From Internet giants to Liu Ding in Shang Chao, they are all eyeing the "big cake" of fresh food. Numerous new players entered the game, and many old players continued to overweight; With the influx of players from all walks of life, the competition in the fresh food industry is becoming increasingly fierce.
In the retail market of China, fresh fruit has always occupied a huge share. After the rise of the concept of "new retail" in recent years, the fresh food industry is the hottest field, and new fresh food retail modes such as online food market, pre-warehouse, unmanned container and cross-border supermarket have emerged, as well as new platforms and new fresh food retail brands of community fresh food e-commerce such as Box Horse Fresh Food, Ding Dong Shopping, Yipin Fresh Food, Meituan Shopping, Super Species and Qian Aunt.
Thanks to the non-contact economy, fresh O20 has a good opportunity for development.
2. 1. 1. 1. Passive online shopping during the epidemic period is expected to form fresh habits after the epidemic.
During the epidemic, cities and towns all over the country restricted travel, and buying daily necessities and fresh necessities was the core issue of people's home life. Online shopping has become the first choice for most urban residents.
QuestMobile's data shows that the number of users of fresh e-commerce increased by more than 50% during the epidemic. Many consumers realize the convenience brought by online shopping after using online shopping APP for many times in a row, and gradually begin to accept this shopping method.
Even for some middle-aged and elderly people, they can master the whole process of online shopping, and snapping up special dishes online every once in a while has become a daily necessity for many elderly people.
The data shows that during the Spring Festival of Ali's local life, the online food orders of "post-60 s" users quadrupled; Daily Youxian 65438+1October 23-February 23 this year, the number of users over 40 increased by 237%. Although economic life has returned to normal after the epidemic, many people have developed online shopping habits and become loyal users of online shopping apps.
Moreover, affected by the epidemic, people generally pay more attention to hygiene and safety, and many users' acceptance of high-quality prepackaged dishes has also improved. Going to the vegetable market to choose bulk vegetables is no longer everyone's first choice, and consumers are more recognized for the high cost performance and high quality of prepackaged vegetables.
According to the data of Tianyancha APP Professional Edition, nearly 87% of fresh e-commerce related enterprises in China (all enterprise status) were registered and established within 5 years. Among them, in 20 16, the number of new fresh e-commerce related enterprises in China exceeded 1000, with a growth rate of 78.23%, the highest in recent years. Subsequently, although the annual growth rate of related enterprises showed a downward trend year by year, the number of new enterprises still exceeded 1.5 million for three consecutive years.
As of June 28th 10, based on industrial and commercial registration, there were more than14,000 new fresh e-commerce related enterprises in China in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 16.8% compared with last year. Among them, more than 6,600 affiliated enterprises were added in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 52.3%. Enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 52.3%.
2. 1. 1.2. During the epidemic, the fresh food distribution business ushered in explosive growth.
Before the epidemic, the development of fresh e-commerce encountered difficulties. Fresh e-commerce industry has a history of more than ten years in China. From the early vertical fresh platform to the current pre-warehouse and community group, the innovative model of fresh e-commerce has been evolving.
Especially since 20 14, a large number of venture capital enterprises have poured into the industry, and outstanding enterprises such as Daily Fresh and Ding Dong Shopping have emerged. At the same time, traditional Internet giants such as Alibaba, JD.COM, Tencent and Meituan have also joined the game.
The fresh food industry has low gross profit and difficult operation, so it is difficult for consumers to develop the habit of online shopping. After several rounds of reshuffle and reorganization, a large number of small and medium-sized fresh e-commerce companies went bankrupt, leaving only a few industry leaders and generally operating poorly. In 20 19, the competition in the fresh food industry was further intensified, and more than a dozen fresh e-commerce companies withdrew from the market due to insufficient financing capacity.
During the epidemic, the business of fresh food arrived home ushered in explosive growth. Thanks to the increase in online food users caused by the epidemic, the fresh e-commerce business has ushered in an unprecedented explosive growth during the severe epidemic. Many fresh platforms are often in short supply, and many products are snapped up as soon as they are put on the shelves.
Moreover, explosive orders have also brought great challenges to the real-time delivery of fresh platforms, and the promised 1-2-hour delivery of many platforms cannot be fulfilled.
During the epidemic, the explosive growth of users and demand has indeed brought a turning point to many fresh platforms. However, the shortage and aging problems exposed during the epidemic were actually the reasons why many fresh platforms were eliminated by the market. Both the supply chain problem and the production capacity problem are the bottleneck of the development of fresh platform at present.
2. 1. 1.3. More online giants and community fresh food will enter the home industry.
Meituan established "Meituan Optimization" to increase home business. In July 2020, Meituan established the Optimization Division and entered the community group market. "Meituan Youxuan" focuses on the sinking market, and adopts the mode of "pre-purchase+self-delivery" to empower community convenience stores to select cost-effective fruits and vegetables, meat and eggs, dairy products, drinks, family kitchens and bathrooms and other commodities for community family users.
Up to now, Meituan You Xuan has been launched in Jinan, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Foshan and Chengdu. With the landing of Meituan Optimization, in the field of fresh retail, Meituan has built three business segments: Meituan Flash Shopping, Meituan Shopping and Meituan Optimization.
The dislocation competition of the three completely covers the first, second and third tier markets: "Meituan Shopping" focuses on super-first-tier cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen; The "gourmet encyclopedia" under "Meituan Flash Purchase" focuses on first-tier or second-and third-tier cities; "Meituan Optimization" will focus on sinking the market.
Pinduoduo launched "Buy More" to enter the community group purchase. On August 3rd1,Pinduoduo launched the "Buy more vegetables" applet on WeChat, and empowered community stores with the mode of "reservation+self-delivery". Consumers can place orders online and pick up the goods the next day. With its huge subsidies, Pinduoduo has a strong ability to get customers.
Didi began to test the water community e-commerce model "orange heart optimization". Didi has invested more than10 million yuan in the "orange heart optimization" project, and will focus on Chengdu and Beijing in the future.
Orange Heart gives priority to spike products below the market price. Products mainly cover fruits, snacks, daily necessities and so on. , attracting a large number of heads to settle in, mainly through the WeChat group to spread and promote low-priced goods of the day. Consumers place orders on the same day and need to pick them up at the store the next day. The logistics from the warehouse to the store is provided by a third party.
Box Horse's new format "Box Horse mini" accelerated the opening of stores and intensively penetrated the sinking market. Box Horse gradually eliminated the "Box Horse Station" of the previous warehouse format and began to develop the "Box Horse mini" format of online and offline integration. After a lot of verification in the early stage, the format of "Box Horse mini" can be more balanced in terms of cost, efficiency, flow and supply chain.
At present, it has begun to make profits, and the financial model basically runs through. However, the former silo model cannot avoid the problems of high loss and high performance cost. After that, "Box Horse mini" will cooperate with "Box Horse Fresh Food" to cover more customers in an all-round way by means of "big store+small store" and "store+home".
With the help of offline advantages, traditional Shang Chao accelerates the layout of home business.
Before the outbreak, only a few head enterprises in traditional supermarkets laid out home business, and most physical supermarkets were not enthusiastic about participating in home business, and they were generally still in a wait-and-see state. The main reason is that most companies that deploy home business are basically in a state of loss and cannot generate profits well. Internet companies mainly invest a lot of money in family business.
During the epidemic, due to the inconvenience of travel, the passenger flow from supermarkets to stores generally dropped sharply, and consumers turned to online purchases. In order to cope with this situation, a large number of supermarkets have launched their own business platforms, such as "Best Choice" of Chongqing Supermarket, "RT Mart Youxian" of RT Mart Supermarket and "Small Steps to Home" of BBK Supermarket.
Leading supermarkets Yonghui Supermarket and Gaoxin Retail have already laid out their home business. During the epidemic, they also ushered in explosive growth. The turnover of Gaoxin retail home business platform increased by 400%, and the single-day order volume of Yonghui Supermarket exceeded 200,000. BBK's online home business increased by 300% month-on-month. The interim report of Yonghui Supermarket shows that online business accounts for nearly 10%.
In this epidemic, although traditional Shang Chao chose emergency online home business in a passive situation, many companies have realized the business increment brought by home business, and many companies will focus on online business in the future.
Traditional Shang Chao has accumulated advantages in the supply chain for many years and has the advantages of offline stores. The amount of funds needed to carry out home business is far less than that of Internet companies. However, traditional supermarkets generally have a lot of room for improvement in digital capabilities and online and offline collaborative operation capabilities, and may need more capital and manpower investment in the future.
As far as the current fresh food industry is concerned, whether it is an internet e-commerce or a traditional supermarket, although fresh players have gone wave after wave, no one has really stabilized the position of the industry leader; Therefore, the battle of the fresh food industry is still in a stalemate.
In this case, whoever has many advantages such as capital and supply chain may become the real winner; As far as the fresh supply chain is concerned, most players are still on the way to upgrade the supply chain, and whether Yonghui Supermarket can achieve good results in this war with its remarkable supply chain advantages depends on whether it can keep up with the giants on the road of digital transformation.
Note: The content of this article is mainly extracted from Northeast Securities and Retail Capital Theory.