Polar Rabbit, an unknown rookie
In 2020, under the background of several giants in the express delivery industry, a little-known rookie quietly appeared, shaking the seemingly fixed situation with an astonishing arrogant attitude.
This is J&T Express.
The debut of J&T Express can be described as the bottom of the pot turned over, it completed the leap from scratch with lightning speed, and in just ten months, its daily order volume broke through the 20 million mark, becoming the fourth largest express company in China in one fell swoop, so that the industry was eye-catching.
Zhongtong and other express bosses were the first to perceive the crisis, and the foundation of their years of operation seems to be about to be shaken by this wild horse. As a result, an emergency ban order prohibiting franchisees from providing services for J&T was jointly issued by old express giants such as Zhongtong, trying to stifle this new force that they felt deeply threatened.
However, what these veteran express companies did not expect was that in the face of collective blockade and encirclement, J&T not only did not retreat, but intensified its counterattack with more powerful practical actions.
It began to massively rebel against franchisees in the express delivery industry, luring them to provide services for themselves with generous delivery fees that are 30%-50% higher than the industry standard.
Where did such an arrogant and powerful polar rabbit come from? Where is the confidence of this little-known rising star? Let us continue to decipher more inside stories of this dark horse that has set off storms in the express delivery industry.
Mergers and acquisitions of Best to obtain A vein
The aggressiveness of the rising star has made the entire industry nervous, but what really makes industry insiders jaw-dropping is still yet to come - in 2021, J&T finally showed its fangs and acquired a veteran express delivery company that has been in operation for nearly ten years, Baishihuitong, at a sky-high price of 6.9 billion.
This merger and acquisition, which surprised everyone, immediately attracted the attention of the industry. With years of painstaking operation, Best Express has built a dense network of express delivery outlets across the country, which undoubtedly allows J&T to obtain a plug-and-play national distribution network, which is a dream infrastructure for a nascent company.
What's more, through Best Express, J&T has finally opened up a direct channel to the e-commerce platform. Prior to this, giant platforms such as JD.com and Taobao have been carved up by head couriers such as SF Express and YTO for a long time, which is extremely unfriendly to rising stars.
Best Express, parachuted in as an airborne parachute, opened this closed circle.
Industry insiders exclaimed that this was simply an "incredible case of mergers and acquisitions". Best Express is about to become the biggest driving force on the road to the pinnacle of the express delivery industry, providing impetus for its subsequent rapid development.
With the abundant resources provided by Best Express, J&T can finally sit at the "gambling table" in this industry and compete fairly with other companies. We seem to see that this underestimated black horse is raising its hooves, ready to go out of the cage.
Dumping at low prices, the quality of service is criticized
After making breakthroughs in the express delivery network and e-commerce channels, J&T once again showed a stronger side. It chose to start the fiercest possible price war in the history of the express delivery industry, dumping at ridiculously low prices to frantically grab market share.
In 2022, J&T will send the shipping price in some areas as low as an astonishing 8 cents, which directly hits the cost bottom line of the express company and makes the entire industry look sideways.
Industry analysts believe that J&T is exchanging for a larger market at a loss, which is bound to set off a express price war into a new round of melee.
However, the aggressive marketing strategy soon exposed the weakness of J&T's operation - its service quality was uneven, which seriously affected the user experience. A large number of complaints from consumers and couriers followed, criticizing J&T for missing logistics information, serious delays, damage to goods, and damage to the rights and interests of franchisees.
In the eyes of the outside world, J&T is like a novice driver who has just hit the road, driving arrogantly, without rules and no signal lights, and the fierce price war is tantamount to overtaking on the highway.
Such a reckless competition strategy made peers look sideways, and they questioned J&T's "not talking about martial arts".
However, J&T itself seems to be indifferent to these verbal criticisms, and still goes its own way and is as radical as ever. Its goal is to quickly open up the market situation, even if the service content cannot keep up, because it understands that the huge flow and capital advantage in its hands is the magic weapon to win.
Shot again, market position
In the price war in full swing in the express delivery market, J&T once again launched an amazing merger and acquisition action. In 2022, it spent 1.1 billion yuan to acquire SF's subsidiary "Fengwang", which was mired in business losses, which not only helped SF stop bleeding and reduce the burden, but also allowed J&T's own outlets and teams to expand rapidly.
Industry analysts believe that this acquisition is equivalent to another shot in the arm for J&T. After it laid the foundation for its acquisition of Best Best, SF provided it with a second path of growth, further increasing the volume and strength of J&T.
Today, J&T has firmly established its position as the head camp of the express delivery industry. More than 30 top e-commerce platforms, including JD.com and Taobao, have chosen to cooperate with it and become an important source of customers.
It can be said that J&T has successfully transformed from a pony to an upstart of the head express delivery company.
In just 3 years, J&T has completed the gorgeous transformation from a niche express company to a top company in the industry. In this express delivery pattern that seems to have stood for many years, it only took more than 30 months to fight a bloody way and quickly sat at the top.
This kind of rapid growth rate and combat effectiveness has made all people in the industry look sideways. Behind every high-speed rise throughout his career, there are the financiers behind J&T and its large-scale mergers and acquisitions.
Thinking: Sustainable development also needs to be driven by innovation and service
After several years of rapid progress, J&T Express has successfully broken into the ranks of the head of the express delivery industry and has become the most shallow-level upstart. But we must also stay sober and see the weakness and inadequacy behind this dark horse.
First of all, J&T's business model does not have essential innovation, what it does is nothing more than plagiarism and classic cases in the early years of the assembly industry. The way of low-price dumping and rapid seizure of market share has been gone through many years ago by old express delivery such as Zhongtong.
What J&T is doing now is exactly the same as Zhongtong a few years ago.
Secondly, J&T has also been criticized for its service quality. The price war has greatly compressed the profit margins of the entire industry, and also made J&T ignore the investment in service quality in the process of pursuing scale expansion.
The model of blindly relying on brute force growth will eventually encounter bottlenecks.
Therefore, we have reason to question whether J&T will be able to sustain this speed in the future and achieve qualitative change and leapfrogging? It is difficult to last only by mergers and acquisitions and brute force, and this dark horse may be overtaken by the veterans of the same industry at a certain corner.
If J&T Express still wants to continue to break through on the track of the express delivery industry, it must adjust its direction and put innovation and service in the first place, otherwise it will be difficult to escape the fate of being overtaken.
epilogue
Look at the present, J&T has carved out a way out of this seemingly impregnable express delivery industry with its amazing business sense and action, and has successfully promoted to an upstart express delivery company.
It has a god-of-war posture and courage, and it can be summed up in two words: "arrogance".
However, we must also remain rational and see the inherent drawbacks and hidden dangers of this business model that relies on brute force growth - it has plunged the entire industry into a vicious price war, and the profit margins of the whole industry have been extremely squeezed; It relied on mergers and acquisitions to gain a vast business territory, but could not be effectively integrated, resulting in service uniformity could not be guaranteed.
Blind high-pressure expansion harms others and oneself; Brute force growth will eventually hit a ceiling.
Therefore, we suggest that J&T slow down and focus on technological innovation and service improvement. The huge business scale obtained by relying on mergers and acquisitions also needs time to digest and absorb and improve management efficiency.
Only by returning to the origin of the industry can we achieve sustainable development.
In the future, we expect J&T to slow down but improve quality; Instead, pursue steady development. Only then will this dominant dark horse be able to break through all obstacles and run farther to the horizon.