Shrinkage, layoffs, speed-up, financing, where will fresh retail go in 2022?

Author | Chen Xiaojiang

In the past few years, the "boulder" of fresh retail has been pushed up again and again by various players along different paths, but it has fallen down the mountain again and again, with many bones on the way, and even an absolute winner has not yet been born.

Looking back, on the track of fresh retail, all players who are still at the table or have left the table are convinced that they will bet heavily when the golden opportunity comes, and they all enter the game when they think it is a "golden opportunity". Regrettably, the "big hurdle" of "overall profit" has been on the track of fresh retail in recent years, and no one has crossed it.

From fresh supermarkets represented by Boxma Xiansheng, Yonghui Chaozhong, JD.COM Qixian, Suning Suxiansheng, etc., to fresh e-commerce represented by Ding Dong, and then to groups such as Shengxing Youxuan, Meituan You Xuan, Buy More, TaoCaicai, etc., after consuming a lot of capital and trying various formats, fresh retail track players have now split into three ways and come to an important juncture of "attacking profits" in unison.

Nowadays, the "boulder" has not yet reached the top of the mountain, and enterprises have failed to cross the hurdle of "full profit". Brands and investors are eager for a more exact answer. In this context, the changes of players in the industry are also accelerating.

The wind has changed.

Although the fresh retail track has ups and downs, the war from 202 1 to now is undoubtedly the strongest.

In the first half of 200212002, the fresh retail track was also the most popular internet investment track in China, with hundreds of millions of dollars of financing completed by Shengxing Youxuan, Shi Hui Group and Ding Dong Shopping successively, and then the fresh e-commerce providers "Everyday Youxian" and "Ding Dong Shopping" were successfully listed within one week, realizing the qualitative change from "startup company" to "listed company".

In addition, Internet giants such as Didi, Meituan and Pinduoduo. In the first half of 20021,the horsepower was increased, which accelerated the shuffling of players on the whole track.

In the second half of the year, Ding Dong bought vegetables, ten plum blossoms and plum vegetables. News of layoffs came out one after another. The old community group buying players selling vegetables are booming, and the first choice is that other players are gradually falling behind. And "Tongcheng Life" went bankrupt, and Radish went bankrupt, and ten clubs that would enjoy delicious food were pocketed. Although it has been blessed by Ali Capital, it will eventually "shrink".

Meituan You Xuan and Duoduo Shopping have been running wildly, becoming the top spot in community group buying. Didi's orange heart optimization expanded very rapidly at first, and then contracted rapidly for well-known reasons, which can be called a great success. In addition, Ali's Amoy Caicai also accelerated its offensive pace, and once rushed to the top three in the industry. Taote, which focuses on sinking business, vigorously promotes direct sales of agricultural products and tries to grab food at the fresh retail track.

In addition to fresh e-commerce and community group buying, the track changes of fresh supermarkets are also obvious.

First of all, Box Horse restarted its expansion plan in June last year under the background of retrenchment of other players. In June 5438+February last year alone, it sprinted at the average speed of "one store every two days", and opened 14 stores in Changsha, Chongqing and Chengdu. Before New Year's Day in 2022, the number of stores in Boxma Xiansheng reached 300. In addition, after Ali fully implemented the management responsibility system, Box Horse changed from a business group within the system to an "independent company" last year, bid farewell to the "rich second generation" life and started the road of "self-financing".

Like Box Horse, it also has its "old acquaintance" in Qixian County, JD.COM. At the beginning of 20021,after Zheng Feng, the former vice president of Wal-Mart's East China operations, took over the banner of JD.COM Seven Sages, the business of JD.COM Seven Sages, which had been silent for a year and a half, was called an "outsider" and began to accelerate from the second quarter of 20021.

According to public data, in April last year, GMV in Qixian County, JD.COM increased by over 36% year-on-year, and in August it increased by over 85% year-on-year. In 20021year, JD.COM Qixian Supermarket opened more than 20 new stores, equivalent to the sum of the stores opened in the past three years. Although JD.COM Seven Sages is not as good as Box Horse in the total number of stores, its acceleration of 202 1 is not inferior at all.

At the end of last year, JD.COM Qixian also released the latest business strategic plan, focusing on the national development layout, supply chain construction, product quality, service experience and other aspects, striving to become the first camp of chain retail in China within 5-7 years. For example, in terms of layout, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Greater Bay Area's "one south and one north" two core areas will be laid out. In terms of supply chain construction, the efficiency of the supply chain will be improved through the self-built "one south and one north" commodity centers in Beijing and Shenzhen, and the production will be fixed by sales, the loss will be reduced, the freshness will be increased, and the vegetable farmers will be assisted by technical empowerment.

As the clock moves towards 2022, a series of chain reactions continue to occur.

At the beginning of 2022, Boxma, who had previously invested "no upper limit", changed his mind, saying that he would temporarily tighten his belt, lean production and lean management, and realize "single store profit" to "full profit". In addition, it is reported that Boxma Xiansheng seeks independent financing with a valuation of 654.38+0 billion US dollars.

Ding-dong, who has been expanding in a big way, has also slowed down from the latest financial report and started to "shrink the table and reduce losses"-quarterly income fell for the first time and net losses are also falling. According to the financial report, Ding Dong made a full profit from 65438+February in Shanghai last year. Ding Dong, the founder and CEO of grocery shopping, even said in the financial report phone, "Strive to achieve full profitability in the Yangtze River Delta region by the end of Q2, and close to profitability in the fourth quarter."

Meanwhile, according to Diego, Taizhou Station where shopping in Ding Dong is suspected to have been closed. If the situation is true, the latter will become the first city website officially closed in the shopping history of Ding Dong. 65438+ 10, a user who was certified as "Ding Dong Shopping Employee" spoke on the pulse platform, saying that the news that Ding Dong began to lay off employees on a large scale was posted on the hot search. Although the response to Ding Dong's grain purchase is "untrue", it is also worrying. Soon after, some media broke the news that the US Mission was also laying off employees, and the Tenth Mission was suspected to have "stopped".

On February 10, Duoduo bought vegetables and claimed that it had connected with polar rabbit, postal service, three links and one access system to open the signing link, and also introduced high subsidies to attract collection points to settle in. Test the courier collection service of the community leader. But then, it was reported that the service was stopped by a number of postal administrations, saying that "I bought more food without obtaining the business license of express delivery business and did not have the qualification to operate express delivery business".

In addition, "preparing dishes" has become one of the protagonists in the competition among major brands during the Spring Festival. According to public data, the sales volume of pre-cooked vegetables for Ding Dong New Year's Eve increased by over 400%, and the daily high-end pre-cooked vegetables increased by over 2 times during the Spring Festival. The sales volume of box horse pre-cooked new year vegetables increased by 345% compared with 202 1 Spring Festival. This is also the focus of the next bet of major brands.

It can be seen that from 202 1 to now, the action range of major players in fresh retail has exceeded the past, which is also the embodiment of the "street fighting" of fresh retail track. The so-called "poor change", after many changes, is actually the dilemma that all players on the fresh retail track have failed to achieve "complete profit".

Where does the wind blow?

There is no smoke without fire.

"Mantis Watch" believes that in the past year or so, behind the huge waves of the fresh retail track, multiple internal and external factors have caused the fresh track to quickly change from "staking the land" to "steady and steady". The voice of "full profit" overshadowed the previous gimmicks of "partial profit" and the war of words of "model dispute". There are two reasons behind it:

First, there is not enough money to burn. In April, 20021year, the research institute of big data enterprise released the data analysis report of fresh e-commerce investment and financing in recent ten years, which pointed out that since 20 10/year, there have been 287 publicly disclosed investment and financing events in various fields of fresh e-commerce, involving 54 projects/kloc-0, and the total amount of disclosed financing reached 46.34 billion yuan, most of which were in Shui Piao.

Take Ding Dong as an example. In the past few years, it burned about 1 10 billion yuan, and the market value was less than 7 billion yuan as of February 26. Before listing, if we follow the previous rhythm, its cash flow will not burn for a long time. There are countless fallen players, mostly cash flow problems.

Therefore, fresh e-commerce selling vegetables is also known as the third largest Internet "poison" business after "Long Video" and "Enjoy Bike". Especially after the Internet giants entered the stadium one after another, the track became more crowded, and the back was still a "bottomless pit", which may be an important reason for Ding Dong to buy vegetables and speed up the listing of daily fresh food last year.

Second, money is not allowed to burn. The expansion of fresh retail track in Zhang Zhilu, like the previous Hundred Regiments War and Taxi War, is also subsidized. Especially in the low-priced community group buying business, low-priced dumping is a common practice in the industry.

But with money, you can't do whatever you want. In March last year, the General Administration of Market Supervision imposed a fine of 6.5 million yuan for using false or misleading price means to trick consumers into trading with them and dumping at a price below cost. There is also the official media's position on community group buying, accusing technology companies of not staring at people's food baskets, so that all giants have restrained themselves and dare not burn money at will.

There is no money to burn and no money to burn. Where is the wind of fresh retail players blowing? In mantis observation, it is embodied in the following aspects:

The first is focusing. Whether it is layoffs or shrinking business scope, it is essentially for better focus. Of course, focusing does not mean not expanding, but setting a reasonable boundary.

Accustomed to the ups and downs of racetrack players, the Seven Sages of JD.COM, dubbed as "outsiders", see this more clearly than others. According to Zheng Feng, among the three "most correct" things that JD.COM Seven Sages did in 20021,the first one was strategic "focusing"-focusing not only on users, but also on recommending products. Through the "focus", JD.COM Seven Sages have performed well in profitability-the stores have achieved profitability for three consecutive years, and the stores for two years are also close to profitability.

In terms of service area, Qixian County, JD.COM also emphasizes "focus" and will focus on the two core areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Greater Bay Area "one south and one north" to create two growth poles. According to Zheng Feng, it is planned that by 2023, the number of stores will reach 70- 100, of which more than 80% are located in these two areas. As long as the site selection criteria of Qixian are met, the number of stores will not be capped.

The second is to improve efficiency. The results of years of melee show that the fresh retail track is destined to take a long time to maintain and its ceiling is high enough. The 20021China Fresh E-commerce Industry Research Report released by iResearch shows that the development of fresh e-commerce will accelerate after the epidemic in 2020, and the industry scale will reach 458.49 billion yuan in 2020. It is estimated that the scale of fresh e-commerce industry will exceed one trillion yuan in 2023. The fresh retail market in China is expected to grow from 5 trillion yuan in 2020 to 6.8 trillion yuan in 2025, which is a long track.

Under the internet model, it is obviously illogical to abandon scale, but it is definitely not the end point to talk about scale without profit. In order to improve efficiency, we should not only improve people's efficiency, floor efficiency, product efficiency and other "effects" around "people's freight yard", but also improve turnover rate, growth rate, gross profit margin, favorable rate and other indicators. Especially at the present stage of fresh retail development, under the melee of various formats, the key to real competition is efficiency. After trying various formats of 10, Hou Yi put forward "lean production and lean management", which is essentially aimed at "improving efficiency".

Finally, differentiation. In the face of profit or scale dilemma, the differentiation of different players is also related to how far they can go. For example, in the pre-warehouse mode, the offline traffic is limited, and it is destined to cost more at the client, which means it has to seek more profitable products.

"Mantis Watch" believes that the key to achieving differentiation is to extend to categories in addition to different formats. For example, shopping in Box Horse, Qixian County, JD.COM and Ding Dong. Everyone has his own brand, and there are some "exclusive" products under his own brand, which is easy to provide differentiated experiences. The other is differentiated services, such as the butler service launched in the third quarter of last year. According to public data, under the daily butler service of Youxian 1V 1, the per capita bill of users has increased by 70% compared with the non-butler population, and the per capita monthly consumption has doubled. In addition, there is cross-border cooperation. Last year, Qixian County, JD.COM and MUJI opened the first fresh compound store in China, which was a differentiated attempt.

Undoubtedly, the fresh retail industry in 2022 really entered the second half. On the one hand, the players who entered the game basically entered the game, and the players with insufficient strength were basically eliminated. Players who are still at the table after all kinds of drastic changes have actually caught almost all the cards in their hands. Who can play the cards well will be the key.

* The pictures in this article are all from the Internet.

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