"Every order is 0.8 yuan, Yiwu Express sends the whole country." Recently, Yiwu Express cut prices again, making the market dumbfounded. The express delivery industry, which has been deeply integrated since 2019, has escalated again in 2020.

After the peak of the epidemic situation, the express delivery enterprises resumed production quickly, which was the direct reason for the outbreak of the price war in Yiwu express delivery, and behind them were the pursuit of market share by various express delivery enterprises.

Express 100 CEO Lei Zhongnan said in an interview with a "Securities Daily" reporter that the epidemic accelerated the reshuffle of express delivery companies, and some companies will choose to withdraw at the end of this year. The remaining companies will gradually return to rational competition, but the so-called rational competition is not a return High prices, but maintain an acceptable profit margin.

Economic start-up, logistics first. The development of the express logistics industry has also been continuously supported by policies.

The State Post Bureau’s "Outline of Action for Building a Powerful Postal Country" released on March 26 proposed that building a postal powerhouse, express delivery companies should accelerate the construction of a modern network system, accelerate the digital transformation of industries, and increase the level of intensification.

The State Post Bureau, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "Opinions on Promoting the Deep Integration and Development of Express Delivery Industry and Manufacturing Industry" on April 2 to clarify that it is necessary to accelerate the promotion and application of 5G technology in the express delivery industry, enrich 5G logistics application scenarios, and promote logistics. All links are interconnected.

Since the beginning of this year, the new 5G infrastructure has taken the lead, and the express delivery industry under this background also needs to accelerate transformation through informatization.

"From price competition to informatization competition, to provide users with better services is the direction of the future transformation of express delivery companies." Lei Zhongnan believes.

Price war urges the industry to accelerate reshuffle

As a small commodity wholesale and distribution center, the express delivery volume of Yiwu in 2019 is only lower than that of Guangzhou. This trend also led to the most serious price war in the history of Yiwu express industry in 2019, and the average price of express single items was suppressed to 1.9 yuan. It was even 1.2 yuan at the lowest.

"The fundamental reason for the price war is oversupply. At present, there are many courier companies in China, and the homogenization is serious. There will be problems with pricing power. Coupled with the large number of orders in the hands of e-commerce, more and more imbalances occur, so the '0.8 Yuan Yi' is a necessity, which is the result of vicious competition." Lei Zhongnan told the "Securities Daily" reporter that the express delivery industry is at the stage of "who want to sacrifice the price of parcels, and sacrifice the quantity of parcels" . However, the price cannot be easily withdrawn, and the price must be sacrificed for service level, courier timeliness, manual input, and warehouse deployment.

He believes that once the price drops, it is very difficult to provide higher value-added services, and enter a vicious circle of "can only continue to reduce prices." If the courier company wants to gain an advantage in the price war, the most fundamental point is to work hard on management. The same trunk, warehouse, terminal outlets, and courier, if the management is done well, the user experience, time efficiency, and labor consumption will be Can be more optimized, management efficiency is reflected, and ultimately highlight the competitiveness of express delivery companies.

Entering 2020, under the influence of the epidemic, express delivery companies have accelerated their differentiation, and their market share is gradually concentrated to the head enterprises. Limited by the camp and position of the express delivery platform, for a long period of time, the competition boundary has become more blurred, and the pattern of long-term coexistence It will still exist for a long time.

The CITIC Securities research report shows that the integration of the express delivery industry in the first half of 2019 will be completed, and SMEs will basically clear. In 2020, the industry officially entered the stage of stock competition. Demand growth slowed down and superimposed capacity redundancy. The price war of head companies is expected to upgrade. The industry's profit growth rate will slow from 20% in 2019 to 10%-15%.

According to the rough statistics of the "Securities Daily" reporter, since 2019, nearly ten small and medium-sized express delivery companies have disbanded and exited in the price war.

"After this round of price wars for express delivery companies, what remains at the end is either strong financial strength or strong management." Lei Zhongnan believes.

Regarding the price war of express delivery companies, Yang Daqing, a research fellow of the Logistics Association, told reporters in the Securities Daily that due to the fierce market competition, the price war is a competitive strategy that some express delivery companies must do to stabilize or compete for customers. However, because the price reduction of some enterprises is not based on the global optimization of the logistics chain and the cost reduction and efficiency improvement, if such price reduction does not work in the short term and cannot be converted into large-scale orders, it may become a vicious competition and will be a health threat to the express delivery industry. Development is not beneficial. Beneficial price reduction competition should be based on overall cost reduction and efficiency increase, forming a price reduction under a strong comparative advantage.

Enterprises enter the transition period

In fact, since the start of the price war in the express delivery industry in 2019, international express delivery companies have begun to enter a period of transformation. At this time, companies are fighting how to better serve users.

Lei Zhongnan believes that the so-called transition period is that the express delivery industry should eliminate backward production capacity, and the biggest competition is the competition for management efficiency. Simply put, it is to spend as little money as possible to improve the management level. In the aspects of price, management, service, cost and so on, seek an optimal solution.

"The cost and resource overhead in these areas are too high, and the network repeatability of ten mainstream express companies is very high." Lei Zhongnan believes that on the one hand, it is a waste of resources, on the other hand, it will also erode the profits of express companies. When it comes down, it needs intensive operation and sharing with the same industry. For example, can terminal outlets, post offices and even couriers undertake the business of different courier companies? This is a pain point for the development of courier services in urban and rural junctions or underdeveloped areas.

Yang Daqing also believes that the development of sinking markets such as rural areas is not wishful thinking of express delivery companies, but must strive to accumulate demand. At this stage, it is necessary to fully consider the benefit-driven approach, build more three-tier distribution outlets, and share human capacity.

It should be noted that in recent years, new businesses represented by new Internet retail have become more and more popular while penetrating the sinking market across the board. As an important part of the transaction, express logistics, whether it is the Tongda department, the SF department or the Jingdong department, requires a neutral third-party platform to complete the intensification of the terminal service network, and the advantages of the open platform of the express 100 are revealed.

Internet analyst Sixin Xin told the "Securities Daily" reporter that the information service platform and capacity synergy platform built by Express 100 will become the infrastructure of a new Internet business.

Information layout is imminent

5G new infrastructure continues to accelerate, and the informatization of express delivery companies is also imminent. At the same time, it supports express companies to accelerate the application of intelligent information systems such as IoT sensor tracing, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence image recognition, and promote the visualization, transparency and traceability of the entire logistics chain.

But in fact, the current express delivery companies have just started in information. In the context of the new infrastructure, express delivery companies need to accelerate the layout of information.

Lei Zhongnan said that most companies now send Excel documents to courier companies when they do express delivery, delivery or bulk shipments, and the information has not been communicated at all. In terms of system-level penetration, it is an opportunity and a starting point for express 100. Basically, B-end customers will gradually realize a high degree of informationization in the next three to five years.

He believes that under the new infrastructure, whether it can provide users with better services through informatization will become the key to the next stage of competition for express delivery companies. Third-party platforms can help companies balance light and heavy assets, accelerate industry reshuffle and value return, and bridge the three major industry problems through means of big data, informatization, and resource integration. The new infrastructure is the "growth flywheel" of economic development. Big data collection, integrated analysis and application are the areas that the new infrastructure focuses on. Express 100 has accumulated hundreds of millions of information data, which can empower many fields. "Soft information" Become a "hard pillar".

It is worth mentioning that, whether it is the outline of the postal power or the above opinions, it is emphasized that express delivery companies should speed up international development.

The opinion mentioned that it is necessary to guide express delivery companies to improve the international express air transportation network in accordance with the international development needs of the manufacturing industry, strengthen the international delivery logistics guarantee, and support the international production, sales and service of the manufacturing industry.

Data show that in 2019, China's international express delivery business volume and business revenue accounted for less than 3% and 10% of the overall share, respectively. The current domestic self-built logistics network of major express delivery companies only covers more than 60 countries and regions around the world, and internationalization is still in its infancy.

Anxin Securities analyst Ming Xing said that due to the outbreak, domestic and foreign airlines have reduced flight plans on a large scale, and air cargo capacity has been seriously insufficient in the short term, and China, as the most important global factory in the global industrial chain, does not have a matching An international air cargo network with international competitiveness.

Therefore, the transformation of the express delivery industry to internationalization is also very important. In this process, the most critical link is to open up logistics information services.

Lei Zhongnan said: "Express 100 will be a logistics information service hub under the new infrastructure and become a connector for all express companies to users. It supports the development of the domestic logistics industry and will also play a role in the future internationalization of express delivery."

Yang Daqing also believes that logistics information service companies need to accelerate the linkage with the entity, people, vehicles, goods, roads, fields, etc. are all digitized, and interconnected and interacted under the Internet of Things technology. Dynamic, personalized, and transparent logistics services require that logistics information service platforms need to grasp more demand scenarios and specify corresponding service plans in conjunction with the scenarios.

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