Express delivery crisis: in the three links and one arrival, who is the next "prey"

In just half a year, the express delivery industry is turbulent and intertwined.

In the middle of March this year, Jingdong acquired 66.49% of debon's shares for 8.976 billion yuan, and since then Debon has been classified into the JD department, and a few months ago, Jitu Express acquired the express delivery business of Best Group in China for 6.8 billion yuan, which means that the situation of four links has been maintained for more than 10 years and finally fell apart.

Five years ago, Liu Qiangdong said that there are only three express delivery industries in the future, and Lai Meisong, chairman of Zhongtong, also expressed a similar view, "The express delivery industry will continue to be centralized and optimized, and the stronger the competition pattern will tend to be stable", he believes that China's express delivery market will inevitably give birth to express delivery companies with a market share of 30% or even more than 30%.

What is the concept of 30%? It means the volume of 1.5 Zhongtong or 3 Shentong. To achieve such a volume, acquisition is the fastest means in the short term, taking Jitu as an example, through the acquisition of Best Express, the market share of 6% jumped to 14%.

This means that the merger of express delivery companies is still on the way. Who will be swallowed and who will laugh to the end?

01 End integration has been choppy

At the end of the express delivery industry, the situation of express delivery integration has already quietly begun.

In the context of the express price war in full swing and the competition between you and me, in the terminal express delivery outlets, you will often find such a strange appearance: the outlets in the zhongtong, yuantong yunda and other LOGO harmonious juxtaposition, couriers are also sent by each courier.

This situation is not only in third- and fourth-tier cities and small counties, but also in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and the situation is becoming more and more common.

"In different courier companies, these outlets have different names, but in fact they are all the same boss", the owner of the express delivery outlet revealed that the employees of the outlets even have several sets of uniforms, and the express delivery car is also available from various brands. A person from a courier company once said that he once went to a certain outlet to take photos and wanted to find a tricycle as a background, and the tricycle of the outlet was all written with the names of competitors, and the scene was once embarrassing.

A very important reason for this situation is that the end has been integrated, express delivery bosses can not make money to sell outlets to others, often appear a good express delivery brand to buy other brands, monopolize the local market.

In recent years, there is also a situation that the express delivery industry has appeared a "co-matching" model - in some areas with relatively small single volumes or fierce competition, outlets compete with each other and no one can live well, so express franchisees get together to form a co-match. For example, in Zhuji, Zhejiang, the capital of socks in China, the three companies of Zhongtong Shentong Yunda had merged into one "Zhongshenda Group".

Co-matching is that each family negotiates with each other to divide the area, and all express delivery in a certain area regardless of brand is responsible for a network to achieve personnel and express sharing. For the outlets, the survival has been guaranteed, for the courier, the original delivery of 100 pieces of express delivery needs to run several communities, and now running a community is enough.

In recent years, the co-matching mechanism has been recognized by local governments and has begun to be encouraged, and in Huzhou, Zhejiang and other places, the government has taken the initiative to convene postal and express delivery companies to implement express delivery into the village.

From the perspective of express delivery companies is not in line with the interests of enterprises, express delivery companies are nothing more than four processes of collection and dispatch, outlets are responsible for receiving and dispatching express delivery headquarters responsible for trunk line transportation and sorting, if the end is integrated, there will be only empty shelves left in the middle, there is a huge risk, such as outlets will feel which company to give the high dispatch fee to all the couriers to this, the rest there is no single amount.

The courier headquarters are not unaware of these situations, "but the outlets also have to survive, so they turn a blind eye." ”

But express delivery companies can not sit idly by, at present, some express delivery companies have realized the crisis, taking Zhongtong as an example to begin to grasp the leading right of integration, "Zhongtong Express requires outlets to become major shareholders in the co-allocation" Some people in the express delivery industry believe that this lays the groundwork for further acquisitions in the future.

02 Who will be integrated?

How the express delivery industry will go, in 2017, Liu Qiangdong's view is that in addition to the post office system, the private logistics industry can only be a 2+1 structure - Jingdong and SF will become two logistics giants, and then one remains.

Behind Liu Qiangdong's statement, an important basis is that express delivery companies are extremely dependent on e-commerce platforms, for many years, mainland e-commerce parts accounted for more than 80% of the express delivery business, e-commerce platforms to whom to order, who can survive.

In recent years, the rise of Pinduoduo, Jitu has also become an important pole of rapid express delivery in the short term, which also shows from the side that for express delivery companies, e-commerce companies hold the key to survival.

From this point of view, the future of the express delivery industry pattern, almost is an extension of the e-commerce pattern, in addition to Jitu and Jingdong and SF, which does not rely too much on e-commerce, the rest depends on who can survive in the three links and one reach.

These four companies are very dependent on Alibaba, the most closely related at present is Shentong, it is understood that most of the managers above the middle level of Shentong are from the Rookie system, and the executives are almost all from The Rookie, to some extent, it has been a semi-acquisition state. Ali's internal idea is to build Shentong into the most important economic express carrier in the system.

Secondly, it also depends on the market competitiveness of the company itself, although Ali is the major shareholder of Baishi, but an important reason for its eventual abandonment is that the latter market is too poor and the competitiveness is not strong.

Some Shentong people once complained that at the time of Double Eleven, the logistics partner that Ali chose was not Shentong with a better relationship, but Zhongtong. However, this is also excusable, "capital relations are on the one hand, but in many cases Ali still looks at competitiveness, after all, each department has its own KPIs." ”

To sum up, the most closely related is Shentong, and the best service quality is Zhongtong, while the remaining Yuantong and Yunda are more awkward.

Whether it is a single volume, service quality, capital strength, the two are very close, so some people predict that the future is most likely to be merged, and Zhongtong is the strongest, although Shentong is the weakest, but after Baishi became the only logistics enterprise that was deeply controlled by Ali himself, it was safer. However, in recent years, the rise of live e-commerce such as Douyin and Kuaishou, the express delivery market may also form a new situation.

03 How to join the express delivery to kill a blood road?

For the three-way and one-to-one franchise express delivery enterprises, the biggest problem is the problem of control, the asset-light model has two major drawbacks, the first drawback is that the outlets are not necessarily obedient, some of the strategies that are beneficial to the overall development, but not necessarily beneficial to the specific outlets, and may not be able to implement in the end.

The second problem is the lack of differentiated competitiveness, because everyone has a similar organizational model, the same customer object, and even the timeliness is similar, resulting in the final customer feeling that several look similar, and ultimately who cheaply gives the order to whom, resulting in a price war for many years.

In this case, as an industry with a low basic threshold but a very rigid need, the only outcome is to fight for scale, the larger the scale, the lower the marginal cost, in order to support more outlets.

Therefore, in recent years, express delivery companies have fought for prices on the one hand, and on the other hand, they have invested in infrastructure such as fleets and transfer centers, and heavy assets such as vehicles, machines, and land have become ballast stones for express delivery companies.

On the other hand, it is expanding to Southeast Asia, Africa and other places where express delivery is still in its initial stages. For example, Zhongtong and Jitu have entered many countries and established logistics systems in the local area.

However, from the current point of view, in addition to the polar rabbit from Southeast Asia, the expansion of other express delivery companies overseas is still in the initial stage, and it is difficult to say whether this future relying on cheap manpower to form a Chinese express delivery model will be unsatisfactory.