"Cruel Story" Of Fresh E-Commerce: Who Is The First Stock In The Industry?

As early as this year's Spring Festival, fresh e-commerce ushered in a Polly good, and then a number of platforms announced plans for IPO news.

"The atmosphere is very tense, the company still attaches great importance to the concept of fresh first stock." Some people who are close to daily excellent fresh food and Ding Dong to buy vegetables told the 21st century economic report.

In the early morning of June 9, the two companies simultaneously submitted their public offerings to the securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the real state of the industry finally emerged. Both companies are valued at about $4 billion, and dingdong has raised about $100 million by buying vegetables. However, daily Youxian did not disclose the specific financing scale.

Comprehensive public information, the two companies are in the loss. The outbreak of the epidemic has created a large amount of demand, and the two companies will have a total loss of 4.826 billion yuan in 2020, which can be seen from the cruelty of the industry competition.

"Most of the time, users, investors and shareholders' cognition of new industries has not been formed. Whoever is listed first has the right to speak and who can define the market. It's hard for latecomers to change their cognition. In particular, in terms of business structure, many enterprises are just model innovation, and in the early stage, they can't tell who is strong and who is weak. " In an interview with 21st century economic reporter, Zhang Junyi, the managing partner of qianweilai capital, believed that in fact, when the market value returns in the end, it still depends on the business itself. In the early stage, it was just using time difference and opportunity to compete, that is, the advantages of the pioneers. When the industry is not clear, the first listed will have a certain window period.

With the arrival of community group buying giants such as Xingsheng, meituan, orange heart and more vegetables, the pressure on traditional fresh e-commerce will not be less than that of the present.

High cost

In the new normalization situation caused by the epidemic in 2020, fresh e-commerce has become the favorite of the capital. However, on this long track, the so-called "the rest is the king", and the last one can laugh at the last. IPO has become the goal of fresh e-commerce. Continuous financing and listing represent the recognition of fresh e-commerce in capital market. However, listing financing is not only the pursuit of large-scale expansion.

After many rounds of money burning wars, fresh e-commerce people in the hot line urgently need to inject new capital to maintain the status quo or extend their business. At the same time, the submission of the Prospectus has fully demonstrated that the competition between fresh e-commerce companies is almost a close fight. No one wants to lag behind the other party, and everyone wants to be listed first. However, there is still a clear gap between the two sides.

According to the prospectus, the daily net revenue of Youxian will be 6.014 billion yuan in 2019 and 6.1304 billion yuan in 2020, with an increase of 2.1%. However, in 2019, the net revenue of dingdong's shopping for vegetables was 3.881 billion yuan, which increased by 192.15% in 2020 to 11335.8 billion yuan, significantly exceeding the daily fresh food. In the first quarter of 2021, the net revenue of dingdong's shopping for vegetables is 3.802.1 billion yuan, almost 2.5 times that of daily excellent fresh food.

In 2019, the daily net loss of Youxian is 2.909.4 billion yuan, which will decrease by 43.31% to 1.649.2 billion yuan in 2020. The net loss of Ding Dong's vegetables increased from 1.873.4 billion yuan in 2019 to 3.176.9 billion yuan in 2020, up 69.58%. In the first quarter of 2021, the net loss of dingdong's vegetables is 1.384.7 billion yuan, which is twice as much as the net loss of 610.3 million yuan per day.

In the view of industry insiders, with the application of AI, big data and other technologies, as well as the improvement of intelligent supply chain and logistics, the performance cost of fresh e-commerce is expected to further reduce in the future.

In terms of equity, the discourse power of the two companies is in the hands of the founders and the team. The company adopts a dual share structure, with directors and executives holding 20.2% of the total shares and 75.6% of the voting rights. Among them, Xu Zheng holds 15.3% and 74.1% of the voting rights. Tiger global is its second largest shareholder with 12.4% shares and 3.8% voting rights. Guoxin financial holding is the third largest shareholder, holding 8.7% of shares and 2.7% of voting rights. Tencent is its fourth largest shareholder, holding 8.1% of shares and 2.5% of voting rights.

It is worth noting that among the investors who buy vegetables in dingdong, the figure of tiger global also appears. Founder Liang Changlin and the company management team hold 30.3%, tiger Global Fund 5.7%, general Atlantic 5.6%, Softbank vision fund 5.6%, CMC capital 5.3%, today capital and DST global hold 5.1%.

The track with good capital is far from winning. Chen Hudong, a special researcher of the e-commerce research center of ecosoc.com, said in an interview with the 21st century economic news reporter that the essence of fresh food is a money burning industry. In addition, the timeliness of fresh food, the matching of back-end supply chain and regionality are very high. Therefore, although the overall competition in this industry is fierce, But basically has not formed an efficient profit model, there are many problems to be solved.

the enemy approached the walls

According to the data of the prospectus, both platforms are in the construction of front-end warehouse. As of March 31, 2021, Youxian Daily has established 631 front-end positions in 16 cities in China, with a total of more than 31 million trading users.

However, its funding situation is not optimistic. According to the prospectus, as of the first quarter of 2021, its cash on account was 1.96 billion yuan, short-term loans was 568 million yuan, and accounts payable was 1.08 billion yuan. In this situation, listing may be a shortcut to financing.

Previously, the company also aimed at the blue ocean of traditional vegetable farms. After planning to obtain the operation right of the vegetable market, the company transformed the traditional food market step by step, helping the restaurant merchants rely on the online trading platform to transform offline customers into online private domain traffic, and further expand e-commerce revenue.

Whether this approach will work is unclear. Ding Dong's principle of buying vegetables is to increase the repurchase rate“ We are the only company in the same industry that does not have "holding thighs". We have no large flow of enterprises, and we are totally relying on ourselves to work out a little bit. We think that the flow is not important, the stock is important. What is the stock? It's the repurchase rate. Therefore, we feel that the scale does not depend on the flow, but on the stock. " Liang Changlin, founder and CEO of dingdong shopping, shared in the fourth module of the recent China EU business camp phase 9 that he would temporarily give up the opportunity to make profits in order to maintain its growth. In the future, the ability of fresh supply chain will be improved from the agricultural supply side, and the density of the coverage area will be increased.

At present, the unit price of Ding Dong's vegetables has increased from 41 yuan in 2019 to 57 yuan in 2020. Its business has been expanded to 29 cities in China, and more than 950 front-end warehouses have been established. Among them, five cities have achieved and maintained a record of more than 100 million yuan per month.

However, in the fresh e-commerce market, the strength of community group buying can not be underestimated. Meituan and pinduoduo have started to lead the race. According to the agency's prediction, the daily unit volume of both is about 20 million units / day, firmly occupying the first echelon in the field of community group buying.

By the first quarter of 2021, meituan has further expanded its regional coverage to more than 2600 cities and counties, basically achieving the goal of nationwide coverage. Meituan's quarterly trading users increased by more than 400% year-on-year, and the trading frequency improved. Even if the scale is expanding, fresh e-commerce players still can not escape the mud of loss. Meituan's new business revenue, including that of meituan, was 9.9 billion yuan, and its net loss was as high as 8 billion yuan.

In this context, it can also be said that the fresh e-commerce industry is not dominated by one or the other. According to the statistics of CIC, the scale of China's fresh food and daily necessities retail industry has increased from 8.4 trillion yuan in 2016 to 11.1 trillion yuan in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 7.2%. It is expected that the compound annual growth rate will further reach 6.5% to 15.2 trillion yuan by 2025.

In the future, a single mode may be difficult to support the overall expansion of the platform scale, so a systematic mode planning must be formed. Almost all insiders agree that fresh e-commerce is a very heavy and hard business no matter what mode. From the supply chain, cold chain warehouse and terminal, plus the cost increase caused by expansion, or these e-commerce companies seek to be listed.

(Intern Han Liming also contributed to this article)