Chapter 1255 Don't Let Them Muddy the Water

The improvement and blessing of informatization to traditional industries is naturally beyond doubt. Almost any industry will undergo earth-shaking changes after informatization, and the logistics and express delivery industry is the same.

Before Li Mu started to prepare for the logistics hardware, he started the road of informatization. The current logistics management system of Taobao Logistics is not only the first set of logistics information management system in China, but even compared with the level of the previous life around 2010. Not weak at all.

Brother Liu has always been on the front line of Taobao’s logistics, so he has a good understanding of Taobao’s logistics management system. In his opinion, this system is simply a magic weapon. As long as a link of scanning code guns is added to the key nodes of logistics, express delivery will be completed. Every link from receipt to transportation to delivery can be very clearly recorded on the server, which does not improve the efficiency of the entire logistics.

At this time, Li Mu asked Senior Brother Liu: "Apart from our own land transportation network, how is the current aviation resources?"

Brother Liu said: "I have already started cooperation with Ms. Lin Lin. Now all the belly storage resources of China Southern Airlines have been exclusively contracted by our joint venture company. We have also taken the belly storage resources of several other airlines. A lot, and the proportion is getting more and more.”

Li Mu nodded, and asked Brother Liu: "What is the specific time limit for Taobao Express?"

Senior Brother Liu said: "At present, if there are routes to support main-line cities, we can already deliver within 24 hours, usually before 6:30 pm, and after sorting and packing are completed between 9-12 pm , Unified installation, basically it will land in the destination city before 12:00 noon the next day, and the delivery will be completed before 6:30 pm the next day."

"From mainline cities to non-mainline cities, if there is route support, it will be delivered within 36 hours. The first half is the same as I said before, first arrive at the mainline distribution center within 24 hours, and then use the mainline to branch line land transportation within the remaining 12 hours. delivered and dispatched."

"From a non-arterial city to a non-arterial city, if there is a route support, it will be delivered within 48 hours. Basically, it is from a non-arterial city to a main line city, then from a main line city to a main line city, and then from the main line to the branch line destination."

"From non-trunk cities to non-trunk cities, if there is no route support, the delivery within 1,000 kilometers can be delivered within 48 hours, and the delivery of more than 1,000 kilometers can be guaranteed within 72 hours."

"If it is very remote southwest and northwest, users have two options. The timeliness of air transportation is also within 48 hours, but the price will be higher, and land transportation will be much cheaper, but the time is also slightly longer. Generally, we promise 5 Delivered daily."

Li Mu nodded and said, "This timeliness is already very good, and it deserves praise."

In the future, Shunfeng, the number one in the domestic express delivery industry, will basically have the same delivery time in China, so in terms of timeliness, Taobao Express can basically be on par with Shunfeng in the future, but the difference is in capacity.

Although the national express throughput has greatly improved, it has not yet entered the golden age of e-commerce. Taobao Express can guarantee this kind of timeliness under the current market demand, but if the transport volume doubles, it will definitely not work. In the future, Shunfeng will have the largest express freight fleet in China, but in the face of huge market demand, even Shunfeng will have difficulty guaranteeing timeliness, so Taobao Logistics still has a long way to go in the future.

Thinking of Shunfeng, Li Mu asked Senior Brother Liu: "How is Shunfeng Express in Guangdong Province?"

Li Mu once issued an order to Senior Brother Liu, that small businesses like Shunfeng, which rely on express mail from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, must be severely beaten, because although it has not yet grown in scale, it has already opened up a stable profit without losing money. If the gold mine is not even destroyed, as its capital accumulation becomes stronger and stronger, one day it will accumulate steadily and have an impact on the entire industry.

Brother Liu said: "We have acquired several fleets in Hong Kong that have the qualifications for transportation between the two places. In addition, we have been poaching Shunfeng's employees and competing with them on price.

It has dragged them to death now. At present, our Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau express delivery is a little faster than Shunfeng, and the overall salary of our courier personnel in Guangdong Province is at least 30% higher than that of Shunfeng. At the same time, it is equipped with stronger benefits. Support, and more importantly, our pricing on the market side is also very low. At present, our Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau express mail is made at a loss. Shunfeng dare not fight a price war with us. It should be in the zero-profit operation stage now. Two days ago I heard that they can no longer sustain themselves and are looking for financing. "

"Financing?" Li Mu snorted, and said disdainfully, "A local express delivery company still wants to raise money to fight a price war with us? With Taobao Logistics and Taobao Technology here, which investor will invest in it? It’s a little too unrealistic to dream of.”

Brother Liu nodded and said, "I think they are basically out of business. If they persist for a month or two at most, they will almost break up. There is no market, no profit, and they have no advantage over us."

As he said that, Senior Brother Liu said again: "In fact, with our current operating model, in the domestic express logistics industry, it has become an existence beyond the reach of all enterprises, not only Shunfeng, but also other express companies. A huge vortex has formed. Although they also want to be like us, to launch automatic sorting systems, launch logistics management systems, launch efficient fleets and aviation resources, but they simply do not have enough capital to operate such a huge project. The threshold is really high. It's too high, so they can only desperately lower the price, and the profit margin is already extremely low, almost on the edge of the limit."

Li Mu asked him: "Is our overall cost higher than theirs?"

"Yes." Senior Brother Liu said, "Our overall cost is at least 30% higher than that of ordinary express delivery companies, which is mainly reflected in the large initial hardware investment, high depreciation rate, and high personnel costs."

Li Mu was silent for a moment, and said, "That is to say, because our overall cost is high, we basically can't cut to the end with the blade of other express companies, and we will leave a little room for the other party to survive."

Brother Liu said: "That's right, for example, with the same route and the same weight, other express companies can bite the bullet and reduce the cost to 10 yuan, but our unit price cost can only be reduced to 13 yuan at the lowest. The space is the living space left for them.”

Li Mu smiled slightly: "That's fine, we want to let the industry develop as a whole. It is impossible to squeeze out all the express companies. The government and the law will not allow us to be in a monopoly position in this industry, but we can pass Our own means to achieve hierarchical monopoly.”

Brother Liu asked curiously: "What do you mean by hierarchical monopoly?"

Li Mu said: "For example, we only monopolize the mid-to-high-end express delivery market, leaving a gap in the low-end express delivery market for other companies. From the perspective of the entire express delivery industry, we are not in a monopoly position at all, and we do not involve any monopoly operations. From the user’s point of view, we will eat up all the mid-to-high-end express delivery needs.”

Brother Liu nodded: "I understand what you mean, and this is indeed the most in line with our current overall situation. With our huge asset-heavy operation model, it is difficult to keep costs to a minimum and go to the bottom to fight against those companies. , the sea is very deep, after all, there are places we can’t go down.”

Lei Jiaozhu, who had been silent for a long time, said at this time: "Mr. Li, Lao Liu, I think it is not enough for us to only care about the mid-to-high-end market. From the perspective of domestic conditions, no matter what industry, the mid-to-high-end market will always be It cannot become the mainstream. Take the clothing market as an example. More than half of the domestic market volume is supported by the low-end market. The same goes for home appliances, mobile phones, and fast-moving consumer goods. I have investigated the market share of daily chemical products before. , although the daily chemical brands we see on TV and in shopping malls in Yanjing are all well-known brands, we only know after the actual investigation that most of the market is supported by those small brands that we don’t know, and the market The volume is huge, covering almost the vast majority of the rural population of 8.9 billion, and also covering a small part of the urban population. The five yuan bottle of shampoo produced in Guangdong Province has higher sales than well-known brands such as Pantene and Head & Shoulders. If we sell all the low-end express delivery market to these companies, it is very likely that we will sell more than half of the market volume to them in the future, and this loss will be very large!"

Li Mu woke up instantly with Lei Jiaozhu's words.

I am indeed a little superstitious about Shunfeng in my previous life. I always feel that Shunfeng can achieve that scale, that service, and that timeliness, which is really remarkable. Its market share is far less than its reputation. There are a large number of cheap express companies operating at low cost in China. The three links and one express service are just a few of the larger ones, but there are still countless express companies that cannot be named. In terms of industry share, if you only want to make Taobao Express into Shunfeng, then your imagination is very limited. Shunfeng’s market value is only 200 billion yuan at most, but the market value of top giants like UPS has been fluctuating at 600 to 700 billion yuan for a long time.

If you want to become a world-class logistics company, you must have sufficient guarantees for the market share. Only doing mid-to-high-end products has obvious shortcomings. Li Mu recalled that in his previous life, at least 80% of the orders purchased on Taobao did not use Shunfeng Express , that’s because on the one hand, sellers are reducing costs, and on the other hand, buyers are also reducing expenditures. Many sellers have a long-term cooperative relationship with an ordinary express company. The starting price for large customers is as low as three or four yuan. Under normal circumstances, the price of Shunfeng may be twice as high, so most sellers will not choose Shunfeng. If users insist on choosing Shunfeng, the extra cost will also be borne by the buyer.

Many times when buying an item worth tens of yuan, the seller will provide regular express delivery, but the buyer needs to add an extra 15-20 yuan to send Shunfeng, so that most buyers will never order Shunfeng Express if they are not in a hurry. Shunfeng's lack of control over the low-end market.

Li Mu has never really played in the industry, and he doesn't understand the meaning of the low-end market. Brother Liu is obsessed with the self-built logistics system, so he also ignores the low-end market, but Lei Leader is different. The reason why he can make Xiaomi bigger and stronger is that It relies on a keen sense of the mid-to-low-end market. Whether it is a purely low-priced, purely low-end model, or a lower-priced, high-end mid-to-low-end cost-effective model, Xiaomi mobile phones are very popular in the product line. 6. And many "Mijia" products derived from Xiaomi basically rely on these two dimensions to fight against their opponents.

Li Mu got this very important inspiration from his words. The middle and high-end should be done, and the middle and low-end should also be done. This is the direction of all-round development. Otherwise, the tailwind of the previous life is the future of Taobao Express, and there is no bigger pattern.

Immediately, Li Mu said sternly: "Lao Lei is right, we can't completely give up the low-end market, otherwise it will be very easy for these mobs to muddy the water. If we don't have the ability to fish in muddy water, or don't want to If you fish in muddy water, you have to suppress these guys, once they muddy the water, we will have nothing to eat!"

As he said that, Li Mu recalled Xiaomi's path, and said to Senior Brother Liu: "Brother, I have two tasks for you. First, reduce our cost and push down the blade. You said just now that they can do it." 10, we can only do 13, this is inaccurate, because once they really start to struggle for survival, they can continue to explore on the basis of 10, maybe they will play a wild way for them , It’s possible to push this value down to 5 in one go, and by then, we’ll be at 13, and they’ll be at 5, and the space left for them in the middle will be too big!”

Brother Liu was also aware of the seriousness of the problem, and nodded repeatedly: "I understand. Next, I will find a way to further reduce our operating costs."

Li Mu said: "Operating costs and service timeliness are higher than others. Although we can provide users with the highest timeliness now, we do not rule out that many users will choose the former when choosing between cost and timeliness in the future. The same express delivery costs 20 yuan for delivery within 24 hours, 15 yuan for delivery within 48 hours, and only 10 yuan for delivery within 72 hours. There are always many users who will choose the 10 yuan gear. To lower operating costs, we need to better integrate our logistics system, and not let it only play a role in improving timeliness, but also let them play a role in reducing costs.”

After speaking, Li Mu asked again: "In order to ensure the timeliness of express delivery, how much space and capacity utilization can we achieve for each packaged express delivery, or container, or belly warehouse?"

Senior Brother Liu thought for a while and said: "Except for the very popular routes that can reach about 90%, most of the others are around 70%. For example, tonight we are going to send trailers from Yanjing to Jinling. Start on time, so even if it is only 50% loaded, we will send it out on time."

Li Mu nodded: "This is the problem. From the perspective of cost, the more the vehicle is filled, the more profitable it is, but if you want to wait until it is full, you will waste time. If you want to not delay time, you must load as much as you want within the specified time." So that we have a lot of wasted capacity, then we will simply develop a low-end product line in the future, and the package of this product line will automatically reduce its timeliness in the system from the moment it is sorted. It is the package from Yanjing to Jinling. The goods that choose fast products will be sent out if they are not full within the specified time, but the goods that choose slow products will be stranded in the sorting center and wait when they are full or almost full When will it be released again, in this way, the overall cost of this batch of slow products will naturally drop a lot.”

Brother Liu immediately nodded and said, "OK, I will start working on this matter immediately. I will go to Fang Xudong in the evening to discuss the needs in this area and upgrade our system."

"We must do it as soon as possible!" Li Mu said, "In addition to this, we also need to further improve the cost performance of our products. The so-called cost performance refers to performance on the one hand and price on the other. We just talked about price, and then we will talk about performance. Think about how we can lower the price while increasing the performance!"