Text | New Excerpt Business Review, Author | ketchup
In this lawsuit, although the rookie station won on the surface, behind its forced post station to "choose one of the two" were the complaining post station owners, the residents whose living convenience had plummeted, and the rookie who was even more tired and anxious after withdrawing the listing application.
Recently, the more than two-year-long "rookie and duoduo shopping battle" has temporarily come to an end: recently, the Zhejiang Provincial High Court made a final judgment on the unfair competition case of Cainiao Network v. Pinduoduo, and Duoduo was sentenced to compensate Cainiao Network for economic losses and reasonable rights protection costs of 5 million yuan due to infringement and other reasons.
This lawsuit goes back to 2022. At that time, Duoduo Grocery was rumored to open the express delivery collection system service, and the rookie post station was highly vigilant about this, and immediately said "ugly words ahead" to the owner of the rookie post station, prohibiting the post station from using the Duoduo shopping software system, otherwise it would be "permanently removed", which was regarded by the industry as a "forced post station boss" to choose one of the two.
At that time, some people in the industry commented that who the post station outlets cooperate with and in what form of cooperation, which is the free choice of the main body of the post station under the market economy, and the rookie clearly ordered "one of the two", which is an exclusive policy. Some people also cite that in April 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation made an administrative penalty decision on Alibaba Group in accordance with the law, imposing a fine of 18.228 billion yuan, pointing to its "monopoly record" of "choosing one of the two".
Now, when Cainiao wins the lawsuit, he "wins on the logo": Cainiao's accusation of infringement is mainly based on the name of the "self-pickup point" provided by Duoduomaicai to consumers, and the appearance of the logos of "Cainiao" and "Cainiao Station" in the illustrations. In this regard, some post house owners feel that it is difficult to avoid, a rookie post station owner in Chengdu said that there is a huge rookie post station plaque in front of his house, and there is no way not to shoot these words when shooting.
"The residents in the neighborhood bought vegetables and picked them up, and they must see the real pictures in front of my store to find them. Originally, (opening a post station) would not make money, only selling vegetables and being the head of the group, if these pictures were not allowed to be used in the future, people would not be able to find a store and not buy vegetables, and our income would be less. ”
As said, now, the rookie post station has won the lawsuit, and it has won a lot of glory on the surface, but there is a dilemma that is not enough for outsiders in the dark - behind the forced post station to "choose one of the two", there are complaining post station owners, residents whose living convenience has plummeted, and rookies who are more tired and anxious after withdrawing their listing applications. In a word, there are no winners after the gunshots.
01 Loss-making innkeepers and angry users
For the owner of the rookie station, after the introduction of the new express delivery regulations in March this year, it made him even more confused about the future prospects.
Since March 1 this year, the newly revised "Express Market Management Measures" have been implemented, and the new regulations have made it clear that enterprises operating express delivery business without the consent of users, unauthorized use of smart express boxes and express service stations to deliver express mail is a violation, and a maximum fine of 30,000 yuan will be imposed.
This also further awakens the awareness of user rights protection. If in the past, many consumers still because "everyone put the station", had to "endure the calm for a while", then the introduction of the new regulations, undoubtedly gave themselves the courage to ask for home delivery, however, for the lack of manpower, has formed muscle memory of the rookie express, will still be the express delivery without permission in the rookie station, which further exacerbates the contradiction between the post station owner and the user.
In terms of black cat complaints, there are more than 30,000 complaints about the "rookie station", most of which revolve around "not sending them to the door". The owner of the post station said that after the introduction of the new regulations, angry users often called directly to condemn the post station boss after seeing the news of the rookie post station.
In the long run, under the supervision of the new regulations and the promotion of users, the express delivery industry continues to recruit people and deliver goods to the door, and it is the general trend to finally form a standardized process, which makes more parcels bypass the rookie post station in the future, so that the income of the owner of the rookie post station will further decline.
The data shows that at present, 170,000 stations have been built at the rookie station, with an average daily processing volume of 80 million, and at the same time, the charging standard of the rookie station is about 5 cents per order, that is to say, every package enters the station, you have to give the rookie 5 cents, and in the future, there will be a considerable number of packages that no longer need to be made by this middleman.
Before the introduction of the new regulations, in the industry, opening a rookie post station was a "thankless" errand, and all that was earned was hard money and strength money. The owner of a post station in Jinjiang District, Chengdu, said that the rookie post station has a huge workload, and it has to sort out the goods, put them on the shelves, and send pickup codes every day. Because of the need to save labor costs, the couple often rotates 14 hours a day.
"Even if you don't make much money, even if you put 700 pieces into storage a day, it's 350 yuan, and you generally have to open a post station of about 60 square meters, and you have to have at least two people, except for rent, water and electricity, manpower and whatever, there is nothing left, only convenience stores, dry cleaners, store managers, and more grocery shopping and collection points to do together, and earn some side jobs. ”
For users who have been "bitter rookies for a long time", the rookie's "choosing one of the two" is also lowering the popularity of passers-by. Ms. Zhou, a mother in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, mentioned the rookie post station and said that she had no good feelings.
"The stroller that was more than ten pounds before was put in the post station without saying hello, and let me push it back in the winter. There are also two years ago, I was buying vegetables on Duoduo and picking up the express delivery by the way, and I bought it well, but suddenly one day the post station did not collect the vegetables on behalf of me, and the boss said, "The rookie will not let me." In this regard, many users resonated deeply on public social platforms: "The rookie pattern is small. ”
Another user said that the rookie post station near him has recently quietly hung up the "Wangpu sublease": "Some bosses said that the current situation is better than not doing the post station and going out to work." ”
And now, the rookie is suing Pinduoduo, behind the "relentless pursuit and fierce fighting", it is actually the crisis and anxiety that the rookie has been constantly sharing the cake and shaking its status in recent years, forcing it to go further.
02 Behind the "one of the two": a rookie who is extremely insecure
From a psychological point of view, when an individual's sense of security decreases, they will see the outside world as a threat to themselves, so that hostility and aggression will increase, and the same is true for enterprises, and in recent years, rookies have been in this state. There's no other reason – not to make money.
According to the data of the rookie prospectus, during the period from 2021 to 2023, the cumulative net loss of the rookie reached about 7.1 billion yuan, of which the net loss in fiscal year 2021 was 2 billion yuan, the net loss in fiscal year 2022 was 2.3 billion yuan, and the net loss in fiscal year 2023 was 2.8 billion yuan.
At the same time, Alibaba, as the largest source of revenue in the financial report, will never be able to get rid of the stereotype of "Alibaba's little brother".
Cainiao is also well aware of this, and warned of the risks in the prospectus, saying that if Alibaba Group's e-commerce platforms lose their market position or become unable to compete with other e-commerce platforms at home and abroad, Cainiao's business operations and order volume, marketing efforts, and relationships with merchants and strategic partners may be adversely affected.
The main army business that Cainiao relies on to survive, such as Cainiao Post Station and Cainiao International's overseas business, has also been constantly challenged in recent years.
Taking the terminal narrative carrier of the rookie post station as an example, in recent years, it has not been able to dominate alone, facing challenges such as J&T's "J&T Neighborhood" and Zhongtong's terminal brand "Rabbit Happy Life". In June last year, J&T Express opened a terminal post station business called "J&T Neighborhood" and quickly rolled out, covering more than 340 cities across the country and reaching more than 10,000 communities and towns;
At the same time, in January of this year, Zhongtong's "Rabbit Life" upgraded the small program to "Rabbit Life +", with the express station as the basic plate, expanded horizontally, and added local life content such as catering group buying, which coincides with the playing style of the rookie station.
In recent years, the proportion of revenue from Cainiao's international logistics business has been declining, from 55.1% in fiscal 2021 to 52.3% in fiscal 2022, and then to 47.4% in fiscal 2023, and the total number of cross-border parcels handled by Cainiao in fiscal 2023 is 1.5 billion, compared with 1.68 billion last year, which is in a downward trend.
At the same time, the road is narrow, and overseas, the rookie once again encountered the old rival of the "three rivers and four seas" - the pole rabbit express of the Pinduoduo system. In 2022, J&T delivered 14.6 billion parcels, with a compound annual growth rate of 112.3% from 2020 to 2022, and further expanded to new markets such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico.
SF Express, JD.com and other "Three Kingdoms Killing" players should not be underestimated: in 2022, SF Holdings' revenue from outside Chinese mainland will be about 58.9 billion yuan, accounting for 22% of the total revenue; as of June 30, 2023, JD Logistics has operated nearly 90 bonded warehouses, direct mail warehouses and overseas warehouses around the world, with a total management area of nearly 900,000 square meters.
It's like a rookie breaking through in China, just trying to catch his breath overseas, looking up, there are still those old friends at the poker table, and none of them have been left behind.
Now, Alibaba has withdrawn its rookie listing to "strengthen the focus on e-commerce core business and logistics collaboration". With the contraction of the Ali matrix, each company and platoon returned to the regiment headquarters to keep warm, and the rookie who could not fly alone simply relied on the power of "Alibaba" to horizontally compress the living space of other players in the industry - this has also aggravated the situation of choosing one of the two now.
03 Where is the rookie station going?
As early as 2022, when the "two choices" first emerged, Mo Daiqing, director and senior analyst of the online retail department of the E-commerce Research Center of the Internet Economic Society, publicly stated that the rookie's move had caused the controversy of "choosing one of the two". "Choosing one of the two" itself is an illegal and prohibited act, a kind of unfair competition, and may even be suspected of monopoly. It should be noted that as the giants accelerate the layout of the terminal network, the living space of the express terminal stores has been squeezed. Reducing the "one of the two" is not only conducive to the formation of healthy competition among logistics and express delivery companies, but also allows consumers to have more choices.
As said, in the current express terminal market of the post station, more than 50% of the market share of the rookie has a certain dominance - the upstream is the e-commerce platform, the midstream is the express company, the downstream is the post station, in the upstream and midstream, the rookie uses the monopoly position in the information to intercept the pickup code and consumers. Previously, many consumers complained that the pickup code was forcibly intercepted, and the specific APP was forced to send back information, which was very annoying.
In the downstream, rookies can control post stations by raising parcel charging standards, apportioning equipment and purchasing equipment, etc., thereby compressing the living space of non-Ali platforms, logistics companies, and express stations. In the short term, it can indeed strengthen the dominant position of the industry, but in the long run, it may not be a positive way to win people's hearts and strengthen partnerships and users' minds.
Of course, rookies have not carried out positive exploration and efforts: in terms of service, in March last year, rookies and Tmall supermarkets officially opened half-day delivery services, and announced the completion of "half-day delivery covering 20 cities across the country" by the end of the year; With the introduction of the new regulations, whether the rookie can find a place in the next round of competition and "properly place" the rookie station remains to be tested by time.