Hit the "fresh home" Slogan, the Internet shopping track to add another master-Yonghui shopping.

Recently, Sina Science and Technology found that "Yonghui Buy vegetables" App is online, focusing on fresh products such as fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs, and aquatic products. Online customer service told Sina Technology that it is currently only testing in two cities, Chongqing and Chengdu, with a total of three stores.

Not only does Yonghui buy vegetables, but since the beginning of this year, more and more vertical fresh e-commerce and even Internet giants have set their sights on the vegetable market, with the concept of pre-position, distribution advantages, coupons and the determination to occupy market share and traffic.

According to the Research report on China's fresh E-commerce Market in the first half of 2019 released by Prida Consulting, the scale of China's fresh e-commerce market continued to grow steadily, reaching 56.62 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2019, an increase of 10.3% from the previous quarter. In terms of category demand, fruits and vegetables accounted for the highest proportion, accounting for 46.4%.

Behind the great potential and space is more fierce competition. On the Internet shopping track, there are relatively traditional JD.com fresh, original life, and Meow Xiansheng, as well as Dingdong (Cayman) Limited, Missfresh Limited and Park supermarkets that set up their own front positions, Meituan, ele.me and JD.com who have borrowed the platform model to enter the game, as well as "to the store + home" box horse Xiansheng, super species, 7Fresh, as well as prosperous selection of community group shopping style, dull radish, and food sharing meeting.

In order to compete for more users, but also for better survival and development, they use 18 martial arts, but it is not easy for customers to obtain, but it is more difficult to retain. "this is a game of burning money and robbing people, first cultivate users' habits, and then start harvesting after mental development. Now I am tasting the benefits of being robbed. I just hope there are a little more App like this. Han Yu, a user who works in Hangzhou, laughs.

There are not a small number of users like Han Yu, how to grasp the hearts of users in addition to subsidies, establish and maintain brand trust, has become the core of many vegetable players' attention. This more subdivided field of fresh e-commerce experienced ups and downs in 2019.

Let's go! Buy vegetables on the mobile phone.

Han Yu, who has been addicted to the "fireworks in the world" in the vegetable market greenhouse, has "defected".

Her "new love" is Dingdong (Cayman) Limited. In addition to enjoying a red packet of 108 yuan, there is no distribution fee for 0 yuan. In her words, "every potato you buy is free of charge."

There are signs of change: in mid-January this year, Meituan launched a low-key online "Meituan Buy vegetable" App, which launched tests in Shanghai and Beijing markets successively; on March 30, ele.me established a new fresh and open platform and reached a strategic cooperation with Dingdong (Cayman) Limited; on April 3, SUNING store announced that it would launch the SUNING vegetable market function module. On April 7, Hou Yifa moments of the box horse CEO said that the box horse App had been launched on the "affordable vegetable market" channel.

Comprehensive e-commerce, life service platform, vertical fresh e-commerce have become the active layout of Internet shopping, prosperous and lively.

The biggest advantage of Internet model innovation is convenience. Zhu he, a student at a university in Beijing, has embarked on the road of "really fragrant" since he bought vegetables and fruits from Meituan. He recalled that he did not expect much before the first order, but the peaches he received were big and crisp, the winter dates and dragon fruits were sweet and full, and the cucumbers were very fresh. "the fruits and vegetables in the school supermarket are expensive and withered too much. Now I can buy four times the quantity at the same price, and the most important thing is to send it quickly. "

From Zhu he's description, we can roughly extract several core needs of users to buy food: cheap, fresh and time-saving. On the shopping track, most players, including Dingdong (Cayman) Limited, Meituan, and the simple supermarket, use the front position mode. In fact, this is a popular concept, derived from the "micro-warehouse" in the logistics industry, that is, the nearest and foremost warehouse logistics base in the enterprise warehousing logistics system. Switching to buying vegetables means that the front warehouse is set up within 1-3 kilometers around the community, and the goods are first transported from the central warehouse (or wholesale market, comprehensive vegetable market, etc.) to the front warehouse, and immediately delivered to the door after the user places an order.

The combination of the shopping scene and the front position is tantamount to creating a vegetable market on hand-close enough to users and more efficient in distribution. In addition, compared with traditional e-commerce and stores, the front warehouse has certain advantages in reducing the loss rate of goods and controlling the operating costs of stores, and the aforementioned demand can be met.

Especially today, when time accounts for an increasing proportion of transaction costs, shorter and shorter delivery time ensures freshness and allows users to spend their time on more important things. Han Yu sighed with emotion: "the vegetable market is closed after work on weekdays, and only on weekends you can get together. Now you can buy vegetables with your fingers. Why not?" "

Let's go! Players have their own minds.

For a while, buying vegetables has changed from a hard bone to a popular cake under the tuyere, but this is just the beginning.

Some industry insiders have told Sina Technology that the front warehouse does improve the problems of high loss, high turnover and high logistics cost in the fresh field to a certain extent, but there is a premise that the coverage density must be high enough. "only in this way can we achieve cost dilution instead of relying on subsidies. Before reaching this line, the front position model must rely on capital blood transfusion to survive. "the person analyzed.

29 minus 6, 39 minus 10, 49 minus 15. With large subsidies, users accumulate step by step and taste the benefits, at the same time, the hidden danger is also obvious: App is the only way for users to perceive products, and it is difficult to establish brand trust and low user loyalty. This means that as long as subsidies are in place, users will choose to buy food on any platform, and when the platform invests its budget into the development of new categories and gradually stops subsidizing, the order volume immediately falls.

There are many users of Yun Wool, but the platform is also facing its own difficulties.

He Ma Xiansheng ran all the way, but he "gave his life" last year and "saved his life" this year. BABA's financial report in the first quarter of 2020 revealed that the number of Hema Xiansheng stores had reached 150, a net increase of 16 from 135at the end of the previous quarter (1 store closed) and more cautious than the speed at which it had opened 30 stores in the previous quarter. In June this year, Hema Xiansheng, which has been open for less than eight months, closed its shop in Kunshan Metro Wuyue Square for the first time since its establishment.

Yonghui superspecies did not escape this fate at the beginning of shop closure or the start of the brakes. In July, Super species closed Wanda stores in Wujiaochang, Shanghai, after Yonghuiyunchuang, the carrier of the super species brand, was spun off by Yonghui supermarket because of heavy losses at the end of last year. With a loss of more than 1 billion in three years, the winning profit model has become a top priority.

And Missfresh Limited, who has practiced the front position for many years, responded to the news that he was seeking $500m in financing, saying that he was in continuous and normal communication with investors, but the financing had not been decided for a long time. Another employee in Shanghai, who identified himself as Missfresh Limited, posted on the social platform that the company had cut wages twice in two months and unilaterally cancelled bonuses, resulting in a number of employees leaving on strike.

And mainly hit the B-end Meicai Network, its C-end business Meijia Superior upgraded to Meijia Buy in May this year, with both community group shopping and shopping attributes. However, Meicai Network has been exposed that its internal management is chaotic and its employees work overtime without pay. Recently, due to the county partner project, more than a dozen franchisees came to "protect their rights", and revealed that their new round of financing failed, and the capital chain was tight. In this regard, Meicai's response is: the cash flow situation is very good, capital reserves are sufficient, financing failure does not exist at all.

A person engaged in food regulation told Sina Technology that the supply chain is the biggest difficulty in the development of the fresh industry, but an excellent management model is as important as the organizational structure. Dingdong (Cayman) Limited founder Liang Changlin also said in an interview with the China chain Management Association that the fresh business is very similar to the iceberg theory, the things on the sea level are very small, and the real behemoth is below the sea level. "Today, when we look at the competition, the number of orders and the repurchase rate, they are all above sea level. Below sea level, there are supply chain capabilities, organizational structure capabilities, financial management capabilities, and data algorithm capabilities. These four points are the core competitiveness. "

Stop! Stop loss if you want to make money.

So the adjustment begins.

Meituan changed his strategy in the third pilot city. Although both are self-employed, but different from the real-time delivery services in Beijing and Shanghai, Wuhan has adopted the store pick-up model of "placing orders today and picking up goods the next day". Meituan told Sina Science and Technology that compared with Beijing and Shanghai, the pace of life in Wuhan is slower, and stores are aimed at more planned fresh consumption needs of community household users. The pre-purchase mechanism can realize the collection of orders first and then purchase, reduce the transportation and storage time, and maximize the freshness; go to the station to save the delivery cost of the last kilometer of performance, give benefits to consumers, and have more price advantages. As for the recent operating data, Meituan said it was not convenient to disclose for the time being.

The above-mentioned food regulatory practitioners believe that store pick-up can play a significant role in saving distribution costs and reducing the loss of front warehouses. In first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the newcomer Meituan's vegetable shopping is not an order of magnitude compared with players such as Missfresh Limited and Dingdong (Cayman) Limited, and expansion and subsidies are not a panacea. However, the introduction of store pick-up in second-tier cities that are less sensitive to the effectiveness of distribution may have a different effect.

Meituan Flash Shopping has also piloted a "vegetable collection" in Wuhan and other cities. Compared with Meituan, who buys vegetables in many categories, such as vegetables, seafood and aquatic products, meat, poultry and eggs, vegetable Daquan focuses on the direction of the vegetable market, which is similar to the operation mode of the vegetable market generation, which is another parallel line drawn by Meituan in the shopping business.

Ele.me word-of-mouth and Hema Xiansheng, both of which belong to BABA economy, also took action. Last month, the two sides exchanged strategies, and more than 150 box horse stores in 21 cities across the country went online on ele.me platform. For box horses, in addition to traffic, distribution is a more core weapon. Under the disturbance of loss, shop closure, food safety and so on, the box horse urgently needs to break the situation, and the effective integration and coordination of resources is of great significance.

In fact, this is a common problem faced by all players, in order to occupy market share and improve user stickiness, there must be a huge amount of investment. However, burning money is not omnipotent, and how to maintain the balance between profit and scale is a new task in the new stage.

This month, the parent company of the original Life Network Group completed a new round of D1 financing worth 200 million US dollars. Yu Huafeng, its founder, said in an internal letter: "freshness can only survive by returning to the nature of the business and forming a sustainable self-viability." burning money can burn out a short-term scale, but not a long-term future. "

Yes, this is true whether it is subdivided buying vegetables or fresh in a broad sense. Users may only care about buying vegetables elegantly, but players need to make money, live and go further. On this track, the starters may not be unstoppable, and the newcomers will not miss the opportunity. The final test is endurance, physical strength, and competitiveness.