A few days ago, SF City launched a nationwide recruitment activity for four-wheeled freight city agents, and entered the intra-city freight market in a high-profile manner.
In the past, there were various players such as Lala, Didi Freight, Kuaigou, Hello Travel, etc., but now, the freight track in the same city has added another fire, and the market is changing from a "blue ocean" to a "red ocean", and the track is now very crowded.
Giants have entered the game one after another, and the near futures Lala is the third time to submit a prospectus, is the same city freight with a low threshold really a good business? Since its listing, the share price of GoGox has continued to fall, and at the same time, issues such as the high commission ratio of various platforms, multiple charges, and freight safety have been questioned.
Freight wars in the same city are raging
The reason for recruiting four-wheel transportation capacity, SF Express said that it aims to vigorously improve its own transportation capacity system to meet the needs of merchants in the same city, different stores to transfer goods, bulk distribution and other scenarios.
At present, the coverage of instant retail has developed from small food and beverage takeaway to supermarkets and department stores and even bulk goods. Such a change, especially the large-weight, large-scale, long-distance non-standard distribution scenarios, has challenged the difficulty and delivery timeliness of the second-wheel capacity.
In order to attract service providers to settle in, SF also provides a large number of shared resource support for its partners, including order commissions, vehicle profits, human resources service fees, and brand resource services. SF Express said that there is no cap on the order commission, and the vehicle profit is more than it gets, which helps partners increase revenue, expand business scale, and establish a stable passenger and cargo relationship.
In September last year, Didi Freight had launched the "0 deposit" policy, and more than half a year has passed, and there are still many drivers on the black cat complaint platform who complain that the 500 yuan deposit will not be refunded.
Yibao.com found that for a long time, the freight platform in the same city has been in flames, although the cargo lala and fast dog have entered the market for a long time to maintain their market advantages, but the company that crosses the border to grab the cake is not the only one in the same city of SF.
In April 2023, Full Truck officially upgraded its short-distance (intra-city) freight brand and launched a new "provincial" APP to provide diversified capacity solutions for enterprises and individual users with short-distance (intra-city) freight needs.
According to public data, this means that there is still 96.5% of the market unexplored, and it has also attracted countless capitals and giants to explore, which may become the main reason for SF Express's entry into the city.
Crossing borders to pan for gold is not an easy task
On the eve of SF's entry into the freight market, Lala, which occupies the top position in the market, submitted its report to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the third time. According to the latest prospectus, in 2023, the company will achieve revenue of US$1.334 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.8%. As the world's largest intra-city logistics trading platform for closed-loop freight GTV, its market share reached 44.0% in the first half of 2023.
According to the prospectus, in 2023, Huolala will have an average of about 13.4 million monthly active merchants. As of the first half of 2023, Huolala has become the largest logistics trading platform for the world's average monthly active merchants. The increase in average monthly active merchants was attributable to the continued penetration of existing markets and the expansion of more cities and regions.
Although the adjusted net profit is positive for the first time in 2023, the sustainability of earnings is still unknown, and problems such as high commissions, high fees, and mixed loading of people and goods have been surrounding. According to public reports, in the past three years, Lala has been interviewed more than 10 times, mainly involving the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of truck drivers and fair competition in the market.
The entry of a large number of competitors will inevitably threaten the original market position of Lalala, and Lala must find a new market story. As early as March 2023, Lala announced the official launch of its errand business, with the first stops in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
iiMedia Consulting predicts that with the cultivation of consumption habits in recent years, errand services are expected to usher in an explosive period. SF's revenue in 2023 will reach 12.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%, and its net profit will increase by 118% to 50.6 million yuan. After making a profit, SF Express also needs new growth points, and it is a matter of course to enter the same city.
Yibao.com believes that for the same city of Lala and SF Express, although the two businesses belong to the same city scenario, the organization, operation and management models are different, and it remains to be seen whether they can achieve the desired market effect.
The era of brutal competition of "burning money subsidies" is gone, with the continuous expansion of the war situation, whether it is an errand or a freight platform, are facing the challenges of small brothers, drivers, and supervision, whether the giants can jump out of the comfort zone, whether they can get out of the road of differentiated competition, will be the biggest attraction in the future.