In March 2021, when the financing was announced, media reports showed that there were more than 1 million riders in the flash.
Just over three years later, the flash prospectus shows that there are 2.7 million registered riders, an increase of nearly 1.7 million.
However, during this period, the revenue of flash delivery only increased by about 50%, far less than the growth rate of riders.
The result can only be the compression of delivery time and the decline of revenue per order.
Just needed, small track
Express delivery, logistics, take-out and instant delivery are essentially the exchange of money and time. It takes some people’s time to help others complete time-consuming and labor-intensive things.
Express delivery and logistics are long-distance delivery, take-out is short-distance delivery, and running errands and the same city are in between. Flash is located on this track. Because Dada occupied the "first share of instant retail" and SF City became the "first share of third-party instant delivery", Flash delivery had no chance to become the "first share", so it was necessary to emphasize its uniqueness, so it became the "largest independent on-demand delivery service provider".
The so-called on-demand courier service is one-to-one express delivery, and the flasher only serves one customer at a time from picking up to delivery, and delivers it point to point. In this mode, flash has several core advantages.
First of all, one-to-one service, each important document has a direct person in charge, and there are almost no problems such as lost parts and damage. The flash prospectus shows that in 2023 and the first half of this year, its loss rate is very low, only 0.01%.
Secondly, compared with other distribution, one-to-one service naturally costs more. According to the prospectus, customers are willing to pay a high price for the service experience. According to iResearch, the average price per order in the first half of the year was 16.5 yuan, which is a significant premium compared with other major participants in the on-demand distribution industry.
Third, just need. In the case of safety requirements, one-to-one distribution is naturally more secure than centralized distribution, especially for items with strong timeliness and great importance. For first-tier cities, although such scenes do not often appear in work and life, most people will have demand more or less.
The story of "saving" the marriage between Justin and Zhang Xinyi is often mentioned. In 2016, Zhang Xinyi and Justin will hold a wedding in Germany. At the airport, because Zhang Xinyi forgot to bring his mobile phone and wedding veil, thanks to the timely delivery of the younger brother, the trip was not delayed. This aspect reflects the value of instant delivery.
According to the prospectus, on this track, flash has occupied 33.9% market share. However, this is not a big track. In 2023, the revenue of flash delivery was 4.5 billion. From this calculation, the whole market was only 13.2 billion, and it was a small track with a very obvious ceiling.
Focus is the key to the success of flash.
The flash startup team lacks "star flavor". Founder Xue Peng graduated from the School of Science of North China University of Science and Technology in 2005, majoring in information and computing science, and then went to the Royal holloway College of University of London to study for a master’s degree. He has very little information. It is reported that his family conditions are good, and his family involves many enterprises such as real estate, taxis and driving schools, but this low-key "rich second generation" finally chose to start a business. In 2007, Xue Peng returned to China to start a business and founded an integrated service platform for express logistics-Easy Post.
In contrast, Kuai Jiaqi, founder of Dada Group, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in logistics engineering from Tongji University and a master’s degree in logistics engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
However, Flash finally broke through in the fierce competition and once became the "leader" of the industry. It has successively completed 11 rounds of financing, attracting many well-known investment institutions such as Lei Junshun Capital and Jingwei Venture Capital, and Pusi Capital, a subsidiary of Wang Sicong, has also participated in the investment for two consecutive rounds.
Listing is capital.
Flash delivery has always been the main on-demand mail service, and today, it still maintains a good development situation.
According to Xue Peng’s understanding, once the city-wide real-time distribution mode from person to person forms a scale, it will form a strong competitive advantage and the entry threshold is relatively high. Flash delivery has indeed built a certain industry barrier for itself. For example, there are 2.7 million registered riders, 88.9 million users, more than 270 million orders a year, and higher customer unit prices in the industry. In terms of rider and user scale, brand awareness, customer consumption willingness, etc., flash delivery does have a good accumulation.
In terms of performance, the development of flash delivery is in good condition. The overall order volume of flash delivery keeps increasing. The orders in 2021-2023 and the first half of 2024 were 159 million, 213 million, 271 million and 138 million respectively. With the increase of orders, the revenue also keeps growing, which is 3 billion yuan, 4 billion yuan, 4.5 billion yuan and 2.3 billion yuan respectively. Under normal circumstances, it is highly probable that this year’s growth will continue to be positive, but the growth rate continues to slow down.
Flash also maintained a stable profit. In 2023, the profit was 110 million, and in the first half of this year, the profit was 120 million, which had the effect of government subsidies, but it was still profitable if this factor was excluded. In contrast, Dada Group has never made a profit, losing 600 million yuan in the first half of this year.
Cash flow has also steadily turned positive in the last year and a half. The inflow was 45.71 million yuan in 2023 and 20.67 million yuan in the first half of this year. Cash increased from 690 million in the same period last year to 710 million in the middle of this year, which has increased steadily in recent years.
As early as 2020, Flash executives said in an interview with the media that the company may go public soon. At that time, Flash was in a state of loss, and perhaps it really needed listing financing, but the financing was received in the following year, and it was profitable again in 2023. Flash has entered a relatively positive track, and the urgency of the company’s listing financing is not strong, more like listing to meet the requirements of the capital side.
In mid-2020, Dada Group became the first share of instant delivery. After more than four years, its share price has shrunk by 90%. At the end of 2021, SF Express, an independent company, went public in Hong Kong, and its share price was slightly better, shrinking by 30%.
With the previous reference, Flash was broken on the second day of listing and once fell to $11.47, which was not sought after by the market.
The problems faced by flash at this stage make the future more unknown.
Struggling 2.7 million riders
Focus is the key to the listing of Flash, but it is also the reason why Flash can’t open the situation.
There are few companies that don’t make any kind of distinction between revenues, and flash delivery is one of them. A single business is closely bound to the order volume, and the revenue will increase when the order volume is high. After 10 years of development, the on-demand courier service has entered a gentle development period, which is also the reason why there has been no financing for flash delivery in the last three years. If you want to increase orders, you need to reduce prices and expand the market.
According to the order volume and revenue, the average revenue per order in 2021-2023 and the first half of 2024 was 19.12 yuan, 18.79 yuan, 16.71 yuan and 16.55 yuan respectively. In a state of continuous decline.
In addition to price reduction, flash delivery is also increasing consumption scenarios. At first, the main scenes were urgent matters, important documents, etc. Later, Flash began to provide expedited delivery services for customers of local restaurants, flower shops and bakeries, and to distribute valuable electronic products to consumers.
The expansion of the scene will indeed increase the order volume, but as mentioned above, the space in this market is too small. Instant delivery can be divided into four categories, namely, food and beverage takeout represented by Meituan and Hungry, which is high frequency, strong demand and most valuable. Fresh home delivery and Shangchao, represented by Dada, are equally high-frequency and just needed, but to a lesser extent than takeout. The logistics in the same city, represented by SF Express, is not high-frequency, but it faces more scenes and has stronger carrying capacity. Finally, there is the running errands represented by flash, and the demand frequency is lower than other modes.
Without the high-frequency feature, flash can’t use full-time riders like Meituan and Hungry, so it can only adopt crowdsourcing mode. Therefore, there are a large number of riders, with 2.7 million riders far exceeding 1.2 million in Dada Group and 950,000 in Shunfeng City, almost reaching the scale of being hungry. But obviously, the presence of the flash rider is far lower than that of hungry.
The advantage of flash delivery is that the customer unit price is high, and there is a lot of room for operation. However, crowdsourcing riders are not loyal, and they often take orders from multiple platforms at the same time, resulting in high personnel mobility. This requires flash delivery to benefit riders as much as possible. In 2021-2022, the salary and reward paid by flash delivery will exceed 90.5% of the revenue. However, the flashing needs to be profitable, and it has to be directed at the rider. In 2023 and the first half of this year, the proportion dropped to 85.4%.
To sum up, on the one hand, it is necessary to reduce the price and increase the order, on the other hand, it is necessary to maintain a high share for the rider, and on the other hand, it is necessary to consider its own operation and reduce the cost from the rider as much as possible. According to the scale of 2.7 million riders, combined with revenue, order volume and unit price, in 2023, there will be 740,000 orders per day, generating revenue of 12.41 million yuan, and the reward allocated to riders will be 10.9 million yuan. By this year, although there are 770,000 orders every day, the reward allocated to riders is only 10.84 million, with the increase of orders and the decrease of rewards.
At the same time, the prospectus shows that in 2021-2023 and the first half of this year, the average delivery time of orders was 35 minutes, 31 minutes, 29 minutes and 27 minutes respectively, which has been compressed, and the delivery pressure of riders continues to increase.
The rider’s income drops, the pressure of order limitation continues to increase, the competition becomes cruel, and the living environment is very difficult. At the present stage, it is no problem for riders to increase their income sources, but after all, they can’t keep the platform running by squeezing riders.
Of course, rider ecology is not a serious problem, and the real challenge comes from the external environment.
Small and beautiful, false proposition
Without backing the giants, the most well-known employer is Shunwei Capital of Xiaomi, accounting for only 7.8% of the shares. Although it is known as the largest on-demand delivery service platform, the scale of flash delivery is only half that of Dada and less than 40% of that of SF. Such a "small but beautiful" platform is often difficult to maintain for a long time in China Internet market.
The so-called moat flashing is more relative to the start-up platform. At this stage, it is not a small platform that competes with flash. Meituan’s errands, hummingbirds, SF Express and Dada are all backed by super platforms, and the order volume is incomparable. These platforms are involved in the field of flash, which is just a supplement to the business. Taking SF City as an example, getting involved in the same city business is only to supplement the short-distance delivery business and improve the choice of customer unit price, which can increase the income of the courier brother, and also expand the fresh home delivery, Shangchao and even take-away business when necessary, and improve the human efficiency without harm.
Giants not only have traffic, brands, service guarantees, but also the ability to price war. Previously, SF executives in the same city mentioned that the price is expected to fall this year, and the price is its core competitiveness. There is no doubt that in the face of price war, flash has basically no ability to parry. Flash delivery has almost no counter-ability, and it can be said that it is difficult for flash delivery to enter the take-away and logistics markets.
In fact, flash delivery is in a state of being a fish. In 2021, after the D2 round of financing, the flash valuation reached 2 billion US dollars. In 2024, the Hurun Global Unicorn List, the flash valuation was 7.1 billion yuan. After listing, the market value of Flash is only $1.07 billion. The downward adjustment of the flash valuation in the capital market has already explained many problems.
Flash delivery is actually a microcosm of the economic development of the Internet platform. Small and beautiful is a false proposition. If the scale is not reached, it will be impossible to compete with the giants. We can only pray that the giants will despise the "fly legs". An action of a giant that is often completely irrelevant may directly determine the life and death of a platform.
References:
1. A single income in 16 yuan, 2.7 million riders sent to the market, source: fixed focus.
2. Before going to the US IPO, flash to deal with the "same paragraph" problem of SF. Source: Wall Street.
3. Flash IPO to the United States: the price of a single customer has been declining year after year, and the unicorn valuation is "big waist" | BUG, source: Sina Technology
