Speaking of express delivery, most people first thought should be suitable abundant, jingdong or four-way (yuantong, zhongtong, shentong, immortal huitong, YunDa), will not think of just-in-time, and just-in-time in people’s impression like KFC is named express, perhaps because advertising effect, many people misunderstood the business side of just-in-time and, in fact, it is not just to eat. In fact, Zao Express is the first enterprise to open the domestic express market.
According to relevant data, by 2004, the total assets of Zao Express has reached 200 million yuan, 8000 employees, 1500 vehicles, and the annual turnover of goods has reached 32 million pieces, ranking fourth in the list of “top 100 Growing Enterprises in China in 2003”. And by 2007, the turnover of Zao Express exceeded 1.3 billion yuan, with nearly 10,000 employees covering more than 300 cities across the country, making it the undisputed leader of express delivery at that time.
However, the good times of house service did not last long. Faced with the rise of SF Express and the double blow of the financial crisis, the company gradually lost its former glory.
The “troika” of house delivery
Nowadays, although it is rarely seen in express delivery, it has not been out. Even now, express delivery still has incomparable advantages.
First, network advantage and road network advantage. According to the official website of Zexpress, it has 32 direct branches and 4,374 outlets, covering 100% of provincial capital cities and municipalities, 98% of prefecture-level cities, 85% of county-level cities, and 50% of towns and townships. In terms of the number and coverage of outlets, the network layout of express delivery service is relatively comprehensive. Therefore, the scope of express delivery service is relatively large. It can be said that it creates an express network only inferior to EMS.
It can also be learned from the official website that there are 304 self-built platforms, including 35 operation centers and 269 distribution stations, with a total allocation area of 210,000 square meters. There are 119 trunk buses, 427 feeder buses and 1,337 provincial buses. At the same time, it has established comprehensive strategic cooperative relations with Air China and China Southern Airlines, and has 700 air routes.
From these figures, we can see the wide layout of the express delivery network, which to a certain extent has broken through the traffic bottleneck of regional development, thus promoting the regional development of express delivery. Moreover, the combination of the express delivery network with the road network shows the effect of 1+1>2, which can not only enrich the logistics data of express delivery, but also continuously optimize the layout of the network and road network in practical application.
Second, perfect the logistics tracking system. In 2010, Zexpress launched the “Sailing Plan” and jointly built a new IT platform with IBM and Ufida. IT also adopted the cooperative mode of “management consulting outsourcing +IT R&D outsourcing”. At the same time, ZEXPRESS set up the construction goal of “three ones”, that is, to build a core system to support business, to create an information platform to improve management, to forge a professional team to support development. The construction of this set of logistics tracking system makes the operation of delivery service information, which not only facilitates business management, but also improves the market competitiveness of enterprises.
Moreover, in 2013, Zexpress successfully launched a new storage system, which evolved from full-bar code management to streamlined operation, and then realized the operation of RF handheld devices in the storage operation. That is to say, zexpress made an important step in the integration of warehouse and distribution. At the same time, it has also improved its global positioning system and cargo tracking system, so that the whole logistics tracking system is relatively simple, accurate and practical. Through this perfect logistics tracking system, Zexpress can develop personalized storage solutions according to the different needs of users, and can also provide packaging and sorting services according to the needs of users, which directly reduces the logistics cost of users, thus improving the satisfaction of users.
Third, the application of modern information technology. The application of information technology in urgent delivery is mainly manifested in two aspects, namely, modern information technology management and modern information technology. The complete process of receiving – sorting – storage – delivery – after – sale of house delivery adopts more advanced system management, such as the front-end MIS system, storage management system, global positioning system, customer resource positioning and customer online inquiry system, etc. This set of collocation systematizes the business of express delivery, and to a large extent improves the efficiency of the process from pickup to delivery, reducing the cost of its operation.
In addition, each branch and the head office of the express company use hardware encryption equipment during the service period to ensure the security of information. At the same time, it also realizes the information system docking with some users and cooperative network companies through various technical means. The modern information technology of urgent delivery reflects the coming of information age, and its application can lay a solid foundation for the future of urgent delivery.
In a word, zhaobing can develop and grow in a few years after its establishment, and it must have its own competitive advantages. However, despite being the first to eat the crab, it failed to become an evergreen in the industry.
From the first tier of express delivery to the second tier
Founded by Chen Ping and his brothers, Zao Express is a family business, and most of the senior managers have nepotism, so the management is quite chaotic. Plus for business between high-level problems happened in the debate, the development direction of the differences between senior increases, and the high-level shocks, brought certain influence to the just-in-time, make it not only missed the electricity the golden period of development, has also led to the loss of part of the management staff, from then on, just-in-time from private Courier first echelon fell to the second tier.
But there are other factors as well as family firms to blame.
First, the positioning problem: the ambiguity of business and model. As is known to all, Zexpress started from B2B at the beginning, and its main business is general cargo transportation, which serves enterprises. However, it should be noted that enterprise users have a long borrowing cycle and low profits. Therefore, zexpress has undergone many changes in its business.
According to reports, just-in-time from upstream restaurants, medicine, clothing businesses such as express delivery business, to social small distribution services, to establish express delivery, express, international express business, finally returned to the warehouse with the integration of transport path, trying to become the domestic first-class delivery service and channel service provider. However, several changes in the business of delivery service are just pouring water into each other with two cups, which will only make losses and make profits hard to achieve. Such a business is not focused on the development of deep cultivation, and the behavior of sowing seeds everywhere, finally can only be “a basket of water.”
Look from the operation mode, just-in-time own planning and organization management of the logistics of each link, but also to welcome other franchisees to join, this type of proprietary mix with join in system development, the understanding to the simple and suitable abundant enterprise development gold time is somewhat weak, on the one hand, make the inside of the just-in-time system of rules and confusion, On the other hand, the spread of express outlets has brought various obstacles.
Second, financial problems: financing channels are too single. From its inception, Taxiexpress was short of cash, as it was able to expand with an infusion of capital from a Japanese company. Later, due to the departure of several key members, Zao Was again in trouble. This time, wumart Group was introduced to resolve the “crisis”.
However, encountered capital bottleneck for many times, the founder of Housing express Chen Ping can only think of listed financing, but the housing express two listed financing plan is also encountered all kinds of obstacles, and finally all efforts are wasted. It can be said that once homeexpress has a financial crisis, it will only excessively rely on the board of directors to solve the problem, and this only financing channel will only limit the expansion of its business to some extent.
Third, the service problem: the service quality level exists the problem. Express delivery industry can be said to be a kind of service industry, so the user satisfaction is actually derived from the service quality of the enterprise. If the service quality of the enterprise is good, it will attract users, so it may improve the loyalty of users to the enterprise.
According to the complaints of consumers against express companies in June 2017 released by the State Post Bureau, express delivery ranked third, with an effective appeal rate of 10.77% in June, including 3.17% for express delay, 2.74% for loss and damage, and 4.57% for delivery service, an increase in the appeal rate compared with last year. This means that the service quality of the delivery service has not been improved, but is getting worse and worse, which will affect the reputation of the delivery service to a certain extent, reduce users’ recognition of it, lead to the loss of users, and even lower its turnover.
In a word, if the “bad news” has been in the public eye, then it is not far from death. However, Zexpress did not give up the reform, and recently the new retail is very hot, giving birth to the “instant distribution” outlet, then zexpress as the “older generation” of the express industry, can take this opportunity to turn over?
“Instant match” prevailing, can help the housing emergency delivery over?
Since the birth of new retail, “minute-level” delivery has become a new species of traditional express delivery, in other words, traditional express delivery is currently standing in the wind of instant delivery. As the patriarch of the express industry, the house delivery service has also joined the team of instant matching. Although instant delivery has become the “darling” of new retail, but can it become a good medicine to ease the fatigue of housing delivery? We don’t know yet.
A same-day delivery service was launched in August, according to Sohu.com. According to the house delivery department, the product is designed to weigh less than 10KG, within 10km distance, delivery time range between 3-4 hours, the scope of service to support the distribution of documents, bills, clothing, gifts, flowers, cakes, fresh fruit and daily necessities and other items.
It is also reported that Zexpress has launched a “pre-delivery instant delivery” product, which mainly serves the “Tmall supermarket one hour”. At present, it has established more than 1,000 pre-delivery warehouses in 22 cities.
In addition, Sohu also reported that Zexpress started strategic cooperation with Fresh Life, a partner of Yiguo Fresh, in May 2018. The two sides announced in-depth cooperation on continuing to improve the overall delivery capacity of the national convenience network “one-hour reach”. It is understood that at present, fresh life and housing delivery business has been carried out in more than 20 cities including Xi ‘an, Shanghai and so on.
Recently, zexpress has made a series of big actions in “instant distribution”, indicating that it has keenly caught this business opportunity, trying to shorten the delivery time to improve the delivery efficiency, reduce the delivery cost, so as to improve the user experience and profit margin of the enterprise.
However, at present, it is not only the delivery of instant matching business, it can be said that almost the entire express industry has entered the field of instant matching. For example, SF Express launched three kinds of instant delivery products: instant delivery, instant delivery and overnight delivery. Yto entered the field of instant delivery with the “Timing” product; Yunda and ZTO also opened “cloud delivery and distribution” and “City Express” services respectively.
In contrast, the pace of Zexpress entering the field of instant distribution seems to be slower, and such a scene is more or less similar to that in the period of e-commerce, all are after god, other enterprises have already laid out their business in this field, then this time, zexpress can follow the newcomers to the top?
In fact, before this, housing express had set foot in the city distribution business. Early in the O2O boom, Zexpress has joined hands with supermarkets such as Hualian and fast food takeout, and launched “instant matching” delivery service. But even so, home delivery did not continue to deepen the field of instant distribution. Now, with the advent of instant air distribution again, Zhaobing can only try to embrace tmall’s thigh, but it may not be able to change its market share.
According to beida Consulting’s 2017 China Instant Delivery Market Research Report, hummingbird ranked first with 28.9% of the order share of China’s instant delivery platforms in 2017, followed by Xindada with 26.2% and Meituan Takeout with 21.6%. As a direct participant of instant delivery, Hummingbird Delivery, Xindada and Meituan takeout are three major companies. In other words, only 23.3% of the market is left for other platforms. In such a pattern, there is a great chance that The housing delivery will become the foil of the major giants to grab the runway, and the housing delivery to rely on the instant with the turnaround, which is very difficult.
In a word, in today’s market environment, the competition is increasingly fierce, in order not to be eliminated, it needs to be hard, after all, the competition between enterprises is the competition of strength. To know, the current delivery is no longer the first echelon of the express industry, and because it does not have its own field of deep cultivation, so it is difficult to play a sign in the express industry. And this time in front of the instant air outlet, housing delivery really choose the right direction?
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network