Reflection daily excellent freshness: suffering business, deep root and long -termism

The precarious daily freshness adds a new farce.

In some group chats, a screenshot of "Daily Outstanding Fresh Announced Fund Broken Chain and Can't Oper Normally" was circulated. Half an hour later, 36 氪 posted news, "Daily Fresh denied 'Fund Broken Chain': false news, false news, Don't be fooled, and his founder Xu Zheng also clarified false news in the circle of friends.

Once upon a time, Daily Youxian, as a star company in the fresh e -commerce industry, has an innovative front position model, Tencent's investment support and founding team's glorious background, and deep industry experience.

Daily founder and CEO Xu Zheng founded the company at the end of 2014. Similar to many celebrity Internet companies, Xu Zheng is an out -of -the -art school hegemony. He is good at mathematics. At the age of 15, he has excellent grades for mathematics competitions and is sent to the Department of Mathematics of the University of Science and Technology of China. Before the establishment of Daily Fresh, Xu Zheng was the general manager of Lenovo's notebook business division and the general manager of Lenovo Jiawo Fruit Division.

For a long time, the daily freshness seems to prove itself, and it is also a company that climbed out of the "dead person". According to media statistics, after 2012, the fresh e -commerce industry entered the spiral rising channel. There are more than 4,000 fresh e -commerce platforms, and the fresh e -commerce version of the "Thousands of Troupe" is vigorous.

Although it has experienced fierce competition, freshness is not a traffic business, heavy competitors, and low gross profit margin. In 2019, a data from the China Electronic Commerce Research Center showed that the operating conditions of more than 4,000 fresh e -commerce companies were flat, 88%of losses, and 7%were huge losses, and only 1%finally achieved profitability.

Every day, Youxian did not prove that he was the 1%lucky child.

Fresh e -commerce is a "bitter business"

In 2015, Xu Xin, the founder of today's capital of "Queen of Venture Capital", predicted that fresh freshness was the last fortress of e -commerce, and those who were fresh and fresh.

However, Xu Xin said half of it. "Those who get the world" must first "suffer their minds". The freshness itself is one of the hardest business in the retail industry, none of them.

Unfortunately, from the many details disclosed, the daily freshness has never found the way and mentality of doing suffering.

In May 2015, the daily freshness began to implement the front warehouse mode, and the initial 2 hours of speed reaching the speed. The daily pre -daily construction warehouse is mainly built 3 kilometers near the community. As the density of order increases, it will be delivered up to 39 minutes.

Without considering costs, the front warehouse model can effectively solve the high loss of freshness at that time, so it is favored by capital. Tencent, Yuanzheng Capital, Yuanyi Investment, and Huachuang Capital all invested daily freshness.

By 2019, the number of prefabricated warehouses daily has exceeded 1,500. Previously, CFO Wang Yan told "Shenwang" that the initial starting point of the front warehouse was to take into account the user experience. To invest in infrastructure, a good experience will bring users, and enough order density can share costs. "

However, the cost is not shared, and the daily losses are intensified. From the financial report, from 2018 to the first three quarters of 2021, the daily losses are: 2.232 billion yuan, 2.909 billion yuan, 1.649 billion yuan and 3.017 billion yuan, and the total loss is 9.807 billion yuan. Essence

where is the problem?

Fresh retail products are special and have high cargo damage. The essence of the fresh e -commerce model is to add a front position+fast -moving service in the traditional fresh supply chain, so the cost will only become higher.

On the one hand, more services are attached, and the other side is the low gross profit of fresh retail. Therefore, the profit of the entire fresh e -commerce business requires extremely refined operations, and starting from each link to streamline costs and improve efficiency.

This is a business with a long chain and a thin account.

The continuous losses have exacerbated daily difficulty in operating, and Xu Zheng, who is good at mathematics, has fallen into a financial account that is difficult to calculate. At the most difficult time, Xu Zheng cried at the high -level meeting at the end of 2019, and felt that the business of fresh freshness was too difficult to do ... The daily fresh management managed by trying to reduce costs while financing.

Judging from the epidemic in a year, the daily freshness is not ready.

During the Spring Festival in 2020, the epidemic was fermented across the country, and consumers were difficult to buy food.

According to late reports, Ding Dong has a front warehouse and the same daily freshness and Ali cuisine together. The lattice of the latter two closed the door. Only Ding Dong's delivery brother came out of the warehouse. It's full of vegetables.

It can be done because Liang Changlin, the founder of Ding Dong ’s vegetables, did not snooze the Spring Festival at the beginning of his business. It has been implemented to the third year in 2020. It is prepared in advance and salary of three or four times. Cargo and manpower.

It was also in 2020. As a latecomer to fresh e -commerce, Ding Dong's buying food exceeded the daily freshness, and after half a year, it exceeded Hema Xiansheng. one.

The crown with daily fresh heads fell for the first time.

The suffering of fresh e -commerce companies is first because of its special category. The freshness of fresh freshness and the high cost of cold chain storage and transportation. Secondly, the delivery cost of the front warehouse model is high. According to statistics from the Northeast Securities Research Report, the performance cost of the front warehouse model is about 10 ~ 13 yuan/single, which is the highest in all e -commerce models.

Third, and the most important point. Fresh e -commerce is a long race. How to transform the entire industrial chain in the case of extremely low gross profit margin, do roads in snails, and squeeze out a little profit. This is a long -term long -term long -term. Terminal. Fresh retail needs "deep root"

"Wal -Mart is so successful, why is it so frugal?" Wal -Mart's founder Sam Walton is often asked like this, Sam replied, "The answer is simple: we value the value of every penny."

Extremely frugal, which seems to be the standard for every person involved in the retail industry.

Amazon, founded in 1994, the founder of the company Jeff Bezos once used the door as a desk. In 2006, former company employee Graig Linden said that even after many years of listing in Amazon, the "wooden door table" was not only visible inside the company, but also became a "classic example" that reflects the company's diligent style.

IKEA founder Ingva Camprad is also well -known for frugality. He was driving an old Volvo, sitting on an economy class while plane, and druming to write things on both sides of the paper. This frugality has transformed into a company concept that penetrates the entire IKEA cutting cost, so that the chain stores provide high -quality furniture products with innovative design and low prices.

Why are retail companies such as Sam, IKEA, and Amazon frugal, and even incorporate them into the company's culture and blood? In essence, regardless of traditional retail or traditional e -commerce, fresh e -commerce, it is essentially a bitter business. The core feature of fresh e -commerce is to invest and upgrade from the supply chain, distribution to performance of full chains. The gross profit margin is low. High transformation costs and long cycles.

Taking the daily fresh -to -Ding Ding to buy vegetables as an example, in 2018 and 19 years of the daily fresh expansion, it invested a lot of funds into the front position, with a number of more than 1500, and Ding Dong was only in the time only in Ding Dong was only in Shanghai and surrounding cities have established front warehouses, with less than one -third of the opponent.

Do you have no money on Ding Dong? No, the top investment institution DST once found Liang Changlin and directly said that he would invest 500 million US dollars, but he only wanted $ 250 million. Ding Dong has a lot of cash on his hand.

But holding cash in hand, Ding Dong focused on heavy and deepening, and he frequently expressed Ding Ding internally "to take root deeply like seeds." Compared with competitors such as Fresh and Hema, Ding Dong is more focused. From the beginning, what it has done is one thing -selling vegetables and putting it into the supply chain link of vegetables.

For example, when competitors try to increase more SKUs such as daily department stores to increase customer unit price, Ding Dong's fresh fruits and vegetables account for more than 70 %on the platform SKU. The unit price of fresh fruits and vegetables is extremely high and the loss is extremely high. Behind the selling vegetables is the difficult difficulty in the supply chain.

According to late reports, Ding Dong devoted more resources to infrastructure construction. In addition to more than 1,000 front warehouses and 60 cities sorting centers in the country, Ding Dong also opened 10 food research and development and processing factories. Pay attention to the quality of the product. Control and research and development. Ding Dong signed nearly 120 planting bases to explore direct production and order agriculture.

In 2020, Ding Dong bought vegetables in the suburbs of Shanghai even contracted 800 acres of land, established self -operated farms, and provided more than 10,000 leaves for Shanghai every day. In addition to the supply of self -operated farms, there are also tested crops planting. How to plant lower chives and celery with lower medicines, and formulate agricultural standards. At the same time, testing or cooperating with universities or agricultural machinery.

At this time, the daily freshness is trapped in a directional strategic error.

Beginning in the second half of 2019, the daily fresh food category of freshly profit margins is not attentive. According to the "Shenzhen Network" report, its reporters have clearly stated in several contacts with the daily high -level high -levels that the daily excellent goals are not satisfied with only fresh e -commerce companies, but they must be in On the basis of fresh freshness, the full category expansion, becoming a supermarket, avoiding the weight, and so on, it was copied by Ding Dong and surpassed it in one fell swoop.

Some industry has recorded a detail. About a year ago, there was a daily freshman business personnel that the leaders and colleagues around them were wool in the company, brushing orders, falsely reporting the budget, and putting the company's money into their pockets.

Compared with the old retail players such as Wal -Mart, the daily freshness obviously lacks awe of retail business. Obviously, Xu Zheng made a mistake. Compared with marketing and traffic, refined management and cost control are the most important key factor.

Some people in the industry feel that it is the most important thing for fresh e -commerce to not deviate from the industry. "The difference between the fate of the daily freshness and Ding Dong buying vegetables is determined by the difference between the refined operation capacity of the enterprise in a business with heavy assets and heavy supply chains."

Although the daily freshness is fell into the quagmire, the significance of fresh e -commerce for people's livelihood is even more important. Especially during the epidemic in recent years, fresh e -commerce companies have shown their social value in terms of people's livelihood. At the same time, it also meets the consumption needs of the younger generation for real -time fresh.

The weight of the "crown" of fresh e -commerce is not the first to be crushed daily, and it may not be the last. This is a track that competes patience and perseverance. Hema Xiansheng, Sam Member Store, more convenient, daily fresh, JD.com, Ding Dong buying vegetables, etc., are both old players who are super good at cost control. There are also new players who have gradually deepened the bottom layer of the chain for cost optimization and transformation.

- END -