The e-commerce industry is cold in the spring

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | Lu Jiu Finance

Under the epidemic, express delivery has been shut down in a large area, and the mentality of small and medium-sized e-commerce merchants has changed from "stabilizing God" to "surviving the past".

"300 orders a day, more than 200 can not be shipped because of the epidemic." Seeing that there are customers placing orders in the background, Luo Yue (pseudonym), who runs an e-commerce business in Beijing, is not happy.

Recently, with the spread of the epidemic across the country, the express delivery business in many places has been suspended. For e-commerce merchants, this is undoubtedly worse. The current mentality of e-commerce merchants has changed from "stabilizing God" at the beginning of the year to "surviving the past" now.

In the eyes of the "Luo Yue", they can at least keep a hope. However, the reality is not optimistic, in addition to the green channel guarantee of rice noodles, grain and oil, fruits and vegetables, clothing, liquor, home appliances and other fields of e-commerce business is ushering in a "cliff-like" decline, some home appliances e-commerce sales prices have been inverted costs.

How to "survive the past" has become a life-and-death answer sheet in front of them.

E-commerce suffered from the epidemic "spring cold"

"Put it this way, the more orders you take now, the more you lose." When chatting with Lu Jiu Finance, Luo Yue was still staring at the data in the background, and every time an order popped out of the background, Luo Yue was both expectant and a little nervous.

Luo Yue opened an e-commerce company in Beijing, mainly engaged in high-, medium-, and low-end water cups. After the outbreak of the new round of the epidemic, Luo Yue's mood was like riding a roller coaster.

Jingdong, Taobao these backstage received an order, customer service will rush to send the order address to the delivery group, to see SF, Yuantong, Yunda these courier companies, which can promise to send to the destination. After receiving a positive reply from the courier company, the customer service will communicate with the customer about the order.

"There are courier companies to take orders, it is not a big deal, there are too many variables in the middle." Luo Yue said with a bitter smile that with the spread of the epidemic across the country, the suspension of express delivery in various places has become the norm, and areas that can still send packages the day before may be stopped the next day.

The fact that the parcel is stranded in transit often means that the order will cost money. Luo Yue explained that when customer service told customers that the package was stranded, some customers could understand and return the goods; some customers claimed that their promises were not fulfilled. In either case, the freight of the package is borne by the merchant, and the original one cup is also a profit of one or twenty yuan, the goods are not sold, and the profits are lost first.

Especially in the sales of the Douyin channel, it is often exchanged for a low price, and a cup may be 19.9 yuan. "We can have 2,000 orders in 1 day on Douyin, half of which cannot be shipped because of the epidemic, and the remaining half have returns caused by stranded and other reasons, which is almost every day."

Just after the Spring Festival, the strategy agreed between Luo Yue and his partners was to "stabilize God and dry slowly", which is now a word, "boiling".

Small home appliances and e-commerce companies lose money to sell

Compared with Luo Yue's household goods business, home appliances and liquor e-commerce merchants may have a harder time.

Mr. Sun, a small household appliance e-commerce company in Zhengzhou, told Lu Jiu Finance that home appliances may be the most difficult e-commerce category. He explained that the production of home appliances is planned, and the general process is to give the manufacturer money first, and then the manufacturer will hit the goods. In addition, in the cycle of economic downturn, the brand demand of many consumers has also changed from buying Midea and Haier to buying Konka and TCL.

Mr. Sun takes the popular air fryer as an example, the current price of Meiling is 139 yuan, the price of Midea is 189 yuan, and Tmall's 2.2-liter air fryer is 99 yuan. In the view of their industry, this is not a problem of thin profits and oversold, but has been costed upside down.

"Domestic consumers, who have just replaced microwave ovens with ovens, have not yet replaced them with the power to replace them with air fryers, and at present these air fryers are mainly exported." Mr. Sun said that with the flood of the epidemic situation abroad, the air fryer of "export to domestic sales" can only be sold at a loss, otherwise once it becomes an inventory, it may not be sold.

In the economic downturn cycle, liquor e-commerce is facing the same problems as small household appliances. The head of an e-commerce company in Sichuan that sells brand liquor admitted that its sales fell almost to the waist this year. He said that this year, waist liquor brands such as Xijiu and Jian Nanchun may be more injured.

For the liquors that currently sell well, either high-end liquors such as Moutai are still selling strongly because of business banquets, or the sales of public liquor below 100 yuan are strong. Liquor at a price of 300 yuan to 800 yuan has almost no matching consumption scenarios, and sales on e-commerce are not very ideal.

"However, for the liquor industry, liquor does not exist as small household appliances will become obsolete, but it may sell better if stored for two years." This is also the reason why we are more at ease. The person in charge said.

The courier industry and consumers also "hurt the wallet"

The coldness of small and medium-sized e-commerce has also been transmitted to upstream and downstream industries.

Because of its self-built logistics, JD.com is an e-commerce platform that reduces its impact to a relatively small amount. "At present, there are not many goods in Jingdong warehouses, and many of them are transferred from Waifu, and the timeliness has also slowed down." Mr. Lu, a Jingdong courier near a university in Fangshan District, Beijing, told Lu Jiu Finance that its main service group is university students, and the postponement of the opening of the school caused by the epidemic has almost reduced the number of sends and receivings.

Mr. Lu calculated that when the school opened, it was basically able to send and receive 500 to 600 express deliveries a day, but now it has dropped sharply to about 50 express deliveries, and almost no money is made.

Mr. Yan, a SF courier in Beijing, said frankly that the current express delivery control is more stringent, and before the express delivery is sent, it is necessary to disinfect each area, even if it can be delivered to the area, the delivery time is extended from about 3 days to 4 days to 5 days.

He judged that even if this wave of the epidemic passes, the express delivery business will not pick up until August. "In another 1 month is the off-season for online shopping, and now many fruits and vegetables have not come down, there will be less than a wave of fresh orders; in half a month, the weather will be warm, consumers will go out shopping, by the way, they will buy things, and there will be a lot less online shopping orders."

The e-commerce platform held a large-scale activity, which may be an opportunity for the express delivery industry to "return blood" after the epidemic, and Mr. Lu will also pin his hopes on the wave of activities on 6.18, "If the epidemic cannot be controlled at that time, even if there is almost no income in the first half of the year." ”

Like the express delivery industry, small and medium-sized e-commerce companies are cold, which also makes consumers very "hurt". Ms. Xu of Luoyang, Henan Province, is renovating her house, and many small pieces of hardware, switches and personalized decorations are purchased online. "Some time ago, there were sporadic epidemics in the city, and many express deliveries could not talk about us, and the master urged us to find some alternatives, or buy them in physical stores." Ms. Xu initially estimated that at least 2,000 yuan was spent on the budget.

How can e-commerce merchants "save themselves"?

Despite the difficult days, under the normalization of the epidemic, e-commerce merchants have also begun to seek "self-help".

Mr. Zhang, who is engaged in e-commerce in Beijing, actively communicates with the credit card centers of major banks and adds his products to the ranks of bank points exchange. "Now the economy is not good, many people are using credit cards, credit card points after consumption, can be replaced by the app of various banks into gifts." Mr. Zhang said that at present, some of their products are selling well in the points exchange, but the bank settlement has an account period, and the financial pressure is relatively large.

Some e-commerce merchants choose some products that are popular and just needed when selecting products. In addition to operating water cup sales, Luo Yue is also actively expanding the sales of rice and other products, "In general, rice and flour grain and oil have green channels, basically can be delivered on time, these are also just needed by families, sales data is not bad." ”

Mainstream e-commerce platforms have also perceived the plight of small and medium-sized e-commerce merchants and helped them in the platform dimension.

Pinduo told Lujiu Finance that the Pinduoduo platform issued relevant announcements such as "suspension of delayed delivery compensation due to the impact of the epidemic" for merchants in the affected areas in a timely manner, and exempted relevant penalties and compensation for the problems of inability to deliver and delayed delivery caused by the epidemic. In addition, in view of the current epidemic situation, Pinduoduo issued an announcement that for orders nationwide since 00:00 on March 21, the platform has suspended the relevant compensation for delayed delivery, and the recovery time will be notified separately depending on the epidemic situation.

Taobao also provides a "package" of support plans for e-commerce merchants. Taobao told Lujiu Finance that merchants can use the "regional restriction tool" to sell according to the region; the platform optimizes the search strategy to support the goods of merchants with strong collection, signature and transportation capacity.

"In addition, the platform also provides merchants with a 'consumer negotiation card tool' to facilitate merchants and buyers to negotiate delivery times in a timely manner." Taobao said that in addition, the platform has also adjusted the assessment rules, and the timely collection rate, arrival time, logistics DSR indicators and merchant refund and return processing time for merchants in the epidemic-affected areas are not included in the assessment scope.

Lujiu Finance has learned that from April 8 to April 30, Taobao will use the "advance collection" service for free for merchants in Jilin City, Changchun City, Shanghai City, Qingdao City in Shandong Province, Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province, Dongguan City, Baoji City in Shaanxi Province, Lianyungang City in Jiangsu Province, etc., which are more affected by the epidemic, and achieve a free zero account period.

In the view of the "Luo Yuemen", in the face of the menacing "spring cold", in addition to "surviving", we must continue to cheer ourselves and our employees, do not lose hope, and persist until the arrival of spring.