Article | Mantis Observation

Author | Chen Xiaojiang

Fresh food retail this "boulder", in the past few years by all kinds of players, along the different paths, time and again pushed up, but also over and over again from the peak of the downward slide, the skeleton on the way, and even so far has not yet been born the absolute winner.

Looking back, in the past, in the fresh food retail track, all the players still at the table or have been off the table have been convinced that when the perfect opportunity comes to bet heavily, but also in the self-cognizance of the "perfect opportunity" when they have to enter the game. Unfortunately, the "full profitability" of this "big can", these years has always been stretched across the fresh food retail track, has not yet been over.

From the box horse fresh life, Yonghui super species, Jingdong seven fresh, Suning Sushansheng, etc. as the representative of the fresh food supermarket, to Dingtong buy food, daily fresh as the representative of the fresh food e-commerce, and then to the Xing Sheng preferred, the U.S. Mission preferred, more to buy food, Amoy vegetables and other community group buying power, fresh food retail track players in the consumption of a lot of capital, try a variety of modes of operation, and now divided into three, coincidentally to the "The first step is to make sure that you have the best possible chance of winning the game.

Now, the "boulder" has not yet been pushed to the top of the mountain, the enterprise has not been able to cross the "full profitability" of the big hurdle. Whether it is the brand, or investors, are eager to get a more precise answer. In this context, the industry players are also accelerating the change.

The wind direction has changed

Although the fresh food retail track has been ups and downs, the battle from 2021 to the present is undoubtedly the most intense.

In the first half of 2021, the fresh food retail track is still the hottest Internet investment track in China, Xing Sheng Youxuan, ten Aloe group, Dingtong buy vegetables and other successive completion of hundreds of millions of dollars of large amount of financing, and then fresh food e-commerce pre-positioning warehouse duo "Daily Youxian" and "Dingtong buy vegetables", but also within a week, the "Daily Youxian" and "Dingtong buy vegetables". "is in a week has successfully listed, realized from the" startup "to" listed companies "quality change.

In addition, the drop, the United States, Pinduoduo and other Internet giants in 2020 to kill into the community group buying "food", in the first half of 2021 began to accelerate the first half of the accelerated reshuffle of the entire track players.

In the second half of the year, Dingtong buy vegetables, ten Aloe group, dishes, etc. have rumors of layoffs. "Selling vegetables" of the old community group-buying players in addition to the prosperity of the preferred, other players gradually fell out of line, "with the life" bankruptcy, stay carrot closure, the food will be in the bag in the ten Aloe group, although there is a Ali capital support, and finally have to "The first thing you need to do is to get a good deal of money to pay for it.

Meituan Youxuan and more buy food has been the road wildly, so far has become the head of the community group purchasing players. Orange heart preferences under the drip, the beginning of the expansion is very rapid, and then quickly contracted for reasons known to all, can be said to be wide open. In addition, Ali's Amoy vegetable dishes also accelerated the pace of attack, once rushed to the top three in the industry. Its focus on sinking business Amoy special, is vigorously promoting direct agricultural products, trying to grab food in the fresh food retail track.

Fresh food e-commerce and community group purchasing, fresh food supermarket track changes are also very obvious.

First, the box horse, in the context of other players layoffs, contraction, restarted expansion plans in June last year. Only last December to an average of "two days a" speed sprint, in Changsha, Chongqing, Chengdu and other places to open 14 new box fresh life stores, and 14 days before New Year's Day in 2022, so that the number of box fresh life stores across the country to reach 300. In addition, after Ali's full implementation of the operational responsibility system, the box last year from the system of business groups into an "independent company", bid farewell to the "second generation of rich" life, began "self-financing" The company's business is a new one, and it's a new one.

Expansion with the box as well as its "old acquaintance" Jingdong seven fresh, the beginning of 2021, the former Walmart East China Vice President of Operations Zheng Feng took over the flag of the Jingdong seven fresh, originally silent for a year and a half, known as "outsiders" Jingdong seven fresh business, from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2021, the Jingdong seven fresh, the Jingdong seven fresh. The business, from the second quarter of 2021 onwards, drove on the accelerated road.

Public data show that in April last year, Jingdong seven fresh GMV year-on-year growth of more than 36%, August year-on-year growth of more than 85%. 2021 the whole year, Jingdong seven fresh supermarkets opened more than 20 new stores, the number of stores equivalent to the past three years of the total number of stores opened. Although the total number of stores, Jingdong seven fresh is not as good as the box horse, but the acceleration in 2021, is not inferior at all.

At the end of last year, Jingdong seven fresh also released the latest business strategic planning, will focus on the national development layout, supply chain construction, commodity quality, service experience and other aspects of optimization and enhancement, and strive to rank among China's chain retail industry in the first camp in 5-7 years. For example, in terms of layout, the company will focus on the two core regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Greater Bay Area. In terms of supply chain construction, through the self-built Beijing, Shenzhen, "a south and a north" two commodity center, improve the supply chain efficiency, marketing production, reduce loss and increase the freshness of the technology empowered to help farmers refine the operation.

The clock went to 2022, and a series of chain reactions continue to occur.

At the beginning of 2022, the previous input "no upper limit" of the box horse changed the "wind", said the temporary tightening of the belt ""lean", "lean management". Lean production, lean management", to realize from "single store profitability" to "full profitability". In addition, there are news rumors that the box horse fresh life seeking independent financing, valuation of $ 10 billion.

The always aggressive expansion of Dingtone grocery shopping, from the latest release of the financial results, also slowed down the pace, began to "contraction and loss reduction" - quarterly revenues for the first time in the decline, while the net loss is also declining. According to the report, Dingtone grocery shopping in Shanghai last December, fully profitable. Dingtone grocery founder and CEO even said in the earnings call "strive to achieve full profitability in the Yangtze River Delta region by the end of Q2, and close to profitability in the whole country in Q4."

At the same time, according to Geog.com, Dingtone Grocery Taizhou station is suspected to have been shut down, which, if true, would make it the first city site to be officially shut down in the history of Dingtone Grocery's development.

In January, a user certified as a Dingtone Grocery employee spoke on Pulse, saying that Dingtone Grocery had begun a large-scale layoffs, and the news hit the hot seat. The news of layoffs hit the hot search. Although Dingtone's response was "untrue", it made people worry. Soon after, the media broke the news that the U.S. group preferred to also layoffs, and ten aloe group was reportedly suspected of "stopping".

February 10, more than buy food is claimed to have been with the pole rabbit, postal and three through one to achieve the system docking through the signing of the link, but also to launch a high subsidy to attract the collection point stationed. Trial water community head express collection service. However, then, there is news that the service was suspended by the Postal Administration in many places, said "more buy groceries did not obtain the express business license for the record, do not have the qualification to operate the express business".

In addition, "prefabricated dishes" during the Spring Festival has become one of the main protagonists of the competition between the major brands. Public data show that Dingtang buy vegetables annual dinner prefabricated dish sales growth of more than 400%, the daily fresh high-end prefabricated dishes during the Spring Festival growth of more than 2 times, box horse prefabricated annual dish sales year-on-year 2021 Spring Festival growth of 345%. This is the focus of the next bet of the major brands.

It can be seen that from 2021 to the present, the fresh food retail of the major players in the action of the amplitude is greater than ever, which is also fresh food retail track into the "alley war" embodiment. As the saying goes, "poverty is change", after many changes, in fact, all the players in the fresh food retail track have failed to achieve "full profitability" of the dilemma.

Where does the wind blow?

No wind, no waves.

Mantis Watch believes that in the past year, behind the huge waves of the fresh food retail track, there are multiple internal and external factors that make the wind blow, which makes the fresh food track from the "horse race" to "steady and stable". "Comprehensive profitability" of the call over the previous "partial profitability" of the gimmick and "mode of war" of the war of words. The reason behind this is twofold:

First, there is not enough money to burn. In April 2021, the Enterprise Research Big Data Institute released the "nearly ten years of fresh electricity supplier investment and financing data analysis report", pointed out that since 2010, a variety of fresh electricity supplier field publicly disclosed investment and financing events 287, involving 154 projects, the disclosure of the total amount of financing reached 46.34 billion yuan, most of which have gone down the drain.

Dingtong has been listed to buy food, for example, over the past few years burned about more than 11 billion yuan, as of February 26, its market value is less than 7 billion yuan. Before the listing, if in accordance with the previous rhythm, its cash flow on hand simply can not burn for a long time. And countless fallen players, mostly cash flow problems.

Therefore, fresh food e-commerce selling vegetables, also known as the "long video" and "*** enjoy bicycle" after the third major Internet "poison" business. Especially with the major Internet giants have entered the game, the track is more crowded, and then after the burn is still a "bottomless pit", which may also be Dingtone buy food and daily fresh in the last year to speed up the pace of listing of important reasons.

Second, the money is not allowed to burn. The road to expansion of the fresh food retail track is the same as the previous 100 group wars and taxi wars, and is also subsidized to smash out. Especially in the low-cost community group-buying business, low-cost price dumping is the industry's usual method.

But money, can not do whatever you want. In March last year, the General Administration of Market Supervision for the use of false or misleading price means, luring consumers to enter into transactions with them as well as below-cost price dumping, etc. on the orange heart of the preferred, more to buy food, the U.S. group of preferred, ten Aloe group, as well as the food will be fined 6.5 million yuan. There are also official media state community group purchasing, accusing technology companies do not stare at the people's food basket, so that the major giants are restrained, do not dare to arbitrarily burn money.

No money to burn, not allowed to burn money, that fresh food retail players the wind to blow where? In the view of "Mantis Watch", the specific performance in the following aspects:

First of all, focus. Whether it's layoffs, or shrinking business scope, it's essentially about better focus. Of course, focus doesn't mean not expanding, but setting a reasonable boundary.

Used to seeing the ups and downs of the track players, jokingly called "outsiders" Jingdong seven fresh, but in this regard than others to see more clearly. According to Zheng Feng, Jingdong seven fresh in 2021 to do the three "most correct" thing is the first strategic "focus" - not only to focus on the precise user, but also the precise focus of the recommended goods. Focus on recommending products. Through the "focus", Jingdong seven fresh in the profitability of the performance is good - continuous business for three years of stores have realized profits, full two years of stores are close to profitability.

In the service area, Jingdong seven fresh also emphasized "focus", will focus on the layout of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Greater Bay Area "a south and a north" two core regions, to create two growth poles. According to Zheng Feng revealed that the plan to 2023, 70-100 stores, more than 80% in these two regions, and as long as the seven fresh site selection criteria, the number of stores is not capped.

Second is to improve efficiency. The results of many years of chaos show that the fresh food retail track is destined to require a long time to maintain, and its ceiling is also high enough. Ai Rui Consulting released the "2021 China's fresh food e-commerce industry research report" pointed out that after the 2020 epidemic fresh food e-commerce accelerated the development of the industry in 2020, the industry scale reached 458.49 billion yuan in 2020, and it is expected that the scale of the fresh food e-commerce industry will be more than one trillion dollars by 2023. China's fresh food retail market size will be expected to increase from 5 trillion yuan in 2020 to 6.8 trillion yuan in 2025, which is a long track.

The Internet model, leaving aside the scale is obviously illogical, but leaving aside the profitability only talk about the scale certainly can not go to the end. To enhance efficiency, both around the "people and goods field" to enhance the efficiency of people, ping efficiency and product efficiency of a variety of "efficiency", but also to enhance the turnover rate, growth rate, gross profit margins, positive feedback rate and other indicators. Especially fresh food retail development to the current stage, a variety of modes of warfare, the real competition lies in the key to efficiency. After trying more than 10 types of business, Hou Yi proposed "lean production, lean management", which is essentially a direct reference to the "enhancement of efficiency".

Lastly, differentiation. In the face of profitability or scale dilemma, the different players of the differentiated approach, but also about their respective in the end can go far. For example, the front warehouse model, offline access to the traffic is limited, it is destined to be in the customer acquisition end of the need for greater costs, which also means that they have to seek more profitable products.

"Mantis Watch" believes that the key to achieve differentiation, in addition to the different business models, one is to extend the category. For example, box horse, Jingdong seven fresh, Dingtong buy food, etc. have their own private brand, private brand under some other people do not have the "exclusive" products, easy to provide a differentiated experience. Another is to do differentiation in the service, such as the daily fresh launched in the third quarter of last year to launch the housekeeper service. Public data show that in the daily fresh 1V1 butler service, the user per capita single compared to the non-butler crowd increased by 70%, per capita monthly consumption has doubled. In addition, there is cross-border cooperation, last year, Jingdong seven fresh joint MUJI MUJI in Shanghai opened China's first fresh composite store, is a differentiation attempt.

Undoubtedly, the fresh food retail industry in 2022 has really entered the second half, on the one hand, the players who should enter the game are basically in the game, and the players who are not strong enough have basically been eliminated from the game. And after experiencing a variety of dramatic changes are still on the table players, in fact, the hands of the cards are also grabbed almost, who can play the hands of the cards, will become the key.

*The pictures in this article are all from the network

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