No war in express delivery on June 18, recruitment of workers with a daily salary of 400 yuan "disappeared"

The e-commerce platform cancelled pre-sales, and the express delivery industry prepared in advance and performed steadily during the promotion period, with no warehouse explosion, price increases, or a rush to recruit workers.

How did the express delivery industry perform in the first major promotion when the e-commerce platform cancelled the pre-sale system?

This year's 618 promotion is somewhat different from previous years. Since April, mainstream platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, and Kuaishou have officially announced the cancellation of pre-sales and put up the "ready-to-sell" label, which means that consumers no longer have to be trapped by the "brain-burning" discount calculation problems, and the goods can be bought and sent immediately.

In 2012, Tmall introduced the pre-sale model of the real estate industry into e-commerce promotions. To date, the e-commerce pre-sale model has been in operation for more than ten years.

As e-commerce platforms break the rules, the gears of logistics also turn. “It’s hard to guess when the peak of packages will come this year,” said a franchisee of a courier outlet.

However, the atmosphere of warehouse explosion, express price increase and high salary recruitment seems to have disappeared this year. This time on June 18, there was no war in express delivery.

1. The pre-sale system is cancelled, and express delivery companies are stepping up preparations

In 2009, Taobao’s “Double Eleven” event was a huge success, bringing huge challenges to China’s express delivery industry, which was just beginning to grow.

In 2010, the national express delivery volume exceeded 2 billion pieces for the first time, and in 2014, it exceeded 10 billion pieces. The concentrated volume of orders once overwhelmed the transfer centers and terminal outlets, and the parcels even piled up on the road, and no one delivered them for half a month.

The introduction of the pre-sale system allows consumers to manage their ordering behavior, and outlets can also effectively predict the order volume. Some merchants will even work with the platform to allocate pre-sale goods to the warehouse or outlet closest to the consumer in advance, so that they can be delivered in a shorter time after the final payment is made.

The pre-sale mechanism that has been used in the industry for nearly ten years has been "abandoned". How should express delivery companies respond?

The uncertainty of peak and order volume has placed higher demands on the network elasticity and stability of express delivery companies than ever before, and has put greater pressure on the companies’ ability to respond quickly. According to Times Finance, as early as a month before the big promotion, express delivery companies had set up peak season guarantee working groups and 618 big promotion special teams to prepare for the big promotion.

Yunda Express said that the company has launched a service plan in advance, optimizing services in all links from front-end collection, mid-end sorting, to end-end delivery. For example, in the collection link, Yunda launched a multi-frequency collection service to ensure the timely operation of promotional orders, "customers can still ship goods as late as 11 pm."

Before the big sale, many express delivery companies invested in expanding their logistics infrastructure networks.

Times Finance learned that Jitu recently completed the upgrade and renovation of 30 transfer center sites; Cainiao Express put into use three new distribution centers in Nanjing, Wuhan and Chengdu, and at the same time increased its self-operated vehicles by more than two times, and opened hundreds of direct routes in the three major parcel volume concentrated areas of Tianjin in North China, Jiaxing in East China and Guangzhou in South China; JD Logistics Asia No. 1 Shanghai Intelligent Industrial Park Phase 4 was also officially put into operation before the holiday.

During this year's Tmall 618, faced with the challenge of accurate order volume forecasting, Cainiao, Tmall, and merchants strengthened collaboration in platform marketing strategies, merchant inventory preparation, order volume planning, and other aspects to continuously improve the accuracy of supply chain planning.

Manpower is also being deployed at an accelerated pace. With the start of the 618 promotion, Cainiao Express's national automated distribution centers have entered the peak of package processing, and have started multi-shift operations and 24-hour operation. JD Logistics pointed out to Times Finance that in order to reduce the intensity of front-line work during the 618 period, JD Logistics' various sites, warehouses, sorting centers and other operating sites have conducted short-term recruitment at least one month in advance to reserve manpower.

When delivering to the terminal outlets, the couriers' busy peak period starts earlier than in previous years.

"Last year, it started around June 10th, but this year, the number of orders has been rising since May 20th." A direct-operated courier in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, told Times Finance that compared with the usual delivery volume of about 100 pieces, the recent volume has nearly doubled. "It fell back a little on May 25th, but the second wave of promotions began on June 1st, and the volume rebounded again."

Wang Sheng, head of a franchised express delivery outlet in Guizhou, said that the number of orders at the outlets increased after May 20, but the increase was only 10%-15%, which is still a big gap compared with the peak of previous years. "At present, we can still cope with it. It's much easier than before."

Huang Ming's company has stipulated that he will not be given a break for nearly a month, and his working hours are also one hour earlier than usual. According to Times Finance, a certain direct-operated express delivery company required sorting and couriers in some areas to start work at 4-5 am during the 618 promotion.

2. Express delivery prices will not increase during the promotion period, and the atmosphere of high-salary recruitment is weak

For this year’s 618, “ordinary” seems to be the key word.

Information from the Ministry of Transport shows that from May 20 to May 26, the country's freight logistics operated in an orderly manner. The cumulative collection volume of postal express was about 3.593 billion pieces, a month-on-month increase of 7.29%; the cumulative delivery volume was about 3.41 billion pieces, a month-on-month increase of 5.21%. The average daily business volume has exceeded 500 million pieces.

This growth rate is not considered rapid during the promotion cycle.

Some express delivery companies have said that the order volume and transportation capacity of 618 this year have become "normalized". On the one hand, the battle line has been extended, and the peaks and troughs are more stable than in previous years; on the other hand, e-commerce growth has also weakened. In recent years, e-commerce platforms have rarely announced the specific GMV figures during the promotion period.

"Warehouse explosions are a thing of the past." Gong Fuzhao, general manager of Shuangyi Consulting, told Times Finance that in recent years, express delivery capacity has increased rapidly. Express delivery companies have expanded their daily capacity through automation technology and continuous investment, and have been able to cope with volume peaks, especially with the rapid development of live e-commerce. At the same time, he also mentioned that the volume of e-commerce parcels during today's promotions is incomparable to that before 2020.

According to a survey by Shuangyi Consulting, the number of express delivery orders during the 618 shopping festival fluctuated little from a general perspective, and only fluctuated greatly in some local areas and outlets, such as Yiwu, Dongguan, Jieyang and other grain-producing areas with large business volumes all year round. Times Finance learned that at a Jitu outlet in Yiwu, the average daily order volume during the 618 shopping festival increased from 150,000 orders per day to 300,000 orders, with the highest number reaching nearly 400,000 orders in one day. Most of the parcels were small commodities such as clothing, luggage, and beauty products. "Yiwu is quite special, with well-developed live streaming platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and orders exploded from time to time."

The overall change in order volume is more stable than in previous years, which also has an impact on terminal recruitment.

Recruitment information such as "daily salary", "daily salary of 400 yuan", and "monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan" disappeared during the 618 shopping festival this year, and the hot recruitment atmosphere is no longer there. Wang Sheng, the head of the outlet, said that no additional staff has been assigned for the 618 shopping festival, and temporary workers will be recruited if the number of orders increases significantly in the future.

A courier company insider also revealed that in previous years, courier outlets would often recruit a large number of people in advance for e-commerce festivals such as 618 and Double 11, and some even had to stay at merchant warehouses to work overtime to cope with the peak and strive to send out the goods on the same day. However, this year, the 618 battle line was extended, which is beneficial to the cost control of labor, vehicles, etc.

Another third-party logistics recruiter told Times Finance that the recruitment market in June was better than in May, but most of the recruitment was for regular employees at outlets, and the demand for temporary workers decreased. However, the recruiter said that the main demand was concentrated in the cross-border express delivery field, "Pinduoduo and Xiyin's cross-border logistics warehouses recruited the most people."

The overall market trend is sluggish, which also weakens the momentum of express delivery price increases.

During the big promotions in previous years, logistics and transportation costs rose, and the express delivery market mostly saw an increase in both volume and price. However, during this year's 618, there were few price adjustment notices from express delivery headquarters and regions. In the 618 cooperation between JD Logistics and Kuaishou Mall, they also announced that "there will be no price increase for orders under 3 kilograms during the event."

Some e-commerce merchants in the clothing and toy categories told Times Finance that the express delivery companies they worked with during the 618 shopping festival basically did not announce any price adjustment notices this year, with only one company increasing prices by 0.2 yuan per ticket for express parcels weighing more than 3 kilograms. Wang Sheng said helplessly, "It's difficult to raise prices this year."

Gong Fuzhao pointed out that since the impact of the 618 promotion was not as great as that of Double 11, and the express delivery industry was still in the off-season in the first half of the year, there was no significant increase in prices during the 618 promotion this year. "Everyone was hungry, and once the price went up, the quantity would be even smaller."

Since the beginning of this year, the price and revenue of each ticket in the domestic express delivery market have continued to decline, and the revenue of each ticket of the economical franchise enterprise "Three Links and One Delivery" has also dropped to around 2 yuan.

However, compared with last year, Gong Fuzhao believes that although the price war has begun this year, it has been restrained compared with last year, "and there is limited room for downward movement." In some areas, the price of 300g light and small express delivery has dropped to 1.2 yuan per ticket.

Author: Lin Xinlin

Source: WeChat official account: "Times Finance APP (ID: tf-app)"