Eight Potentials of Chinese Fresh Food E-commerce in 2016 Love Operation

95% Fresh food e-commerce In a loss state

2015 is the first year for traditional fresh food e-commerce to transform into O2O, and the entry of giants has added a fire to this "high fever" industry. In the situation of increasing popularity, some fresh food e-commerce companies have become "self sacrificing and benevolent", and some new entrants are making waves.

After many years of bloody trials and tribulations, a large number of fresh food e-commerce businesses lost money, and few of them made money. Relevant data shows that at present, there are nearly 4000 domestic e-commerce businesses for agricultural products, of which only 1% are profitable, 7% have huge losses, 88% have a slight loss, and 4% are flat. This means that most of the fresh food e-commerce is in a loss state.

However, the current situation of collective losses cannot stop the pursuit of fresh e-commerce by capital and entrepreneurs. Just entering 2016, new and old fresh food (food) e-commerce companies announced to obtain a large amount of investment. Why can the fresh food e-commerce, which is losing money and making a lot of money, still make entrepreneurs regard death as dirt and win the favor of investors in the cold capital winter? Are these formidable entrepreneurs and sophisticated investors really obsessed, or are fresh e-commerce really magical?

However, it is worth mentioning that with the fad of entrepreneurship concept, investors and entrepreneurs will return to rationality in the future, and fresh e-commerce is no exception. So, how much magic can fresh food e-commerce unleash in 2016 and in the future?

8 fresh food e-commerce potential

1. The market capacity is large, and there is no ceiling in the imagination space.

The world's leading mobile Internet third-party data mining and integration Marketing The institution iiMedia Research recently released the 2015 Research Report on China's Fresh Food E-commerce Market. According to the report, the market size of China's fresh food e-commerce reached 24.5 billion yuan in 2014, and will exceed 40 billion yuan in 2015, reaching 41.2 billion yuan. It is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan in 2018. At present, the penetration rate of fresh food e-commerce is still at a very low level, and the market potential is very private. The imagination space is huge enough to make gold miners salivate. Entrepreneurs and capital are willing to take risks, not because they are optimistic about the current situation of fresh food e-commerce, but because they value future opportunities and returns. As the boss Ma said, dreams still need to exist. What if they come true?

2. Dynamic and continuous consumption, and the fresh food market is never saturated 。

The rigid consumer goods of fresh food are daily necessities of every family, and are fast moving consumer goods with continuous and rapid consumption. The fresh food consumption market is in great demand, fast in and fast out. Compared with other industries, it is a dynamic and unsaturated market. With the rise of the urban middle class, the consumption power and demand of fresh food will also rise. Fresh food e-commerce can enjoy the dividends of market growth.

3. The oligarch has not yet appeared, and opportunities have always existed.

Fresh food e-commerce is difficult to do, but why are there so many entrepreneurs and capital inflows? They come not so much for making money as for opportunity. Because in this field, there is no oligarch who can command the world and unify the Jianghu. Therefore, those who join this battlefield have the opportunity to become oligarchs. Even if it can't "level the world", local fresh food e-commerce can also become a "local leader" by virtue of its geographical advantages.

4. The demand levels are diverse, and 2B and 2C can play.

Fresh products are necessary to meet people's survival, with a wide range of consumer groups and diverse demand levels. Fresh food e-commerce can not only focus on high-end and middle end markets, but also layout low-end markets; It can be used for regular sales or order farming, and pre-sale mode is adopted; At the same time, it can not only target individual C-end consumers, but also win over B-end consumers such as restaurants and restaurants.

5. Consumption habits are emerging and the main consumption force is rising.

Consumers' consumption habits have always been a problem that fresh food e-commerce can't overcome. But now more and more consumers are willing to try online shopping for fresh food. Especially now, the post-80s and post-90s "online generation" has become the main force of online consumption. They have a high acceptance of online shopping for fresh food. This is good for fresh food e-commerce, which has been committed to changing and cultivating consumer consumption habits since its birth. Of course, "online generation" has higher requirements for consumption quality, and pays more attention to product quality and consumption experience, which requires further strengthening of fresh food e-commerce in this regard.

6. The giant has increased its market confidence.

Since 2015, fresh food e-commerce has become one of the main battlefields for hegemony, and all kinds of investments have been surging: JD.com has led the investment in Tiantian Orchard, Alibaba has laid out Yiguo, Baidu has led the investment in COFCO Womai, and Amazon has developed fresh food business... The giants have increased their weight in succession regardless of the cost, playing the role of a wind target, and bringing enough confidence to the market (chicken blood), Let entrepreneurs and capital still have enough expectations for fresh e-commerce. Driven by giants and capital, it is believed that there will be more collisions between fresh e-commerce in 2016, and the whole industry will also move forward.

7. The fresh food e-commerce industry chain has been constantly improved, operate Cost reduction.

As a standard configuration for fresh food preservation, cold chain warehousing logistics has always been a serious problem for fresh food e-commerce. However, with the support of capital, the cold chain conditions of fresh food e-commerce have improved, including both the cold chain logistics created by professional logistics companies and the cold chain storage invested by fresh food e-commerce. According to iResearch, the total volume of cold storage in 2014 reached 33.2 million tons, or 83 million cubic meters, up 36.9% year on year; The cold chain business income of the top 100 cold chain logistics enterprises reached 15 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 36.4%; In 2014, 20700 refrigerated trucks were newly added, with a total of nearly 80000; The cold chain demand market scale reached 112 million tons.

For fresh food e-commerce with strict requirements for freshness preservation, the support of cold chain warehousing logistics can further reduce losses, reduce operating costs and improve profitability. Even if the fresh food e-commerce cannot build its own cold chain, it can also use external forces to achieve the last kilometer of fresh-keeping distribution, freeing up its hands to focus on the company's operations.

8. Rural e-commerce makes great efforts, and urban-rural linkage has great achievements.

Rural e-commerce has become a battleground for JD, Alibaba and other giants, and small and medium-sized e-commerce platforms have also expanded in rural areas. At the same time, the government also guides, encourages and supports the development of rural e-commerce from a policy perspective. This will greatly promote the construction of rural e-commerce supporting facilities and the popularization of market education. It is believed that rural e-commerce will usher in rapid development opportunities in the future. Rural e-commerce will promote the further disintegration of the barrier between urban and rural areas, and it will be more convenient and transparent for industrial products to go to the countryside and agricultural products to enter the city.

In the fresh food e-commerce industry chain, farmers and bulk food suppliers constitute the upstream of the supply chain. The development of rural e-commerce has provided more channels and options for fresh food e-commerce product supply, which is conducive to the richness of products.

The future is foreseeable, the key is profitability

At the beginning of 2016, fresh food e-commerce has been constantly moving: the original life was more than $100 million in round C financing; The fresh food platform under Tmall will start a series of changes in 2016 to build a whole industry chain of imported fresh food; Guangdong's old brand fresh vegetable e-commerce field plans to break out of the Pearl River Delta, open experience restaurants, and layout first tier cities in China

Although there are many difficulties, the fresh food e-commerce market has huge potential, and the future is really promising. In 2016, under the agitation of capital, it is believed that hand to hand combat will continue to play in the field of fresh food e-commerce, and the story of quick life and quick death will not end, but those who get capital may not win the world. However, based on years of experience accumulated by fresh food e-commerce with clear positioning, such as Meow Fresh, Original Life, Tian Fresh Vegetables, etc., fresh food e-commerce will gradually move from the exploratory stage to the growth stage, whether it is B2C, C2B mode, or O2O. After the brain burn, I believe that the whole industry will become more rational and reduce the cost of trial and error.

At present, the biggest problem of fresh food e-commerce lies in its weak profitability. Most of them need to maintain their operations through capital injection. It is true that the development of fresh food e-commerce cannot be separated from capital, but capital cannot be regarded as the only life sustaining grass. Only through endogenous enhancement of profitability can the magic be unleashed, fresh blood be obtained, and the future be won.

From Shi Sanlang's website