According to the data of the Ministry of Transport, in 2003, the online freight industry uploaded a total of 130 million waybills, a year-on-year increase of 40.9%. The broad growth of the market space has attracted many Internet players to increase their entry into the game.
Among them, Didi Freight, which began to end in 2020, recently officially announced the launch of the "Cargo Damage 0 Liability Protection" driver rights and interests protection plan to compensate truck drivers for lost goods. This is another core right after Didi Freight launched the "0 deposit" for truck driver registration in September last year.
However, it has been more than half a year since Didi Freight launched the "0 deposit" in September last year, and there are still many drivers on the black cat complaint platform who complain that the 500 yuan deposit will not be refunded after leaving the job.
This time, how much is the reality of Didi Freight's "0 responsibility guarantee"?
The security deposit becomes a liquidated penalty and an activation fee
Yibao.com found that on the black cat complaint platform, there were nearly 3,000 complaints about keywords such as "freight platform, deposit" and so on. The search for "Didi Freight" yielded 1,055 related complaints, mainly focusing on "non-refundable deposit after resignation", "compensation for liquidated damages", "malicious deduction of driver service points", "false publicity", etc., and even some freight drivers complained that the platform "modified the promotional content", because Didi Freight promised to have a source of goods, but it was not fulfilled after paying the deposit.
In the latest complaint, the freight driver said that he paid a deposit of 500 yuan to the Didi freight platform on March 7, 2024, but he has not received a refund after leaving his job on March 27, and has been required to pay liquidated damages. At present, the complaint has been dealt with.
In addition to the complaints of freight drivers, the customer side is also full of slots: Didi Express delivery products are lost, Didi hitchhiker drivers pick up private deliveries halfway, Didi delivery drivers privately ask for charges, and so on.
However, according to the law, the Contract Law distinguishes between passenger transport contracts and freight contracts, and the standard requirements for delivery and delivery are not the same in the industry.
On the other hand, Didi Freight is now vigorously promoting the "upgrading of drivers' rights and interests protection", and cooperating with UU errands and Yifeng Moving to launch the "Helping Logistics Workers Multi-channel Flexible Employment" activity. In addition, in order to attract more truck drivers to join, Zhao Hui, general manager of Didi Delivery, also said that 40 million yuan will be invested this year to provide truck drivers with "recommended new drivers to register" rewards.
Whether Didi Freight is involved in "false publicity", or freight drivers and users are involved in "false complaints", we have no way to confirm, but there is one point, under the wave of Internet layoffs, the layoffs that Didi Freight has experienced before are indeed true, that is, the wave of Didi layoffs from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, and the proportion of layoffs in Didi Freight should be in the forefront.
Soliciting customers and delivering goods are stupid and indistinguishable
At the beginning, in order to make a high valuation before going public in the United States, Didi expanded many businesses to tell sexy stories to the capital market, such as energy stories, shared two-wheeled travel stories, car building stories, e-commerce stories, travel stories, and so on.
And Didi freight is also one of the stories that Didi wants to tell. After all, compared with passenger transportation with a lower unit price, the higher the unit price of freight passengers, and the higher platform commission.
In June 2020, Didi officially launched its freight business. At that time, in order to brush the sense of existence on the user and driver side, Didi Freight invited Yue Yunpeng to endorse the image with a heavy investment, and the advertisements were overwhelming.
As a result, Didi Freight, which has been online for 3 months, has exceeded 100,000 orders in 8 cities in a single day.
However, according to the media at the time, because Didi freight subsidies were more and commissions were less at the beginning, many passengers used Didi freight to replace Didi passenger transport.
This kind of subsidy play is very common in the Internet era, including Meituan, Eleme, Pinduoduo, etc., all rely on subsidies to play out of the circle, first use high subsidies, low commissions to attract customers, merchants, drivers, and so on after forming user habits, and then gradually increase commissions and reduce subsidies.
However, many users complained that Didi Freight has developed so far, and it is still a cargo solicitation and passenger delivery, which is stupid and indistinguishable, which is obviously contrary to the concept of focusing on safe freight. Coupled with the launch of Didi's errand business, that is, the "Didi Express" business, the three are even more confusing.
Yibao.com learned that in June 2023, Didi will launch the "Didi Express" business, using the aggregation platform model, and access to UU errands, Dada Express, Flash Delivery, SF City, Flash Express, Malt Field, Love Errands and other errand companies.
Taking the Didi driver who ridiculed himself as a "delivery man" as an example, in the case of not having the right to view the user's belongings, the user has a probability of contraband using online car-hailing to deliver goods.
Perhaps it was "running too fast" that made Didi and Didi Freight too late to implement the details of the system.
In fact, soon after its establishment, Didi Freight has been repeatedly reminded and interviewed by regulators along with a group of peers such as Cargo Lala, Full Bang, and Kuaigou Taxi, involving issues including but not limited to price competition, multiple charges, illegal operations, etc., such as the platform arbitrarily adjusting the pricing rules, increasing membership fees, spraying mobile advertisements on motor vehicles registered and operating on the platform, removing seats without permission, carrying goods on passenger vehicles, illegal passenger transportation, and engaging in the transportation of dangerous goods without authorization.
Regarding Internet freight, the regulator has clearly put forward requirements to rectify price competition, standardize charging behavior, and eliminate potential safety hazards such as overloading and overloading, illegal carrying of passengers, and transportation of contraband. But to this day, families are still "walking the tightrope".
Solution: Bad money in the industry drives out good money?
At present, there are several listed companies in the Internet freight market, including Full Bang and Kuaigou Taxi, and the prospectus of Lala is also being updated. Didi briefly "lived" in the U.S. stock market before choosing to delist, and is now preparing to IPO in Hong Kong.
Didi's financial report data shows that in 2023, the total number of orders of the platform's domestic travel business will reach 10.809 billion, and the number of domestic users of the platform will increase to 475 million.
From the perspective of the freight track alone, Didi Freight can be regarded as a latecomer in the industry, and since its birth, it has carried the halo of "star company". As a public company and platform company, Didi Freight is connected to drivers at one end and users at the other, involving multiple interest groups and taking into account multiple responsibilities.
Originally, the market was full of expectations for the Internet to change the traditional freight model, and through digital means, it changed the inefficient offline transactions and opaque information communication modes in the past, so that the freight logistics industry bid farewell to the "small blackboard" era.
However, in the process of "reshaping" the industry with technology digitalization on the Internet platform, it has also brought some problems of the Internet into the industry, as well as technological black holes and information leaks, which seem to deviate from the original intention.
On the consumer complaint platform, all kinds of complaints are increasing day by day, on the one hand, drivers and users are complaining, on the other hand, the company's platform covers their ears and closes their eyes to publicize, on the other hand, there is a 40 million "recommended driver registration" award, on the other hand, there are various obvious charges such as driver activation fees, membership fees, and liquidated damages.
In the mutual exchange between the left and right of the platform, the bilateral trust of users and drivers may gradually be lost.
Generally speaking, the progress of the industry needs to develop vitality, and the benign competition of latecomers is needed to promote positive innovation, but when the Internet era only has price wars, traffic wars, subsidy wars and other means to compete for users, it is difficult to talk about innovation, and progress is impossible to talk about, and the road is getting narrower and narrower. The "catfish" that the market is looking forward to may be the promoter that can bring positive feedback to the industry.