Seed industry e-commerce: building an ecosystem is more important than building a platform.

In the past few years, the domestic seed industry has ushered in unprecedented challenges. under the impact of the reality of low prices and small profits, many kinds of enterprises have been eliminated or in jeopardy. In the face of a reshuffle, every enterprise is working hard to get out of the pre-dawn darkness as soon as possible.

When the industry encounters a downturn, there are always a few rays of dawn from afar. Among them, no one has the highest expectation than "Internet +". As a "new engine" for improving the quality and efficiency of China's economy, the "Internet +" action plan has rapidly swept all major industries, including the seed industry at the top of the traditional agricultural industry, since it was formally put forward at the national "two sessions" last year.

Therefore, it is not too much to compare 2015 to the "first year" of e-commerce in the seed industry. Last year, when the traditional seed enterprises have not yet awakened, business bigwigs have joined the game, such as Taobao, JD.com, Aiju net, field circle and so on. A few days ago, the first West Lake seed Industry Forum was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where many traditional seed enterprises and e-commerce platforms gathered together to discuss the future of seed e-commerce.

The seed industry and e-commerce have been "married"

In the traditional industry, the volume of the seed industry is small, and the level of marketization has been lagging behind. In 2014, along with agricultural products such as fertilizers and pesticides, seeds began to touch the net. At first, e-commerce platforms such as Beijing's love seed network and Agehui agricultural materials were launched one after another, and soon after, e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com also announced their high-profile entry into the rural market. After 2015, on the one hand, the e-commerce platform began to explore, at the same time, some agricultural enterprises are also trying to promote e-commerce strategy.

However, as a living commodity, the transfer of seed sales from offline to online has sparked a heated discussion in the field of agriculture. Most skeptics believe that the use of seeds is regional, and there are special requirements for storage and transportation; in addition, online purchase of seeds is also lack of legitimacy, in the event of an accident, it is extremely difficult to safeguard rights, these inherent characteristics determine that seeds should not "touch the net."

However, in the face of the "pain point" of layer-by-layer price increases in the sales of the traditional seed industry, despite doubts and difficulties, seed e-commerce is still extremely bullish and stumbling forward. Even many people in the industry said bluntly: in the rural e-commerce boiling today, it is very difficult for the seed industry to stay out of the matter, if the kind of enterprises insist on going against the trend, I am afraid it will accelerate the elimination.

According to Chen Liang, an expert from Ali Research Institute, seed e-commerce has become an irreversible trend, and seed companies should actively embrace the Internet; at the same time, there is a lack of large-scale, brand-guaranteed direct sales e-commerce in the industry, which is a huge market opportunity; at present, seed e-commerce has attracted the attention of e-commerce platforms and triggered changes in rules, such as the extension of receipt period.

An industry insiders who have conducted in-depth research on agricultural e-commerce said bluntly in the forum that with the popularity and development of the mobile Internet, like all industries, agriculture-related enterprises are facing the pressure of transformation, leading to an unprecedented "ability panic". If it is said that the agricultural e-commerce is still like others, it is difficult to become a climate, then, from 2015, when large enterprises began to intervene deeply, there has been a trend of systematic transformation.

In the forum, an industry insider said frankly: "the future of e-commerce in the seed industry is unlimited, and there is no dispute about this conclusion in the industry." Now the two are not in a love relationship, nor is it a choice of whether to do it or not, but that the two are married and should pay attention to the question of how to unite. However, according to the current analysis, seed enterprises still need to invest as much as possible, and it is more dangerous to gamble on e-commerce. "

It is urgent to make up for the deficiency of technical service.

On Taobao, if you enter "seeds", there are more than 750000 items sold, such as vegetables and flowers, and balcony gardening has become the absolute mainstream in the retail field. Among the top shops, "Don't forget agricultural balcony gardening" is particularly eye-catching. As the largest seed enterprise in Zhejiang, don't forget that the agricultural seed industry launched the balcony agronomy section at the beginning of this year.

"for balcony gardening, most of the seeds we sell are small packages, new and strange seeds, and it is easy to cultivate seedlings, which has a higher profit margin than the large packaging sold to farmers." Don't forget that Fu Li, head of the e-commerce department of the agricultural seed industry, told reporters that in addition to selling seeds, online stores also sell fertilizers, seedling plates, and horticultural supplies, with an average total sales of about 200000 yuan per month.

Although balcony horticulture is favored by the industry as a new category, there is no doubt that the main body of the seed industry is still in the wholesale market. In the past, as the vast majority of seed sales adopted the distribution agency system, the significance of the Internet lies in channel reengineering. After all, the seed industry e-commerce has just started, and the overall share of farmers buying seeds online is very small.

"in the past, manufacturers did not have access to comprehensive information about terminal farmers, which were concentrated in the hands of distributors and retailers, and most seed enterprises relied heavily on these two sides; at the same time, intermediate channels were bloated and inefficient and swallowed up a lot of profits, and systematic agrotechnical services were also very inadequate. Getting through these information flows is the key to solving the 'pain point' of the agricultural material industry. " Wang Weiwen, CEO of Aizou.com, pointed out.

In recent years, due to the sinking of the channels of big platforms such as Ali, JD.com and Kim Jong-da, the logistics constraints hindering the decline of agricultural materials are being gradually resolved. However, with the flattening of the channel, how to fill the gap in technical services has become the most urgent problem to be solved. Industry experts said that agricultural e-commerce involves the interconnection of information flow, capital flow, logistics and technical services, far from simply selling products online.

Several people in charge of the e-commerce platform who spoke at the forum said that at present, all parties are actively making up for the shortcomings of technical services with the help of resources. For example, JD.com is carrying out omni-directional joint marketing, planning to build 100 agricultural material service centers, 1300 county-level service centers, and 200000 rural promotion points, while Aizou Network is through the integration of local agricultural service resources, accelerate the formation of a number of professional, reasonable prices, high-quality agricultural service partners to provide overall planting solutions.

The layout of e-commerce is not just about building platforms.

"from a corporate point of view, it is right to embrace the direction of the Internet, but it is obviously important to take root. We are faced with not only large professional investors, but also many non-professional retail investors, and disputes will arise if we are not careful. Therefore, technical services are the core for e-commerce in the seed industry to land; secondly, channel positioning, product positioning, and customer positioning must also be adjusted accordingly; third, seeds are special commodities, and traditional channel sales have to go through the stages of variety testing, testing, demonstration and promotion, how can the Internet connect? " Talking about the current confusion, a seed industry boss has a deep understanding.

The heads of some seed companies frankly say that the rise of e-commerce in the seed industry will undoubtedly replace some of the traditional channels, and there is a competitive relationship between the two, whether they can learn from each other's strengths to offset their weaknesses, and eventually form a set of effective innovation models, rather than subverting them. As the agricultural e-commerce is still in development, the final shape is still in vain. However, there is a consensus in the forum that the establishment of an e-commerce ecosystem is more important than simply building a platform.

It is not difficult to find that when enterprises are laying out the transformation of the Internet, they are not purely building platforms to do e-commerce, but on the basis of Agricultural big data, through the construction of various crop growth models and planting models, match agricultural materials, agricultural technology, agricultural product sales, information, finance and other services for multi-dimensional expansion.

Take Aiju as an example, in addition to the basic business of agricultural material circulation, it also plans to cultivate agricultural services, agricultural finance, green agriculture certification, agricultural products sales and so on. Wang Weiwen said: "the big data platform of Aizou Network is gradually and accurately grasping the seed and agricultural material purchase and production of farmers across the country, and will carry out production and marketing docking of agricultural products, order agriculture, and even direct purchase in the future, and analyze the market supply and demand of crops. Will be realized step by step."

It can be predicted that at present, major enterprises and platforms are planning to build their own biosphere, and there will be a round of fighting. In the forum, many people in the industry also pointed out that when building an ecological circle, how to establish an audit mechanism to prohibit cross-regional operations, and how to reduce the potential risks of planting seeds purchased online? these problems require local governments to strengthen supervision and cooperate with e-commerce platforms, otherwise in the seed industry e-commerce "golden age" today, "bubble fate" will also be possible.