Which platform is better for selling things online, and which platform is the best for selling things?

Editor's lead: In the era when everything can be bought online, e-commerce platforms in all walks of life are developing vertically. However, the agricultural product e-commerce platform with seemingly unlimited potential is still operating at a loss. In this paper, the author analyzes the present situation and development of agricultural products e-commerce platform.

Give a conclusion first, no! At present, there are more than 30,000 e-commerce platforms related to agriculture in China, including 3,000 e-commerce platforms for agricultural products. However, the loss-making operation of agricultural products e-commerce is the status quo of the industry.

Among them, the vegetable housekeeper has invested a total of 35 million yuan in four years of operation and is still operating at a loss; In just two and a half years, Wuhan Jiashiyi has covered more than 200 communities in 1, with a total investment of more than 60 million yuan. Although the daily turnover is not small, it is basically supported by losses. Why?

Because big fish has had in-depth exchanges with the top executives of various agricultural products e-commerce, from the perspective of the industry, there are probably the following important factors:

First, the traditional B2C thinking

This is a big misunderstanding. Many e-commerce platforms think that it is an online B2C platform. By guiding traffic, customers will buy online, which is actually wrong! Agricultural products e-commerce must not engage in traditional B2C thinking, which is definitely a dead end.

Customers not only buy products, but also live a healthy life. Therefore, e-commerce of agricultural products needs consumers to show the story behind the product, planting base, picking experience, logistics experience, traceability, supply chain visualization and other dimensions, so the traditional B2C thinking is fatal.

Second, the definition of target group deviates, and the marketing strategy takes a detour.

How agricultural products e-commerce generates traffic is a problem that everyone cares about. From the demand point of view, this market is still in the incubation period, and the target population is mostly urban female white-collar workers, who have the demand of pursuing healthy Internet shopping in life+,and there are also people with high time cost in Gao Fushuai.

You must be defined as _ diaosi crowd to meet the demand of "two lean meats+two cabbages+three garlic sprouts". You are destined to be two words: exhausted and lifeless.

Many agricultural products e-commerce companies spread advertisements all over the floor and pushed them to men and old ladies. That's definitely a deviation! Therefore, how to achieve accurate marketing of target customers is a problem that big agricultural products e-commerce companies think about.

The next explosion point of agricultural products and fresh e-commerce is the housewives of the post-90 s generation, so agricultural products e-commerce must pay attention to this group of people.

Third, "electricity" will not be "business"

Base integration+marketing+flow+transaction+supply chain service+word-of-mouth marketing, this closed loop is indispensable for agricultural products. At present, many agricultural products e-commerce companies have major management misunderstandings. They think that the center is based on "marketing+traffic+transaction", and only attaches importance to "electricity" without ignoring "business";

In fact, the key to real profit lies in business. At the scene of China Economic Person of the Year selection, Gree Dong Mingzhu said: "I tell you today that no matter how good marketing is, if you deviate from your strengths-technology and quality, as well as integrity, your marketing is a bluff and you are a liar."

In the same way, the back-end service of agricultural products e-commerce has not been done well, and the front-end marketing and traffic are gimmicks. Of course, it must be a loss in the end.

Fourth, the unit price and logistics cost that customers can't afford.

Customer unit price is the achilles heel of agricultural products e-commerce. Industry data: If the unit price of customers is lower than that of 200 yuan, it will be fatal, because logistics costs and losses will lose money.

Judging from the current operation of agricultural products and fresh e-commerce, the logistics cost+loss of each 40 yuan is inevitable. Therefore, the customer unit price can't go up, the logistics cost can't come down, and the profit can only be an illusion.

Even SF prefers to make high-end imported food and seasonal goods, and it will be positioned from the customer's unit price in selecting categories.

Fifth, there is a lack of integration of integrated procurement bases.

Ignoring the integration of bases is a problem faced by e-commerce of agricultural products at present. Many agricultural products e-commerce companies only cooperate with the base through targeted procurement, let alone create strategic synergy between supply and demand. As for whether to guide the planned planting of products in the base with market orientation, this country is only a vision.

Look at Starbucks, an international brand. People not only realize the integration of bases and the coordination of demand, but also the supply chain of Starbucks can be traced back to the cultivation of coffee beans and a series of management of sedimentation, wind and soil.

The boss of domestic agricultural products e-commerce has understood the integration of procurement bases. This commercial value is not only the guarantee of quality, but also an important way of branding, intensive procurement and demand coordination. Of course, it is an important means to reduce costs, reduce waste and gain profits.

Give another example of Chongqing. There is a fresh e-commerce company in Chongqing. Their base integration method is particularly worth learning. They first do B2B instead of B2C, and group procurement drives the integration of the base, and then derive B2C services and O2O experience. In this way, they have absolute purchasing power, the cost is naturally reduced, and the supply and demand information with the base is quickly opened, achieving relatively efficient cooperation.

Currently, the new shopping experience of O2O is being promoted. This kind of play is worth thinking about.

6. Customer experience is a double-edged sword. An unpleasant shopping experience will lose a large number of customers.

Never treat consumers as fools and ignore an dissatisfied order. This is the biggest mistake. The easiest thing to bring is word-of-mouth communication. If you are not satisfied, you will hurt a large group of your customers.

I remember an agricultural product e-commerce boss told me: No matter what the reason, customers are not satisfied. If the value is not too high, it can be sent to customers, leaving word of mouth and customers moving. What's more, some goods can't be sold twice or returned in time, and the loss is even greater.

In the future, e-commerce of agricultural products must cultivate loyal fans, which is the commercial value of fan economy development. If a person ties a family, it is more likely to tie a group of people.

There is also a case of agricultural products e-commerce. He positioned the target group in the IT Internet circle. These people are typical online shoppers, belonging to small white-collar workers, and their spending power is not low. At the same time, they are more homely, do e-commerce by infiltrating the IT Internet circle, and quickly occupy customers in this field with good reputation.

Li, the preferred president of SF, was interviewed by CCTV. President Li said frankly: once agricultural products and fresh e-commerce companies have established a good shopping experience with customers, they will usher in sustained consumption power and affect the groups around them.

Seven, we must face the problem of localization.

The trend of e-commerce is to migrate to the community. The trend is online community+offline community, and the change of business model is rapidly fermenting. O2O localization has become an inevitable trend. It is reported that 60-70% of the consumption now occurs within 3 kilometers.

Therefore, how to create a food circle online and an experience circle offline has become an important strategy for localization and integration.

If we don't start with localization, we will lose money. Because agricultural products are limited by factors such as commodity quality and logistics, whether it is a small and beautiful agricultural product e-commerce or a national market like SF Express and Alibaba.

It is an inevitable trend to establish a localized service system, unless it is a high value-added commodity, which can be realized regardless of cost. Other popular agricultural products must be defined as localization.

The localization of agricultural products e-commerce tends to be integrated with community service stations, convenience stores and other institutions. Traditional B2C e-commerce needs huge operational support to penetrate the end of early communities, and also needs a lot of capital and manpower integration. General agricultural products e-commerce can't play well.

Eight, socialized and mature cold chain logistics is the pain point of agricultural products e-commerce.

Playing agricultural products e-commerce, cold chain is an unavoidable problem. It is necessary not only to build warehouses, but also to have refrigerated+frozen mixed delivery vehicles, as well as refrigerated turnover boxes and thermostatic equipment. Otherwise, even the best goods will be delivered to customers.

The investment in cold chain is not something that ordinary agricultural products e-commerce enterprises can play well. Sustained investment in assets and long return on investment are all problems faced by e-commerce of agricultural products alone.

Even if you have money and assets, the seasonality and instability of orders will greatly waste your operating costs. What's more, several people who play e-commerce understand cold chain logistics and can establish their own cold chain logistics team. Therefore, socialized cold chain logistics team, intensive and professional management have become the urgently needed resources for the whole agricultural product e-commerce.

Now China agricultural products e-commerce cold chain logistics play is as follows:

1. Bon voyage to You Xuan

The completely self-built logistics system has spread all over the country at room temperature, and may be rolled out at low temperature in 2020. Within 24 hours this year, litchi in the south will be sent to Beijing, and mutton in Inner Mongolia in the north will be sent to Hainan. These classic cases are quickly realized through self-built cold chain logistics.

2. Alibaba

To be exact, it is rookie cold chain logistics. At present, it is integrated mode. It integrates two excellent cold chain logistics enterprises, Zhongcui Logistics and Express Line. They successfully delivered 80,000 cherries from American farms to families in China and Alaska seafood to more than 40 cities across the country by integrating trunk lines and terminals for home delivery. This integration is two-stage distribution, which explores the new trend of toC cold chain logistics of agricultural products.

3.JD.COM

Start the terminal delivery service station mode. It is reported that JD.COM will try the "ABC" model in the future, in which the B link will cover all links such as procurement, warehousing, distribution, marketing and after-sales.

The self-operated fresh food distribution station in JD.COM has been put into operation, which caters to the shopping experience of the last mile at the end of O2O. But, JD COM's cold chain storage, trunk and branch distribution have yet to be integrated, so we can only wait and see.

Therefore, if you can't do the cold chain logistics of agricultural products e-commerce, then simply close the door!

Nine, category positioning error

According to the crowd positioning analysis, to meet the demand of "two lean meats+two cabbages+three garlic seedlings", it is doomed to be two words: exhausted.

In fact, this is not only a question of crowd positioning, but also a question of category positioning. Why did SF choose imported food at first, and why did Alibaba choose American cherries and Alaska seafood? The definition of these categories is not only related to the demand of people, but also closely related to the support ability of supply chain.

Professionals who play supply chain know that whether it is traditional retail or e-commerce, the core of operation is category-driven supply chain. Scientific category selection is more than half of your success, so it is very important for agricultural products e-commerce to locate categories. Don't use too many categories to attract more buying demand. In a multi-category mixed supply chain system, especially agricultural products, you will lose your reputation and may even ruin your brand.

Let's take a look at the oranges originally sold in life, the peaches sold by Liu Chuanzhi, the lychee sold by SF, and the Alaska seafood sold by Tmall. All of these can be seen that the definition of sub-categories has such important value for doing a good job in agricultural product e-commerce.

From the perspective of supply chain, as a category-driven supply chain, the scientific nature of selecting categories on the e-commerce platform determines your profit potential. I once discussed with the supply chain directors of well-known domestic e-commerce, when the category increases by 10 times, the management complexity of the supply chain will increase by 100 times, or even higher.

X. Proportional control of return

This is a KPI indicator that agricultural products e-commerce must focus on. The loss caused by a return is not only the loss of goods, but also the loss of important customer shopping experience and word of mouth. Therefore, controlling the payment ratio of agricultural products e-commerce has become the focus of CEO's attention. Of course, as I said before, I would rather send it to customers and try to avoid the loss caused by returning it.

According to the data from the actual investigation of Big Fish, the return rate of e-commerce to many agricultural products has reached 10%, and it is better to be 6%. The loss caused by this rate of return cannot be ignored.

However, e-commerce of agricultural products has also made many innovations, such as the prepaid C2B model, which will greatly reduce the proportion of returns; The other is the online to offline in the era of Chuyi, which permeates the community and pays in advance through members. It is said that the return ratio can be controlled below 1%.

Therefore, to control the rebate ratio of agricultural products e-commerce, we should not only think from the perspective of operation, but also change our business ideas from the perspective of business model.

XI。 abstract

Why do agricultural products e-commerce lose money? The analysis of the above 10 dimension may inspire everyone. In fact, this is not only a problem of operation and management, but also a problem of business model, which will also involve marketing strategy, resource integration ability and so on!

To sum up, the losses of agricultural products e-commerce mainly come from the following aspects:

Waste marketing.

Procurement integration is not in place.

Lack of integration and application of socialized cold chain logistics.

The loss of the whole supply chain process.

Category positioning error.

The control of return ratio.

To achieve real loss reduction, in the final analysis: add customer experience and subtract supply chain operating costs.

Eating food is the inevitable trend of China's population base of 65.438+0.4 billion, and agricultural products and fresh e-commerce must be a big market.

Today, at the end of 20 19, the e-commerce of agricultural products in China has not shown the benchmark of every industry. There are many problems in the whole field, and the problem is the opportunity for development. Exploring China's traditional industries with Internet thinking must have potential commercial value. This is not the mission of a company, but the mission of participants in this industry.

In addition, while paying attention to the financial risks of the Internet, the regulatory authorities have also noticed that many e-commerce platforms adopt the mode of "big merchants" and "secondary liquidation" in the actual operation process. With the continuous development of the Internet, the influx of funds has made a batch of Internet enterprises.

But for supervision, if the compliance problem is not solved, the risk will inevitably increase with the expansion of enterprise scale.