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On February 13, netizens did not seem to buy Yunda's denial of the number of outlets closed and the delay in explaining the time limit on the previous evening.
After visiting the reporter of Beijing Business Daily, he found that behind all kinds of complaints such as lost pieces and damage, there were various entanglements of interests between Yunda outlets and outlets, and between outlets and headquarters.
At present, Yunda, which integrates declining business volume, unstable network, and higher debt ratio, can it still maintain the second position of the head express delivery company?
Infighting in outlets has caused a service storm
People's patience with Yunda's service quality seems to have reached a tipping point.
At 9 p.m. on February 12, Yunda issued a clarification announcement on Weibo, saying that the news that "more than 2,000 outlets are closed", "the company is going to close", "customer service is not accepted" and "revenue is not profitable" are all false news.
However, on the night of the announcement, in the real-time discussion of #Yunda refuting rumors and bankruptcy# entries, many consumers were still complaining about the slow delivery speed of Yunda Express in recent days, frequent loss of parts, and poor complaint channels.
In fact, when merchants and users find that the delivery time is slower and the loss and damage rate is rising, the appearance is linked to the operational stability of express delivery outlets to a certain extent. Courier vacancies, poor operation of outlets, and changes in managers will all cause a decline in customer service experience.
"Yunda lost the 2,000 yuan courier I sent to my daughter." A Shanxi user who has used Yunda's services told a Beijing Business Daily reporter that according to his understanding, Yunda has closed down many outlets in the past two years, and a Yunda outlet in Changzhi, Shanxi, where he is located, had a great infighting from mid-April to mid-June 2022, and the old and new bosses did not hand over well, resulting in a large number of express delays, returns and losses, "during this period, my express delivery was lost, and later I was not properly compensated."
"At the beginning of July last year, Shanxi Changzhi Yunda changed its new people, and without the permission of the recipient and sender, unilaterally forcibly took out and returned all Yunda Express that arrived in Changzhi, Shanxi before July 5." Another user who encountered this situation reported on the black cat complaint.
Although Yunda denied the bankruptcy of thousands of outlets, the problem of fluctuations in the operation of Yunda's outlets has remained prominent in recent years. It is understood that in 2022, Yunda Shanxi Taiyuan and Beijing Fangshan outlets have experienced the spread of the epidemic, which has greatly affected the normal collection and distribution of local express mail, and to a certain extent, exposed the shortcomings of network management.
According to data provided by its business briefing, since August 2022, Yunda's monthly express delivery volume has declined, with a decline of 21.4% and 18.46% in November and December of that year, respectively.
The grid warehouse provoked resentment among franchisees
No wind and no waves. After combing through the reporter of Beijing Business Daily, he also found that the rumor that "more than 2,000 outlets were closed" was not groundless. According to Yunda's previously released financial report, the number of Yunda express service outlets at the end of 2021 was 32,274, while in the first half of 2022, the data plummeted to 29,844, a decrease of more than 2,400 outlets.
At the same time, on the Xianyu App, a large number of Yunda outlets distributed in Zhejiang, Tianjin, Hunan and other places are being transferred, with prices ranging from 100,000 to 1 million yuan.
Perhaps aware of the unstable operation of express delivery outlets, Yunda is currently vigorously developing the grid warehouse business. According to Yunda, the company's grid warehouse project allows the network to operate centrally and improve the loading rate, and the automated operation can also effectively reduce the sorting cost of the outlet.
The business mainly targets areas with strong potential scale effects at the ends, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and guides franchisees to participate in the construction of grid warehouses.
It is understood that the operation mode of Yunda grid warehouse is mainly to transport the express goods of multiple express outlets to the same warehouse for automatic sorting, and all express goods are directly distributed to couriers and terminal post stores.
A practitioner of a Yunda grid warehouse in Jinan, Shandong Province, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that unlike express franchise outlets, the grid warehouse is not managed by franchisees, but directly managed by Yunda headquarters, and the salary of couriers is also distributed by the headquarters, "We are more standardized than the network management, the number of couriers in the grid warehouse is more than 60, responsible for the work of dispatch, the dispatch fee is 1 yuan / piece."
Regarding the authenticity of the above-mentioned grid warehouse management model, the relevant person in charge of Yunda did not respond to the Beijing Business Daily reporter, only mentioning that "subject to the announcement". In any case, Yunda attaches great importance to the grid warehouse project.
According to public information, in January this year, Nie Tengyun, chairman and president of Yunda, visited 4 grid warehouses in Shanghai and 3 grid warehouses in Suzhou.
However, in the eyes of some insiders, in addition to the new transfer fee, number of transfers and loss rate, some senior express delivery practitioners revealed to the Beijing Business Daily reporter that Yunda did a grid warehouse to avoid poor operation or contradictions with the headquarters of the outlets, directly manage the terminal couriers, which instead deepened the difference of interests between the headquarters and local franchisees, making the profit pressure of franchisees greater.
Many parties have been dissatisfied and resentful for a long time
Nowadays, franchisees have difficulty making profits, and the direct consequences of many network transfers are various problems such as delayed delivery timeliness, increased breakage rate, and untimely after-sales, which in turn will lead to users and merchants reducing the use of the brand, thus forming a vicious circle.
"Taobao's logistics information shows that my express arrived at the Beijing distribution center on January 28 and is being sent to Fengtai, but I have not received it until today." Ms. Li, a consumer who lives in Fengtai District, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that 17 days have passed since the merchant delivered the goods, but she still has not received the package.
There are not a few such complaints, and Beijing Business Daily reporters have seen on social platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu that not only Yunda Express in Beijing has a problem of stagnation in circulation, but consumers in Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Hunan have published similar complaints, including terminal station shutdown, delivery stagnation, express damage and loss.
In Yunda's latest clarification announcement, "lack of manpower" has become the biggest "shield". Yunda said that after the Spring Festival, the express mail of the outlets increased compared with the same period last year, and the express brothers of individual outlets did not go back to visit relatives for several years due to the epidemic, and the rework after the holiday was not timely, resulting in a short-term shortage of manpower, resulting in delays in the delivery of the areas where individual outlets were located.
In addition, many consumers also jokingly said on social platforms that finding Yunda customer service complaints is like a "tough battle". Problems such as the inability to transfer complaint calls to manual customer service, and the delay in obtaining manual responses for complaints from Mini Program customer service have been staged repeatedly.
A customer service staff member of Yunda's Chaoyang District branch who has left the company told a Beijing Business Daily reporter that after the Spring Festival holiday, the customer service arrival rate of the outlet was less than 50%.
At the same time, some Taobao merchants are also dissatisfied with Yunda's service performance. A small merchant selling handicrafts told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the brand that Cainiao Station cooperated with before was Yunda, and then gradually became Zhongtong and Shentong, "Before Yunda service was good, but now I basically don't use it now, not only the timeliness is slow, but also the goods are easy to squeeze and deform during transportation, and some customers will mark on the order that Yunda is not sent."
The status of the "second old" stalls
It is worth noting that when Yunda was caught in network instability, its debt ratio was also rising. According to Yunda's 2022 half-year report data, Yunda's financial expenses in the first half of 2022 were 230 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 160%.
Yunda said the increase in finance expenses was due to an increase in long-term borrowings during the reporting period, interest expense arising from bond issuance, and an increase in foreign currency exchange losses for foreign currency items.
In the first half of 2022, Yunda's asset-liability ratio reached 56.34%, an increase of 4.43 percentage points year-on-year, while SF's asset-liability ratio was only 55.57% in the same period.
At the beginning of 2023, in the performance forecasts announced by various express delivery companies, Yunda's year-on-year change of -11.44% to 1.75% in net profit was also particularly eye-catching.
After all, other leading express delivery companies have handed over good report cards: Shentong announced a turnaround, and net profit is expected to increase by more than 100% year-on-year; YTO expects a net profit of 3.92 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 86.34%; SF also announced that its net profit for the full year of 2022 is expected to increase by 42%-46% year-on-year... This may mean that among the top express delivery companies, Yunda will be the only company with a year-on-year decline in net profit.
Yunda's weaknesses are increasingly exposed. "Yunda's problem is not just that there is a shortage of people at the end of the outlet." Zhao Xiaomin, an expert in express logistics and CEO of Guanxuan Capital, said that Yunda's "second-old" position in the express delivery market has stalled and declined all the way after encountering YTO to grab aviation and the international market.
"In the past three years of the epidemic, Yunda has not done a perfect job in control, coupled with the stock price falling for two consecutive years, Yunda's problems have spread to the entire system of the company." Zhao Xiaomin said.
"From the 2022 performance forecast of Yunda, the overall situation does not have any bright spots." Zhao Xiaomin believes that it is very difficult for Yunda to regain its territory in the dragon and tiger battle of express logistics companies. "At present, if Yunda only relies on its own endogenous development, I am afraid it will be difficult to solve the problem. If you want to reshuffle the cards to regain the market position, you may need to resort to some external forces. Zhao Xiaomin said.
Reporter丨He Qian, Qiao Xinyi
Editor丨Wang Naixin
Picture丨Beijing Business Daily, Sina Weibo @Yunda Express Official Wei screenshot, Sina Weibo @Yunda Express Official Weibo, Black Cat Complaint Platform screenshot, Sina Weibo screenshot, Xiaohongshu screenshot, OneImage