Yangtze River Business Daily News ● Yangtze River Business Daily reporter Jiang Chuya
The express delivery, which should have been returned to the merchant, was turned into a "blind box" and packaged and sold at a fire price of 1 yuan per catty.
On April 1, China Central Radio and Television's "Focus Interview" reported on the chaos of the "express blind box" suspected of violating the law in the business outlets of Yunda Yiwu Beiyuan. The next day, the Market Supervision Department of the State Post Bureau interviewed Shanghai Yunda Freight Co., Ltd., the headquarters of Yunda Express.
As the former "second" in the express delivery industry, Yunda shares (002120. SZ) is now in turmoil, not only under the fierce offensive of competitors, from the position of "franchise system second", but also the performance has continued to decline.
In the first three quarters of 2023, Yunda Co., Ltd. achieved revenue of 32.835 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.84%. And from the perspective of single-quarter performance, since the fourth quarter of 2022, its revenue has declined year-on-year for four consecutive quarters.
From the perspective of the industry, just looking at the performance in the third quarter of 2023, Yunda's revenue fell by 9.15% year-on-year, the largest decline, SF's revenue fell by 6.42%, YTO's revenue increased only slightly by 0.01%, and Shentong was the only company among the four companies with a large revenue increase.
In addition, complaints such as untimely delivery of Yunda, loss of express mail, and poor service quality are not uncommon. At present, the cumulative number of complaints about "Yunda Express" on the Black Cat complaint platform has exceeded 110,000.
Express returns are sold as blind boxes
Due to CCTV reports, the "express blind box" has attracted attention.
According to reports, on some shopping platforms, some merchants sell a large number of "express blind boxes", which are sold by the pound or by the piece. Tracing back to the source, these blind boxes not only have low-priced products handled by manufacturers, but also return items from express outlets.
The reason is that the merchant itself has not set up a complete return verification mechanism, which has made a loophole for the express outlets, and some express delivery returns are sold at a price of one yuan and one catty, and then the buyer will sell it publicly in the form of "express blind box" in the market.
A reporter from the Yangtze River Business Daily searched for express blind boxes on an e-commerce platform, and there were many pictures of a large number of express delivery piles, marked with "brand new and unopened", "clearance and leakage", "sale by catty" and other related words to attract consumers. Click on the interface, these piles of express delivery are introduced as "new foreign trade department stores explosive toy figure by the pound of the whole box of goods" products, the picture and text are obviously inconsistent, of which 50-90 pieces of hot selling explosive price of 19.69 yuan, sales of more than 10,000 pieces.
Interestingly, such a low-priced "blind box", but the buyer show is all expensive electronic products such as sweeping robots, razors, rice cookers, headphones, etc., and they are all praised. Under the comments, some consumers bluntly said, "It's too fake, the comments are too bad, it's all the same day."
In this survey, most of the 3 bags of "express blind boxes" purchased by consumers pointed to "Yunda Express", "Zhejiang Yiwu Beiyuan Company" and "Zhejiang Yiwu Beiyuan Company Yongjun Road Service Department".
On April 2, the Market Supervision Department of the State Post Bureau interviewed Shanghai Yunda Freight Co., Ltd., the headquarters of Yunda Express, on the issue of illegal handling of user returns by Zhejiang Yiwu Yunda brand express delivery enterprises.
In fact, "express blind boxes" are illegal. In accordance with Article 29 of the newly revised Measures for the Administration of the Express Market (Order No. 22 of 2023), enterprises engaged in express delivery business shall deal with express mail that cannot be delivered and returned (hereinafter referred to as "undelivered express mail") in accordance with laws and administrative regulations, and establish a verification, storage and handling system for undelivered express mail, and include the handling situation in the annual report on the express business license. Items that should be confiscated or destroyed must not be disposed of without authorization, improper benefits must not be obtained, or items that should be confiscated or destroyed must not be illegally detained.
For a long time, the "express blind box" has been a stubborn disease in the express delivery industry, revealing that there are obvious loopholes in the internal management of express delivery companies.
Performance stall outlets contraction
Wind data shows that from 2019 to 2021, its net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.647 billion yuan, 1.404 billion yuan, and 1.477 billion yuan respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of -1.88%, -46.94%, and 5.15% respectively.
In 2022, Yunda will achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.483 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.62%, the lowest growth rate compared with its peers, and in the same period, the year-on-year growth rate of SF, Shentong and YTO will reach 44.62%, 37.6% and 86.35% respectively.
The company's revenue also continued to decline. According to the financial report data, in the first three quarters of 2023, Yunda shares achieved revenue of 32.835 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.84%. Among them, the company's revenue in the third quarter was 11.261 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.15%. Since the fourth quarter of 2022, Yunda's revenue has declined year-on-year for four consecutive quarters.
According to public data, in terms of parcel volume, Yunda's market share in 2023 will be about 14.3%, a significant decline from the level of about 15.9% in 2022.
It is worth mentioning that in February last year, Yunda "more than 2,000 outlets were closed", "the company is going to go bankrupt", "customer service is not accepted" and other news. Subsequently, Yunda issued a clarification announcement, but behind it reflects the contradiction between customer demand and business volume growth, and many consumers are still complaining about the slow delivery speed of Yunda Express, frequent loss of items, and unsmooth complaint channels. At present, the cumulative number of complaints on the black cat complaint platform "Yunda Express" has exceeded 110,000.
In fact, in recent years, the problem of business fluctuations in Yunda outlets has been prominent, and since August 2022, Yunda's monthly express delivery volume has declined, of which November and December of that year have declined by 21.4% and 18.46% respectively. According to the data of Yunda's 2022 semi-annual report, the company has 29,844 outlets and stores across the country, while the above data was 32,274 at the end of 2021, that is, nearly 2,500 outlets have contracted in half a year.
Recently, Yunda released a report on the main business indicators in February, with the express service business income of 2.434 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.22%, the completed business volume of 1.065 billion votes, a year-on-year decrease of 22.88%, and the express service single ticket income of 2.29 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.92%.
For comparison, the business volume of the four express delivery companies of SF, Yunda, Shentong and Yuantong in February decreased by 11.49%, 22.88%, 15.36% and 20.43% respectively year-on-year. For the decline in express service business revenue, Yunda shares explained that one is affected by the staggered Spring Festival holiday, and the other is that the company actively optimizes the customer structure and parcel structure, resulting in a year-on-year decline in business volume and express service business revenue.
The industry believes that since last year, the competition of express delivery head enterprises has been obvious, and YTO has surpassed Yunda to sit in the second place. In addition, the listing of J&T on the Hong Kong stock market and the birth of Cainiao Express have brought new pressure to the competition of leading enterprises, and the challenges and pressures faced by Yunda cannot be underestimated.