In the eyes of many people, fresh food e-commerce is the only remaining piece of meat in the domestic e-commerce market, and this opportunity must not be missed. At present, in the domestic market, whether it is e-commerce platforms or traditional offline supermarkets, even logistics companies have actively joined the battle for fresh food e-commerce. The models are also very diverse, with almost seven models. But judging from the current situation, no model can truly dominate the fresh food e-commerce market. So in the future, who of these seven models will be the final real winner?

　1. Comprehensive e-commerce platform

When it comes to e-commerce, we have to mention e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com. At present, domestic comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, Suning.com, Yihaodian, and Amazon have begun to get involved in fresh food e-commerce. So compared with other fresh food e-commerce companies, the comprehensive e-commerce platform has several obvious advantages.

1. Entrance advantage. The biggest advantage of comprehensive e-commerce platforms is the entrance advantage, especially Tmall and Taobao, which occupy more than 80% of the market share in China. This powerful traffic advantage is difficult for other fresh food e-commerce platforms to match in the short term.

2. Users’ good shopping habits. Comprehensive e-commerce platforms have long cultivated good shopping habits among users, which is a natural advantage. When many users go shopping on Tmall, Taobao, Suning.com and other platforms, they see fresh food e-commerce products and choose to buy them accordingly.

3. Trust. For online shopping users, trust is a very critical factor. Many people who choose online shopping prefer to choose Tmall, JD.com and other platforms with sufficient credibility to purchase. However, many fresh food e-commerce companies that are just starting out find it difficult to do this at the beginning.

4. Complete payment system. For online shopping platforms such as fresh food e-commerce, a complete payment system is also quite necessary. At this point, I am afraid that it will be difficult for other fresh food e-commerce platforms to create a powerful Alipay like Taobao and Tmall.

5. Brand advantage. Comprehensive e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com have strong brand advantages and many loyal users, which other fresh food e-commerce platforms do not have.

Since comprehensive e-commerce platforms have so many advantages, does it mean that they are perfect in the field of fresh food e-commerce? Of course not.

1. Product standards are not uniform. For comprehensive e-commerce platforms, what they mainly do is the platform, and most fresh food e-commerce companies sell through merchants on the platform. However, the fresh products sold by different merchants do not have a unified standard in terms of quality, price, etc. This requires a lot of comparisons for consumers to choose cheaper and more beautiful fresh products.

2. Quality control is difficult. Since the comprehensive e-commerce platform operates in a platform model, the quality of the fresh products sold by merchants cannot be controlled. However, fresh products are different from other products. Once food safety issues arise, it will be a devastating disaster for the entire platform.

3. Commodity loss is very common and serious. Many merchants do not make special instructions when mailing goods or choose express delivery with poor service, so the loss of goods is unavoidable.

4. Delivery logistics has no guarantee on delivery time. This is also a very serious problem for the preservation of fresh products.

5. Logistics costs are expensive. Since fresh products have relatively high logistics requirements, their delivery unit price is naturally expensive. Fresh food e-commerce companies that have no price advantage in the first place also require customers to pay expensive logistics costs, which is naturally unacceptable to customers.

　2. Logistics e-commerce

When it comes to the fresh food e-commerce model, SF Express, which started by relying on express delivery, is a model that we have to mention. Agriculture is the only e-commerce industry that has not been fully e-commerce-based. SF Express CEO Wang Wei’s choice to cross-border from express delivery to fresh food e-commerce is also very ambitious. In his view, SF Express’s choice to be a fresh food e-commerce company has advantages that no other platform has.

Advantage 1: express delivery service.

SF Express has the largest express delivery force in China, and SF Express's express delivery services are the most recognized by users among all domestic express delivery companies. Fresh food e-commerce is an area that has very good express delivery requirements, and this is precisely where SF Express’s advantage lies.

Advantage 2: warehousing. Fresh food e-commerce also has very high requirements for warehousing. SF Logistics has a large number of warehousing centers across the country, and this is also a big advantage of SF Express compared with other platforms.

Advantage 3: Community O2O. SF Express can be well integrated with SF Hey Stores. Currently, SF Express has more than 500 SF Hey Stores in 70 cities across the country. This is also an obvious advantage for SF Express's preferred community O2O.

Of course, SF Express also faces many challenges in building a new fresh food e-commerce platform.

Challenge 1: The initial promotion cost is very high. This is also the reason why SF Express is still not profitable despite having the highest market share in fresh food e-commerce.

Challenge 2: The challenges faced in supply chain management are very high. How to ensure that the platform can supply fresh and high-quality fresh products in real time requires close cooperation with many agricultural and fruit and vegetable wholesale markets across the country.

3. Food suppliers

COFCO Womai.com and Guangmingcai Guanjia are two typical representatives of traditional food companies entering fresh food e-commerce. Of course, Womai.com is built by COFCO , and Cai Guanjia was later acquired by Bright Food Group. Food companies that directly engage in fresh food e-commerce naturally have considerable advantages.

First, the food supply chain. Woimai.com and Caiguanjia are difficult to compete with other fresh food platforms in the food supply chain. A large part of the reason why many fresh food e-commerce companies find it difficult to operate is because of problems in the food supply chain.

Secondly, warehousing. COFCO and Bright Food Group are also very strong in food warehousing capabilities, which is also difficult for many fresh food e-commerce platforms to match.

Third, food safety. COFCO and Bright Food can easily win the trust of users in terms of safety. For a fresh food e-commerce platform, food safety is the first step for users to purchase.

Finally, price. COFCO and Guangming have obvious price advantages in fresh food. The prices of many foods are in their hands, so they will have an advantage in a price war.

Of course, this type of fresh food e-commerce also faces some challenges.

First, logistics. For Womai.com and Caiguanjia, logistics is also a major difficulty they face. If logistics cannot keep up, it means that it is difficult for fresh products to remain fresh when delivered to users, and at the same time, the loss rate will be relatively high.

In addition, human and financial resources, etc. Compared with e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com, Womai.com and Caiguanjia require more manpower and financial resources in early operations.

4. Vertical e-commerce

Vertical fresh food e-commerce companies such as Putian.com, Youcai.com, and Benbensheng.com can be said to be the initiators of fresh food e-commerce. It is precisely because of their rise that other e-commerce platforms began to wake up.

Advantages: Focus. Due to the focus of vertical e-commerce, it pays more attention to niche areas than others, so it understands users better than other platforms.

However, due to the many disadvantages of vertical e-commerce, some people think that it is difficult for vertical fresh food e-commerce to become bigger and stronger.

Disadvantage 1: Supply chain. For vertical e-commerce companies, they do not have early experience in food suppliers, which makes them prone to problems in the supply chain. Especially for some vertical e-commerce companies that have just started their business, due to their relatively weak strength, no food suppliers are willing to cooperate with them.

Disadvantage 2: Logistics. Fresh food e-commerce has very high requirements for logistics and distribution. If logistics outsourcing is used, the possibility of product loss will be higher. If employees are used for delivery, this requires a lot of manpower and limits the company's expansion speed to a certain extent.

Disadvantage three: brand. Due to the lack of brand awareness, it is very difficult and costly to gain the trust of users in the early stage and directly consume and purchase fresh products on the platform.

Disadvantage 4: cold storage. Food cold storage is also a major disadvantage of vertical e-commerce.

Large-scale cold storage requires a large amount of investment, which is naturally difficult for vertical e-commerce companies that are not strong in strength.

5. Farm direct sales

Representatives of the farm direct sales model are Dolly Farm and Tuotuo Commune, which rely on their own farms to build fresh food e-commerce. They also have considerable advantages. at.

First, food safety. It is also the biggest advantage. Because it is their own farm, they have absolute confidence in food safety issues, and ecological fruits and vegetables are also what consumers like most and are most willing to buy.

Second, supply chain. Since they produce and sell their products themselves, they don't have to worry about sudden supply problems.

Third, short-distance delivery. Since they are all freshly picked fruits and vegetables, close-distance delivery can ensure the freshness of the fruits and vegetables for direct farm sales.

Disadvantage 1: Long-distance delivery. Because for farm direct sales platforms, due to the remote distance of farms, door-to-door delivery is a troublesome and time-consuming process.

Disadvantage 2: Diversified needs. Since the farm direct sales platform is self-produced and sold, the breadth of products is naturally unable to meet the diverse needs of users.

Disadvantage 3: Bear certain risks. Self-produced fruits and vegetables may have poor harvests due to season, rain, technology and other reasons, which will affect their supply to a certain extent.

6. Offline supermarkets

From the successive closures of fresh food platforms such as China Resources Vanguard, Yonghui Supermarket and Metro, it can be seen that it is not easy for offline supermarkets to get involved in fresh food e-commerce. .

Although it has obvious advantages in close-distance distribution of goods, cold storage, supply chain management, etc., due to the inability to make ends meet after building a fresh food e-commerce platform, this has led to the involvement of offline supermarkets. Fresh food e-commerce companies have closed down one after another.

On the one hand, they have an unnecessary delivery labor cost (originally, customers go directly to the supermarket to shop, but now they need to deliver to them. If it is a long distance, there is also an additional express delivery cost. , and require dedicated personnel to package and ship);

On the other hand, they also need to pay more online operating costs for this. This is not the strength of offline supermarkets. They who do not understand the Internet will naturally Need to pay more for it.

7. Community O2O

In fact, when it comes to community fresh food O2O, whether it is Taobao, JD.com, or Shunfeng Youzhen vertical e-commerce, they are all involved, and they are all trying to use This serves as a breakthrough for fresh food e-commerce. However, the most representative ones are WeChat businesses. With the help of WeChat public accounts, a large number of entrepreneurs have started community fresh food delivery.

First, delivery. Community O2O door-to-door delivery is very convenient and can ensure the freshness of the dishes and reduce the loss rate.

Second, payment. Community O2O can also pay via offline cash on delivery, which is more secure for consumers.

Third, speed. For many users who purchase fresh food from e-commerce companies, what they pay attention to is speed, because they have no food at home and need to buy food, but they don’t want to go to the vegetable market. At this time, they only need to use the WeChat official account or mobile app to buy food directly. Buy. The community O2O model can ensure a short delivery time.

Fourth, cost. Community O2O merchants only deliver goods to nearby communities and do not require a large amount of cold storage. They only need to purchase a small amount of fresh vegetables. At the same time, they can ensure that the fruits and vegetables are sold in a timely manner, which reduces waste and saves costs.

Of course, for community fresh food micro-businesses, they also need to work hard on promotion in the early stage. Especially in terms of scale expansion, more costs are required, and the expansion speed will be quite slow.

Everyone knows that mobile Taobao and mobile Tmall also have positioning characteristics, and this solves Taobao’s dilemma in fresh food O2O. Taobao’s successful entry into catering O2O by launching Taobao is a good example example. Compared with micro-business, it is easier for Taobao and Tmall to unify the product standards of fresh food e-commerce. In addition, Alibaba Cainiao Logistics is escorting the remote distribution of fresh food e-commerce.

Generally speaking, among these seven models, some professionals believe that the final fresh food e-commerce will form a pattern with Taobao as the mainstay and micro-commerce as the supplement. Vertical fresh food e-commerce, SF Express Womai.com, Food Guanjia, etc. will eventually be difficult to compare with Taobao in terms of scale, while offline supermarkets, farm direct sales, etc. may eventually go to Taobao to open stores and use WeChat official accounts to provide services for customers. Its promotion and services.