In the battle for the "last 1 kilometer", did the post owner win?

Golden Horn Finance

2024-05-01 13:14Posted in Guangdong Finance and Economics Creator

原创首发 | 金角财经（ID: F-Jinjiao)

Author | Lin Shi

After two years, the case of Cainiao Network v. Pinduoduo's Duoduo Grocery ushered in the second-instance judgment, and Duoduo Grocery was found to constitute unfair competition and awarded 5 million yuan in compensation.

According to the court documents, the core point of the judgment is that Duoduo used the logos of "Cainiao" and "Cainiao Station" in the process of reminding consumers of the pick-up location, and used the resources of Cainiao's terminal stores in the promotion process of the "Duoduo Terminal System", so as to gain a competitive advantage in the market.

The battle around the "last mile of express delivery" seems to have come to an end.

Outside of the verdict, the express delivery rivers and lakes have long been wrong.

Embarrassing results

The essence of this two-year court confrontation is the competition between Cainiao Network and Duoduo Grocery around the last mile of express delivery - the post station.

In February 2022, Duoduo Grocery announced that it had achieved system docking with express delivery companies such as Three Links and One Reach, J&T, and Post, opened up the signing process, and launched high subsidies to attract collection points to settle in.

According to public information, this system provided to the end express station does not intercept the pickup code, does not take commissions at the collection point, and does not have a terminal brand, and all information is sent back to the express company.

word by word, I almost typed out the four words of rookie network.

At that time, the rookie controlled more than 170,000 rookie stations, and while the extremely high market share brought a strong voice to the rookie, it also attracted a lot of doubts for the rookie.

The core of it is the "pickup code" - the commission of the post station, the traffic of the rookie post station App, are based on the control of the pickup code, whether it is the collection point or the express company does not have the authority to know the pickup code, the development of the pickup code, retention, query, must pass through the rookie server.

As early as 2017, Cainiao blocked SF's logistics data interface with a statement, and SF revealed that the core contradiction is that Cainiao requires that the trigger of all express cabinet information must be wrapped through Cainiao, and the pickup code information is unconditionally given to Cainiao, and Fengchao needs to return all package information to Cainiao (including non-Tao orders).

In SF's statement, Cainiao's behavior is "based on its own business interests, requiring Hive Hive to provide customer privacy data that has nothing to do with it", and it is recommended that express delivery colleagues "be wary of Cainiao's bottomless behavior of tampering with the core data of express delivery companies".

It's 2022. At that time, Duoduo bought groceries and was joining the battle for the last mile of express delivery. Duoduo Maicai first signed cooperation agreements with a number of express companies in the market, opened up the signature system, and provided subsidies for the settled sites in order to attract outlets to settle in. However, there are many rookie stations under the rookie group. In the app of Duoduo Grocery Shopping, there is also a self-pickup point with the words "Cainiao Station" and the logo.

Obviously, in the understanding of the rookie network, this is obviously a "fruit-picking" type of invasion.

The rookie quickly issued a "Reminder for Resumption of Work during the Spring Festival" to the post stations, which clearly pointed out that the use of a third-party receiving system for the post station to enter the warehouse is a breach of contract. Once discovered, Cainiao has the right to terminate the cooperation with the station, and the account associated with the same cooperative entity cannot be re-settled in the Cainiao Station within one year.

At that time, there were also many voices saying that who the post station outlets cooperated with and in what form were the free choices of the post station subjects under the market economy, and the rookie was suspected of "choosing one of the two".

From the perspective of rookies, even if the post stations are franchised stores, since they follow a unified brand and system, the rookie itself has also invested in brand, channels, expansion and other aspects. Therefore, it seems that there is a reason for requiring its post stations not to access third-party systems.

Soon, the rookie replied to the question of "choosing one of the two", believing that it was "the company's management needs", and then sued Duoduo on the grounds of unfair competition.

Two years later, Cainiao won the first and second trials, but this judgment was not a timely victory.

Since March 1 this year, the newly revised "Express Market Management Measures" (hereinafter referred to as the "New Express Regulations") has been officially implemented, stipulating that express delivery companies without the consent of users to use smart express boxes, express service stations and other means to deliver express mail, and if the circumstances are serious, a fine of between 10,000 yuan and 30,000 yuan will be imposed.

For rookies, the requirement of "express delivery" means that the rookie station, which is located at the strategic core, is falling into an existential crisis.

For most of the rookie inns that are mom-and-pop shops, the profits that support their operations mainly come from the collection business of about 3-4 cents per order. Last year's rookie prospectus showed that the average number of packages handled by rookie stations across the country reached 80 million, and rookies have not announced the proportion of door-to-door delivery and post station collection.

However, a survey data previously released by the Anhui Provincial Postal Administration shows that in 2022, 88.84% of users in Anhui Province will mainly receive express delivery from express delivery self-pickup points, self-pickup cabinets, property collection points, and guard rooms.

This means that the requirement of "express door-to-door" will inevitably increase the operating costs of the rookie station, and the operators of the rookie post station, who have made hard money, can continue to support the last mile of the rookie?

Reality gives a reference answer. After the announcement of the "new rules on express delivery", there were nearly 100 rookie post stations in Chongqing alone, and dozens of rookie post stations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places are waiting to be transferred.

Duoduo lost the verdict when buying vegetables, the strategic core of the rookie was frustrated, and the post house owners fled...... There is no winner in this verdict.

Franchisees who have been affected

With the introduction of the "new regulations on express delivery", the strict requirements for express delivery to the door have made the business model of the express station questioned, and this new format born in the digital age is moving towards another possibility.

The judgment involves two core points - the use of the "Cainiao" and "Cainiao Station" logos, and the use of the post station system for the third-party post station system.

Both of these points need to solve a question, who exactly does the rookie station belong to?

According to public information, Cainiao currently mainly adopts the franchise model, recruiting franchise express agencies or retail and service stores nationwide. For Cainiao, the main source of revenue is pickup and shipping services, of which the pickup business charges commissions to express companies on a piece-by-piece basis, and the shipping business charges consumers a shipping fee.

For the "boss" of the rookie station, the back is more complicated.

On the one hand, they will also obtain income through the collection and delivery services of the post station itself, of which the collection is about 3-4 cents per order and about 4 yuan per single mail, of which the collection is the main source of income. The 80 million parcels and 170,000 rookie stations mentioned above are calculated, and the average daily number of items collected by a single post station is about 500 orders, with a daily income of 200 yuan and a monthly income of only 6,000 yuan.

This also means that many "mom-and-pop shops" still need side jobs to maintain their income. One of the controversies surrounding this case is that some of the Cainiao Stations have become the pick-up points of Duoduo Buy, and Duoduo Buy's name is mentioned in the pick-up point information given to consumers, or a picture of the Cainiao Station appears.

This path of prosecution can be said to belong to the sword to go off the rails - the rookie has no intention of entanglement on whether the business behavior is infringing, but directly sues for image trademark infringement. In this way, in the eyes of rookies, the logo of the post station belongs to the rookie brand, and the use of Duoduo Grocery without consent is an improper act.

However, this seemingly small behavior may directly lead to a result: while impacting the possibility of rookie post station owners to create side businesses, it is also challenging consumers' cognition.

Because in the digital age, it has become common practice for us to use maps, ride-hailing, food delivery group buying, and even e-commerce applications to label actual scenes as geographic information. If according to this logic, the online car-hailing software sets the Cainiao Post Station as a common pick-up point, will it also be suspected of unfair competition?

In fact, the "franchise" model in the digital era, which is different from the franchise in the traditional industry, is independent of the Internet platform, is cooperative rather than subordinate, but uses a unified brand identity, which is the key factor for the rapid growth of the Internet industry.

Just as a delivery person wearing a delivery suit is not an employee of a delivery platform, and the tens of millions of drivers who drive an online car-hailing service are not employees of an online ride-hailing platform, similar cases have emerged in an endless stream from the express delivery industry to the new retail industry.

The core here is the reconstruction, integration and sharing of resources by individual users in the context of the platform economy. From another point of view, if you can't use the post station to engage in some side business, the rookie post station model itself is difficult to continue.

At the two sessions in 2022, Huo Xuexi, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a professor at Northwest A&F University, submitted a "Proposal on Improving the Anti-monopoly Supervision of the Express Industry", and he also said that "the express delivery industry, as the end service system of the logistics industry chain, is related to the basic interests of post merchants and practitioners", and the unspoken rules of monopolistic vicious competition will damage the rights and interests of express delivery practitioners and consumers.

In the innovation of new formats and new business models, it is difficult to say absolute black and white, but if the platform is allowed to control the right to speak, ignoring the most basic survival instinct of small entrepreneurs, the ideal and the reality may only be at odds with each other.

The chilling effect

China's Internet industry has undergone a process from disorder to order.

In the past, the Internet industry often heard a word called savage growth, which represents the Internet entrepreneurs in the era of almost unlimited overtaking of the pioneers.

eBay, Yahoo and Amazon have all lost out of the Chinese market after years of fighting.

But when the cake is almost carved up, savage growth has become a derogatory term, and the giants have begun to monopolize the right to speak on the road to market expansion, and even do not hesitate to harm the rights and interests of consumers.

As a result, the Anti-Monopoly Law was amended for the first time in 14 years after it came into effect, and social media, food delivery platforms, and e-commerce platforms were all fined by the State Administration for Market Regulation. In 2021 alone, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued 118 anti-monopoly penalty cases, of which 89 involved Internet companies, accounting for 75.42%.

Also in the same year, the Intellectual Property Center of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and a number of Internet companies drafted the Anti-Monopoly Self-Discipline Convention for Internet Platform Operators, pledging not to enter into and implement monopoly agreements with other Internet platform operators, and not to engage in relevant acts of abusing market dominance. The first batch of Internet companies signed the agreement reached 33.

From the introduction of laws, the emergence of cases to the self-discipline of the industry, this is a scenario that has been repeated in the Internet industry in the past few years.

Because of this, hard-won results need to be well protected.

Because the Internet is precisely an industry that is not suitable for "overcorrection must be overdone", but needs to leave room for growth. In the revision of the Anti-Monopoly Law, the words "encourage innovation" have been added to Article 1 after "protect fair competition in the market".

This means that the judgment of "unfair competition" needs to be made with great caution. One step forward may lead to the birth of an innovative model, and one step further may face a chilling effect on the entire industry.

The standard worth referring to is the competition between platforms and enterprises, and the interests of the underlying practitioners and consumers should be taken into account, rather than being regarded as a price that can be sacrificed and ignored, which may be the true intention of market competition.

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