In the late winter of 1984, at an altitude of 3,100 meters in Muli County, Sichuan Province, the cold wind whistled.
In a simple house on the street, Wang Youcai, who has walked the Maban Post Road for 28 years, held up his last breath and handed over the reins to 19-year-old Wang Shunyou:
This class will be handed over to you later.
A mule and a mountain road filled Wang Shunyou's life for the next 30 years.
Wang Shunyou, who shuttled through the mountains
584 km of mountain roads, once a month round trip. He wanted to cross the Charwa Snow Mountain of more than 4,000 meters at minus 20 degrees, and immediately enter the Yalong River Valley at more than 40 degrees.
Shuttling through this no-man's land, Wang Shunyou has encountered the threat of death, witnessed the living people freezing to death on the snowy mountains, and even seen the caravans swept away by the water. But he kept saying: I'm a postal worker!
However, today, when you search for "China Post", you often see the question of "why didn't it go out of business" and the overwhelming crusade...
Zhihu search "China Post"
From the beacon of the nation to the outcast of the times, the postal service has walked through the sea of stars in the early days of opening up and the chaos of the world in the period of recklessness. But what really makes it fall here is the war stirred up by the body, blood and tears, and money of a rising star, and the underlying logic of the express delivery business.
1. Separation of families
After the speech of the southern tour in 1992, the mainland's opening up process sat on a rocket, and foreign investors carefully ate crabs.
In order to make full use of China's demographic dividend, foreign investors usually build factories in the mainland and stores in Hong Kong, on the one hand, close to the international market, on the other hand, there is also Jia Yueting's calculation of "returning to China next week".
But the shortcomings are also obvious, every time shangxin has to entrust someone to bring back to Hong Kong, there is naturally a fee in the middle.
This made the 22-year-old Wang Wei ecstatic, and he immediately had the idea of foreign "wool".
The next year, he set up "SF" in Foshan, Guangdong Province, with 100,000 yuan of cobbled together, specializing in the business of running errands.
In the 1990s, "water passengers" traveling to and from Hong Kong
By 1996, Wang Wei had won 70% of the business in the Pearl River Delta, and SF had become a well-known "express delivery empire".
Compared with SF's invincibility, Hangzhou, thousands of miles away, has "descended" a nest with family planning.
In 1993, Nie Tengfei, a Tonglu man, pulled a group of fellow villagers to set up "Shentong" to help the export company send documents to Shanghai and earn errands.
However, only 5 years later, the "hope of the whole village of Tonglu" was torn apart with nie Tengfei's death.
"Tonglu Gang" network
His wife Chen Xiaoying took over Shentong, his brother Nie Tengyun founded Yunda, and finance Zhang Xiaojuan and his wife established Yuantong.
Fellow villager Lai Haisong was the most ruthless, and directly pulled half of the old owner's family to establish Zhongtong.
After the separation of the four couriers, the Jianghu people called "Tonglu Gang".
At this point, the first express delivery army has been assembled, and they will start a business war that is both bloody and bizarre.
2. Lie win and roll the dog
Regarding the express delivery industry, there are actually two ways to live: one is called time-sensitive parts, and the other is called e-commerce parts.
The coverage groups of time-sensitive parts are mostly documents, bills, luxury goods, etc., which have higher requirements for safety and speed, often involve air transportation capacity, and mainly earn brand premiums of same-day delivery and next-day delivery.
However, the cost burden of heavy assets and the administrative approval of purchasing aircraft have deterred most players.
For many years, there were only two post EMS and SF, one doing office business, the other holding the iron rice bowl of the admission letter, and the well water did not violate the river water.
In contrast, e-commerce has been killed from the blue ocean to the red sea, and from the red sea to the purple sea.
E-commerce parts, as the name suggests, are online shopping goods, the safety requirements are low, the speed is lower than the time-sensitive parts, essentially or "porters", cheap determines everything.
The main player is the Tonglu Gang, and Ali's father single-handedly led the big Baishi, referred to as "four links and one reach".
After Shen Tong separated the family, in order to compete for the "running errand fee", the Tonglu gang directly set off a civil war.
The off-site delivery fee was charged from 70 to 20, and later it was still remembered that "past love points" were uniformly priced at 18 yuan.
But in 2005, Yuantong, who held hands with Taobao, made red apricots and started to dry the price to 12 yuan.
Subsequently, ShenTong, Zhongtong, Yunda, and Baishi all touched the circle through the river and killed 8 yuan.
By 2008, e-commerce has become the main source of income of the Tongda Department, accounting for more than 80%.
From the moment of embracing Taobao, the deep inner volume of the price war has become the only way out of the Tongda system.
3. Zhongtong counter-offensive
In 2011, the international express delivery giant DHL fell behind in China, and for a time people and businesses fled en masse.
At the end of the year, the giant, who claimed to know "china best", sold its shares in China cheaply and said sourly before running away:
We can't understand China...
In fact, behind the DEFEAT of DHL is a well-planned counterattack by Zhongtong.
As early as 2005, Zhongtong used inter-provincial shuttle buses from Hangzhou to Guangzhou and Hangzhou to Beijing to reduce transportation costs.
Subsequently, ZTO launched ABCD's four-stage "paid delivery" to incentivize underdeveloped areas.
For example, the freight in Tibet is 4 yuan, and the eastern part is 1.5 yuan. This differentiated charge has put ZTO's expansion on the rocket.
However, the real stroke of God of Zhongtong is to build its own "Liangshan".
In that era when electric vehicles were more valuable than couriers, dealers often insured delivery cars and did not insure employees and pay social security.
In 2010, ZTO implemented "full shareholding", deeply bundling the interests of employees and management, and ZTO employees held 26.5% of the shares before the IPO. Yuantong is only 2.25%, Yunda is 2.19%, and Shentong is 0.
After the completion of the three preparatory work, Zhongtong introduced the "ammunition" of Sequoia Capital, turned its head and raised the butcher knife to its peers.
As soon as Zhongtong came up, it pulled the unit price to 6 yuan.
Immediately after, the jump price of "10 yuan 3 votes" and "1000 yuan package warehouse" was thrown, and the express delivery that relied on e-commerce pieces to eat was forced to follow up.
On Double Eleven that year, Yunda Beijing Financial Street franchisees disappeared, leaving only 21 employees who were owed wages, as well as 20,000 parcels...
Yunda Beijing franchisee lost contact
International giants such as DHL, UPS, and FedEx were repeatedly rubbed by the Tongda Department on the ground.
By 2012, Zhongtong's market share had topped the list, but the price was the overall decline in the quality of the industry's services, resulting in online swearing.
So that every year, there are "visible hands" calling on the express delivery industry to "practice hard", but this is the same as everyone agrees that "smoking is harmful to health", but no one does it.
Because everyone has only one goal: to tire themselves out or to starve their peers!
4. The scythe of the courier
In 2017, China's express delivery industry ended more than a decade of sweet years, and the growth rate was directly cut from 50% to 28%.
The decline in growth rate indicates that the increment will shift to the stock, and if you want to expand the share, you can only grab it, and it has also become the fuse of a new round of war.
The growth rate of the express delivery industry
At this time, the head player has crossed the profit life and death point of "20 million daily single volume", with obvious cost advantages. The cost of new players entering the market is getting higher and higher.
In other words, it is only a matter of time before express delivery moves towards the oligarchic era.
The price war that broke out in 2018 has also become the harvest of small scatters by the head - as much as you drop, I will drop as much, anyway, it is you who can't hold back first.
The script is also true.
In March 2019, Guotong Express turned off the fire in its entirety, and all employees achieved "home squat";
A month later, Quanfeng Express terminated its operations and the remaining 44 trucks were auctioned off;
In another 60 days, U-Speed Express was tragically acquired;
In October, All One Express was completely suspended, and even Fanke's Pinjun Express, such as Fengda and Vipshop, was also beaten back to the mother's womb.
With the exit of small and medium-sized brands, the concentration of the express delivery market reached its peak in 2019, and the 6 giants of "four links and one reach" + SF divided 80% of the market share.
If you analyze it in depth, it is not difficult to find that the price war is to fight "cost", and whoever has a low cost can get more market share.
But the problem is, no matter how high the kung fu, I am afraid of kitchen knives, in case there is a lifeless continuous loss of money, what should I do with you?
5. Rabbits that "fly" in
In May 2015, at the OPPO Jakarta press conference, Indonesia CEO Li Jie announced a blockbuster news in front of thousands of dealers:
He will leave OPPO to start his own courier company, J&T Express.
Founder of Jitu, Li Jie
Li Jie is not only the founding hero of OPPO to pry open Indonesia, but also the market share of OPPO has become the first in Indonesia.
And he cut into logistics, the original intention is also to provide services to OPPO.
In just four years, J&T has expanded its business to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries with OPPO's sales network, ranking second largest logistics provider in Southeast Asia.
In 2020, J&T "backdoor" Longbang Express entered the domestic market and changed its name to "Ji rabbit".
As soon as it came up, Ji Rabbit held hands with Pinduoduo, who was also the "Duan Yongping Department", and cut the express delivery sent from Yiwu to the whole country to 1 yuan, directly Jingdong local "greeting": must not be dumped at a price lower than the cost!
1 yuan is the recognized cost limit in the industry, and then it will lose money, but the strategy of Jitu is to exchange losses for shares.
In just 10 months, Jitu has reached the profit and loss line of "an average of 20 million votes per day". To achieve this goal, Shen Tong took 25 years, Yunda 19 years, Yuantong 18 years, and Zhongtong 16 years.
So that after SF's 2021 quarterly report came out, some media put the two together and seriously analyzed:
A rabbit, how to beat SF to a halt...
In fact, Jitu and SF are completely unable to fight with eight rods, but Tongda is blocked in the whole network, prohibiting dealers from taking orders from Jitu.
But for the end, mosquitoes are small and meat, and they directly make a whole "curve to save the country": don't let me pick up, change my cousin to pick up, and then lend him my warehouse....
Until now, Jitu has not only not been pushed down, but has done "four links and one reach" into "three links and one reach" - 6.8 billion yuan to acquire Best Express.
If it is said that the turmoil of the pole rabbit is a bottom-up attack, then SF's entry is a top-down dimensionality reduction blow.
6. SF = Tongda department?
Although the date of time-sensitive parts is very stable, SF has never given up its covetousness for e-commerce parts.
As early as June 2013, SF collected e-commerce parts at a 40% discount, mixed with a price war with one foot and one reach, and the high cost almost cut the profit in 2014.
Three years later, SF thought of a new trick: to replace door-to-door pickup with centralized pick-up and reduce costs.
For small and medium-sized customers, SF also launched a preferential package of "200 votes per day 17 yuan per single" and "300 votes per single 15 yuan".
But at that time, the Tongda department was beating you to death, the unit price had already fallen below 5 yuan, and SF turned off the lights again to eat noodles.
In 2019, SF once again engaged in a riot operation: using idle capacity to make e-commerce parts, named "preferential e-commerce".
"Preferential e-commerce" directly reduced the cost to 5-8 yuan, and SF also gave a price of 5 yuan in righteousness, with a slight loss per order.
In just one year, the special e-commerce has achieved an average of 6 million votes per day, and also let SF's expansion sit on the rocket.
SF has hit the war on the atmosphere, but the use of aircraft to do e-commerce parts, but also somewhat awkward, a huge loss of 1 billion yuan in 2020, special e-commerce has not yet made a profit is proof.
Even so, in 2020, SF still contributed 7.3 billion yuan in profits with a market share of less than 10%, which is almost the same as the 7.6 billion yuan (60% market share) of the Tongda system combined.
Because in essence, SF and Tongda are two routes: one self-operated, one franchised.
The self-operated model is to grasp the receiving, sorting, transportation, distribution and other links in hand, often heavy assets, high costs, and the advantage is to control profits.
The franchise model is to outsource pickup and distribution to franchisees, which has the advantage of light assets and fast expansion. But the disadvantages are also obvious: lack of bargaining power for customers, difficult to control quality, and easy to be countered.
A typical example is: Jingdong Logistics went to dig up Yunda's outlets, and the courier brothers changed their overalls on the spot, the reason was rough and simple - Yunda did not even have an electric fan, but Jingdong promised to install air conditioning...
Desperate figures in the courier pile
7. The mission of the people
When the time goes back to 1993, Wang Wei, who is still a "waterman", will not think that China Express will become a new generation of roll kings.
30 years later, the water passengers have long been among the giants under the baptism of capital, and they have used the ashes of their opponents, the tears of their peers, and the afterglow of money to cast the background of the barbaric growth of private express delivery.
In contrast, China Post has gone through 30 years of "Buddhism", but when you open the first article of the Postal Law, you can see:
The State guarantees universal postal services within the territory of the People's Republic of China and protects the freedom and secrecy of correspondence of citizens.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the postal service was the only contact method for wanderers and family members;
In the 1990s, the postal service was the sunset sun of the popularity of express delivery and telephone;
Today, the postal service is the unquenchable candlelight in the corner.
The southernmost Sansha Islands of the motherland, the Base Camp of Mount Everest at an altitude of 5200 meters, the Chinese scientific research station in the Antarctic, the space station floating in the universe, as long as there is a place Chinese, there must be China Post.
Postal people from all over the world
In a fast-paced era of practical results, despite the controversy and gossip, the postal service has never forgotten its mission: the basic guarantee of communication for the Chinese people.
In the early morning of May 30, 2021, Wang Shunyou, a 56-year-old postman, died in Muli County.
For 32 years, he traveled 300,000 kilometers alone in the mountains, without delaying a postal service or losing a single mail.
At the funeral, the three Maban postmen hummed a song to bid farewell:
The Maban Post Road is long and long, and the mountain is high and steep. Love note that the postal route is not afraid of danger, love sprinkle people will never regret...
Wang Shunyou's lonely figure