Edited by China Merchants: "supermarket to Home: looking for increment from inventory-- supermarket to Home Business depth report"

China Merchants believes that the supermarket-to-home track is getting more and more attention, and with the development of the Internet and location services, the demand for just-in-time delivery is expanding, and the field has been locked in a scuffle since 2015. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development, competition barriers and future direction of platform supermarket-to-home enterprises.

Supermarket to home is a new way of consumption brought about by the upgrading of consumption. As long as users turn on app to choose and pay, they can enjoy the delivery service without leaving home. Compared with the traditional supermarket, the category of supermarket-to-home operation is also fresh, food and daily necessities, but the service saves users' time and consumption experience.

In a broad sense, supermarket-to-home business covers a wide range of business, including store-based arrival (divided into self-operated and platform-based), community-based store arrival, and pre-warehouse mode of fresh e-commerce (with strong timeliness).

1. The change of consumption concept leads to the birth of home demand.

China Merchants believes that the birth and maturity of supermarket-to-home business is inseparable from changes in consumer groups and consumer concepts. The post-80s generation has gradually become the backbone of consumption, paying more attention to personality, experience and convenience; the overall concept of consumption is also gradually changing: price sensitivity is reduced, willing to pay for quality, service and efficiency.

Coupled with the development of the Internet and location services"lazy" groupStepped onto the stage of consumption, although they do not go out, but keen to use mobile phones to enjoy a variety of door-to-door services. The increasing scale of users and orders of lazy people intensifies the competition of supermarket-to-home service and all kinds of e-commerce.

At the same time, driven by their strong demand, real-time distribution services continue to develop. China Merchants believes that with the future (long-term) development of drone distribution, the efficiency of real-time distribution will be further improved, the cost will be further reduced, and the barriers to home business will be further reduced.

2. The platform type head is concentrated, and the five people are arranged in unison.

Since the first half of 2015, O2O e-commerce platform has laid out the home business one after another. There are two kinds of platform entrances: one is to develop independent APP, the other is to drain through the original platform. According to the depth of cooperation with retailers, it can be divided intoDepth platform(multi-point, Taoxian), andFlow-based platformJD.com arrived home, ele.me, Meituan.

• Different play methods of depth platform and flow platform

For the deep platform, it mainly carries on the systematic transformation to the cooperative retailers, in order to get through the online and offline system. For the flow platform, user analysis is the key. Relying on the takeout platform, Meituan and ele.me can obtain transformed customers with similar needs, and introduce supermarket distribution orders, which is helpful to alleviate the peak and valley of the takeout platform and improve the overall efficiency of distribution.

• The advantage of platform supermarket to home
  

Among the advantages of platform supermarkets, the main ones are:

One of themHave the advantages that the traditional business supermarkets do not have.Its convenience enhances user stickiness, lower staffing and store costs, and is not limited to the sales radius. Among them, there are more platform-based SKU, which cooperates with offline traditional merchants to create a multi-category operation, which can better meet the needs of customers, but it is slightly insufficient in timeliness and turf effectiveness.

Second, with the help of the platformThere is a lot of room for growth in the stock transformation of traditional merchant supermarkets.. On the demand side, consumers' demand for real-time distribution services is growing, while on the supply side, technologies such as intelligent picking and self-driving reduce the cost of order performance.

Third,Flow + user + digital systemTo create a competitive barrier for the home-to-home business of the platform supermarket Wait.

3. The direction of future development

Due to the different characteristics and enabling effects of depth and flow models, some traditional retailers (such as Bubugao and Renle) choose to access both at the same time. China Merchants believes that at present, there is a trend of convergence between the two models, and it is possible in the future.Further integration。

• Potential problems and solutions

Question oneOnline orders divert offline storesMake the traditional Shang Chao unwilling to continue to cooperate with the platform. In this regard, China Merchants believes: first of all, online and offline consumption scenarios are different, customer groups are different, diversion is not big; at the same time, online business can drain stores, accurate marketing to improve the purchase rate.

Second, each platform attracts users and increases stickiness through strategies such as sending red packets and low freight. IfReduce subsidies in order to increase profit margins, price attractiveness will be greatly reduced. In this regard, China Merchants believes that there is still profit space at present, and there is no need to increase fees generously in the later stage; and after cultivating a more stable user habit, properly raising the cost of distribution and other expenses will not have a great impact on sales.

• Mode optimization direction

Limited store property, slow pick-up →Store + front position mode(Yonghui satellite warehouse is exploring in this direction):

High marketing cost →Community push(refer to community group vendors):

The service quality of merchant distribution is not high →Self-built logistics(refer to the takeout platform):

Increase distribution fee and reduce consumption →Membership system(see instacart).