(Photography by Jin Xiaoyan)
While the wine industry is still in the original development stage of the traditional wine chain, problems such as many intermediate links and lengthy supply chains have caused market chaos with constant fraud and a mixed bag. It was in that primitive age that the liquor e-commerce companies that have since emerged. At the beginning of the rise of these liquor e-commerce companies, Jiuxian.com, established in 2009, undoubtedly picked the first peach.
In addition to online e-commerce, Jiuxian.com officially deployed offline retail channels in 2017 and realized the integration of omni-channel liquor retail online and offline. This also allowed Jiuxian.com to try the confidence brought by the dividend period. In 2015, Jiuxian.com was in the new The company was listed on the third board, but within two years, the company was issued a warning letter by the equity transfer company in the first half of 2017 due to the delay in disclosing the annual report on time, and the listing was terminated at the end of June 2017.
In the upsurge of wine companies going public, after a four-year period of silence, Jiuxian.com recently chose to IPO again. Jiuxian.com has been financing multiple rounds over the years. Prior to this, Sequoia Capital, Oriental Fuhai, Woyan Capital, Huaxing Capital and other institutions also invested more than 1 billion yuan in Jiuxian.com. In recent years, Jiuxian.com has continuously tried new sales models, such as live broadcasts spawned by the epidemic last year, but the problem of profitability has been plagued.
The earliest liquor e-commerce
On April 8, Jiuxian.com mentioned in the GEM prospectus disclosed by Jiuxian.com that relying on its own sales channels and operational capabilities, the number of SKUs for sale on Jiuxian.com’s platform exceeded 20,000, covering more than 1,500 brands in 26 countries around the world. Covers all types of liquors such as white wine, wine, foreign wine, rice wine, and health wine.
Jiuxian.com believes that in the traditional liquor circulation chain, due to the many intermediate links, the long supply chain, and the lack of a branded chain retail platform, the products purchased by the end consumers are often products that have been increased in price. At the same time, due to the market A mixture of fish and dragons, and counterfeiting have long plagued consumers. In this context, consumers pay more and more attention to channel brands, and at the same time, a number of leading alcohol retail companies with brand effects have been born. “As one of the first companies to enter the liquor e-commerce industry, Jiuxian.com uses Internet technology to empower the industry chain, innovate traditional liquor circulation business, deeply integrate online and offline omni-channel + full-category operation models, and effectively solve current consumption The pain point of the purchaser of alcoholic products.”
If you calculate that Jiuxian.com has been in existence for more than 10 years, in 2009, Jiuxian.com entered the liquor Internet retail industry. In 2017, the company formally created a brand chain retail with a strong management model, realizing the integration of omni-channel liquor retail online and offline. , And gradually established two types of offline chain stores, “Jiuxian.com International Famous Wine City” and “Liquor Coming” by way of franchising, and develop brand chains with large stores in small cities, small stores in big cities and different investment strategies.
It is understood that at present, Jiuxian.com’s online channels mainly include self-operated platforms, mobile terminal APPs, as well as third-party e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, and various beverage retail flagship stores that cooperate with live sales platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou; Offline channels include “Liquor Coming” and “International Famous Wine City” stores; other supplementary channels include offline brand distribution channels of upstream wineries or brand owners.
As of the end of December 2020, Jiuxian.com’s offline chain stores have reached 897, covering 31 provinces and municipalities across the country.
It is worth noting that with the development of the wine retail industry, there are more and more wine sales channels for consumers to choose from, whether online or offline, and consumers are most concerned about the purchase of wine products. Quality and genuine guarantee issues. IiMedia data shows that in 2020, about 60.8% and 58.0% of consumers expressed their main concerns about product quality assurance and authenticity assurance.
Take liquor sales as an example. Out of trust in brand qualifications, consumers tend to buy in tobacco and liquor franchised stores, but franchised stores are often operated independently by individual merchants and lack endorsement of their credit qualifications. In recent years, with the gradual improvement of consumers’ quality awareness, the establishment of branded chain wine retail enterprises has become an urgent need for the market.
In the past two years, the overall recovery of the liquor industry has been obvious. Even if the epidemic hit hard, the impact on the liquor industry has been minimal. The A-share liquor sector is booming. Companies such as Langjiu and Guotai Liquor continue to knock on the capital market. Small and medium-sized wineries are incorporated into the listing system through mergers and acquisitions, creating a wave of liquor listing craze.
After similar peers, Huazhi Liquor Company and 1919, if they succeeded in listing this time, Jiuxian.com would not be considered an early-listed liquor company, but Jiuxian.com has ambitious expectations after listing, and it also mentioned in the prospectus. “The goal of building the No. 1 wine retail brand.”
The profitability problem of liquor retail
Although the performance of the liquor business has continued to pick up in recent years, the overall liquor retail enterprises are still moving forward.
The comparison of performance data between upstream wineries and downstream wine e-commerce is clear at a glance.
In 2020, the national liquor enterprises above designated size achieved sales revenue of 583.639 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.61%; realized total profits of 158.541 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.35%. The industry average net profit margin is as high as 27.16%. However, the liquor circulation link has been in a state of full competition for a long time, with many market participants and low industry concentration. Even in the new year of the industry, it is still not easy to make money.
Huazhi Liquor, the only listed alcoholic beverage company in A-shares, had operating income and net profit of 4.941 billion yuan and 373 million yuan last year, an increase of 32.20% and 16.82% year-on-year, respectively, with a net profit margin of 7.55%. The profitability of Liquor Convenience and Famous Brands listed on the NEEQ is even weaker. 1919 lost 530 million yuan and 143 million yuan in 2019 and the first half of 2020, respectively.
In contrast, Jiuxian.com has not been able to make money as easily as upstream wineries in the past three years, but at least it has achieved profitability. Jiuxian.com disclosed in the prospectus that from 2018 to 2020, the company’s operating income was 2.207 billion yuan, 2.997 billion yuan, and 3.717 billion yuan, and net profits attributable to the parent were 28.565 million yuan, 81.661 million yuan and 182 million yuan, respectively.
“Jiuxian.com has established offices and shipping warehouses in all provinces across the country, both offline and downstream. Jiuxian.com has sales and service teams in all prefecture-level cities. The upstream and downstream chain service system of Jiuxian.com has been very complete.” Industry expert Xiao Zhuqing said in an interview with a reporter from China Times, “Jixian.com, as one of the first batch of retail companies specializing in liquor business, has a leading market position in terms of brand recognition and channel deployment. In addition, the company’s management team , Omni-channel, product development, supply chain, information technology, consumer services, business innovation and other aspects also have strong competitive advantages. Under the background of the continuous rise of the alcohol circulation industry, if the company is successfully listed, it is believed that it will With the help of the aforementioned competitive advantages, the capital market once again achieved rapid development.”
However, there may be more room for the development of wine e-commerce in the future.
The development of the wine retail industry is similar to the overall development path of the retail industry. Both have gone through retail formats dominated by small offline retail locations, to large supermarkets, to online e-commerce, and finally to online and offline integration The process of branding new retail development. With the development of consumers’ online consumption habits and the development of wine vertical platforms, the proportion of e-commerce in wine terminal channels will continue to increase.
According to industry data, the scale of liquor e-commerce transactions reached 7 billion yuan in 2013 and 76.7 billion yuan in 2018. It is predicted that the scale of e-commerce transactions in 2020 will exceed 100 billion yuan. Due to the efficiency advantages and selection advantages of e-commerce, after the formation of high-quality brands, the proportion of e-commerce in liquor circulation is expected to further increase.
The industry believes that the online and offline integration of the wine retail industry will be closer in the future. Some traditional tobacco hotels will face higher online costs. In the future, they may gradually withdraw from the market. In the future, more and more wine merchants will join. Into the regular chain camp.
Chief Editor: Huang Xingli Chief Editor: Han Feng
You must log in to post a comment.