Pay attention to the development of fresh e-commerce: cold chain distribution is the bottleneck

Cost reduction is one of the important tasks of supply-side structural reform. The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year called for helping enterprises reduce costs. Among them clearly put forward,"To reduce logistics costs, Promote circulation system reform." Cold chain facilities are insufficient and the cost is too high, which is one of the shortcomings of China's logistics system, which restricts the healthy development of fresh e-commerce and other industries. At present, it is urgent for our country to reduce the cost of cold chain logistics by perfecting relevant supporting facilities and policies.

Chen Jianfeng was pleasantly surprised to find that you can buy Haagen-Dazs ice cream on SF Preferred website for your mother in Ji 'an, Jiangxi Province as a Mother's Day gift. Just a few years ago, in a small city like Ji 'an, buying ice cream online was still a luxury, and imported fruits on many shopping websites could not be delivered there.

I don't know when, express electric car in addition to large and small cartons, sometimes there will be an extra car refrigerator. Imported yogurt, Dutch tulips, Argentine frozen red shrimp... Cold chain express from scratch, once again closer to the distance between people and the world.

Cold chain distribution resources are not enough, fresh food is mostly transported at normal temperature across provinces

Cold chain express is obviously not as developed as ordinary express delivery. Beijing Mr. Wang once went to Guangdong on business, want to send a box of Maoming litchi to his family, asked several express enterprises, only to find a can be the whole cold chain delivery. As a result, when the family received it, some litchi were still broken. "Litchi was wrapped in a foam plastic box with two small ice packs inside. When I received it, the ice packs had already melted." Mr. Wang said,"If there happens to be no one at home, the courier takes litchi for a morning, isn't it all broken?"

"This is precisely a problem faced by cold chain express." Shunfeng cold transport related responsible person said, Express and logistics the most obvious difference is, Logistics is port-to-port, Station to station, And express is door-to-door. One of the characteristics of cold chain express delivery is scattered order receiving and scattered dispatch, which means that the door will be opened frequently during delivery, and the temperature control of refrigerated space is more difficult. Moreover, cold chain express delivery has higher requirements for timeliness, electric tricycles are seized, do not enter the community and other express delivery problems often encountered, for cold chain express more impact, including Mr. Wang mentioned no one at home, etc., will greatly increase the delivery cost.

"Not to mention cold chain express, even the development level of cold chain logistics cannot meet market demand." Cold chain distribution is not strong, and it has become a bottleneck restricting the development of fresh e-commerce." Cainiao Network Technology Co., Ltd. logistics director Chen Tao said.

Cainiao Network is Alibaba's express logistics coordination platform. Helping e-commerce coordinate distribution resources is one of Chen Tao's daily tasks. "Our biggest feeling when coordinating cold chain resources is that there are not enough resources." Chen Tao said,"The fruits of origin that we eat in our daily life, such as ** grapes, Guangdong litchi, etc., are actually transported at normal temperature by road, and then stored in the warehouse after the place of sale, and shipped when customers place orders." Therefore, the damage is relatively high, and the taste will also be affected."

Cold chain distribution costs are high, the total number of enterprises is insufficient and the service quality is uneven.

From ** to Beijing, the loss of road transportation at normal temperature may be more than 1/3. Why do businesses still choose normal temperature transportation instead of cold chain transportation? The most direct reason is the high cost of cold chain.

"At the same turnover rate, cold chain distribution investment is at least twice as high as ordinary express delivery." Shunfeng cold transport related responsible person to the reporter calculated an account: vehicle aspect, cold chain transportation to use refrigerated truck, the state on the highway driving truck appearance size restrictions, and refrigerated truck must be installed insulation layer, so the storage capacity is smaller than ordinary trucks, refrigeration equipment and energy consumption, so the operation cost is much higher; Storage, cold chain express logistics needs to use three temperature warehouse, cost is also higher than normal temperature warehouse; In terms of transfer and distribution operation, cold chain express needs constant temperature operation room and special work clothes. The constant temperature operation room not only has large investment in the early stage, but also consumes a lot of energy during operation; in terms of terminal distribution, cold chain express needs special utensils and suitable refrigerant solutions, which is also much more expensive than ordinary express cartons and schoolbags...

For fresh e-commerce directly facing consumers, the quantity of each order is often small, and the cost cannot be diluted by increasing the scale, so the cost of cold chain express delivery is even higher.

Another reason why merchants are unwilling to choose cold chain transportation is that the total number of cold chain express logistics enterprises is insufficient and the service quality is uneven.

The actual situation of the current market is that the price of cold chain express delivery of food will not be too much higher than that of ordinary express delivery, for example, the price difference between delivery in the same city is less than double. Therefore, there are not many enterprises willing to develop cold chain express logistics.

Chen Tao said that on the one hand, China's cold chain infrastructure is generally insufficient. For example, China's refrigerated trucks account for only 0.3% of the total number of trucks in the country, compared with 2% in Japan. On the other hand, the main body of cold chain distribution is small in scale, and there are many enterprises scattered in various places that can do cold chain business in the same city, but there are not many enterprises that can do cross-provincial cold chain distribution, and there is no brand enterprise with high credibility.

Enterprises should take the road of specialization, and government departments need to clear obstacles for enterprises

The pain point of the market is the opportunity for development. E-commerce feels that cold chain distribution cannot meet the demand, which just shows that there is huge market space for developing cold chain distribution. "Promoting the development of cold chain distribution will effectively stimulate market demand." Shao Zhonglin, an expert from the National Post Think Tank, said,"Just as the rapid development of express delivery industry supports the continuous record of online retail, if cold chain distribution can develop, the development of fresh e-commerce will be more convenient, which will certainly promote consumption upgrading and further activate the Internet economy."

From the point of view of enterprises, the development of cold chain distribution must first pass the cost barrier.

Innovations in packaging materials and refrigerant technology can effectively reduce costs. For example, the EPP circulating incubator developed by Shunfeng is lighter in weight and more resistant to pressure and fall, which reduces the cost of cold chain distribution; in the "last kilometer" distribution, Shunfeng uses the self-developed ultra-low temperature accumulator instead of dry ice distribution ice cream, which not only reduces the cost, but also prolongs the cooling time.

Informatization methods such as big data can also reduce costs. The cold chain delivery cost of fresh food in our country is high. One objective reason is that the transportation is mostly one-way, so the trunk refrigerated trucks often return empty. Cainiao Network, through communication of e-commerce and delivery of enterprise information, on the one hand, divides the logistics order of fresh products into parts and dilutes the cost; on the other hand, it does not open the air conditioner when returning, and transports daily consumer goods at normal temperature, which improves the use efficiency of refrigerated trucks. In addition, the application of big data technology can also help cold chain distribution enterprises find out the distribution temperature that is both fresh-keeping and energy-saving, and can also play a role in reducing costs.

However, the investment of cold chain distribution will certainly be greater than that of ordinary express delivery. Therefore, it is a more realistic choice to develop cold chain distribution by taking the professional road. Shao Zhonglin said: "The cold chain transportation requirements of different commodities such as solids, liquids, refrigeration, meat, vegetables, etc. are different, and the equipment and technical requirements required are also different. Or you can specialize in storage, trunk transportation, or home delivery."

To develop cold chain distribution, it is necessary for government departments to refine standards and strengthen supervision. A cold chain logistics enterprise staff told reporters, cold chain transportation at present there is no clear supervision department, also do not have mandatory standards, cold chain distribution quality uneven and this is not unrelated. "Some enterprises don't know what temperature is appropriate, and some non-standard enterprises have fluke mentality, thinking that even if the air conditioning is turned off halfway, consumers can't see it."

"One of the reasons why trans-provincial cold chain transportation is not effective is that it is a big problem to get a pass for refrigerated trucks." The relevant person in charge of SF Cold Transport said,"In addition, most of the current refrigerated trucks are customized and modified by the modification factory, and the car manufacturing technology and refrigeration equipment technology update speed are very fast, but the requirements of the model announcement are long, which restricts the application of new cold chain technologies." According to the current regulations, if we use vacuum tires with higher safety, we will not be able to register."

Experts believe that in order to solve the problem of insufficient cold chain distribution resources, relevant government departments also need to clear obstacles for enterprises.