"The last mile", can't fly to the rookie when you buy more groceries?
In the last mile of e-commerce, the rookie "flew first" successfully curbed the penetration of Pinduoduo in community services.
Recently, the Zhejiang Provincial High People's Court made a final judgment in the case of Cainiao Network v. Pinduoduo for unfair competition. The court rejected Pinduoduo's appeal, upheld the judgment of the court of first instance, and demanded that Pinduoduo compensate Cainiao Network for economic losses and reasonable rights protection costs totaling 5 million yuan. In addition, Pinduoduo is required to publish an apology on its website for five consecutive days.
Although the number of users and market value have surpassed that of JD.com and Alibaba, Pinduoduo in logistics has always been a "barefoot immortal" lacking its core competitiveness.
The rookie made it difficult to drive away Pinduoduo, seized the entry point of the consumer receiving place of Duoduo to buy groceries, and carried out a two-year lawsuit, determining that the sending and receiving software of Duoduo was competition in the same industry, making Pinduoduo untenable from the laws and regulations, and at the same time, it also played a role in "killing chickens and monkeys" for other franchised outlets.
The battle for rights and interests caused by this logistics system is brewing a bigger storm.
01 The rookie sued Pinduoduo for two years, and the goal was to seize the last mile
In February 2022, Duoduo Grocery announced that it would upgrade the long-end software of Duoduo Grocery to provide consumers with express delivery services, and to connect with express companies such as Three Links and One Reach, J&T, and Post, and open up the express delivery process.
Subsequently, the rookie heard the wind and asked the express station to prohibit the use of third-party software, otherwise the franchise agent qualification would be cancelled. In April of the same year, Cainiao sued Duoduo for infringement and unfair competition, and the two sides escalated from a war of words to a court case.
According to the court documents, the dispute between the two parties mainly focused on the right to use the labels of "Cainiao" and "Cainiao Station", and Cainiao accused Duoduo of infringing mainly on the following points: 1. The names of the "self-pickup points" provided by Duoduo to consumers and the logos of "Cainiao Station" and "Cainiao Station" appeared in the illustrations; 2. "Cainiao Station" appeared in the store names used in the web version of "Pinduoduo Express Collection" and the "Pinduoduo Store Terminal" APP; 3. "Cainiao Station" was used in the "Pinduoduo" store handover order rookie" logo.
Judging from the above three points of the rookie's accusation, it can be seen that there is a hint of "drawing a target and shooting arrows".
In the early years, most of the self-pickup points set up by community group buying software were mom-and-pop stores, grocery stores or convenience stores, and the search addresses of the map software were transplanted to the system. Cainiao accused Duoduo of using the rookie logo at the "self-pickup point", similar to searching for a destination on AutoNavi Map, and "Cainiao Station" appeared in the pop-up results. In addition to buying more groceries, in fact, among the mainstream group buying software on the market, such as Taocaicai and Meituan's preferred pick-up points, there are not a few "Cainiao Station" sites.
The "rookie station" and "rookie" logo appeared on the store side of Duoduo Buying, which is more of the personal choice of the post station owner, for the post station owner, value-added services other than express delivery business are also one of the important sources of store income.
"It's too tiring and it's not profitable. You may not know that we can only earn 3 cents for receiving a courier. Collect more than 1,000 a day, plus send express delivery, the income a day is several hundred yuan, sometimes less than 1,000. My store is next to three communities, ask two employees to pay salaries, pay rent, at the end of the month, may not even earn 10,000 yuan", the boss of Jin, who has been an express post station for many years, is not satisfied with the current situation of the station.
In his opinion, although some platforms will give some subsidies and incentives to the store, they require the goods from their own platforms to be delivered to the door within half a day, which is regarded as the "overlord clause" forced by the e-commerce platform behind the post station to sign the post station, because the service cost is all passed on to the post station operator.
From the perspective of platform layout, some of Pinduoduo's previous layout measures in Duoduo are strategic planning and attempts for the last mile at the end of express delivery, and the most direct competitor is the rookie station. Judging from the results, the rookie successfully blocked Duoduo from buying groceries at the post station, and the door-to-door delivery policy protected the rookie's own business control.
Li Hang, who has many years of retail experience, believes that the reason why the rookie network is preemptive is the competition for the disguised traffic window of the "pickup code". Every time a user scans the code to pick up a package, behind it is the effective number of clicks that flock to the platform, recording user portraits and consumption data for goods and services. At the same time, the rookie will take commissions according to the number of "pickup codes" for the express collection points, and once the express collection points undertake the business of the "third-party collection system", it will also directly affect the commission income of the rookies.
Dr. He Yuan, an associate professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University Law School, said that the draft amendment to the Anti-Monopoly Law currently submitted for review clearly stipulates the abuse of data and algorithms by platform enterprises, and that the use of algorithms and data by platform enterprises to discriminate against prices, deny competitors access to data resources, and set up "either-or" exclusive clauses are typical abuses of market dominance, which violate both the Anti-Monopoly Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
Internet companies need to establish the value concept of "openness and sharing", and should allow other products to enter their own platforms and ecosystems, so that users or partners can have greater choices and rights, and more small and medium-sized startups should be given more opportunities for innovation.
02 The income of the post station has decreased, and consumers cannot make good profits
Aaron has been working part-time at the post station since his sophomore year, and he told us that even in a place like the university, where there is no shortage of consumers, the post station is not easy to do.
"I started doing chores, and the boss gave me 12 yuan/hour. Later, I helped him with his accounting, and I learned about their financial situation by the way. He said that the rent of the university's post station is 20%~30% more expensive than that of the general community, but the income has not increased much in the past two years, but has declined somewhat. "Some platforms bought it, we used to be able to help deliver it, but now we don't let it be delivered directly, because we don't let it connect to the system. ”
Boss Mei from Huangshi told us that in general, medium-sized communities in small counties receive an average of 700 pieces of mail per day, and the express company gives 0.3 yuan per piece, with a daily income of 210 yuan, and 10 mailers generally receive an average income of 60 yuan per day, totaling 270 yuan per day, which is 8,100 yuan a month, and 9,000 yuan when it is full.
The boss gave us an account, "In this kind of small post house planing to a mom-and-pop shop, only one regular worker is usually hired, and the post house worker works ten hours a day, all month long. A monthly salary of 3,000 yuan (no social security), community rent and water and electricity calculations of 1,500 yuan, a monthly expenditure of 4,500 yuan, and a monthly profit of 4,500 yuan for the boss. If you want to send pieces to the door, Tmall will send 0.6 yuan per piece, and the general community will send up to 200 Tmall special deliveries per day, with a door-to-door income of 120 yuan per day, and finally only 50 or 60 yuan may be left in your pocket. "Sometimes when you encounter complaints, you have to deduct 20 yuan for a piece, and it is difficult to think about how much these revenues can overflow after covering the costs.
In fact, when he took over five years ago, it was a different story.
At that time, the problem was mainly focused on the fact that the number of express shipments fluctuated greatly with the peaks and troughs of the off-season and peak season, and there were often double eleven and 618 were too busy, and the daily situation was too leisurely. "At that time, the income was very unstable, and it was basically similar to the feeling of 'not opening for three years, opening for three years'." But he also admitted that at that time, whether it was Taobao, Vipshop, or Pinduoduo's express, the post station could accept it, and there was no situation where only one platform could receive goods as it is now.
Many people know that after the arrival of the black swan, the storm of "group leaders" blew up, and throughout 2021, the transaction scale of China's community group buying market reached 120.51 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 60.4%.
But in fact, from 2018 to 2021, community group buying has been developing rapidly, and the growth rate reached the highest in 2019, at 300%.
Source: Meituan Preferred Group Buying
When it was the hottest, Meituan Preferred, Duoduo Grocery Shopping, Xingsheng Preferred, Orange Heart Preferred(Didi), Shihuituan...... The post station can do the business of these platforms to its heart's content, without the restrictions it has today.
In the Spring Festival of 2022, after the head post station platform issued a clear request to choose one, the situation of the post stations has also changed significantly.
At that time, he also saw the news that other community group buying companies subsidized express delivery and receiving, and tried to ask, but Boss Mei said that because of some "inconvenient reasons", he failed to succeed in the end.
Later, the commissions of the head of Meituan, Jingxi, and Duoduo gradually decreased from more than 10% to 2%~3%, and a profit chain of the post station was also reduced.
As a group with a larger number of people, consumers are also aware of changes. Cao Weiwei is an online shopping "chopping party", and she is very "resentful" about the changes since then.
"One thing I'm angry about is that from almost the second half of 2022, the things I bought at Duoduo Grocery will not be delivered to my door, and I have to pick them up myself. "Before that, no matter what express logistics, what platform to buy the food can ask him to send it to the door, as long as a fixed amount of money is given for a month, since then, the post station will not accept it," said that there was no information, and there was no way to check. I can only buy other platforms, but it is significantly cheaper to buy groceries in Duoduo. ”
In her opinion, this is forcing users to choose between convenience and price.
03 Merchants sacrifice while choosing
This kind of strong strategy also appeared in 2017.
At that time, Cainiao required that the trigger of all express cabinet information must be wrapped through Cainiao, and the pickup code information was unconditionally given to Cainiao, and Hive Hive needed to return all package information to Cainiao (including non-Tao orders), and then blocked SF's logistics data interface through a statement.
Source: Weibo
This kind of market behavior seems to be "market-oriented", but under the effect of the two-sided market effect, it is ultimately "scale-determined", and it is difficult to determine that every time is the best choice, and sometimes there will even be adverse selection, which brings the consequences of bad money driving out good money.
Sister Wu, who has been a post station for several years, said frankly that many times she has to make a choice, "We just eat with a mouth, the more platforms the better, if you want me to be either/or, then I can only make a little sacrifice, very helpless."
This forced move to abandon the car to protect the handsome seems to have intensified in recent years, with the killing of Pinduoduo.
In November 2023, Pinduoduo's market value in the U.S. stock market once surpassed Alibaba, although it was quickly overtaken back, but this is definitely a historic moment for China's e-commerce industry.
Not only that, today's e-commerce world is no longer a two-legged game or a three-legged stand, but a group of heroes. Douyin, Kuaishou, Meituan, and Xiaohongshu are all trying to get involved in e-commerce, and the new content e-commerce model derived from the first two is even setting up another banner to impact the underlying logic of shelf e-commerce.
Li Mu, who operates his own store on multiple platforms, said that his small store has a live broadcast on Douyin, and he will also find someone to plant grass on Xiaohongshu, "Multiple platforms, multiple outlets, one more possibility of launching a popular SKU."
From the perspective of its own platform, Cainiao's approach is understandable and strategic, after all, no one wants the infrastructure they have worked so hard to build to make a wedding dress for other people's business. It's just that how to avoid this situation of "immortals fighting, mortals suffering", and let the merchants and consumers behind the platform feel the convenience and service, is the long-term business value.