Breaking into the new battlefield of the consumer Internet, why is UU running errands in the first echelon?

With the end of the traffic dividend, the consumer Internet seems to turn from summer to winter overnight. Alibaba and Tencent have turned to the industrial Internet to seek a "new growth curve". The consumer Internet that links billions of C-end users around the world, is there really no new increments and new stories?

The consumer Internet serves the demand side, and its development momentum also comes from the growth of demand. As John Atanasoff said: "I was too lazy to like computing, so I invented the computer."

It turns out that unmet consumer needs are always there. In recent years, the demand in the field of life services has continued to upgrade, and consumers have put forward higher requirements for the "immediacy" of services. Consumer Internet is expected to continue to develop new formats.

Songuo Finance was informed that on September 27, the 2022 China Intra-city Instant Logistics Industry Summit was held in Ningbo. At the same time, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing released the "2021-2022 China Real-Time Logistics Industry Development Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") at the summit.

The report pointed out that the real-time logistics industry initially focused on serving the food delivery industry, and after several years of development, more categories and business types have been expanded.

With the vigorous development of the industry, the "old money" and "new rich" who consume the Internet have found new incremental markets.

A new track with acceleration

As a new business format with rich connotations, intra-city instant service includes all aspects of users' eating, drinking, entertainment, food, clothing, housing and transportation in the city.

With the accelerated integration and development of online and offline consumption, the value of the same-city instant service industry as the infrastructure for new consumption is highlighted.

Taking instant delivery as an example, in the era of "everything arrives at home", compared with express delivery based on "days", the characteristics of instant delivery within hours are closer to consumers' daily life. Instant delivery players have become the driving force behind the recovery of the real economy and the development of new retail formats through their close connection with the physical supply chain.

At the same time, the industry is also running "acceleration" under the stimulation of growing demand. The report pointed out that the market size of the instant logistics industry continues to grow, with instant logistics orders reaching 29.4 billion orders in 2021 and expected to reach 79.3 billion orders by 2025.

Songuo Finance has learned that with the big strides in the industry, players such as UU errands, Meituan errands, SF Express, and Flash Delivery have all ushered in a bonus period.

Among them, UU errands cut into the real-time service track from the errands business, through the "Internet + platform" crowdsourcing model, integrated social idle resources, and gradually penetrated into major cities in China.

The business model of running errands in the same city (Southwest Securities, Mob Research Institute)

UU errand told Songuo Finance that since its official operation in 2015, UU errand has covered more than 180 cities across the country, and the platform has cooperated with over 5.5 million male runners.

The rapid development of this company shows that the new concept of "running errands economy" has strong vitality. iiMedia Research pointed out that the market size of China's errand economy will reach 13.1 billion yuan in 2021, and the market size is expected to reach 66.4 billion yuan in 2025.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, in order to reduce offline gatherings, more and more consumers have demanded to buy, deliver, and help with various things without leaving home. Discovering this change in demand, UU errands launched "contactless delivery", and the order volume surged for a while.

The most important thing is that the "running errand economy" is not a special need in a special period. More and more urban young people are willing to "spend money to buy time" and enjoy more convenient services in their daily lives. This is a long-term demand migration. According to iResearch's consumer survey data, nearly 25% of consumers use the instant service more than 10 times a month, and more than 90% of consumers use the instant service at least once a month.

On the other hand, this new business format that is not attached to any business flow and can cover all consumption scenarios has also attracted companies looking for directions in the turning point of the consumer Internet. For a time, Meituan, SF Express, etc. have made efforts on this track, and Meituan errands and SF Express have achieved rapid growth.

Under such circumstances, how can third-party capacity platforms maintain their competitiveness and become the first echelon of the same-city real-time service track?

Find the top players of the growth paradigm

Without the advantage of traffic entry, UU's errands and multiple user indicators are at the top of the industry.

According to Jiguang data, the monthly average DAU and monthly user installation retention data of the UU errand app in the past year demonstrate the company's strong competitiveness.

Behind these data is UU's deep understanding of the instant service industry in the same city.

First, is the track selection. Under the circumstance that catering delivery was "packaged" by giants, UU errands seized the growth in demand for C-end and non-meal sub-categories.

Different from the mature online catering industry, in the non-meal category, except for consumer electronics, electrical appliances, and beauty and personal care, the online rate of other sub-categories such as fruits, flowers, and cakes is less than 20%.

In the era of accelerated online and offline integration in the retail industry, it is an irresistible trend for non-meal categories to gradually increase the online rate like catering categories.

At the same time, these scenarios are often non-standard scenarios or require long-tail services. For example, consumer scenarios such as business letter delivery and drug purchases have a high demand for non-standard on-the-go services; and the demand for queuing and escorting doctors has spawned a long-tail service market.

To further explore the needs of users, UU errands has launched four major business segments: "UU Help Pickup", "UU Help Buy", "UU All-round Help" and "UU Help Queue", which basically cover object pickup and delivery, department store purchasing, and urgent delivery ( Service scenarios such as pet care, UU housekeeping) and queuing on behalf of others are urgently needed.

Secondly, in terms of brand strategy, UU runs errands to highlight its differentiated positioning in the industry, shape the image of a "service provider", and improve brand recognition.

In 2022, UU errands will upgrade its brand and activate the slogan of "Urgent City, find UU errands". At the same time, it emphasizes the advantages of "the fastest response in 1 second, quick door-to-door delivery in 10 minutes, and delivery in an average of 37 minutes", so that users have a specific understanding of the rapid response to UU's errand needs, and it is easier to form brand memory.

In terms of brand marketing, UU runs errands with the theme of "opening UU, everything is free", and skillfully spreads the brand through new media channels such as Weibo. For example, Changsha Weibo has a hot topic in the city, "The elderly receive too many gifts to cause controversy." The story of giving birthday gifts to the elderly living alone through errands has reduced users' resistance to marketing actions in the warmth.

For consumers who generate "urgent service" demand at a certain time, it is a natural thing to go from brand memory to consumption decision.

Finally, as an industry with service as its core competitiveness, establishing a high standard of instant service and improving service levels are the decisive points.

In the same-city instant service industry, disputes over insured price compensation occur frequently, which can easily reduce consumers' overall impression of the industry.

In this regard, Songuo Finance talked to UU to run errands and learned that the industry is gradually paying attention to this issue. At the beginning of this year, UU errands carried out the service improvement of "3 must lose 5 better". Among them, the company makes a service commitment to users of "how much to insure, how much to lose".

The gradual standardization of the instant service industry is an inevitable event in the development process, but companies that take the lead in making changes are expected to win user recognition and enhance market competitiveness.

To sum up, paying attention to the rapidly growing non-meal segment, shaping the image of a high-quality service provider in brand management, and continuously improving service quality is a paradigm for native players in the instant service industry in the same city to break through.

It is foreseeable that after finding the right direction, the leading players are expected to integrate and gather advantageous resources and start the acceleration mode. However, as a new trend of consumer Internet, the same-city instant service industry still needs to face some new challenges.

The "two mountains" that are being climbed

With the continuous expansion of the instant service market, instant consumption is moving towards all customer groups, all categories, all scenarios, and all-weather. Industry changes have put forward higher requirements for track players.

On the one hand, in the field of instant delivery, the delivery needs of different scenarios are quite different. The variety of goods for immediate delivery is gradually increasing. Some goods have special requirements such as preservation, heat preservation, loss prevention and shock resistance. Some orders have long distances or need to be delivered at night, all of which pose challenges to the platform’s ability to fulfill contracts.

At the 2022 China intra-city real-time logistics industry summit, how to build a perfect real-time distribution capacity service ecosystem has also become one of the important topics.

Highly flexible shipping capacity is the key to ensuring contract performance. UU errands takes the sharing of labor and time as the crowdsourcing concept, and has created an elastic capacity service ecosystem of 5.5 million "runners", which basically meets the normal distribution needs.

However, in the above-mentioned special delivery scenarios, it is difficult to control the service quality of delivery staff in the crowdsourcing mode. Therefore, UU errands launched the "online appointment delivery staff" vocational skill level certificate to strengthen the training of delivery staff's business capabilities, but the effect remains to be seen.

On the other hand, the competition in the instant service market is highly homogenized. As giants such as Meituan, JD.com, and SF Express have increased their investment in this field, there is more and more overlap with third-party transportation companies such as UU errands and flash delivery.

In order to avoid falling into the quagmire of "traffic" and "price war", it is necessary for third-party capacity to consolidate its advantages in the professional field through intelligent technologies such as SaaS, artificial intelligence, AIOT and unmanned distribution.

The same-city instant service industry grew up in the era of consumer Internet, and its technology genes are innate. Track players are actively exploring new technologies, and realizing the digital intelligence of the whole chain is a visible future.

This has long been reflected. Behind UU's errands, "the fastest response in 1 second, the quick door-to-door delivery in 10 minutes, and the average delivery in 37 minutes" is the application of the intelligent super brain system platform. Continue to upgrade the big data intelligent scheduling system, in order to maintain the advantages of fast order receipt, fast door-to-door and fast contract performance among the peers.

Looking to the future, in order to improve service quality, especially the "last 100 meters" facing users, the application of intelligent technology by enterprises will be more in-depth. Songuo Finance has learned that UU errands have designed a "robot running man" for new scenarios in distribution, but it is not known when it will enter daily life.

In any case, open-source a new track with long slopes and thick snow, and players of the same city instant service must continue to prepare to climb over the "hills".

Pinecone Finance