According to the national post office test data, on the day of "Double 11" online shopping Carnival in 2013, the Communist Express orders of electronic commerce website, represented by Taobao Tianmao, were about 180 million, up 85% from 2012, and the express companies handled more than 60 million Express items all day, 17 times as much as the same period last year. Eventually, Tianmao closed with 35.019 billion yuan, up 83% from 19.1 billion yuan in 2012, and Jingdong set its own record with 10 billion yuan. Such data is equivalent to half of the national average daily consumption in October, twice the sales of Wangfujing in three quarters and half a year of Wal-Mart's sales in China. No wonder even the foreign media lamented that the American Fox News Network described China's "Double 11" as "Black Friday", which is more holy than the United States. Buying season is even more crazy. Behind it not only means the ferocity of the Internet wave, but also shows the direction of the future change of most traditional industries, among which the logistics industry is the first to bear the brunt.

Express company's "Friday day"

In the past few years, the logistics distribution after the "Shuang11" Carnival has been criticized. The problems such as delayed delivery, wrong delivery or direct evaporation of goods have exposed the challenges that express companies are facing. According to statistics, in 2013, 800,000 people in the logistics express industry participated in the work of Shuang11, of which 65,000 people were temporarily employed. Each express company recruited soldiers and bought horses, increased wages and recruited staff, and added more vehicles, etc. It is for this day that it can be said that all its efforts are made.

In the week after Shuang11, couriers and dispatchers usually go out early and return late. Sometimes they don't even have time for meals. After delivering the courier, they have to input the dispatch records on the computer. They are basically busy until the early morning. In case of wrong dispatch or missing one, many companies stipulate that they should compensate customers and even accept the company's fines. Basically, the work of the day has dried up.

Extending from these problems, we can easily find that, in fact, with the rapid development of the electronics business, the lag of the development of logistics Express has become a very important and urgent problem. First of all, in the era of big data, the logistics system should be seamlessly linked with ****** to ensure the timeliness and accuracy of order processing, but even if Ma Yun launched the rookie network, it still has no substantial effect on the improvement of logistics. Similarly, although Jingdong used ridicule adversary's advertising words "how to use slow delivery" high-profile launch "speed up" logistics, but still in micro-blog was "slow delivery" Tucao, and finally in the name of "explosion warehouse logistics delay payment", to send consumers electronic consumer coupons to interest people. Secondly, picking, distribution and information management in the logistics sector should be more automated and mechanized management, because if we rely on manual to solve the problem, there will be shortage of "Shuang11" courier staff, overtime is still full of loopholes and other drawbacks. Finally, there is still a long way to go to create truly satisfying customer experience and personalized innovative logistics.

The root of the problem

At one time, some senior executives of domestic express companies complained: "Shuang11" is a freak, which is irrational consumption. It's too difficult to ask express companies not to burst their warehouses!" In fact, the nature of "Shuang11" is quite similar to that of "Spring Festival Transport" and "Golden Week Tourism", which are unhealthy "pile-up economy" and can easily cause many problems. For logistics companies, if they are equipped with corresponding hardware, software, manpower and vehicles according to the order quantity of "Shuang11", then. It will cause a lot of waste of resources, because the "double 11" order is far from usual.

Due to the rapid popularization of social media such as micro-blog and micro-message, e-commerce brands and "Tao Brands" have a lot of opportunities to contact consumers, from pre-heating, to event spotlight, to offline traditional media, family and friends word-of-mouth, Shuang11 has become a national shopping festival, and even some traditional physical department stores. Shopping centres are also reluctant to join the Singles Day promotion. In addition, more and more enterprises attach importance to e-commerce and the business opportunities of "Shuang11", which makes the discount strength and commodity types have been greatly improved. Therefore, the "Shuang11" promotion seems to be the most popular, only more popular.

But is the development of logistics and express industry keeping up with the pace? You know, logistics distribution is an important factor affecting the online shopping experience. Many express companies have increased their manpower and material resources because of "Shuang11". In order to avoid bursting warehouses, some express companies give priority to taking orders from old customers, consider orders from new customers, or even postpone orders. These measures are in fact "temporary" practices, increasing so many people's hands and vehicles. How to deal with double 11? Meeting old customers, but losing new customers, what is the development? Postponing the receipt time must cause customers to be complained or complained by consumers. How to cooperate later?

It can be said that the promotion of e-commerce is normal, because the current Chinese online shopping market is far from saturated. The promotion of online shopping can not only expand the scale of online shopping market faster, but also catalyze and test the maturity of electronic payment and logistics distribution system faster. More importantly, the Chinese people's consumption habits are resolved. The marketing method of "discount" is effective in at least 3-5 years. The important thing is not really cheap, but to make consumers feel that they have taken advantage of it (indeed some promotional products are not really cheap). As for 3-5 years, this method can also be used because it takes time and distance for consumers to become rational. It takes time for consumers to get material wealth. All these social media help them change.

Maybe in 3 - 5 years, our online shopping market will surpass the United States and become the world's first. For the logistics industry, it must be prepared in advance.

Self rescue in logistics industry

In order to meet the distribution demand of business volume and recruit people to buy horses, in fact, it will cause express companies to neglect many things, such as the link between logistics system and e-commerce data, customer service experience, etc. At present, many express companies are most concerned about whether the "Shuang11" express can be delivered on time, without any time to consider other questions. Question. Similarly, the primary requirement of consumers for express delivery is to deliver on time. If this can not be achieved, consumers will not be satisfied regardless of the goods. In this way, the biggest dream of the express delivery company is "no explosion."

From the myth of Tianmao's creation of 191 billion yuan in 2012, the logistics industry has continued to be uneasy: Shunfeng planned 200 mu express handling hub at Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou and set up Tianmao Special Group; FedEx's Fifth International ground operation station opened in Shenzhen; Shentong Express Team exceeded 130,000 people; Yuantong reserved more than 3,000 social vehicles. Ten thousand vehicles, double Yunda's transport capacity, 40% reduction of EMS express delivery price, etc., all of these indicate that the competition in the logistics market is becoming more and more fierce, even state-owned EMS have reduced their own price to join the market competition.

On the one hand, the pressure of external customers is increasing, on the other hand, the competition in the industry is becoming more and more fierce. What should we do in the future?

Scale and specialization. This is the trend of the logistics industry in the future. In fact, there are many management problems in self-built logistics team, such as improving the quality of personnel, coping with the demand in the off-peak season, shortage of resources or idleness, and so on, which will face greater cost pressures. After so many years of experience in the logistics industry, there may be a large-scale shuffle in the next 3-5 years, small express companies will be merged and re-integrated resources. Therefore, scale here means not only the growth of the team, but also the construction of large-scale logistics distribution centers, the aggregation of large quantities of goods, the rapid processing of orders through powerful IT systems and sorting systems, and the integration of industry superior resources, in order to achieve specialization. For example, Amazon, it is with the super-large logistics center that it is able to cultivate large-scale logistics enterprises, among which "high concentration" is the basis of specialized logistics.

"Mouse + cement" big data fusion. At present, most express companies need to operate in cash first, such as paying courier's wages, vehicle fees and so on, but it takes 1-2 months or more to settle accounts with commercial customers, a large amount of liquidity occupied and a relatively small gross interest rate (about 10%), which makes it difficult for express companies to have enough. Capital to integrate resources and enhance industry concentration. Therefore, we should expand our entity scale through mergers and acquisitions, alliances, integration and other ways, and make seamless links with the data platform of e-commerce customers. First, we should improve the accuracy and speed of processing orders. Second, we should speed up the settlement of accounts receivable. Third, we can better analyze and deal with customer complaints. Only in this way can we improve the accuracy and speed of processing orders. Destiny is in your own hands.

Use price leverage to regulate the market. In foreign countries, the price of labor is usually higher if it involves manual work. But on the contrary, labor is relatively cheap. According to common sense, "Shuang11" such a high-intensity distribution work, should allow customers to pay higher logistics costs, because labor shortage, timely delivery of the task is very heavy, let alone the risk of illegal overtime, at least at this juncture, express companies are under great pressure. The use of price leverage is not necessarily equal to price increase, because the entire logistics industry is still in a highly competitive state, small express companies to survive, must rely on low-price strategy, so it is difficult to have a unified price increase possibility, but often bursting express companies must know how to set up different products and services to ease their own. Pressure, such as delivery on the same day, the next day, the second day and the third to the fifth day, has different prices. First, to let consumers understand that to receive goods quickly, they have to pay a higher price. "It's impossible for horses to run and horses not to graze." Second, to let customers and consumers have a clear number of days to serve, and It is not endless waiting and complaining. In this regard, courier companies need to first convince the electricity supplier enterprises, and then slowly let consumers accept.

In fact, the rapid rise of logistics industry and e-commerce are inseparable, but the long-term vicious competition and low-profit state will make themselves mired. In the future development, logistics industry can not only follow behind the e-commerce, in fact, e-commerce people are well aware that logistics is its lifeline, so the logistics industry.