Produced | Tiger Sniff Business Group
Author | Li Ling
It’s been more than two months since Didi launched the errands business. At the end of May, Hello was exposed to trial operation of the errands business in Dongguan and Foshan.
Hello responded to Tiger Sniff that the Hello errand project is called “Hello Express”, which is the “Employer” project tested by the Hello Pratt & Whitney Car Division, which focuses on the delivery of small items. It has not been officially launched yet.
The charging rules previously announced by Didi errands are also defined with a weight of 5 kg. It can be seen that the current business of the two is essentially the same city C To C instant delivery, and does not involve the qualification of logistics express operation access. From this point, errands are a good entry point.
But what cannot be ignored is that the track of instant delivery in the same city is already full of unicorns, and there are also many giants. Independent companies in the field of errands such as flash delivery, UU errands, and express delivery for everyone, platforms with giant backgrounds such as Dada-JD.com, Meituan distribution, and SF Express delivery.
Didi and Haro, who also focus on the travel business, have successively set foot in the same city for immediate distribution. Is it a surprise exploration under the growth target, or is it a necessary layout in business planning?
“The errand business as a local life service track that has experienced an epidemic cycle shows strong market demand and choices. For travel giants who are committed to life services, they have shown strong test water value.” UU Runner CEO Qiao Songtao told Tiger Sniff that errands are “dirty work” and “tired work.” Whether they can really approach the actual carrier of the business, “run men”, is the key to operations.
Why is errands
Hello, the node of the errand business was revealed, just two months after the official launch of the business by Didi. In addition, both of them also use the core of behavior, which is interpreted by the industry as Hello trying to “head attack” Didi.
Hello’s business has expanded from shared bicycles to rideshares, electric mopeds, and charging services. At present, the online car-hailing service has changed from the original ticking taxi to connect to Shouqi car-hailing service, gradually expanding the service scope of online car-hailing services And increased car service and financial business. And in the days when Didi rolled down the line, Haro Shunfeng successfully occupied the position of market leader.
Hello CEO Yang Lei previously said that if Hello only stays on the track for two rounds of travel, it may also have sufficient profits, but sooner or later it will face more intense competition. He hopes that Hello will extend to the whole life service direction based on travel. He gave Haro the goal of DAU exceeding 100 million in the next three years and eventually becoming one of the three mainstream Chinese apps.
This kind of development track and planning is hard to say without the shadow of Didi. Didi has expanded from car-hailing to car services, car rentals, financial services, etc. At present, other follow-up services in addition to car-hailing are also long-established and relatively mature. The recently-powered bicycle and motorcycle businesses have car-hailing for core businesses The supplementary effect is obvious.
Didi’s business covers almost all areas of travel. Therefore, in the context of a three-year global strategy, the brand-new business such as errands is more like reaching the goal of “achieving 100 million global daily services in three years; all domestic travel 8% penetration rate; one of the decomposition actions of the goal of global service users MAU exceeding 800 million.
Qiao Songtao believes that the travel platform for the water test and errand business has accumulated through the Internet in the travel industry in recent years, and the overall development has completed early development in terms of number of users and platform recognition. With the scale of business and the gradual maturity of the market, these platforms have shifted from the early “price war” “marketing war” and other industries in the early stages of the development of the more obvious competitive model, to the current refined operation and even profit-oriented industry stage.
At this stage, the travel business of the travel platform itself has been profitable, so it is necessary to find new growth points based on its own strengths, try to tell new stories in the capital market, and broaden the business boundaries. As a local life track that experienced the epidemic cycle, the errand business showed strong market demand, and it has a strong test value for travel giants who are committed to life services.
Whether Hello or Didi, trying new business is necessary for performance growth. But at the company level, Hello is at an earlier stage, perfecting the service system through user needs.
I understand that Hello is doing new business based on two considerations for Internet products: the first is whether users have needs; the second is whether Hello is suitable for doing.
Hello insiders told HuXiang that Hello started to do frequent online user research in 2019, on the one hand, it is to improve the experience through user feedback, and on the other hand, to gain insight into user needs. Judging from the collected user feedback, there are many user needs, and errand delivery is only one of them.
The errand was finally finalized and an important factor was the new crown epidemic. In early 2020, people’s travel was restricted after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic. But as the flow of people decreases, the demand for goods flows increases accordingly. In January, Hello decided to advance the business priority of delivery, and finally set the project in March.
Being a “running man” has a threshold
Didi and Hello entered the game one after another, but the errand business was not as simple as expected.
“For many Internet giants, the errand service does not have a real threshold. Its threshold is that it is a dirty and tiring job, which is the vast majority of enterprises. What I do not want to do.” Qiao Songtao said.
The errand business is different from the traditional online business and involves a large proportion of offline business. A typical example is Meituan takeaway. In addition to placing orders online, the most important part of fulfillment is offline. It is necessary to manage the group of “run men” who are responsible for offline performance, and understand this group to achieve high efficiency at the operational level.
This is by no means a simple and empty slogan. Many of the injury incidents that occurred in the delivery and fulfillment link eventually became social events due to the magnitude of the platform, which had a huge impact on the brand of the platform.
He believes that today, when the “gig economy” is being proposed as an emerging economy and even an industry, understanding the group of “running men” and truly understanding the group of freelancers in China is precisely what most of them want to do It is difficult for enterprises to do.
I don’t understand the group of “running men” and construct from the level of business execution