From ＂delivery＂ to ＂delivery of everything＂, instant logistics is booming
Data Source: iiMedia Consulting
core reading
In recent years, with the continuous improvement of consumers’ demand for instant time saving, instant logistics with errands as the main form is booming, and the market scale is growing rapidly.
From "food delivery" to "delivery of all things", consumers’ demand for errand handling services is becoming more and more personalized and diverse, and relevant policies and measures have been introduced one after another to help the healthy and orderly development of the industry.
Forgot to bring items, use "errands" to help pick up and deliver; on holidays, call a "errand" to send flowers; can’t get out, place an order for "errands" to help pick up numbers… With the continuous improvement of consumers’ immediate time-saving needs, to provide non-standardized new forms of service such as intra-city pickup, purchasing goods on behalf of others, and helping with affairs – errand services are on the rise.
Recently, the 2022 China errand economy market insight report (hereinafter referred to as the "report") released by relevant consulting institutions shows that the market size of our country’s errand economy will reach 13.10 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to reach 66.40 billion yuan in 2025.
As a new form of service derived from instant logistics, why did errand services rise rapidly? How can we continue to stimulate market potential? In response to these questions, the reporter conducted in-depth interviews.
From "Delivery" to "Delivery of Everything"
The service scene is wider and the demand is stronger
"It’s so convenient to pick up the key at the door in 10 minutes, and deliver it to your parents’ house in 30 minutes!" Recently, Mr. Li from Shanghai’s Pudong New Area found that he had forgotten to return the key to the renovation of the new house to his parents. He sent a round-trip trip of nearly 30 kilometers, so he placed an order through Dada Express to run errands. "Door-to-door at an agreed time, delivered on time and safely, economical and convenient."
Zhang Yanyan, a *******-based Meituan errand delivery worker, feels the strong demand for errand services. "The ****** is just right, and many consumers go out to enjoy the ******. In recent days, the number ** errand orders delivered to scenic spots has risen rapidly. Since April this year, I have run errands in the urban area for more than 1,000 kilometers." Zhang Yanyan said that the errand job ** helping to deliver forgotten ID cards, picking up parasols, queuing in advance, not only brings convenience to users, but also gains the value ** helping others.
The "rush, busy, forget" in work and life has become a typical demand scenario for errand services. Data show that 38.4% of consumers use errands to pick up and deliver because they forgot to bring items; 37.3% of consumers use errands to buy things; in addition, the demand for queuing and sending documents is also gradually increasing.
At the same time, the errand service has a strong holiday attribute. More consumers send gifts and help with errand services to convey their hearts and minds on important festivals. Data show that during the "March 8th" International Working Women’s Day this year, the delivery order volume of flowers and cakes on the Dada Express delivery platform nearly doubled year-on-year.
From the perspective of consumer groups, consumers in first- and second-tier cities have gradually formed the consumption habit of errand services. Consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities are gradually getting used to using errand services to enjoy the convenience of life. Among them, the post-80s and post-90s use services more frequently, and have become the main force of errand consumption. With the continuous expansion of the errand market and the growth in demand in small and medium-sized cities, errand services will enter more people’s daily lives.
"As an important part of real-time logistics, errand services are highly efficient, non-standard, regional and complex, and are mainly used to solve consumers’ temporary needs for cross-regional services in a small range." Wang Yuehan, director of the Industrial Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Post Bureau, introduced that from the perspective of service types, errand services are roughly divided into three types of services, such as intra-city pickup, intra-city purchasing, and help services. As consumers’ income levels improve and their personalized needs increase, the application scenarios of future errand services will continue to expand to meet more immediate service needs of consumers.
Supply and demand continue to force in both directions
The growth momentum of errand services is strong
In just a few years, how did errand services rise rapidly and become an indispensable part of people’s daily lives?
From the demand side, the explosion of immediate demand and the acceleration of consumption upgrades together constitute a strong driving force for the continuous growth of errand services.
"From food takeaway to retail supplies, and then to errand services, consumers’ demand for timeliness in consumption is constantly improving, and errand services include picking up and delivering goods in the same city, buying and helping in the same city, etc., which can meet consumers’ needs of staying at home and saving time." According to the relevant person in charge of Dada, it is estimated that in 2022, our country’s instant delivery orders will break 40 billion orders, and the user scale will break 750 million. This trend reflects that consumers’ demands for saving time and effort have gradually become rigid demand.
In Wang Yuehan’s opinion, with the improvement of the income level of residents in our country and the gradual emergence of young people as the main consumer, people’s requirements for life are upgraded from meeting basic needs to pursuing quality, and they have the ability and willingness to pay for services to obtain better products and a more leisurely life.
From the supply side, the abundant market capacity and logistics technology innovation have strongly supported the sustainable development of errand services.
The boundaries of the service network continue to expand. Thanks to more flexible employment methods, many errand platform enterprises have gained a large number of employees in a short period of time through crowdsourcing, and built a relatively extensive service network to support the development of large-scale and high-frequency errand services. For example, Dada Express’s local instant delivery business covers more than 2,600 counties (districts and cities) across the country, and millions of knights provide services to consumers, establishing a full-scene service system composed of instant distribution, floor distribution, and personal distribution.
The real-time delivery experience continues to be optimized. Some errand services rely on platform enterprises to organically integrate business flow, logistics, and information flow. By optimizing resource allocation, they promote supply and demand docking, effectively reduce the search cost between merchants and consumers, and improve the real-time delivery logistics experience.
By transforming the process of traditional logistics "receiving and transporting" into the direct delivery mode of "receiving" and "sending", SF Express combines the front warehouse layout to shorten the delivery radius, achieve "average 1 hour" city-wide delivery, and improve the efficiency of item delivery; relying on the Meituan "super brain" distribution system, users can automatically complete order matching, path planning and time estimation after placing an order, estimate the delivery time for each order, assign a suitable rider, and design a suitable pickup route for the rider to ensure the consumer experience.
Service 15 minutes life circle
Towards diversification, specialization, and orderly development
In the interview, many companies and experts are optimistic about the development prospects of errand services in our country. They said that in the future, with the rapid development of the local life service industry and the two-way force on both sides of supply and demand, errand services will play an important role in building a 15-minute life circle and play a positive role in facilitating people’s lives and promoting the development of merchants.
From the initial emergence and rapid development of the catering takeaway scene, the scope of errand services has gradually expanded from catering to retail categories such as supermarkets, daily necessities, and pharmaceuticals, and further expanded to non-standardized services. Wang Yuehan believes that from "delivery" to "delivery of all things", when the habit of using errands to pick up and deliver items is basically developed, consumers have more personalized and diverse non-standard needs for errand agency services, which will further promote the horizontal extension of service types.
In recent years, relevant policies and measures have been introduced one after another to help the healthy and orderly development of the industry. In August 2021, the "Action Plan for the High-Quality Development of Commercial and Trade Logistics (2021-2025) " issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other 9 departments mentioned that it is necessary to improve the front warehouse distribution, store distribution, instant delivery, online order store pickup, self-service pickup and other end distribution models. In January 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the Construction of Modern Circulation System and proposed to improve urban distribution facilities and county and rural express logistics distribution systems, and improve the end network service capabilities.
Seizing market development opportunities, many companies continue to make efforts to distribute efficiency and service quality, and strengthen the errand economy in better meeting segmented needs. Meituan errands launched the "special person direct delivery" function, and riders only receive one order throughout the process to improve the delivery timeliness and delivery safety of goods; for key categories such as flower cakes, Dada Express is equipped with car delivery services, with an average delivery time of 20 minutes faster than electric vehicles.
As an emerging business, the errand economy is moving towards high-quality development, which still depends on continuously improving the service standard system and strengthening service quality inspection and evaluation. Wang Yuehan proposed that due to the wide variety and field of errand services, a regulatory mechanism should be built to adapt to the development of new business models of errand services, strengthen cross-departmental joint supervision, innovate supervision models, give full play to the role of smart supervision and credit supervision, and continuously promote the standardized development of services to create a fair and orderly competitive environment.