. From any point of view, this new business looks too much like JD.com, and it is also quite similar to its own Tmall supermarket.
In this regard, practitioners can't help but ask: why do Tmall supermarkets still do self-operation, can the new self-operation model compete with Jingdong's self-operation?
Low-key admission to self-operated shops
Independent of other businesses
At present, the cat enjoy self-operated store is quite low-key on the Tmall App. When the reporter browsed, he found that Tmall Supermarket, Tmall International and various brand flagship stores are still the main sales force of the platform, while Cat Enjoy's self-operated products do not have a separate entrance in the homepage, and only recommend products when users search.
From the perspective of sales categories, cats enjoy self-operated including mother and baby, alcohol, household appliances, cleaning personal care and major appliances, etc., the scale of the introduced goods is relatively limited, and individual products overlap with Tmall supermarkets. And shoes and clothing bags, mobile phone digital, beauty and other conventional goods have not yet been covered and molded.
A staff member of the platform told reporters that Cat Enjoy self-operated with Tmall Supermarket and Tmall International are independent operating systems, and warehouse resources are also separate.
In this regard, Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e-commerce industry and founder of Bailian Consulting, said that "Tmall supermarket mainly covers fresh and FMCG goods, focusing on different categories, while Tmall International imported goods involve customs declaration and bonded, and the management is more different, so it is understandable that cats enjoy self-operated and Tmall supermarkets and Tmall international cannot overlap in the short term." ”
Due to the separation of supply chains, users will also have different perceptions of timeliness.
In the case of a three-flavor RIO micro-drunk cocktail, if a Beijing user places an order at the same time in Tmall Supermarket and Cat Enjoy self-operated store, Tmall Supermarket can achieve next-day delivery from Beijing warehouse, but Cat Enjoy self-operated needs to be shipped from Tianjin warehouse, and the time limit is the next day.
Zhuang Shuai analysis believes that "Ali has been increasing the proportion of self-operation in recent years, on the one hand, it can strengthen the control of suppliers and goods, on the other hand, it can improve the autonomy of operation and the flexibility of promotion, and finally, it is to improve revenue data to meet the expectations of the capital market." Tmall supermarkets and Hema fresh are mostly self-operated in the fresh and FMCG categories, and expanding the category and scope is also to cope with competition. ”
Benchmark JD speed
Logistics access to SF and Dan bird
In fact, in the past few decades, the user experience of alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo, the three major e-commerce platforms, has been greatly different. Ali and Jingdong respectively occupy the consumption mentality of high customer unit price with the advantages of clothing and 3C, while Jingdong has robbed more sensitive users of time-sensitive users because of the next-day delivery, next-day delivery and even hourly delivery of self-operated logistics. Nowadays, it is difficult for Ali to ignore the competitive pressure brought about by the mature network of warehouses built by opponents for 15 years.
This is strongly reflected in the importance attached to logistics services in the self-operated business of CatShare. Delivery times, door-to-door delivery, early electricity coupons, free returns and other services are prominently listed in each order of users. If a single order is less than 99 yuan, the self-operated service will also charge 5-6 yuan for shipping. This is the same as the services of JD.com's own operation and JD Logistics.
The difference is that Cat Enjoy Logistics relies more on "outsiders", and Jingdong relies on "its own family".
It is understood that Cat's self-operated goods will choose SF or Dan bird for delivery, while major appliances will use DailyShun Logistics, Debon and so on. A large number of other people's logistics are used, which also reflects Ali's cramped scheduling of logistics resources from the side.
However, the rules of Internet consumption are cruel. If logistics cannot keep up with the expectation of timeliness, it will directly affect the retention rate and repurchase rate of platform users. In terms of black cat complaints, there are more than 5,000 problems such as late delivery of Tmall supermarkets. The impact of the epidemic, the peak of the promotion, the departure of the delivery staff, etc., will have an impact on the stability of the Danniao delivery capacity, which in turn will affect the user's order decision.
A Dan bird delivery man in Beijing told reporters that the daily delivery volume is not much, you can leave work at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, usually a single can earn about 2.5-2.8 yuan, bottled water and other heavy goods distribution account for a large proportion of income.
In addition, logistics services are tied to the merchant's retention. Whether it is JD Logistics emphasizing external customer revenue in the financial report, or Cainiao's industrial supply chain business, it is to strengthen the depth of business cooperation with the brand side. "Cainiao rents a lot of warehouse resources across the country." A logistics practitioner revealed to the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
It can be expected that at the domestic logistics end, Maoxiang self-operation will become an important incision for Ali to enhance and control logistics services.
JD.com's "high imitation"?
Expert: The two types of self-employment are different
Although it is literally a self-operated business, cat sharing self-operation is different from JD.com's self-operated model.
The reporter learned that for example, when a merchant enters the self-operated flagship store of Jingdong, the fixed fee charged by the platform constitutes a security deposit plus "gross profit protection". According to an e-commerce practitioner, merchants set the supply price according to the cost and profit of the goods, while the selling price of JD.com is the supply price multiplied by the gross guarantee plus the supply price.
"For example, the supply of merchants to Jingdong is 100 yuan, and it is also necessary to ensure that the price of Jingdong cannot be lower than 125, that is, 25% of the gross profit protection, after the sale, Jingdong settles 100 yuan to the merchant, and 25 yuan is used as the gross profit of Jingdong, which will be used to bear the costs of Jingdong's logistics, customer service and warehousing." If the merchant's selling price is lower than the gross profit protection range, JD.com will deduct it from the supply price. The above-mentioned e-commerce practitioners said.
In addition, the brand threshold for entering Jingdong's self-operated flagship store is also higher, and the qualifications of brands and enterprises are higher than those of franchise stores. At the same time, platform traffic will also focus more on self-operated stores. The fee standard of the Tmall flagship store is similar to that of the Jingdong franchise store, which is composed of a security deposit, deduction point, and software service fee. This means that no matter how much merchants earn, they enter their own wallets and do not have to pay fees such as warehousing to the platform.
"JD.com's deduction point is generally higher than Tmall." The above-mentioned e-commerce practitioners pointed out that for example, in the grain and oil seasoning category, JD.com's deduction point is 5%, while Tmall's is 1% or 2%. However, according to some merchants, the deduction points of Tmall and JD.com have increased in recent years.
The self-operated model means that it will cooperate more deeply with merchants in the supply chain, and expand more profit points in terms of the platform. Although it is impossible to know whether the cat-sharing self-operated store will adopt the charging model of Jingdong's self-operated flagship store, e-commerce analyst Lu Zhenwang believes that the two self-operated models are different, "Cat-sharing self-operated is like a supermarket, while Jingdong is an independent brand-operated store, which means that brand traffic and user retention belong to the brand." But Ali had to consider the problem of cat sharing's self-operated traffic distribution and price system. Some brands mainly rely on distributors to ship, it will be more willing to consider cat sharing self-operation, but some merchants may only want to do flagship stores, maintain a single price standard. Therefore, the brands cooperated by cat sharing self-operated stores will be limited. "#Ali##JD##Tmall##顺丰 #
Zhuang Shuai believes that some non-standard products such as clothing are also quite difficult for cats to enjoy self-operation because they involve inventory management.
Consumption Big Mouth /Wen He Qian Sun Rui
Image source: Visual China, screenshot of e-commerce platform, etc