On October 2nd, news of layoffs came from Meicai.com, a fresh e-commerce platform.

Recently, a suspected employee of Meicai.com broke the news in social media. After the last 51% layoffs, Meicai's Beijing headquarters laid off another 41% employees. In addition, the headquarters of Meicai.com, which was originally located in Yintai Shopping Mall in Wangfujing, Beijing, has now moved to the vicinity of Beijing Railway Station.

Another employee who has left Meicai.com said that Meicai.com has been laying off staff, and some business directors and product directors have been laid off some time ago. "Director-level employees are okay, and some basic business personnel are forced to terminate the contract and talk about it on the same day."

layoffs or related to listing?

it is reported that this move of American cuisine may be for preparing for listing. On October 12, some media reported that Meicai.com plans to submit an application for listing in Hong Kong in the first half of this year, and has selected investment banks to prepare for listing details.

In the past three years, this B2B fresh e-commerce platform has experienced many pains, such as several senior executives leaving, 2C business failed to sell itself through JD.COM, many rounds of massive layoffs, and several times of transformation is not optimistic.

In September last year, the Beijing headquarters of Meicai.com was laid off by 51%, and services in some cities were shut down.

according to the previous report on the interface, an internal email showed that the technical departments such as product research and development, business departments such as purchasing and sales, and financial departments of Beijing headquarters are all facing a layoff ratio of 51% or more.

in addition, Chengdu r&d center of American cuisine will be abolished as a whole, services in some cities will be shut down, and large regions will be merged.

according to public information, meicai. com was established in 2114 as a service platform for fresh food supply chain, providing food and beverage ingredients procurement services to nearly 11 million vegetable shops and restaurants in China. The year before last, it began to provide distribution services for individual household users, with investments from Gaoyan Capital and Meituan (13691).

according to its official website, the company has not obtained financing since it completed the E round of financing in 2118.

financing is not smooth, burning money is not limited

Before the news of layoffs broke out, rumors of listing of Meicai.com kept going on.

since its establishment in 2114, meicai. com has always been a "star enterprise" in the eyes of capital.

in just four years, it has completed eight rounds of financing, and the accumulated financing amount exceeds 11 billion, which has become one of the few platforms left for fresh e-commerce after multiple rounds of reshuffle.

In the era of fresh e-commerce, Meicai. com adopted the B2B e-commerce mode of agricultural products and vegetables and fruits, and adopted the self-operated mode of controlling goods, connecting upstream fresh producers and downstream merchants with the cold chain logistics network.

It doesn't sound complicated, but the long chain and the "profit problem" in the middle have become a knife hanging over American food.

The specific mode is that American cuisine is the source of fresh food and the self-built channel, and three-party merchants and partners are sought in different regions to complete the supply of agricultural products in quality and quantity, and at the same time, city partners are required to deliver them in time.

The upstream partners need to sink into the production base of agricultural products, which is limited by the factors such as the low level of internet and informatization in rural areas, while American cuisine needs to invest more education costs in quality control.

In 2119, Meicai recruited partners for the whole country, managed the team of marketing, purchasing, selling, warehousing and distribution of Meicai in local counties, and carried out B2B catering business. Meicai Headquarters provided the project leader with support in five aspects: capital, personnel, supply chain, system and experience.

according to official website, meicai. com, it has 5,111 delivery vehicles, 74 storage centers in 52 cities, covering more than 211 cities across the country, handling 5.2 million orders and delivering more than 15,111 times a day.

heavy mode means high investment. In the past, Meicai. com, which was blessed by capital all the way, has accumulated more than 11 billion yuan in financing. However, there has been no new financing in the past three years, and its expansion speed has been restricted. In addition, it has not achieved overall profit.

Liu Chuanjun, the founder of Meicai.com, once said that it is expected that there will be a good cash flow by the end of 2121, but at present, its profitability is not optimistic.

according to the operating data published by meicai, it has made profits in many cities except Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

It can be seen that the inability of first-tier cities to make profits has become one of the factors that drag down the overall profitability of Meicai.com..

some media reported that meicai. com reduced the number of employees while laying off employees. meicai decentralized the power of regional cities, allowing some suppliers to settle in the mall and self-allocate their own stores, completely opening the platform. American food is directly deducted, and the original American food subsidy becomes a supplier subsidy to increase profits.

in order to reduce the cost pressure of warehousing, meicai. com no longer sets up a central warehouse, allowing suppliers to deliver goods directly to the front warehouse. Effectively transfer storage costs and storage losses to suppliers. At the same time, it is also reducing the number of warehouses in various places.

There is no hope for the B-end, and it will move to the C-end

Under the dilemma of "burning money while losing money" in the B-end business, Meicai.com also tried to explore the C-end market last year and launched "Meijia Shopping".

when the b-end market is switched to the c-end market, there is a huge difference between the operation of the b-end market and the c-end market. Because of the huge difference in operation logic, it may have been doomed that the American family will fail in buying vegetables at the beginning.

Daily Youxian and Dingdong have been laid out in the front warehouse for many years, and it seems that Meijia, which suddenly enters the C-end market, has no advantage in buying vegetables. Under the squeeze of the two, Meijia's grocery shopping project is difficult to operate.

at the end of February last year, it was reported that the American family bought vegetables because of poor management or sold them to JD.COM for less than 211 million dollars, and the transaction was not completed after confirmation.

from the supplier's point of view, American cuisine is only an important channel for suppliers, but it is not completely dependent on it. The traditional wholesale market is their main battlefield. The wholesale market has stable flow and lower warehousing and logistics costs. In this respect, the single transaction volume through the platform is not large, and suppliers need to prepare warehouses for manual sorting and packaging, which is relatively higher.

From the interruption of financing to entering the C-end market, layoffs and business contraction, Meicai.com seems to be in trouble, facing the dilemma that fresh e-commerce is difficult to make profits.

meicai. com is also faced with the high inventory and high loss rate brought by the mode of self-management, asset-oriented and operation-oriented, which increases the risk and pressure. After the capital is broken, the listing of meicai is far away, and layoffs have become a must for meicai.

This article is reported by food observers, integrated spirits and beasts and other media.