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In daily life, whether it is urgent to send documents, cakes, or other important items, the first brand that comes to mind is Shansong. As the only brand in the industry that focuses on one-to-one express delivery, Shansong also returns everyone's trust with its progressive services and continues to innovate, adding momentum to the development of the brand.

Today, Shunfeng has penetrated deeper into lower-tier cities, with its business coverage expanding from 222 cities to 290 cities, in an attempt to replicate its business model in lower-tier cities and seize first-mover advantage.

As logistics giants compete fiercely, can Shunfeng, the number one player with its own unique approach, maintain its position as the leader?

The story of how the "leader" in the instant delivery industry was formed

Mr. Lu Xun once said: "The first person to eat crabs is very admirable. Who would dare to eat it if not a brave man?"

Shunfeng is such a warrior, and is the first company that dares to "eat" the instant delivery cake.

In 2014, Shunfeng first launched the "one-to-one express delivery" model, which clearly stipulates that the Shunfeng courier only serves one customer at a time from pickup to delivery, providing point-to-point delivery.

The market background at that time was that logistics giants were fighting fiercely for e-commerce orders. "Three Links and One Delivery" entered the Cainiao system, and SF Express went it alone with its speed advantage. No one had time to take into account the market demand in the instant delivery industry. At the same time, the excessively high costs made it out of reach for the logistics giants caught in the battle.

After all, the scenario where such users are uncertain about when and where to place an order means that express delivery companies have to start from scratch if they want to enter the market; and the logistics efficiency at that time was at best next-day delivery, which could not meet the hourly delivery needs of urgent delivery, which also meant that express delivery companies had to invest more costs to speed up delivery.

However, the absence of logistics giants does not mean that there is no market demand for instant delivery. According to data from Qianzhan.com, the order volume of the instant delivery industry reached 1.17 billion in 2014, and exceeded 18 billion in 2019, reaching 18.28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 36.93%.

The "one-to-one express delivery" positioning of Shunfeng is aimed at such a blank market; moreover, its customized services are more efficient, safer and more certain, and can fully meet the needs of users with urgent delivery.

This model, which essentially starts from the consumer's perspective and solves the four major pain points of "busy", "difficult", "urgent" and "lazy", has also brought good development momentum to the company.

Today, the company has also upgraded its brand positioning. The new brand positioning of "one-to-one express delivery, specially delivering your order" further clarifies Shunfeng's determination to provide services from the perspective of consumers, while also consolidating Shunfeng's position as a leader in the industry.

As of now, the company ranks first in terms of cities covered, number of services, number of users and market share.

According to the company, after ten years of development, Shansong has covered 290 cities across the country, serving more than 100 million people in total, and firmly maintains its leading position in the field of same-city instant express services. According to iResearch Qianfan data, as early as August 2020, Shansong ranked first in the TOP 5 list of same-city instant express service apps with 1.32 million active users.

So it can be said that Shunfeng, which dared to be the first to try something new, is both a warrior and a wise man. It has tasted the sweetness of the instant delivery market with its own high-quality services, and has firmly sat in the leading position in the instant delivery industry with the advantage of precise positioning of one-to-one express delivery.

C-end barriers are solid, and giants cannot shake Shansong

Generally, industries with fierce competition are prone to the "herd effect", that is, if there is a leader in the market that occupies everyone's main attention, then the entire flock will continue to imitate the leader, and wherever the leader goes to graze, the flock will go there to graze; however, this kind of herd mentality often leads the flock to failure.

The current development status of the instant delivery industry also conforms to the herd effect. Meituan launched errand service, SF Express launched SF Express, and new players such as UU errand service and Dada Express have all appeared. In a nutshell, everyone is accelerating the pace of entering the instant delivery industry, but it is difficult to replicate the "one-to-one express delivery" model.

First of all, the flash delivery model focuses on the C-end market, and its characteristics of "personalization", "high discreteness" and "timeliness" make the giants hesitate.

Secondly, it is impossible for Internet giants to abandon their original main business and focus on the C-end market, just like it is impossible for traditional logistics companies to focus on intra-city delivery and abandon their main business such as express logistics.

Therefore, the logic behind the Internet giants entering the instant delivery market is to adjust according to their own business and focus on the needs of B-side merchants.

The same is true for food delivery platforms. Their instant delivery business is assisted by orders from food delivery merchants to earn commissions to support profits. Moreover, they adopt a group-order model, and deliverymen in this model can often take multiple orders, which has poor security and makes it easy for packages to be delivered to the wrong place or missed, which does not meet the service requirements of urgent delivery users.

Even if similar businesses were launched later, the company was still dependent on the group-buying model.

Some other small and medium-sized players want to join the market, but due to funding issues, it is difficult to maintain the development of the subsequent one-to-one model, so they often still adopt the group-buying model to operate.

Therefore, today's Shunfeng Express model is still in a non-contested zone and is unique.

Moreover, talking about the development potential of this kind of exclusive customization model, whether in the past or in the future, the model of flash express, which focuses on the C-end user experience, is the general direction for the entire consumer industry to move forward.

In the era of consumption upgrading, the development of personalized customized services and other exclusive service markets has been driven; the express delivery industry is also developing in this direction. In-city delivery and door-to-door delivery have gradually become everyone's rigid needs. However, due to price wars, large order volumes, high door-to-door delivery costs and other issues, express delivery companies still maintain the model of collection points, making it difficult to provide users with door-to-door delivery services.

However, customized services such as Shunfeng’s “one-to-one express delivery” model can often solve the “last mile” problem in the express delivery industry.

In addition, Google has such a philosophy: everything is user-centric, and everything will come in one go. The user-centric approach of Shunfeng, which truly serves the society and users and solves the four major pain points of "busy", "difficult", "urgent" and "lazy", happens to be a precise mental connection with users, and everything may come in one go in the future.

In general, the model is difficult to replicate and is unique, and its development potential is in line with the general trend of the logistics industry after consumption upgrading. Flash Express can continue to rise to greater heights with its "one-to-one express delivery" model and usher in a broader future.

Breaking through the decline, the leader's position is more stable

In the battle for existing traffic as traffic has peaked, the sinking of consumption has also become the focus of major industry giants. Pinduoduo has become one of the three giants of e-commerce by relying on the sinking strategy, and Mixue Bingcheng has become the sinking king of the milk tea industry... As the leader in the instant delivery industry, Shunfeng Express is also making efforts in the sinking market.

So far, Shan Song's business coverage has expanded from 222 cities to 290 cities, including towns and cities below the third and fourth tiers. But what can the sinking market bring to Shan Song? What confidence does the company have to do well?

Shansong has released user data, showing that first-tier cities are mainly for business, while third- and fourth-tier cities still have a lot of emotional communication needs. In 2020, Shansong began to expand into third- and fourth-tier cities and found that the growth rate of these third- and fourth-tier cities is faster than that of first- and second-tier cities.

It can be seen from this that the sinking market, which seems to be inconsistent with the user circle of high-end customized services, is actually the consumer customer group for service companies such as Shunfeng because of consumption upgrades and various personalized needs.

Shansong's success today is inseparable from the brand's emphasis on user experience. Over the years, Shansong has always insisted on one-to-one express delivery services. "Efficient", "punctual" and "high quality" are the impressions Shansong has brought to the public. In the future, Shansong will continue to explore new breakthroughs for brand improvement and promote the high-quality development of the same-city instant express industry.