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"Baby's milk powder is almost gone, and the courier can't send the goods";
"The milk at home is gone, where can I buy it?"
"How long until my file reaches its destination?"
During the epidemic period, the community group rolled through the information about the purchase of daily necessities and the distribution of materials every day. In the case that supermarkets, vegetable farms and other stores cannot operate normally, who is responsible for the kilometers that are finally delivered to the hands of residents has also become a new examination question in the logistics industry.
Pick up the wires, charge the battery car, in the city, the answer to this question falls on the common rider brother in the streets and alleys, with the materials that consumers are eagerly looking forward to, shuttling through the road.
In fact, not only during the sealing period, in the daily life of consumers, in addition to the common takeaway, the transportation and distribution needs such as fresh procurement, flower distribution, and material pick-up and delivery in the same city are being released on a large scale.
Not long ago, the topic of "takeaway has been used as a courier" rushed to Weibo hot search, netizens spontaneously shared under the topic: "I have not received express delivery for a long time, began to use the takeaway as a courier", "no time to visit the supermarket, just want to lie at home, takeaway can send anything", "Nephew is about to take the exam, this worker is anti-single set of 53, takeaway delivered to the door".
The outbreak of demand for "last mile" instant delivery and personalized delivery has given tongcheng logistics a huge potential market and development momentum. From receiving the goods in 3 days to receiving the goods in 30 minutes, it has become the core proposition to be solved by China's logistics at present.
The value and imagination of same-city logistics
The development of China's private logistics industry is inseparable from the rise of e-commerce, and the 1.0 era and 2.0 era of logistics both originated from the vigorous development of e-commerce.
The development of early e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com has made The Four Links and One Reach a representative of cross-city logistics, which is also the 1.0 era of China's private logistics. In the 1.0 era, cross-city logistics represented by four links and one reach occupies most of the market share, and at this stage, it is more of the sellers who have the final say.
The early development of logistics is based on e-commerce parts
The image comes from the Internet
As consumers have higher and higher requirements for the timeliness and service of express delivery, the "next-day delivery" logistics with labels of fast and safe has attracted more and more attention. The "next-day delivery" logistics represented by JD.com and SF has promoted the logistics industry into the 2.0 era, one of which improves the efficiency of cross-city logistics by resetting the transit warehouse and the other by upgrading the means of transport.
In the 2.0 era, China's logistics is still based on the e-commerce industry as the starting point, and the evolution and upgrading is also to improve the logistics efficiency of cross-city parts.
The rapid iteration of e-commerce logistics has actually accelerated the sharp increase in consumer demand for same-city distribution. For example, e-commerce parts have evolved from one week to three days, and then delivered to the doorstep of the next day, which also "feeds" the needs of consumers who hope that the goods can be delivered to their hands immediately after they are ordered.
Fundamentally, neither the 1.0 era nor the 2.0 era has solved the same-city logistics needs in cities. For users, there is no fastest, only faster, a large number of instant delivery needs are being released, especially in the era of the epidemic, new requirements have been put forward for logistics distribution, and the demand for logistics in the same city has soared, which has brought new tests to the transportation capacity and technology of logistics enterprises.
Office workers often need to urgently send documents, the best way is the same city logistics; friends on their birthdays, send flowers and cake surprises by running errands, which can be delivered within an hour; daily love of takeaway and snacks, move your fingers, takeaway to send to the home, these are logistics 1.0 and 2.0 period does not have the ability.
The diversified needs of consumers are driving logistics into the 3.0 era. In the 3.0 era represented by the same city logistics, the handover baton was handed over to the enterprises represented by Meituan Distribution, Dada and SF Tongcheng.
The importance of the same-city distribution network as a logistics infrastructure is being amplified and revealed.
From the outside to the home to the home of everything
Behind the logistics of the same city to the front of the stage, in essence, the supply and demand sides are quietly changing.
In the new era of consumption, people are more and more willing to pay for "saving time, saving trouble, saving effort", in fact, many people have situations that are not suitable for going out, catering, fresh vegetables, supermarket daily use, maternal and infant pet supplies... The same-city logistics platform has become the best choice in people's daily lives. On the one hand, it saves users time to go out to purchase, on the other hand, it can also improve the quality of life, which has become a convenient service under the current new retail economy.
Takeaway is the beginning of the most people's acceptance of logistics services in the same city. But in fact, in addition to takeaway, business needs such as catering, fresh food, supermarkets, documents, personal items and express delivery terminals are gradually emerging. More massive local consumer services are looking for open and high-quality logistics. "Takeaway" has become a service model, not only to deliver food, but also to send everything.
Secondly, merchants are also developing more business scenarios to meet the needs of consumers, and a large number of physical stores such as catering, retail, and clothing have opened up delivery business in the same city. For merchants, this is a different business scenario.
The outbreak of supply and demand on both sides has gradually surfaced the 100-billion-level market of the same city logistics, and the market development space is erupting. Many capital and players have also targeted this market to solve the problem of how to complete delivery better, better and faster.
In the demand scenario of same-city delivery, catering takeaway accounts for a relatively high proportion, with the help of Meituan, Ele.me takeaway platform, the increasingly mature Meituan delivery and hummingbird + point I da began to enter the logistics industry in the same city. In May 2019, Meituan announced the launch of a new brand "Meituan Delivery" and announced the opening of a distribution platform to serve more merchants and users; Dada Group relied on JD.com to expand its delivery business; SF Tongcheng was backed by SF Holdings, launching an independent brand SF Tongcheng Express in 2019.
SF is involved in the same city logistics
The image comes from the Internet
What Meituan Delivery, Hummingbird, Dada and SF are all about together is the track that has expanded from takeaway to deliver goods for fresh food, supermarkets and various offline brand stores.
Players with similar entry times have different entry points from each other. However, to do a good job in the same city logistics, the core needs of the ability are common: one is the distribution capacity; the other is the supply capacity, that is, the service ability to the merchants.
For example, SF is positioned in the high-end market with a relatively high customer unit price. SF is also a logistics enterprise that has risen in the era of e-commerce logistics, after the development of logistics business in the same city, a large part of the customer source comes from its traditional logistics business customers; Dada is characterized by a stable customer list with large platforms such as Jingdong Dajia and Jingkelong, and the early core customers are mainly supermarket retail enterprises that need O2O services, more like "small Jingdong" in the field of instant delivery.
Meituan Delivery is expanding the delivery capacity established by years of food delivery to more non-meal fields. In 2020, Meituan Distribution announced that it will upgrade the distribution open platform and build a more open industrial chain ecology. Its general manager Wei Wei once revealed that Meituan Delivery has served 6.2 million merchants in various categories, including catering, fresh food, supermarkets, bookstores, and flowers.
Meituan Delivery covers a wide range of merchants
The image comes from the Internet
On the basis of fast delivery, different categories of goods actually need different delivery solutions. For example, sending electronic products pays more attention to time and safety; sending flowers and cakes needs to pay more attention to collisions and wear and tear in distribution.
From food delivery to fresh food delivery, supermarket daily use, mother and baby department store, digital electronics, Meituan Delivery has launched a variety of categories of solutions to adapt to multi-time, multi-scene, multi-category. Taking Starbucks coffee delivery as an example, Meituan provides Starbucks with customized delivery services, incubators, and an exclusive customer team to ensure delivery timeliness.
Meituan Delivery provides customized services for Starbucks
The image comes from the Internet
In the field of supermarkets that it is more familiar with, in July last year, Dada launched the "Dada Excellent Picking" system to provide picking services for supermarket stores, serving various tasks such as order picking, commodity packaging, and order delivery in stores, helping merchants improve efficiency in the picking process.
Same-city logistics "acceleration"
For the current logistics players in the same city, according to different demand scenarios, while providing customized distribution solutions and distribution services for merchants of different sizes and different formats, the scientific and technological innovation represented by hardware facilities such as automatic distribution systems is also becoming an important layout to promote the industry to further meet the needs of users and merchants.
According to media reports, during the epidemic period, the Meituan automatic delivery vehicle guaranteed the fleet to enter Fudan University, providing contactless delivery services for teachers and students in the school with three meals a day, contributing to the last 100 meters of delivery. Every morning, middle and evening, according to the route set in advance, the car drives independently to the dormitory buildings on campus for distribution. At present, the delivery volume of each meal is nearly 2,000 orders, and the bicycle can bear the delivery of more than 200 lunch boxes.
At the same time, it is also concerned about the "drone delivery" from Jinshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University to the high-tech zone, which originally took half an hour to drive, but only 15 minutes of drone transportation, while reducing the risk of cross-infection of volunteers. One-hour delivery, the last few kilometers and even the last 100 meters of performance, in many scenarios, the same city logistics is being pushed to the forefront.
For merchants, the rise of same-city logistics can also open up a newer business model for them, and as the distribution categories become more and more abundant, it may be able to stimulate more B-end merchants to create new scenes.
Xiaomi and Meituan reached a cooperation
The image comes from the Internet
Not long ago, Lu Weibing, a partner of Xiaomi Group and general manager of the Redmi brand, announced the cooperation between Xiaomi and Meituan: more than 3,000 millet homes in China have landed on the Meituan platform, providing instant delivery services in the same city including mobile phones, smart wearables, smart homes, personal care and other categories of goods.
For brands like Xiaomi, traditional e-commerce has achieved "buy anytime, anywhere", but the faster "buy and use" can not be fully satisfied. After pure online and pure offline, the online and offline integration model of instant retail and the fulfillment ability of same-city logistics have opened up a new consumption scenario for them, bringing new market space, which is a real business increment for enterprises.
During the May Day period, dine-in in Beijing was suspended, and takeaway platforms have opened online green channels for catering merchants, while mentioning a delivery service that has not been paid attention to before - city-wide delivery, after the merchants open, they can broaden the online business scope to 3 kilometers away and get more orders within the same city.
It is foreseeable that in the future, the commodity categories of the same city logistics will be more abundant, and the Internet retail market is changing from "Everything Store" to "Everything Now". More and more consumers need things every day, which can be delivered through "ordering a takeaway".
Same-city logistics will also become a useful supplement to the entire logistics system, from cross-city to same-city, jointly connecting the distribution channels from merchants to users.