As the last piece of fat in e-commerce, the popularity of fresh e-commerce has been increasing since 20 14. E-commerce giants are all laying out fresh food business, and comprehensive e-commerce companies such as Tmall, JD.COM, Amazon, SF You Xuan, 1 Store and Womai.com are all absent. At the same time, vertical fresh e-commerce is also very concerned by capital. It turns out that Life and Tian Tian Orchard have successively received tens of millions of dollars in financing, and DMall, a fresh e-commerce company founded by Liu Jiangfeng, the former president of Huawei Glory, has won 1 100 million angels before it was launched.
Also in 20 14, semi-finished vegetable e-commerce as a new fresh e-commerce model began to attract people's attention, and then some entrepreneurs began to try, including young vegetables, vegetable customers, small farmers, new tastes, continuous life and so on. However, this service has also been questioned in terms of demand authenticity, purchase frequency, customer unit price and distribution cost.
Then, does the user demand of fresh e-commerce and semi-finished food e-commerce exist? Why do users choose to buy fresh food online? What caused their bad experience?
Penguin Zhiku conducted an online survey on fresh e-commerce and semi-finished food e-commerce, with a total of 9645 netizens participating. In order to improve the accuracy and representativeness of the data, Penguin Zhiku sampled and matched the samples according to "China Netizen Structure" published by CNNIC. The following are the results and conclusions of this survey.
The penetration rate of fresh e-commerce is less than 30%, but there is considerable room for growth.
Fresh e-commerce has not yet entered the stage of mass popularization, and only 24.5% of users have bought fresh food online. However, nearly half of users expressed interest in trying in the future, and these users are potential users of fresh e-commerce. Less than 30% of users are not interested at all. It can be said that fresh e-commerce still has a lot of room for growth in terms of user scale and market scale.
Imported fruits are most favored by users.
Among all kinds of fresh products, imported fruits are the most popular among fresh e-commerce users, with 40.3% of users giving priority to imported fruits, followed by seafood and aquatic products, domestic cheap fruits and dairy products. Vegetables are the last thing to buy.
It can be seen from the survey that the demand of fresh e-commerce users is concentrated in two categories: fruit and seafood, especially fruit. From the operation of fresh e-commerce, some e-commerce companies such as Tmall and JD.COM do put fruits (especially imported fruits) as the first category on the top of the fresh channel, or some imported fruits and seafood as recommended commodities. In addition, fruit is also the first choice for entrepreneurs who do single-item fresh e-commerce, such as Tian Tian Orchard and Xu Xian.
Tmall accounts for about half of the fresh e-commerce market
Although there are many players in the fresh e-commerce market, Tmall has an obvious share advantage, with a penetration rate of 43.8%, followed by JD.COM, Tian Tian Orchard and SF You Xuan, with a penetration rate ranging from 1 1% to 15%.
As can be seen from the data, almost all the top five seats in user penetration rate are occupied by integrated e-commerce. Integrated e-commerce has several obvious advantages in making fresh food, such as the entrance advantage brought by traffic accumulation, the trust brought by brand accumulation, and the precipitation of users' usage habits, which are beyond the reach of most vertical fresh food e-commerce companies in a short time.
It is worth mentioning that Tian Tian Orchard, which has the highest user penetration rate among vertical fresh-keeping e-commerce, has just received $70 million in Series C financing from JD.COM, and the two sides will further cooperate in fruit category. As we all know, JD.COM wants to make efforts in the fresh food market, and its O2O project is also promoting the fresh food business from JD.COM to home.
The most obvious demand of users for fresh e-commerce is "low price"
45.2% of users buy fresh food online mainly because the price is more affordable.
Fresh food itself faces higher operating costs than other categories, and its cost mainly comes from cold chain logistics. Therefore, between its high operating costs and users' low price expectations, fresh e-commerce needs to find solutions, such as selling high-profit categories, such as seafood, frozen meat, imported fruits and so on.
In addition, 3 1.5% and 28.8% users choose to buy fresh food online because they "save themselves the trouble of going to the supermarket to buy it" and "have more categories". Users who pay for the food concept promoted by organic and imported fresh e-commerce are not in the mainstream. It can be seen that the commodity premium ability of fresh e-commerce has not yet formed.
What users are most concerned about is the deterioration and damage of fresh food.
Half of users are most afraid to buy fresh dishes that are inconsistent with the online description, while 4 1.4% users mind that the fresh dishes they receive are not fresh. Excluding over-marketing and counterfeiting, the main reason for the inconsistency between fresh food and online description is deterioration and damage. One of the biggest problems that fresh e-commerce has been facing is the high loss rate of fresh food, which is exactly what users value most.
It is worth mentioning that only 30% of users mind the high price. It can be said that although users expect to buy low-priced fresh food, if the quality and freshness of fresh food can be guaranteed, the high price will not cause too much harm to the user's experience.
The high-frequency purchase habit of fresh e-commerce users has not yet formed.
Although fresh food is considered as a category with high stickiness and high repeat purchase rate, many comprehensive e-commerce platforms also improve users' stickiness to their platforms through these characteristics. However, according to the survey data, not many users have formed the habit of high-frequency purchase: 12.4% users buy once a week (or more), and11%users buy once every two months. At present, users who buy occasionally account for the majority, up to 65.8%.
Seepage velocity, the user of semi-finished food e-commerce, is faster.
Like fresh e-commerce, e-commerce of semi-finished ingredients has not yet entered the stage of large-scale popularization, and users who have purchased semi-finished ingredients online account for 2 1.3%. However, for semi-finished food e-commerce, a business form with strong localization characteristics, which appeared less than two years ago, such a user seepage velocity can still be called fast.
In addition, more than half of users expressed interest in trying in the future, and these users are potential users of semi-finished food e-commerce. However, because the user's purchase of semi-finished ingredients is directly related to the behavior of "cooking", the user's purchase behavior is not completely determined by the purchase intention. Compared with fresh e-commerce, these users who express their willingness to buy will have a lower purchase conversion rate in the future.
The value of "recipe catering" has not been recognized.
37.6% of users buy semi-finished ingredients online because they can buy ingredients that are not available nearby. This is also the most important demand of users for semi-finished food e-commerce, followed by cheap prices.
At present, some high-end semi-finished food e-commerce companies (such as continuous life, new tastes, etc. ) are focusing on the concept of "recipe catering" for high-end meals, hoping to generate a premium through scientific and nutritious recipe matching and high-quality ingredients, and increase the unit price of customers. But at present, this is not the main demand of users.
In addition, users have not shown strong demand for the convenience brought by semi-finished ingredients. It can be guessed that most people who buy semi-finished ingredients online are people with cooking habits, and the practice of mining incremental users by lowering the threshold and providing added value with convenience and recipes has not played a significant role.
Users have not formed the habit of buying ingredients regularly.
In terms of purchasing habits, 8.3% of users said that they ordered by the day, that is, they booked the ingredients for the next day on the same day; 7.5% of users order every week, that is, they reserve the ingredients needed for one week at a time. Most of the remaining 80% users have not formed regular ordering habits.
In foreign countries, weekly ordering is an important mode of semi-finished food e-commerce. The representative who adopts this model is the Club apron that has just entered the unicorn club. It delivers the ingredients needed for three meals a week to users. However, in China, no semi-finished fresh e-commerce has adopted this model.
In addition, fewer users form the habit of high-frequency purchase, and 20.7% users will buy semi-finished ingredients at least once every half month. More than 70% of users only buy occasionally.
As for the last mile, only 30% users accept the "self-lifting mode"
How to solve the "last mile" problem is a headache for most fresh and semi-finished food e-commerce. In order to reduce the distribution cost, some fresh e-commerce and semi-finished food e-commerce choose to build their own pick-up points or containers next to the community or subway station, and replace the "last mile" human distribution by letting users pick up their own goods. The founder of Xu Xian, a fruit e-commerce company, even said: The last mile is a huge obstacle, and we should not consider solving it at an early stage.
According to the survey results, there are still 7 1.2% users who prefer home delivery service, and the remaining 30% users prefer or do not refuse the way of self-delivery. Therefore, at present, users' requirements for the last mile service are still relatively high.
In this regard, JD.COM is strengthening its last mile delivery service. Fresh food bought by JD.COM at home can be delivered within two hours. But for most startups, unlike JD.COM, which has accumulated in the field of logistics and distribution for many years, the cost of providing the last mile distribution service will inevitably be passed on to users.
Conclusion: What should fresh e-commerce entrepreneurs do?
Fresh e-commerce is a big cake with a trillion-dollar market scale, and it is also one of the only remaining "virgin lands" in the domestic e-commerce field. The entry of e-commerce giants and the pursuit of venture capital all show that the business form of fresh e-commerce has been recognized by the capital market. Yan Yan, a partner of Safran Fund, once expressed the view that fresh e-commerce needs a lot of investment in the initial stage, but after market cultivation, the subsequent growth potential will be amazing.
Mckinsey also sent a signal of optimism. According to the data in 20 15 China Digital Consumer Survey Report, fresh e-commerce users buy fresh food 24 times a year on average, ranking fourth after normal temperature food, game products and electronic ticketing. If you only look at the real thing, you can rank second, with obvious demand and great potential.
So, when will fresh e-commerce usher in a real outbreak? It may take a few days.
From the perspective of user usage, the user penetration rate of fresh e-commerce and semi-finished fresh e-commerce is around 20%, and interested users can account for half. The conversion rate and conversion speed of these users will directly affect the growth of the fresh e-commerce market. Among these 20% users, less than 20% people have formed the habit of repeated purchases frequently or regularly. If a certain user stickiness and repurchase rate cannot be formed in the future, the business model of fresh e-commerce will be questioned.
From the perspective of user demand, the main demand of most users for fresh e-commerce is "low price", and fresh e-commerce wants more than that. They want to improve the premium ability of goods by providing high-quality and scarce ingredients. This is also one of the purposes of everyone competing to enter the fresh food field: to pursue high gross profit of fresh goods. However, at present, most fresh e-commerce companies are still at a loss.
At present, the fresh e-commerce market is almost monopolized by comprehensive e-commerce platforms. Tmall has an absolute market share advantage, and JD.COM and Shunfeng have a considerable market share. Fresh e-commerce can only be a game of giants. Do vertical fresh e-commerce and new small-scale players still have a chance? The answer is yes.
On the one hand, the fresh e-commerce market is huge enough to accommodate all current players; On the other hand, fresh e-commerce is more difficult, and all links in the industrial chain can produce corresponding barriers, depending on how you choose to cut in.
First of all, cold chain logistics and the "last mile" are not an insurmountable hurdle.
Fresh e-commerce is difficult and has high operating costs, and this cost mainly comes from logistics, especially cold chain logistics. Whether it is self-built cold chain logistics or "trunk network+last mile" logistics network, it needs strong financial support, which makes logistics capability an advantage of large e-commerce. Small and medium-sized players need to know how to optimize their logistics costs.
Some small and medium-sized fresh e-commerce companies have built a network of "cold chain+ordinary logistics". The cold chain is laid out by trunk logistics, and the last mile is distributed by ordinary logistics to appropriately reduce costs. There are also bolder fresh e-commerce, which directly removes cold chain logistics through sufficiently efficient supply chain connection and further cuts off the distribution of the last mile through layout.
In addition, new entrants can also consider categories that are less dependent on cold chain logistics, and use existing third-party logistics or enjoy idle human resources to alleviate the last mile cost.
Secondly, we can't be "big and complete", but we can also be "small and beautiful".
Internet plus cooperated in manufacturing internet plus innovative Internet, medical mobile Internet, internet plus second-hand market, internet plus food, internet plus foreign trade, internet plus home appliances, internet plus household appliances, internet plus supermarket Internet+shopping center Internet+department store.
Comprehensive e-commerce companies such as Tmall and JD.COM can make use of their own platform and traffic advantages to lay out all categories by allowing businesses to settle in, and quickly expand to cities across the country. Such a business form can quickly gain scale, but not all of them are advantages. From upstream product selection, supply and product quality control to logistics, marketing, operation and management, the overall operational capability of fresh e-commerce is very important, and the platform model will make operators lose most of their control over these links.
Therefore, fresh e-commerce entrepreneurs can cut in from the local market, choose one or several vertical categories, and deeply intervene and integrate the supply chain, including direct mining of agricultural bases in the upstream, B2C platform and warehousing and logistics construction in the midstream, and O2O distribution in the downstream, thus forming their own resource barriers based on categories and regions. On this basis, consider the expansion of categories and markets.
Cui Xiaoqi, president of SF Express, concluded that fresh e-commerce is a very complicated business of "infiltrating the upstream base, controlling the logistics in the middle, mastering the user base at the end, finally reducing the loss rate, improving the delivery experience and controlling the logistics cost". At present, everyone is still exploring.