High cost in fresh market, high loss, 99% fresh e-commerce is losing money.

The development and popularization of e-commerce is gradually affecting people's way of life and habits. Fresh products commonly found in vegetable markets and supermarkets are now being moved to e-commerce websites, and "online food baskets" emerge as the times require.

The fresh market is huge and has a broad prospect, which is regarded as the "blue sea" in the domestic e-commerce field, but because of the high cost and high loss, the development of fresh e-commerce is not smooth.

Painful reality

In early August, Cofco I Buy announced that it had raised $100m in financing; on August 11th, Shunfeng chose to expand its cold chain distribution cities from 11 to 48; on August 24th, Letv officially announced his entry into agriculture, and its food e-commerce platform "Le Life" has been tested online. this series of big moves have ushered in a new tipping point for the fresh e-commerce industry.

The pursuit of fresh e-commerce by capital undoubtedly takes a fancy to the broad prospect of the fresh market. According to a research report by Zhongyan, the domestic fresh market is nearly one trillion yuan in 2013, while the sales penetration rate of fresh e-commerce is only 0.9%. Large market capacity and low permeability indicate that fresh e-commerce will be the next huge blue ocean in the e-commerce industry.

However, behind this "blue ocean", which is unanimously favored, is the painful reality that almost none of the 3000 fresh e-commerce companies make a profit. Li Changming, a member of the China Retail fresh Research Center, said in a recent interview with the media that "99% of fresh e-commerce companies are losing money."

In the past two or three years, a number of fresh e-commerce companies have been restructured or collapsed. Ding Jingtao, the founder of Youcai, resigned as CEO of the company, changed the company's legal representative and reshuffled the original management team, according to a notice issued in March last year by Youcai, a local community fresh e-commerce company. As Jinan's first attempt to put fresh products on the Internet, Jinan vegetable shopping network also collapsed after struggling to maintain for three years.

Development bottleneck

"the current problems encountered by fresh e-commerce are high difficulty in storage and transportation, easy wear and tear, high time requirements for distribution, high logistics costs, and low product standardization." Ding Chenling, a well-known Internet e-commerce expert in China, told reporters.

Zhang Xudong, an experienced person in e-commerce, said that the development of fresh e-commerce faces two major obstacles: one is the standardization of freshness; the other is the high loss rate. "only standardized things can be more easily processed and classified. Without standardization, we can only follow the path of local products, which is not conducive to market development." He also pointed out that China's fruits and vegetables are now nearly 30% lost in the logistics process, and 100 tons of vegetables can easily produce 20 tons of garbage, which is a shocking figure.

Analysys International analyst Wang Xiaoxing said in an interview with our reporter, "fresh products are not easy to store, how to achieve quality assurance 'fresh', which is related to the user experience." In order to guarantee the quality and freshness, it must be cryopreserved, and cold chain logistics is the key. However, the cost of cold chain logistics is very high, which is the biggest bottleneck for the fresh development of e-commerce. "

In the view of Liu Yu, general manager of the supply chain center of Tuotuo Industrial Society, China's cold chain logistics is still unable to meet the development of fresh e-commerce. "most of the two-stage logistics are group buying activities, and most of the self-built logistics of vertical e-commerce are to meet their own needs. Ordinary express delivery has seasonal restrictions and can not guarantee quality, while the distribution cost of professional cold chain is very high. It is out of touch with the interests of fresh e-commerce." Liu Yu said.

Where is the way out?

When the development of fresh e-commerce is facing a variety of difficulties, industry experts are generally optimistic about the combination of online and offline fresh O2O model. O2O mode centralized distribution, placing orders online, offline pick-up, cost reduction, offline storefront can provide the function of localization service.

"in the long run, the O2O model can not only solve people's desire for original ecological products, but also reduce transaction and distribution costs." Ding Chenling said.

Ding Jingtao, who has been a fresh e-commerce business for three years, also said after leaving Youcai that fresh e-commerce still has to follow the O2O model. "fresh sales have its uniqueness, different regions like different foods, and different regional sales prices are also different." Therefore, if we use a unified mall, there will be a lot of problems. The O2O model is a feasible path.

He also pointed out that the O2O model can not only save logistics costs, but also improve the user experience. In particular, interactive shopping on social platforms such as Wechat can cultivate residents' shopping habits and increase customers' stickiness.

But according to Wang Xiaoxing, an analyst at Analysys International, the O2O model is worth exploring, but it depends on how to combine online and offline, such as localized community e-commerce. Youcai Network is one of the community fresh e-commerce companies that take the lead in carrying out the transformation of O2O mode. At present, Youcai Network is not only in normal operation, but also well received by consumers.

It is understood that Youcai's promotional activities are carried out completely offline, such as opening community fruit and vegetable convenience stores, cooperating with physical community stores, entering the community by through train, and so on. These activities have not only made Youcai net recognized and recognized by consumers, but also laid a foundation for solving the distribution problem of "the last kilometer".