The epidemic cut 30% of the flower price, and some people bought the first bouquet of flowers since the sealing

Before this weekend, Lu Yue finally received the special mother's day flowers she ordered on an e-commerce platform, which was also the first time she received flowers after more than a month of lockdown in Shanghai.

"Flowers are not necessary, but they are more pleasant than food at this time." Lu Yue is a heavy user of flower consumption, and used to place orders on the flower platform every week, but after entering April this year, her orders were postponed like many users on the platform. Ask customer service, the answer is "Your area is currently unable to send couriers." ”

The dilemma under the epidemic

For many florists in the flower business, they didn't have a good time this spring.

Ah Cong, head of live broadcast operations of Kunming Flower Dream Flower Gardening Co., Ltd., did not expect that the business that should have been in the peak season would take a sharp turn. "In the flower business, it is usually the peak season from October to May of the following year." Ah Cong told reporters that this season, a large number of local flowers in Yunnan are listed, and the products are rich, which is a good season for flower trading. "The live broadcast accounts we operate ranked in the top three in the flower section of Taobao Live, and the sales performance of the entire company last year was almost 50 million yuan." This achievement made him and the team feel that the fine classification track of flower live broadcasting has unlimited potential, after all, when he first cut into this business in 2016, the company's annual sales were only more than 2 million yuan.

Ah Cong said that two years ago, most of the people affected by the epidemic were offline physical stores. After the Spring Festival of that year, as the express delivery business in various places gradually recovered, people's consumption migrated online, driving the sales of e-commerce. Also in that year, Ah Cong's company increased the live broadcast and investment of flowers, so that the sales performance of flowers that year exceeded 20 million yuan.

But this year's outbreak is not the same as it was two years ago. "Our main business is cut flowers, more than 50% of the customers are basically in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jiangsu and Zhejiang and other first- and second-tier cities, starting at the end of March, some cities can not be shipped, the impact is still quite large." He gave an example, in previous years, during the peony season, 300,000 bunches of peony would be put in the warehouse in advance, but this year, he did not dare to hoard more, so he only prepared 100,000 bunches.

Flower B2C network retailers took a moment to take the time of the relevant people also said that affected by the local epidemic prevention policies, the company's production warehouse can not be collected and shipped, since April, the three northeastern provinces, Shanghai and other places have stopped shipping, and other epidemic areas, even if there is no clear suspension, the timeliness of logistics receipts has also been affected.

Ah Cong told reporters that although some places have not stopped but the policy has changed in real time, "Sometimes we send out the shipment in the morning, the logistics stops halfway, and the notification received is that the destination does not receive the goods, and then returns." Flowers are not like clothes, if the clothes are not unopened, they can be returned for secondary sales, but flowers are not ok, and the loss is very large. According to him, the annual loss in the past two months has increased at a rate of 6%, while the transportation and logistics costs have also increased by 25%, "It is certain that this year (sales) is definitely not as good as last year." ”

According to the "Research Report on China's Flower E-commerce Industry and Users" released by Ai Media Consulting, users in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as in the Yangtze River Delta and pearl river delta, use flower e-commerce with a high frequency. The data shows that in 2021, east China accounted for the largest proportion of flower consumption in the country, accounting for 28.7%, followed by south China and north China, accounting for 17.2% and 16.3% respectively.

The downturn in the consumer market has also affected prices in the place of origin. Kunming customs statistics show that 70% of the cut flowers in China will come from Yunnan in 2021. The reporter learned from the interview that due to the impact of this round of epidemic, coupled with the large increase in the amount of flowers and the decline in demand, the price of cut flowers in the well-known Kunming Dounan Flower Market continued to decline from the beginning of April, and by the end of April, the prices of many flowers fell by 30% or even more than 50%.

Logistics are up and running

Before the birth of flower e-commerce, flower sales often had to go through multiple chains such as flower farmers, flower markets, wholesalers, and distributors at all levels to finally reach consumers. Among them, after each level, the price of flowers will rise to a certain extent, and the quality will be reduced accordingly. However, in recent years, the production of flowers from production to sales can basically be simplified to the model of "direct harvesting from the place of origin - direct delivery of the supply chain". Some industrial bases can also improve the live broadcast industry chain with the help of live e-commerce or Internet platforms, which greatly improves the circulation efficiency of flowers.

Jing Han, head of Taobao Live Flower Gardening, believes that more people pay attention to the upgrading of lifestyle and the maturity of the cold chain logistics and transportation system, which has promoted the outbreak of online flower consumption.

Although the current logistics has caused some regions to press the "pause button", the mainstream view of the market is that this is a good track. From the data point of view, the epidemic in 2020 is a positive for the sales of flower e-commerce, so that the market size of the latter does not decrease but increases. According to iResearch data, the size of the flower e-commerce market in 2020 reached more than 72.06 billion yuan, an increase of more than 20 billion yuan compared with 2019, the highest record ever. By 2021, this scale has reached a total sales volume of 89.69 billion yuan.

The huge development potential of the flower e-commerce market has also attracted the entry of e-commerce platforms including Pinduoduo, Douyin, Hema Fresh, Dingdong Shopping, etc. Since November 2020, Dingdong Buy has launched the flower business, and in the whole year of 2021, Dingdong Buy vegetables will sell a total of 180 million flowers. In 2021, the sales of living flowers on the Pinduoduo platform increased by 150% year-on-year, and the sales of flower potted plants increased by 60% year-on-year. Wang Qian, head of the "Hungry Mo" flower green plant, also said that in 2021, the business scale of "Hungry Mo" flower takeaway doubled year-on-year, and the number of moving merchants, single-day orders and other data indicators broke through the historical peak continuously during the promotion festival.

Zhang Li, vice president of the Market Circulation Branch of the China Flower Association, concluded that although affected by the epidemic, in the past two years, "the changes in the market of cut flowers are unprecedented in 40 years, and the market performance is amazing." ”

Therefore, despite the recent poor sales, industry merchants like Ah Cong are still optimistic about the future of this industry. In their view, once the express logistics around the world return to normal, there will be a wave of small peaks in the retail consumer market. Because with the rise of the "self-pleasing economy" and the "she economy", flower consumption is gradually becoming a common consumer product in life.

The good news is that with the arrival of May, logistics in cities such as Shanghai are also beginning to recover. A few days ago, the Shanghai Municipal Postal Administration said that combined with the actual situation in Shanghai and the industry, the city's postal express industry was divided into three stages: supply, guarantee and smooth, and actively and steadily and gradually carried out the work of resuming work and production in an orderly manner. Enterprises such as Zhongtong and Yuantong have also begun to recover gradually and orderly.

Dingdong buy vegetables have begun to launch flower packages related to the festival, and Lu Yue recently saw bouquet sales on vertical flower e-commerce platforms such as Huajia.

"Although it takes five boxes of ten boxes to buy (there are 5 bouquets of flowers in a box), which is equivalent to a group purchase, and the price is more expensive than usual, but in such a special period, you can still add some festive colors and pleasure." A few days after the order was placed at the beginning of the month, she received the flowers, and after sorting out for her own use, the remaining dozen bunches she distributed to the next-door neighbor - the epidemic made her and the neighbors in the community suddenly become acquainted, "The neighbor's uncle also sent us a large box of home-grown cherries last month." She smiled and said, "This is the authentic gift of roses with incense." ”

This may be a sign that a normal life is about to return.

(Lu Yue and Ah Cong are pseudonyms)