The "magic" of the parcel area is gone
Since late March, a new round of the epidemic has unconsciously blossomed across the country, especially in the Yangtze River Delta region, including Shanghai. Because it is one of the regions with the highest concentration of China's economic activity, it is also the most vulnerable to the epidemic. In order to return to normalcy as soon as possible, prevention and control measures have been repeatedly increased, and the busy cities in the past have also pressed the "pause button".
Even if you're not in the Golden Triangle, you can probably feel the impact of the pandemic in these areas on your life – delivery is getting slower and slower. Not only in other areas, but also in the private transport area. I used to enjoy 48 hours of "magic", the package bought the day before arrived the next day, but now more than a week has passed, and it has become the norm in transportation, and the reply given by customer service has also become unified, "Affected by the epidemic, logistics will have delays and delays, please be patient."
As a force majeure factor, everyone will still give each other more understanding in the face of this situation. However, freight logistics are not smooth, some life, production materials are blocked on the road, the mood will inevitably be restless. This is especially true for logistics practitioners, and the epidemic has slowly become a "natural enemy" of the logistics industry.
Courier brother "find another way out"
Since March this year, the spread of the epidemic caused by express delivery has been as many as several, from the transmission chain of the Yuhang Shunfeng Express Center in Hangzhou at the beginning to the Yunda Express Logistics Park in Qingxu County, Shanxi, each involving a large number of express delivery employees and the public who receive express parcels. Not only do ordinary people have a "fear" psychology of receiving express delivery, couriers have also become a high-risk profession, but compared with the "risk attributes" of this profession, more practitioners are worried about "unemployment" because of the epidemic.
A Taiyuan courier brother said that in March only 10 days of work, only 2,000 yuan of income, the new round of control will be more stringent, if April is still the case, may not be able to continue to do this line. A courier outlet in Beijing said that the distribution center was sealed for half a month, and the outlets also panicked for half a month, and the courier had no pieces to send, and from mid-to-late March, it had already gone halfway and changed careers to do other work.
For the current express delivery practitioners, after doing today's part, I don't know what tomorrow will be, and leaving is also a last resort, after all, life will continue. Because of this, the industry must now face the continuous loss of couriers, and as long as the epidemic does not end, this situation will continue, and the departing couriers will not easily come back.
But at the same time, as long as the sealing control is lifted, the express transportation that has been in a stagnant state before will run quickly, and the "burst order" will become an inevitable thing, coupled with the loss of couriers, the swarming delivery volume will become the most difficult problem facing the courier company. If your courier has been staying at a certain outlet, there may be a reason for this.
Image source: POST & PARCEL
Trapped at a "highway intersection"
Although the slow delivery will be affected by the reduction of the courier brother and the closure of the express delivery point, it may also be high-speed that causes the logistics congestion across the country.
The recent outbreaks have made local containment policies more and more stringent, and given the different epidemic prevention pressures across the country, the "one-size-fits-all" approach cannot be avoided. For example, due to the impact of the spillover of the epidemic in Shanghai, the number of confirmed cases detected at the high-speed bayonet has increased, and the toll station exits in some parts of Zhejiang have been temporarily closed after the Qingming Festival. Relevant data show that as of April 10, there were 678 toll stations affected by the epidemic in the country. However, after the national self-inspection and self-correction work was launched, data as of April 24 showed that only 10 high-speed kilometer toll stations were closed in various provinces and cities, 668 fewer than on April 10.
Even if there are fewer closed toll stations, the transport vehicles at the high-speed toll stations still have to go through trivial proof submissions and layers of increase detection, once any of the "checkpoints" have a problem, the express transport vehicle you are in is likely to be "stranded". There are many reasons for being "stuck", such as the expired 48-hour nucleic acid test certificate held by the driver. It may be within the time limit when released from the place of origin, but it may have been more than 48 hours since the arrival of the destination, and the driver must do another nucleic acid nearby, and stay at the site for a long time because of the waiting for the nucleic acid test results. In addition, the license plate in the epidemic-related area will also become one of the reasons for being persuaded to return. Your courier may be fruitless.
Affected by such factors, the national highway traffic has also dropped significantly compared with 2021. According to the data on April 18, the truck traffic in the national highway traffic is only 6.6425 million vehicles, down 8.13% from 2021, of which the decline in one city and three provinces in the Yangtze River Delta is the most obvious, with a total truck traffic of 1.3401 million vehicles, down 20.85% from 2021.
Image source: Getty Images
Revenue in the logistics industry declined
Once the delivery is slowed down, it means that the income declines. On Tuesday, the director of the Market Supervision Department of the State Post Bureau said that the epidemic and other related factors have indeed brought a certain impact on postal express delivery, and compared with the normal state, the national express mail collection and delivery volume have declined. As a whole, the average daily business volume in early March was 336 million pieces, but it has fallen sharply since mid-March. On April 18, the business volume collected by the whole network was 261 million pieces, down 6.8% from the same period. The epidemic prevention policies in some areas have led to the inability of merchants to deliver goods, and online shopping users have lost the confidence of "online purchase".
Other logistics companies have the same problem. On April 18, Yunda, Yuantong and Shentong released their March business briefings showing that although the revenue of the express delivery business has increased, the year-on-year growth rate of business volume is slowing down, indicating that the number of shipments is decreasing. The data released by SF is more intuitive, showing that business revenue has declined year-on-year. Business data in the logistics industry is expected to continue to decline as the pandemic hits in April.
Source: Tencent Cloud
Logistics that are being improved
However, the situation of express delivery suspension is being solved step by step. In order to solve the current cross-provincial logistics bottlenecks encountered in the country, the Ministry of Transport has set up a special class for highway maintenance and smooth work from April 11, carrying out scheduling every day, guiding various places to carry out self-inspection and self-correction of closed toll stations and service areas.
On April 18, the national video conference to ensure the smooth flow of goods was held, and the meeting proposed to issue and use the national unified pass in full quantity, requiring mutual recognition of nucleic acid test results within 48 hours, and implementing the closed-loop management of "picking and leaving". That is, access must not be restricted on the grounds of waiting for nucleic acid results, and a dynamic tracking mechanism is implemented on this basis. For some express deliveries that operate at "turtle speed", these measures will also play an "acceleration" role.
So far, the opening rate of warehouses in non-epidemic-related areas of Shanghai e-commerce platform has reached 95.5, and all commercial node outlets should be opened, and operational capabilities are slowly recovering. However, with sporadic outbreaks across the country, it will take some time to fully return to the previous speed. As those of us who are experiencing all this together, all we can do now is to adjust our mentality in time and actively respond to the changes that the epidemic has brought to our lives.