Recently, Zhang Xuefeng, a famous postgraduate entrance examination teacher, once again made a hot search for his sentence, "The profession of delivery person may disappear in 5-10 years."
In fact, his inference only saw the current number of food delivery riders. As of 2021, there are approximately 13 million food delivery riders in China. We have not seen the hot new trend of "instant consumption", which is opening up new prospects for the income of food delivery riders.
The countdown to instant retail “thousands of store sales” is coming, and it’s hard for giants to win
According to statistics, due to the impact of the epidemic in recent years, more and more consumers have become accustomed to "takeout" consumption services, which has ultimately led to explosive growth in the number of instant fulfillment delivery orders that can be delivered in one hour or even 30 minutes. Orders in 2021 The order volume reached 30.85 billion, and the number of instant delivery delivery users exceeded 600 million, with a compound annual growth rate of 26.22%. It is expected that by the end of 2022, the number of instant fulfillment delivery orders will exceed 40 billion, and the number of users will exceed 750 million, gradually approaching the total number of Chinese netizens in 2021 of 1.032 billion.
For each delivery person, if calculated based on the average monthly income of 8,000 yuan, he will earn at least nearly 100,000 yuan a year. In addition, according to the "Reference Information for Collective Negotiation of Workers' Salaries and Benefits in Major Industries in Guangzhou in 2022" released by the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions, the salary of most food delivery employees in Guangzhou reaches more than 100,000 yuan. Compared with other professions, the income of riders is still attractive. Moreover, assuming that the couple both do takeout, the monthly net income can reach nearly 20,000 yuan, and the annual net income is more than 200,000 yuan. If a community convenience store is opened (the elderly help take care of the store with children), It’s absolutely fine to save 400,000 a year.
Some people may say that your assumption is just like Zhang Xuefeng's inference. But what Community Unchained wants to tell you is that in 2021, the number of convenience stores nationwide has nearly doubled compared with three years ago, and most of them are located in third- and fourth-tier cities.
According to a survey by China Business News' New First-tier Cities Research Institute, compared with other retail formats, convenience stores have still maintained a relatively high growth rate in the past two years. From the beginning of the epidemic in 2020 to March this year, the total number of convenience stores nationwide increased from 1.1644 million to 2.2176 million, nearly doubling. The convenience stores here include non-chain brand mom-and-pop stores and grocery stores. It is worth mentioning that compared with first- and second-tier cities, the number of new convenience stores in third- and fourth-tier cities will be stronger in 2022. Compared with 2019, the overall number of convenience stores in third- and fourth-tier cities will almost double.
Community Unchained found that with the gradual improvement of offline convenience store formats, it will also mean that "instant retail" combining online and offline will accelerate to usher in the "war of thousands of stores". Of course, just like the Thousand Regiments War in 2011, only the merchants with advantages in localized supply of goods and timely fulfillment of contracts will have the chance to become the ultimate winner.
According to "Driving Growth in the Rapidly Changing O2O Track" released by Kantar, the growth rate of 65% of FMCG categories in O2O is greater than the category's growth rate in omni-channels. Among them, sales achieved through instant retail increased by 16% year-on-year, ranking first among all channels. Instant retail is the general trend.
"Using takeout as express delivery" is becoming a new consumption method for many people born in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Instant retail extended from takeout is becoming a new way for major supermarkets and convenience stores to flexibly layout and create increment. wind direction. The main feature of instant retail is "order online and deliver offline within 30 minutes", and its supply is highly dependent on local stores. Kantar's report shows that the uncertainty of the epidemic has pushed consumers' mentality from delayed gratification to instant gratification. The frequency of fast-moving consumer goods purchased through instant retail has increased by 28% year-on-year. The upgrade of consumption experience has increased consumer stickiness. There are various signs that, with the massive release of immediate demand, the countdown to a battle of "thousands of stores rolling out" is entering.
"Wan Nei Juan" started with new convenience stores and ended with chain convenience stores
In recent years, driven by a number of e-commerce platforms including Meituan, JD.com, and Ele.me, real-time retail has gradually moved from a niche to the general public. In this process, the real-time retail camp has gradually become clear. The current mainstream camp is traditional supermarkets and convenience stores represented by Wal-Mart, Yonghui, Sun Art, Kunlun Hospitality, Meiyijia, 7-Eleven, Lawson, FamilyMart, etc. group. Their greater advantages are brand awareness and mature supply chain systems, but they have shortcomings in community density coverage and product sorting timeliness. Then there is the new type of convenience store that integrates warehouses and stores (flash warehouses) such as Doujingxuan, Camry Tesco, Nearby Pear, and Super Selection Convenience. Their biggest advantage is that they are rooted in the community, closer to the market, and the sorting, distribution and delivery time are faster and more efficient; the rest are mom-and-pop stores. Although there are relatively few mom-and-pop stores going online at present, this group will account for the largest proportion of players in the future.
With the entry of a large number of merchants, competition for users has intensified, which has also pushed up the operating costs of instant retail. Community UnFranchise Network found that currently on the Meituan Takeout app, many merchants in Hangzhou have launched a "delivery starting from 9.9 yuan" initiative to attract customers, and the delivery fee is also free. We can do a rough calculation. Free delivery fees require the store to bear an average fulfillment and delivery cost of 7 yuan per order. In addition, the store will also set up 0.01 yuan to attract traffic and promote orders for hot products to increase in-store traffic and conversion, and increase the value of hot products. The cost is generally around 4 yuan. In addition, if the store signs up to participate in some brand product promotion activities organized by some platforms, it will also need to bear the activity cost of 2-3 yuan. If the user only buys at the starting price of 9.9 yuan per customer, then every order is completed. At least 14 yuan of marketing costs must be invested. In other words, including distribution costs and marketing costs, the store's orders of less than 20 yuan are considered a loss for one sale.
This kind of merchants who do not follow the routine at all do this. It seems that they are killing one thousand enemies and injuring themselves eight hundred, but at least some early adopters will have an intuitive discount experience and the convenience of instant consumption. In this regard, Ding Jian, co-founder of Jinjian Li, said that in the entire instant retail market, there are more and more early adopters, and the number is far greater than that of old users. The proportion of old customers is around 10%, and the number of new customers continues to grow. Attracting more new customers to shop means that it is easier to improve the overall score of the online store on the platform, and eventually become a top-ranked high-quality merchant on major platforms. In the future, it will receive more platform traffic support and achieve better development. .
At present, most chain convenience stores want to speed up their operations, but due to limitations of the supply chain, online and offline channel systems, company management mechanisms, and interest models with brand manufacturers, it is difficult to say that they can do instant retail immediately. For example, in the past, supply chain logistics systems were based on general warehouses or regional warehouses, which were uniformly distributed to various stores. For example, 70% of goods in Costco stores were sent to the central warehouse by manufacturers, and 30% of goods were sent directly to stores from manufacturers. , the inventory turnover days basically remain above 30 days. For example, Costco in Shanghai still supplies some goods from Taiwan, China, and SF Express provides logistics services of Taiwan-Mainland trunk line + customs clearance + delivery.
In addition to large supermarkets, the inventory turnover days of other chain convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart are also around 20 days on average, while the inventory turnover days of flash warehouse merchants are basically required to be in weeks. unit. Such a comparison will reveal that the original warehouse and distribution system of traditional supermarkets and convenience stores is completely inconsistent with the real-time attributes of instant retail. This will also be a huge time difference opportunity for flash warehouse merchants on the Meituan platform.
In recent years, as a large number of supermarkets and convenience stores have begun to accelerate the deployment of instant retail and make full use of third-party logistics and distribution systems, the entire instant fulfillment and home service ecosystem has gradually improved. In the future, how new convenience stores compete with these giants in a differentiated manner deserves continued attention.
FamilyMart, Lawson, and Meiyijia are still in the dream of enjoying platform dividends
For most chain convenience stores, although instant retail is very popular, considering that instant retail that emphasizes "winning with speed" is a different set of business logic and is not fully compatible with the original company's mature management mechanism, many convenience stores are actually We are also in the stage of testing the waters and observing at the same time. So I saw that Meituan has been actively promoting its flash warehouse model, inviting a number of chain convenience stores such as Meiyijia, FamilyMart, Lawson, etc. to cooperate, as well as Suning.com, KKV, Miniso, etc. Chain retail stores have settled in and opened stores, and the platform has also planned a large number of platform activities and provided traffic support, with the purpose of building momentum for the future.
Of course, based on the traffic dividends supported by the platform, these platform partners can basically make money, but it is foreseeable that these chain convenience stores do not have professional online store operations and only rely on the company's mid-level capabilities and Meituan and others. Platform docking will eventually lead to low operational efficiency, making it difficult to achieve a sales scale of tens of thousands of orders per store.
In contrast, professional lightning warehouse merchants will fight like wolves and tigers in order to survive. Through refined operations, including product selection iteration, store activities, sorting and distribution timeliness optimization, community density coverage and other strategies, they can reach users Double harvest of mind and platform traffic.
And those chain convenience stores that just want to enjoy the traffic dividends supported by their revenue sharing platform will most likely be left behind by other online competitors before long.
Of course, in this process, whether it is a new type of convenience store that takes the lead in launching its efforts, or a traditional supermarket convenience store that is doing it while watching, Meituan, as a platform, is sure to make a profit without losing anything.
On the one hand, inviting well-known chain convenience stores to settle in can achieve a follow-up effect, triggering other time-honored and Internet celebrity brands to actively settle in, and finally drive the development trend of instant retail. For example, data from the retail platform Meituan shows that since the beginning of this year, instant retail orders from "Chinese time-honored brands" in Sichuan have increased by 21% year-on-year, and instant retail orders from "Chinese time-honored brands" in Shanghai have increased by 43% year-on-year.
On the other hand, Meituan’s support for Flashcang is intended to unleash the catfish effect, allowing merchants it can control to fully participate in market competition and provide users with better services and consumer dividends. Finally, a double growth of merchants, consumers, and activity on the platform will be achieved.
According to Meituan’s financial report, in the second quarter of this year, Meituan’s flash sales continued its rapid growth trend. In the second quarter of 2022, the average daily order volume reached 4.3 million, and the number of orders increased to 4.1 billion. The increase in the number of users and transaction frequency increased the order volume. A significant increase.
Although the biggest beneficiary in the future will be the platform Meituan, what is certain is that the current moment will be a huge opportunity for many flash warehouse merchants and other community supermarkets to get ahead of themselves.