title figure from the visual China, author: DONG, edit: XUGUOGUO
In the past year, the discussion on fresh food e-commerce is just like the fresh food e-commerce itself. The topic has been very hot, but it has not been fruitful. In the second half of 2019, several players in the field of fresh e-commerce have successively withdrawn from the market due to excessive blood loss. However, since the beginning of 2020, the epidemic situation has made fresh e-commerce seem to find a new life. There was another dispute.
So, what is the future development trend of fresh food e-commerce? Who will ultimately win a lot of discussions about operations?
The following dialogue was launched between “Bay Area Box” and a non-mainstream investor in the industry.
Bay Area Box BAYBOX (hereinafter referred to as BB, note: shorthand for BayBox, not BB for blind BB) : L total, Recently, the industry has begun to discuss issues such as fresh food e-commerce front warehouses. What do you think of these discussions?
Founding Partner of LL Capital (hereinafter referred to as LL) : I personally find this kind of discussion boring, exaggerating a bit-I even feel very angry-this may have seen too much garbage output from texts and videos recently, and I feel that some content is a waste of everyone’s time, a little too excited Too.
I think this kind of discussion should be divided into two types. One type is deliberately initiated by the manufacturer, and it needs to create heat. However, some are eager to pave the way for the next round of financing, and some are eager to demolish the platform for others. There are different purposes; the other type is objective observation from the third perspective of the media, but we should also be vigilant not to lose the opportunity to view the industry’s problems from a higher perspective. Instead, we are led by manufacturers.
In a nutshell, as a type of vertical e-commerce, the fresh e-commerce business is actually doomed to the past and future. In the past few years, the first wave of vertical B2C has already ran through, vertical Everyone saw the end of e-commerce. Fresh food has its own characteristics in terms of category, but compared with shoes and books, it is not so special that it can stand up a vertical e-commerce platform alone.
In terms of time, in fact, fresh e-commerceThis story is supposed to be finished by the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, just because of the outbreak of the epidemic, let this false proposition “return to the light” again. But no matter how frustrating it is, the fact that it is fresh in 2020 is almost exhausted.
With food, no fresh food
BB: Why do you say that?
LL: This should start from the root. First of all, let’s go back to the source and get the concept clear first. In my opinion, no matter from the so-called investment track or category breakdown, it has always been-there are food and miscellaneous goods, no fresh food.
The English definition of “食杂 (Grocery) ” is the best definition. It contains a variety of fresh foods and daily necessities. In a layman’s word, it is the most conventionally sold in convenience stores, but each has its own characteristics, which is basically the same.
My personal concept is that you can optimize and reorganize the operation of some traditional industries through the Internet, but in the field of convenience stores, it is best to respect the combination of SKUs that people have deposited over the years. Because behind this are also retail store owners of all sizes in the past so many years (from 7-11 to various husband and wife stores) using money and tears, And retail big data back in time. This long period of big data is better than PMF (product market matching degree) The data is much more reliable. You can not respect the history of the industry (every time you want to subvert it) , but always respect big data. (regardless of how this data is presented) ?
So from this perspective, the subject of our discussion should be groceries e-commerce, or new retail upgrades to traditional convenience stores, without the so-called fresh vertical e-commerce.
If some entrepreneurs start to cut into e-commerce from fruit and fresh food, I think it ’s justified that everyone ’s path is different.