Titanium Media Note: This article comes from the WeChat public account Sina Technology (ID: techsina), the author | Liu Yadan, Editor | Han Dapeng, Titanium Media is authorized to publish.
The Tanabata Festival has quietly arrived. This kind of S-class festival will undoubtedly bring more than 20 times the sales volume of the flower market to the daily market.
Hema, Dingdong to buy vegetables, and Douyin have all set their eyes on the flower market, and an industry clamor of "buying flowers is like buying vegetables", mixed with the holiday premium of traditional Tanabata, forcing offline traditional flower shops to transform or close.
But buying flowers online is not a foolproof solution. When Sina Finance experienced online shopping for flowers, it encountered a situation such as "large loss in summer, it is recommended to refund the order".
Senior practitioners in the flower industry revealed that flowers are divided into four grades of A, B, C and D, and the routines of community group buying and live flower selling are mostly doped C and D grades, "many online customers rely on low prices, and when shipping, they will be mixed with inferior quality flowers to sell together."
<h2>Shoddy, old routine? </h2>
There are more and more online flower platforms, but consumers love and hate it.
"Once I was out of love for a while and was very depressed. My friend sent me flowers that were delivered regularly for a month and took me out of the trough. So I have a lot of love for the online platform to order flowers", this is the story of consumer Zhang Ling, and later by chance, she also went to work at an online flower e-commerce company.
But on the other hand, there are not a few users who shout "hurt".
"Online customer service can not understand people's words, can not solve the problem, and then shirk responsibility, ask whether there is a complaint channel, directly say no", "private messages you did not deal with, is a liar, everyone do not be deceived."
Such messages abound under the weibo of a well-known e-commerce flower platform. Insufficient customer service personnel, insufficient professional delivery personnel, improper transportation packaging and temperature control... Seemingly simple flower sales, but there are many doorways.
(E-commerce flower photo of user complaints)
"As a special kind of fresh food, flowers face the same problems as fresh food, with a short life cycle and high transportation costs. Now the so-called group purchase, in fact, does not solve the problem of transportation costs. Many of the flowers I usually buy online are C-grade," a senior practitioner in the flower industry told Sina Finance. The flower industry will be divided into A-grade, B-grade, C-grade, and D-grade according to the quality of the flowers, and many online platforms that attract customers at low prices will be mixed with flowers with inferior quality.
Ms. Wu, a consumer, was impressed, and when she was expecting to open the door to pick up the flowers sent by the platform, the courier carried the flowers upside down and delivered the flowers to her like a handful of leeks. After opening, the lily pollen fell off, and the flowers were very badly damaged, "It's really like buying flowers like buying vegetables!" She sighed.
But the potential market prospect has brought new customers to the industry.
In February this year, the flower lifestyle brand "Take a Moment", which has been quiet for several years, announced the completion of a 100 million yuan C1 round of financing, making the market lively again.
At the same time, online platforms such as Dingdong Grocery Shopping, Hema, Meituan Preferred, and Daily Fresh have all started online flowers. Taking Hema as an example, it recently established a joint venture with Kunming Flower Auction Center to establish a flower company and established 20 flower bases in Yunnan.
Relevant data show that the size of China's flower e-commerce market in 2016 was only 16.8 billion yuan, while in 2020 it is expected to exceed 70 billion yuan, an increase of 3 times in 4 years. In developed countries such as Japan and the United States, the daily consumption of flowers accounts for 30% to 40% of the market, but in China, flower consumption is mainly concentrated in holidays or celebrations, and daily flower consumption accounts for only 5%.
"We clearly feel that this year everyone's attention to the flower market has become higher. And the industry is already robbing the upstream supply chain of flowers, and the phenomenon of employees in the flower supply chain being poached this year is also very obvious," an online flower e-commerce practitioner revealed.
E-commerce flower platforms are increasing, but people in the industry are still not optimistic.
"I can say very responsibly that the companies in this model are basically not profitable, and they are expanding the number of users by lower than the cost price." The senior practitioner of the flower industry said.
However, early to seize the market, low prices are inevitable, and the market's response is not completely negative. Sina Finance also learned that the well-known e-commerce flower platform Huajia announced that it began to make a profit as early as 2019; relevant insiders also revealed to Sina Finance: "The company's operation is normal. After the B round in 2017, the founders rarely appeared outside. However, in the middle of 2018, there were also B+ rounds of financing, but they were not announced to the public. ”
"Spending this line, by reselling flowers from the market to customers, making this difference, it is impossible to make any money; ten bunches of lilies will earn 20 yuan; the real money is the premium brought by late design and packaging; these online platforms want to make money, and they will slowly come to the stage of integrating customization and design." A flower shop owner told Sina Finance.
<h2>Do it alone offline, can't live? </h2>
Lao Xu, who lives near Tsinghua University, has been working in the student flower market for more than 20 years. In the early years, he started a flower shop in an offline flower market in Beijing, learning flower arrangement and flower matching step by step.
At present, a very realistic phenomenon is impacting him, and there seem to be more people buying flowers, but the offline flower market in Beijing is disappearing one by one.
For example, the old Guanyuan Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market, located on Chaoyang Road in Chaoyang District, was once a flower market recommended by flower lovers many times online, but now the storefront is gradually withdrawn, there are fewer and fewer merchants, and the few remaining shops can hardly support the scale of the "market".
Shop rent and the epidemic are the last straw that overwhelmed the offline flower market. A flower market worker in Haidian District told Sina Finance that because many of the traditional flower markets are built in greenhouses, the policy has gradually banned such markets. On the other hand, the online platform is in, "the online selling price is often lower than our purchase price, how big is the impact", Lao Xu sighed.
The sweep of the industry is the same. In Wuhan, which has been hit hardest by the epidemic, offline flower shop owners have felt the reality of "having to turn online" after unblocking. After the epidemic, Li Ze went to Wuhan's Hanjie commercial circle every day after work to deliver flowers, and he urgently needed to refresh the sales volume of his home store on Hungry Mo and Meituan. Your own shop is near the central office building, the location is not bad, once you open the white-collar market in the office building, you can revitalize your own small shop.
"Otherwise there is no business, and now there is almost no business offline, or toss it," Li Ze said. But the business of Meituan and Hungry is not so easy to do. "Many florists are doing it as a team, some people brush orders, some people are responsible for docking customers, we have few people, it is difficult to grab." But if they do it, sales on holidays will be easy to pick up. An offline florist owner revealed.
There are also those who are seeking change. Axin's florist is located in a flower market near Beijing's Haidian Science and Technology Park, where internet companies are home. Although after the epidemic, there are fewer individual customers in the flower market, and even a few customers are not seen on weekdays. But Ah Xin's Tanabata business is still very good. "It is foreseeable that Tanabata will not be busy on the day, so let everyone book in advance."
She has a customer base of nearly 500 people online, and a group of employees from multiple companies is gathered. "Everyone buys flowers during lunchtime, chats are cooked, and add WeChat into the group." Now it's all about it, book the flowers in advance. We have a special person to send it over, usually once a week on Monday. If there are imported flowers and niche flowers, tell us in advance," Ah Xin introduced to Sina Finance. Compared with the monthly online flower delivery service done by the online platform, Ah Xin's online private domain economy has reached the closure of multiple links such as private customization and delivery.
Online rush, unreliable?
It can be said that Douyin has "been" intruded into this flower online competition.
"I bought a handful of roses from a flower shop in Yunnan on Douyin Live before, cheap and no money, and the quality is still very good," a consumer reflected.
After the epidemic, a large number of live broadcasters entered the Dounan Flower Market in Yunnan and directly sold flowers on Douyin Live. Flowers here are loaded, laid out and sold by farmers like cabbage, and 7 out of 10 cut flowers bought by Chinese consumers are sent from here.
In the past, flowers from Dounan Market will first be sent to distribution markets and florists in various places, and then enter the homes of ordinary people. However, after the live broadcast of the goods, the transportation chain was also opened, and the flowers were sent directly from Yunnan to the hands of customers.
39 yuan 10 roses, 10 orange stems, 10 lilies, plus sunflowers... On Douyin, there are more and more sellers of such "ground stall" shouting. Douyin officials also began to drive the flower consumer market, and recently did a "fancy life" related theme activity, taking the opportunity to recommend a number of online flower platforms to expose.
However, like all online platforms, the live broadcast of flowers sold directly from Yunnan has a greater loss of flowers and is seriously affected by the season.
Sina Finance ordered a bouquet of flowers in a flower live broadcast room as a consumer, but an hour later, the other party's customer service called and said: "Now in the summer, the temperature is too high, and the loss of flowers is very large." It is recommended that you cancel your order again. ”
A flower industry practitioner also found that the praise rate of flower shops on the Douyin platform is usually low; the same merchant will even close the store after a period of time and open another store instead.
"At present, those who live broadcast, walk and so on make the price more chaotic, but in fact, they should not make money." Now belongs to the chaotic world, after the great chaos will be the great rule, walk and see! Old Xu sighed. (The interviewee in this article is a pseudonym)