Tiantian Orchard closed its store. Originally, the convenience store was out of business. What happened to the fresh food O2O?

According to data, Tiantian Orchard was established in Shanghai in 2009 and specializes in imported fruits. Tiantian Orchard has been in a state of continuous financing since 2011. Wang Wei, founder of Tiantian Orchard, said that the funds raised from this financing will be invested in the continuous improvement of user experience and logistics construction.

As one of the largest vertical fruit e-commerce companies in China. Previously, Tiantian Orchard launched the concept of "stores + front warehouses" and stated that it would open 100 O2O stores in the five major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen by the end of 2015. Wang Wei once judged that O2O will be a fresh food e-commerce company. the next growth point.

But this year, fresh food e-commerce companies have suffered a series of changes. Delicious Qiqi, Youth Caijun, and Fruit Bang have successively announced their closure; Aixianfeng has "dissuaded" employees on a large scale. After the integration of JD Daojia and Dada, There were also incidents of disguised layoffs. Not long ago, there was news that Tiantian Orchard would close all offline stores. Wang Wei responded that these stores have indeed made adjustments, but they are not closing stores, but converting stores into warehouses to improve operational efficiency.

Industry insiders believe that Tiantian Orchard’s closure of offline stores is due to great difficulties in operating costs. Fresh food e-commerce is inherently a high-loss business, with product costs and transportation costs remaining high. At the same time, major fresh food e-commerce platforms have not yet found a profit point, and the vigorous promotion of offline stores has been far behind the speed of financing.

Offline stores require heavy asset investment, and high costs will inevitably lead to "loss-making transactions." Moreover, offline stores are difficult to achieve fast delivery and services are uncontrollable, so it is no wonder that Tiantian Orchard has adjusted this model. It is worth noting that the current profitability of domestic fresh food e-commerce is not optimistic. China's fresh food e-commerce market is expected to exceed 150 billion yuan in 2018, with an average annual compound growth rate of 50%. At present, the e-commerce penetration rate of fresh food in my country is less than 1%.