"Double 11" in a small border town: cross-border shopping is hot, and foreign consumers have also entered the live broadcast room
Dongxing, Guangxi, across the river from Mong Cai City in Vietnam, is located at the southwesternmost tip of the mainland coastline. When the heat of "Double 11" blew into this border town, Dongxing's courier boys were even busier. Special handicrafts, nuts, coffee and other foods produced in Vietnam, agricultural and sideline products such as citrus and sea duck eggs from Dongxing City, as well as handicrafts such as mahogany and rattan weaving, have "flew" into thousands of households by express delivery.
At 7 o'clock in the morning, Chen Jinyong, who has been a courier in Dongxing for 7 years, stood next to the express sorting machine, he and other courier brothers wanted to complete the sorting of inbound express mail, and about 3 hours later, they would send these express mail from all over the country and even overseas door to door.
At the same time, Wu Xiaofang and Ye Zi, the e-commerce anchors of Dongxing E-commerce Town, started the first live broadcast of the day to bring goods. During the days of "Double 11", they called themselves small anchors and big online anchors had a time difference, and their main goal was to broadcast in advance, increase the frequency of live broadcasts, and stabilize traffic.
Eighty percent of Dongxing e-commerce shipments come from Southeast Asia
At half past nine o'clock in the morning of November 7th, in the Yuantong Express Distribution Center in Dongxing City, the courier brother was sorting goods from all over the country, and they would be sent out after half past 10 o'clock on the same day. Liang Yinghua is the person in charge of this distribution center, he has been engaged in the express delivery industry for 15 years, he has long been accustomed to the "double 11" such a delivery peak, compared with last year, the distribution center this year's "double 11" cargo volume growth is expected to be about 20%.
Liang Yinghua said that in recent years, with the establishment of more and more "overseas warehouses" and the extension of the shopping rhythm, "Double 11" bid farewell to the embarrassing situation of frequent "warehouse explosion", and the pressure on the express distribution center has become increasingly flattened.
In the Dongxing Yunda Express Distribution Center, the couriers are also much busier than usual, and the express volume during the "Double 11" period has increased by 40%-50% compared with usual, and has also increased by about 30% over the same period last year.
The growth rate of 20%-30% can only be regarded as a steady growth for express delivery companies, but express delivery companies are still fully prepared for the "Double 11", such as increasing the number of transport vehicles and mobile support personnel.
With the arrival of "Double 11", the workload of the courier brother has increased. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wu Tingting
Dongxing is only across the river from Mong Cai City, the largest special economic zone in northern Vietnam, so a considerable part of the goods sold by Chinese e-commerce companies "go to sea" to Vietnam. Historical data shows that during the peak period of "Double 11" cargo volume in Dongxing City, the daily express entry volume reached 20,000 pieces, of which about 30% were shipped to Vietnam, and the goods were mainly light industrial goods, such as clothes, shoes, bags, small household appliances, etc. At the same time, there are also many local consumers who have purchased Vietnamese specialty products.
The reporter learned from the Dongxing Postal Administration that from January to October this year, the express delivery business volume in Dongxing City has completed 6.57 million pieces, a year-on-year increase of more than 60%, and the total number of e-commerce pieces has been completed 5.65 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%, and the e-commerce express mail accounts for 86% of the express delivery business. About 80% of Dongxing's e-commerce shipments are products from Southeast Asia.
E-commerce and express delivery have changed the lives of local people
The arrival of "Double 11" and the rapid development of e-commerce and express delivery industry have quietly changed the lives of local people in Dongxing. Before becoming a courier in 2016, Chen Jinyong was a toll collector at a hospital in Dongxing, and his work was done step-by-step, without exposure to the sun and rain, but the income at that time made Chen Jinyong feel that he should make a change.
"The express delivery industry has doubled my salary, I used to be a toll collector only more than 2,000 yuan of salary, as a courier, my income is more than 5,000 yuan, 'double 11' when the volume of goods is large, the income is more than 6,000 yuan, which can upgrade the family's consumption level." Chen Jinyong's words were full of pride.
Wu Xiaofang, who has studied and started a business in Vietnam for more than ten years, has returned to China in recent years to develop and take the e-commerce town as a new starting point. Familiar with the trade field, she not only sold rattan handicrafts as an anchor, but also brought out a live broadcast team.
At present, the occupancy rate of e-commerce towns is more than 70%, and merchants have opened live broadcast rooms. Two or three studio lights, one or two anchors, cameramen, lighting engineers, central control operators... This is the basic configuration of the e-commerce live broadcast room. With the advent of "Double 11", promotional slogans such as "on the link", "only 10 orders left" and "the old iron buckle 666 that I want" came out from time to time in various live broadcast rooms. Wu Xiaofang's live broadcast room is set up in the warehouse, the background is the shelves filled with various rattan crafts, and the banner above the shelves reads "Rattan Weaving Factory Double 11 Breaking the Bottom Price", which makes the warehouse more prepared for the peak of sales.
In the e-commerce town of Dongxing City, the live broadcast room played the "Double 11" promotional slogan. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wu Tingting
With the contacts accumulated over the years, Wu Xiaofang's live broadcast room has many Vietnamese consumers. "Vietnamese friends also like our 'Double 11', these online shopping platforms commonly used by Chinese consumers, some of the pages can be translated into Vietnamese, so it is good for Vietnamese friends to play online shopping."
Yezi, who is also an anchor in the e-commerce town, mainly sells mahogany furniture, and also sells some mahogany chopsticks, mahogany fitness balls, jewelry boxes and other small pieces. During Ye Zi's live broadcast, he did not forget to send a wave of "Double 11" benefits to the "old iron", such as a pair of fitness balls of more than 20 yuan and a storage box of thirty or forty yuan.
Compared with the big anchors on the online platform, Wu Xiaofang and Ye Zi's "Double 11" goal is not ambitious, Ye Zi said: "According to the experience of previous years, the task of our small anchors is to try to keep the traffic and not be led away by the big anchors. Wu Xiaofang's team made a time difference with the big anchors during the "Double 11" period, "Many big anchors start broadcasting at six or seven o'clock in the evening, and we choose to start the first live broadcast at seven o'clock in the morning, and the traffic at this time is also very good, about four hours to broadcast, and live broadcasts will also start in the afternoon and evening." ”
The "express supermarket" was opened in front of the villagers' homes
In recent years, the State Post Bureau has continued to promote the express delivery project into the village. According to the monitoring data of the State Post Bureau, from November 1 to November 4, the cumulative collection volume of the whole network was 2.027 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 16.1% and a month-on-month increase of 31.0%, setting a new record high. Judging from the data, the two-way flow in the rural direction has accelerated, and more agricultural products are sold to all parts of the country through express delivery.
Yunda Express brother Huang Qilin is a courier in Zhushan Village, Dongxing City, every morning after completing the express sorting in the distribution center, he drove to Zhushan. The prices of "Double 11" commodities are relatively favorable, and the villagers buy a variety of goods, ranging from clothes poles to refrigerators, and all kinds of daily necessities are readily available. It takes about 20 minutes to drive the express car from the distribution center to Zhushan Village, and after the express mail is delivered to the village, most of them are stored in the "express supermarket", and some large items that are inconvenient to carry will be delivered to the door by Huang Qilin.
In the "express supermarket" in Zhushan Village, the shelves are filled with express mail to be picked up. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wu Tingting
"Express supermarket" opened in the largest daily necessities supermarket in the village, in order to persuade the supermarket owner to open up an "express supermarket", Xu Xiaobo, the person in charge of Dongxing Yunda Express Distribution Center, paid a lot of words, "The main thing is that the express delivery work is more trivial, and the 'express supermarket' has been opened, and it may not be able to rest on Saturdays and Sundays." Xu Xiaobo said that he calculated an account for the supermarket owner, "Villagers come to pick up or send express delivery, and they will visit the supermarket, so that the supermarket will increase the number of customers and the sales of goods will also increase." In addition, there is a capital subsidy of 3,000 yuan for opening an 'express supermarket'. ”
In 2019, the "express supermarket" in Zhushan Village was officially opened, and express delivery companies such as Yunda, Yuantong, Zhongtong, and J&T settled in one after another, and the villagers had an additional express delivery point at their doorstep.
On the morning of November 8, Lu Ping, a villager from Zhushan Village, rode a motorcycle to the "express supermarket" to pick up express mail, and it took only five or six minutes to ride from her home to here. During the "Double 11" period, Lu Ping placed orders for clothes, daily necessities and other goods, and almost every day or two she had to pick up express delivery here. After the "express supermarket" opened, her online shopping became more frequent, "mainly because it was much easier to pick up the parcels." In the past, villagers bought online, generally sent to relatives and friends in the city or a collection point, we took the bus to pick up the parcel is very troublesome, even if you ride an electric car to pick up, if you encounter the collection point off work, you can't pick it up. ”
Dongxing City is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is managed by Fangchenggang City. "Express delivery into the village" is the "people's livelihood project" and "No. 1 project" of Fangchenggang City. In 2019, Fangchenggang City took Dongxing City as a pilot to explore and promote the establishment of 33 rural postal express comprehensive service stations, and realized Dongxing City's "village-to-village express delivery" model with "local government capital policy support, village committee to provide personnel venues, fully integrate bus routes, and use public transport vehicles to transport express parcels from express delivery enterprises to various villages in the downstream" model to realize Dongxing City's "village-to-village express delivery".
In 2020, Fangchenggang Postal Administration was identified by the State Post Bureau as one of the pilot cities for "express delivery into villages" in the country. At present, the postal service (EMS), Zhongtong, Yuantong, Shentong, Yunda, Jingdong, SF Express, J&T 8 brands through the implementation of "express cooperation" and "fast cooperation", to achieve full coverage of the city's administrative village postal express services, 54 natural villages to the border are all mailed, and the frequency of weekly delivery has reached more than 3 times, and the rural mail and logistics system has gradually improved. Villagers can only receive express delivery "without leaving the village", and some village-level express delivery sites combined with commissaries also provide villagers with employment opportunities "at their doorstep", with an average of 2-3 people employed at each village-level express delivery site.
Beijing News reporter Wu Tingting
Edited by Bai Shuang and proofread by Wu Xingfa