韧性小生意
The total number of business entities in Guangdong exceeded 18 million, ranking first in the country! Among them, there are both large and medium-sized enterprises, as well as "small businesses" - small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households, which together build the foundation for Guangdong's high-quality development.
The new forms and models created by the digital economy have given rise to many new opportunities. Many small businesses have seized the digital business opportunity and worked hard to grow tenaciously. Southern Metropolis Daily and Nandu Big Data Research Institute launched the "Resilient Small Business" column to listen to the growth stories of small shop owners and record the efforts of small businesses.
They condense the resilience of Guangdong's economy and the persistence of hundreds of millions of "mortals". Small and beautiful, as subtle as possible, we believe that this is the power of Guangdong!
"Sorting", "scanning code" and "ornaments", every morning, with the packages from various express companies arriving at the store one after another, Mr. Ke also started a day's "small business".
In June 2023, Mr. Ke, who was born in the 70s, resigned from his job as a salesman and took over an express delivery point near Dongxiao South Road in Haizhu District, and transformed it into a "semi-self-service" rookie station. The store, which is less than 40 square meters, handles about 1,400 parcels a day, but the shelves are often half empty. The magic weapon is a self-service pick-up machine nearly 1 meter high.
"Service needs to be done with heart", rooted in the grassroots for many years, Mr. Ke has continued to explore digital convenience services, and this post station has gradually integrated into the operation trajectory of the community, like a sponge, absorbing the daily life needs of surrounding residents and continuously delivering supplies to them.
"Retirement" early to open a post station
Walking into Mr. Ke's express station, the 36-square-meter cottage is refreshing and neat, the glass door is plastered with self-service pickup guides, legends of prohibited items and other warm reminders, and the shelves are neatly stacked with all kinds of express boxes, incubators, and parcel bags, each package has its own exclusive number.
Every morning at 9:30 a.m., Mr. Ke will open the door of the store on time and clean the inventory. At this time, four courier trucks full of parcels arrived one after another, and then, Mr. Ke helped the courier unload large and small parcels, and then began to "sort", "scan" and "ornament" with his wife on the spot until 1 p.m. After lunch, during the time when there is less passenger flow, they continue to work, sorting the remaining packages in the warehouse, and it takes about 5 hours to complete the process.
The Zhongtong courier is unloading the goods for the station.
Easy-going and warm-hearted is the first impression Mr. Ke left on reporters. Before operating the express station, he used to be a salesman of a state-owned enterprise, and after the relocation of the company's address, Mr. Ke chose to leave the place where he had worked for more than ten years to start a business. At that time, he noticed that opening a courier receiving and sending point is a business with visible income and bullish prospects, and the threshold for entry is not high, and he only needs to apply for a self-employed business license and record the end of the express delivery network.
Usually there are not many people in the store, usually Mr. Ke takes care of it alone, and at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, with the evening rush hour after work, business is also busy. According to his estimates, the average daily storage of the post station can reach about 1,400 pieces of express delivery, and 200~300 people will come to pick up the parcel every day, and during the peak period such as Double Eleven, the storage volume will be as much as nearly 2 times that of usual. However, even during peak periods, only 4 people are needed to maintain the normal operation of the store, and the key lies in the "digital and intelligent transformation".
"Digital and intelligent transformation" speeds up pickup
"The delivery is successful, the remaining 1 package" and "all have been taken out", in Mr. Ke's rookie station, the express delivery is placed on the self-service pickup machine through the mobile phone pickup code corresponding to the express number on the shelf, and the pickup can be identified in 1 second.
"In the past, this express point was also a closed pick-up, everyone wrote the pick-up code on the slip of paper, and waited in line at the door to pick up, which was too time-consuming during peak periods!"
The customer places the parcel on the self-service pick-up machine to identify the pickup.
When you start operating, you will inevitably be in a hurry, and there will often be "small troubles" such as lost items and wrong pickups. "In the past, there were only three or four cameras in the monitoring, and it was not very clear, and it was really difficult to find the wrong one", in order to overcome this pain point, Mr. Ke turned to the platform and introduced a cloud monitoring system, covering all areas with 7 cameras to monitor the warehousing and outgoing of the entire shelf, so as to minimize the wrong parts and lost parts.
"We are now checking the monitoring speed is very fast, when out of the warehouse, according to that time to find the corresponding pick-up person, if you take several pieces at the same time, you can always find the vine. In addition, I can also rely on acquaintances in the community to find them, and many community workers and residents are familiar to me. Over time, Mr. Ke has developed a set of efficient "methodology" for finding parts.
At present, Mr. Ke has reached cooperation with four express companies of Zhongtong, Shentong, Yuantong and Post, according to the current delivery fee standard of 0.5 yuan / piece, the post station can get 700 yuan of warehousing income per day, plus part of the mailing business, the average monthly revenue can be about 30,000 yuan. "The store is not big, but it can also 'guarantee income from drought and flood', there will be pressure, but the direction is always 'up'", Mr. Ke has been opening the store for nearly a year, and the plan to further upgrade the store is also slowly rolling out.
"Good service" comes first
About two or three months after the digital and intelligent transformation, nearby residents gradually adapted to the self-service mode, and some of them already memorized the location numbers of the shelves. As the store absorbs more and more nearby residents, Mr. Ke is constantly flexibly adjusting its service methods, and this rookie station has gradually become a "digital wisdom and convenience comprehensive service station".
For example, due to a shortage of manpower, Mr. Ke suspended "home delivery" and replaced it with a more detailed "express storage service". During the interview, residents came to the rookie station from time to time to send and pick up their parcels. An elderly man over seventy years old came to ask for help, saying that the corresponding pickup code did not find his courier on the shelf, and Mr. Ke found through the background inquiry that the courier was received three months ago but has not been picked up. He explained that for the stranded piece, if the customer forgets to take it, he will be contacted for more than 5 days, and if it cannot be picked up in the short term, a temporary storage point will be set up at the post station, and if it has not been contacted, it can only be returned to the courier company.
Mr. Kwa helps customers find stranded items.
"In the past, there were only two express delivery points near the community, or the commissary built on behalf of the collection point, when there were many people, the store was often surrounded by water, only the boss alone to find a piece of speed is very slow, in the event of a rainy day, the express pile outside is often drenched 'not like'", Mr. Li, a neighbor of Jinli Street, has lived here for 7 years, and now when placing an order on the e-commerce platform, he has specially defaulted to the receiving address as a rookie station, sometimes he can't pick up the parcel in time when he is out on a business trip, so he says hello to the boss, "the express delivery is not a problem for more than ten days."
Ms. Liang, who lives nearby, often works overtime and returns late, and her inability to pick up the parcel on time makes her feel a "headache": "Every time I go home late, I am always worried that the express delivery point will close too early and delay the pick-up, and sometimes the fresh fruits sent by my family will be spoiled because they are too late to sign for the delivery." For these overtime workers, Mr. Ke also provides a special pick-up service, "If they can't pick up the package in time before the end of business, say hello to me, and help them sort the package and put it on the tricycle outside the store."
The ideal state is "unattended"
Like capillaries, express transport is a constant source of blood for the proper functioning of cities and their metabolism. In 2023, the express delivery business volume of Guangdong Province will complete 34.57 billion pieces, becoming the only province in the country to exceed the 30 billion pieces mark for two consecutive years, and the province's express delivery business volume has ranked first in the country for 15 consecutive years.
Behind the strong data are thousands of individual industrial and commercial households, who have built the "nerve endings" of the digital economy, and their resilient growth contains the pace of economic recovery.
At the beginning of last year, Guangdong issued 31 policies to support individual industrial and commercial households, which mentioned that individual industrial and commercial households should be supported to improve their online marketing capabilities, and actively apply live broadcast e-commerce, community e-commerce, social e-commerce and other models to achieve the integrated development of online and offline operations. Now, Mr. Ke has been running the store for nearly a year, and real-time monitoring data on his mobile phone shows that the station's daily delivery rate reaches 99%, and the store can maintain order even when the volume of goods is high.
Mr. Ke's small store operation data.
The increase in the turnover rate has allowed this rookie post station to have more room for expansion compared with other express points around the community, "After the digital and intelligent transformation, the throughput of the shelves has increased significantly, and when it is fast, my shelves are often in a half-empty state, even in a special period such as the epidemic, a large number of express mail will not be greatly affected."
Talking about his own operation strategy, Mr. Ke is full of confidence, he very much recognizes the concept of the smart station, and revealed the idea of further upgrading the store: "The ideal state is the '24-hour' unattended station, that is, the full self-service station, there are already many such stations in Guangdong, which will reduce more labor costs."
Mortal Glimmer
●What is your biggest impression in this industry?
Service needs to be done with heart. After the digital and intelligent transformation of the station, the "self-service pickup" has been basically realized, but there are still many elderly people and people with inconvenient mobility in the community, and I still need to take the initiative to assist them. - Mr. Ke
Producer: Nandu Big Data Research Institute
Producer: Rong Mingchang, Liu Jiangtao
Planner: Wang Weiguo, Zou Ying
Co-ordinator: Ling Huishan, Yang Xiaomin
Written by: Nandu reporter Zhang Yuting
Design: Zhang Xujun