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This year’s fruit traders are suddenly facing the test of the epidemic.

Editor’s note: This article New Business Intelligence NBT (ID: newbusinesstrend) “, author | Zhu Ruomiao.

The Spring Festival is very important for retailers. In 2020, fresh produce retail enters a new round of competition. The major fresh produce retail channels in the Spring Festival still value Cherries, and hope to rely on it to penetrate Chinese consumption The hinterland of the market. An efficient logistics system and a denser fruit retail network are helping them to achieve this, but this year’s fruit traders are suddenly facing the test of the epidemic.

The Spring Festival is very important. This is the most concentrated period of consumption for Chinese people in a year. It is also the time when it is most necessary to improve and show their consumption level. .

This is especially true for fresh food retailers. After the reshuffle of the fresh produce industry in 2019, the competition in 2020 is bound to be fiercer. The competition is not only the sales capability of the terminal market, but also the support capability of the back-end supply chain.

The fierce competition started before the Year of the Rat. Cherries were once again pushed to the front, becoming the main product for fruit retailers to attract traffic online and offline. The popularity of the Spring Festival in 2019 has proved that cherry is the most successful fruit product created by downstream retailers in the past 10 years.

In China, a large and diverse market, Cherie ’s expansion mission has not yet ended, and there is still a large amount of consumer demand under first-tier and second-tier cities that has not been fully tapped. The large and complex sinking market provides exciting increments for fresh food retailers.

Early on the eve of the Chinese New Year’s Spring Festival this year, the e-commerce platforms have already started a subsidy battle around Cherries and other fine winter fruits. Price is precisely the core sensitive element of whether fine fruit can enter the sinking market. At the same time, fast-growing cold chain logistics that is developing rapidly and constantly around, and fruit retail stores that are increasingly dense in the sinking market, have laid the foundation for the sinking of cherryShi.

The customs of returning home and visiting relatives unique to the Spring Festival provide a sinking line for Cherries. The consumption habits of fine fruits that have been cultivated in the first and second cities are being spread to more places with the flow of people during the Spring Festival.

If all goes well, these fruit traders in China who have worked hard for a year all look forward to a good harvest in the Spring Festival, but the sudden epidemic has broken the original rhythm. The chain effects caused by this crisis have impacted the foundation of the fruit circulation.

When people lose the opportunity to move and consume, their material needs will shift sharply to the most needed level. Obviously, these high-end boutique fruits are not in the forefront of consumption order. When the whole society entered the mobilization and response to the epidemic, the original efficient distribution system suddenly slowed down within a week. Like the Domino brand, it is transmitting sudden pressure to the entire fruit industry from the bottom up. .

01 Cherries sink in Chile during the Spring Festival

From the Spring Festival of 2019, “Chelizi Freedom” has rapidly spread from first and second tier cities to third and fourth tier cities. Last year, Chilean cherry submitted a good transcript during the Spring Festival.

The data of the “2019 Fresh Fresh Goods Consumption Report” published by Daily Fresh shows that the sales of Chilean cherry in China increased by 32 times during the long holiday. Among them, the consumption power contributed by third- and fourth-tier cities is significant.

After being allowed to import to China in 2008, Chilean cherries caught up with the good times for the development of the Chinese fruit market, especially the migration of fruit retail models and consumption habits that have continued to iterate over the past three years. It was a good time to penetrate further into the Chinese market.

The Spring Festival is the most important sales node for Chilean cherries during the year. Due to the differences in the hemisphere, only the southern hemisphere has the ability to supply cherries after entering the winter each year. Chile, which has a large output, is the most powerful production area, and the picking season of cherries in Chile coincides with the Chinese New Year.

Actually, Chilean cherries are priced at around 40 to 100 yuan per catty. High passenger unit prices are not a favorable factor for entering the sinking market, but catching up with the Spring Festival, expensive passenger unit prices have become an advantage. Due to the poor information between markets in different regions, the cherry is still scarce in the sinking market. In addition, the relatively high retail price has made Chilean cherry a decent gift. Of Chinese consumers see it as the product of choice for festivals and gifts.

HealthLiu Liu, who lives in Beijing, is one of them. In the past two years of the Spring Festival, she bought the cherries back to her hometown in Hunan as a new year’s goods. Such a buying habit just reflects a path that Chile cherries “sink” with the flow of people during the Spring Festival.

“Every year I go home during the Spring Festival, I will bring them things that are not locally available, especially foods like fruits. I have loved buying cherry in the past two years because it is delicious and special.” Chinese New Year 2019 Before returning home, Liu Yu bought a carton of “human flesh” from the fruit supermarket he frequented, and returned home.

She chose the one with the largest fruit trail in the fruit store. “Because I found that the bigger and harder, the better the taste. Last year I bought a” 4 hook “to go back.” Size, JJJJ is 4 hooks, fruit diameter exceeds 32mm).

Longshan County, located in the western Hunan region, returned to the Spring Festival last year. Cherries have not appeared on the market, and their parents have never eaten them. “After they bought it back, they liked it very much. Every time the family came, the mother would wash out some to entertain the guests.” Considering the family’s interest in cherry, this year, Liu Yu went home and bought another box of cherry. It’s just that this time her purchase method has become online shopping.

Behind this change in consumer behavior is support from back-end commercial infrastructure. With the past few years, JD Logistics, Cainiao, SF and other logistics companies have gradually established cold chain logistics systems to meet the needs of fresh transportation, and the ability of e-commerce to transport fruits over long distances has been continuously enhanced.

The strong new product education capabilities of e-commerce platforms and the increasingly mature cold chain logistics have quickly changed people’s consumption habits, promoted consumers educated in first-tier cities like Liuyu to spread to families living in their hometowns. This emerging fruit consumption habit.

“The main reason why the” human flesh “returned to China last year was to fear that the fruits purchased online are not fresh.” Liu Yu is a person who likes to study and eat. The requirements for the freshness and taste of the fruit Also high. Although she often bought tropical fruits such as lotus and guava on Taobao when she was in Beijing, she usually returned the fruits in Xiangxi after she bought them in Beijing. “Because even then SF, it took at least three days to get to our county.”

What changed Liu’s language was her consumption last fall. She once bought a box of hairy crabs online and sent them home via SF. “Family feedback is pretty good, and the logistics speed is fast.” After allaying concerns, Liu Yu took advantage of the Spring Festival’s “ten billion yuan subsidy” activity and bought another box of cherries to send home.

The more efficient and fresh-keeping cold-chain logistics system has further stimulated the competition between platforms during the Spring Festival. Logistics companies such as SF, JD Logistics, and Shentong announced the absence of the Spring Festival and other news years ago, and were once again pushed to the center of the e-commerce “New Year’s Day” center of Chile. These factors have released the field of fresh birth is entering a fierce Signal of competition.

On the first day of 2020, the Chilean cherries that were directly sourced from the place of production brought out a very attractive low price—A 10-pound pack of 3J-class cherries sells for only 258 yuan, and a pound is only 25.8. Subsequently, Pinduoduo announced in early January a strategic cooperation with the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association, which provides support for fruit, especially Cherries, in terms of source and supply docking and market expansion, and participates in the Spring Festival’s 10 billion subsidy program. At the same time, JD.com also announced that Cherries has added more than 100 delivery cities during the New Year’s period, focusing on third to fifth tier cities.

“2020 will be the first year of the outbreak of major agricultural industrial belts in China.” Pinduoduo revealed in an interview with “Chinese Entrepreneurs” before the Spring Festival.

Offline is also lively. When Liu Yu returned home this year, he found that the county town now also has a specialty fruit retail store. Cherries are well packed and placed in a prominent position in the store. “In the past, most supermarkets selling non-staple food sold fruits this way. This year is different.”

The Chilean cherry can gradually sink to third- and fourth-tier cities, and even the township market, because it catches up with a good opportunity for the overall integration and transformation of online-offline retail, and the continuous improvement of infrastructure is its rapid growth. Foundation. Among these basic forces, the logistics and store network closest to consumers have become invisible factors driving sales growth. The former protects online sales, while the latter lays the foundation for the growth of offline retail.

In the past five years, more and more domestic fruit specialty stores have been opened, and the coverage area has gradually moved to the fourth and fifth tier cities and township markets. According to the analysis report data of the consulting agency Xinsijie, the number of fruit stores nationwide has reached about 330,000, of which the average growth rate of fruit chain stores has exceeded 15%.

For fruit sales, offline has its unique advantages. Retail stores can make an unfamiliar fruit accepted by consumers as soon as possible through the staff’s intervention in the consumption process and intuitive display methods. This is more effective for middle-aged and elderly consumers who sink the market.

Lin Sheng, the operating director of the fruit chain brand Guowei Yitong Nantong, told us that currently in the regional market of Nantong, Jiangsu Province, Cherries will be boxed in a prominent place in the store and stacked on the topmost box. Will be opened to expose the reddish cherries inside.

“Intuitive visual impact to consumers.” Lin Sheng said that this way of shocking the display is very important, it can attract customers to the store and promote consumption.

2019 is the first year that Goethe has entered the Nantong market. In the next 2020, they plan to expand the existing 33 stores to 60 to 80. springFestival is the first battle of the year. Lin Sheng said that some of the store-resistant fruits such as apples have been fully stocked in advance, and orders for cherries are much more than last year.

They are waiting for the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat to start a good New Year.

02 The epidemic has blocked the circulation of commercial fruits

As with the epidemic situation that suddenly became tense on the 20th, the impact of the virus on the cherry market was almost sudden.

The most directly impacted is the offline fruit retail store. “This Spring Festival, everyone is unwilling to go out, this has a great impact on stores.” Lin Sheng said.

On the 20th, after the information that the new type of coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person was released, in order to prevent the epidemic from spreading further, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Hunan provinces initiated the first-level response to major public health emergencies on the 23rd. Immediately after, other provinces and autonomous regions announced the initiation of a first-level response, and various forms of public gathering activities were cancelled. At the same time, local governments mobilized grassroots organizations to mobilize everyone to reduce outings and gatherings.

The decrease in staff mobility directly affects the flow of customers to fruit retail stores.

For fruits with a limited shelf life, “selling out” has become a top priority for offline fruit retail stores. Since the stocks of various stores during the Spring Festival have been successively prepared, the fruit caused by the epidemic is unsaleable. If it is not processed in time, it will cause a lot of losses in the future.

Lin Sheng began to make sales recommendations to regional stores on the first day of the New Year. “First, I recommend that they sell fruits as soon as possible through price reduction promotions. The more time the fruits are put in the market, the less fresh and the greater the loss. Second, I recommend that the store managers use their own WeChat groups and online friends. Sell ​​the goods through channels; the last suggestion is to let them immediately send some fruits that are not easy to store to the police station, hospital and other units for free.

He introduced to “New Business Intelligence NBT” that the cherries at the store can persist for 10 days to half a month without unpacking and low-temperature storage. However, a batch of cherries recently received by stores in Nantong has been delivered 5 days ago. At present, stores are facing the triple pressure of offline flow, online channel sales capacity and limited city distribution resources, but they can only hope that the epidemic will be controlled as soon as possible.

The business of downstream fruit retail stores is not easy, and it also directly affects upstream wholesalers. “On the second day of this year, the wholesale market in Shanghai opened, and our company’s trading volume throughout the day was 0.” Lin YuAnxiously told “New Business Intelligence NBT”. He is a purchaser of an imported fruit company. The market he is in is the second largest imported fruit wholesale trading market in China-Shanghai Huizhan Imported Fruit and Vegetable Market.

According to Lin Yu, their company is a first-class fruit wholesaler. In the traditional fruit distribution chain, the first-tier wholesalers are at the top, and Lin Yu’s main customers come from the second-tier, wholesalers in various markets.

The sudden low tide of consumption at the downstream retail end has been passed on to the first-class wholesalers of Lin Yu. Especially this year’s Spring Festival is advanced to January, while Chilean cherry picking season is in February. In order to have sufficient supplies, the first-level wholesalers will stock up the goods during the Spring Festival before the Spring Festival. This has caused stagnant sales of cherries in the country, which will cause huge losses to first-tier wholesalers.

“Once the goods arrive, we will sell them immediately. It has been floating on the sea for 30 days.” Lin Yu said.

In addition, this year’s total imports of cherries by first-tier wholesalers are much more than last year. A few days ago, Ronald Bown, president of the Chilean Fruit Exporters Association, said that Chilean cherry shipments this year increased by 27.7% over last year to 228,000 tons. The slowdown in downstream consumption has put more pressure on the inventory of upstream wholesalers.

Now it seems that the epidemic has made this loss inevitable, but this is not the only thing Lin Yu is worried about now. He is also worried that the poor sales performance of the Spring Festival in 2020 will directly affect their bargaining power when they cooperate with upstream Chilean fruit companies.

At present, the main mode of China ’s import of cherries from Chile is “buy on behalf”, that is, a domestic first-tier wholesaler finds the Chilean fruit company at the place of production, and sells cherries in China, China ’s first-tier Wholesalers take part of the commission from the final total sales. The commission ratio of Lin Yu’s company is about 6% to 7%.

“Cherry seeds are still a seller’s market. The right to speak lies with the fruit company in Chile. We are just working for foreigners.” Lin Yu said. The continued popularity of the domestic cherry market has attracted a large number of wholesalers to rush to Chile. Starting from the Asia International Fruit and Vegetable Fair held in Hong Kong in September each year, mainland wholesalers have approached the Chilean source.

“The fruit companies in Chile don’t worry about the supply at all. They may even sell the goods to three companies. This puts a lot of pressure on us wholesalers.” For the first-level wholesalers like Lin Yu For business, the only thing that can help them gain more initiative is the transcripts submitted during the Spring Festival.