1. What are the categories of home delivery e-commerce?

2. What are the differences between different types of home delivery platforms?

3. How to choose the right home delivery platform for cooperation? Affected by the epidemic, many traditional retail and catering stores have closed, and goods cannot be delivered to terminals due to traffic issues, causing the Spring Festival sales season to suffer a setback. The already difficult FMCG business has become even worse at the start of 2020. As the epidemic continues, many FMCG companies have launched self-rescue measures, such as Yili, Mengniu, Jinluo, and Wahaha, which have begun recruiting community partners in an attempt to bypass stores and reach consumers directly. This not only reflects brand owners' and distributors' considerations of digesting inventory, but also reveals their helplessness under the epidemic. The sustainability and practical significance of these strategies remain questionable. Another way for brand owners and distributors to deliver products to homes is to cooperate with home delivery platforms such as Dingdong Maicai, Miss Fresh, Shixianghui, and Shihuituan. This article does not discuss the pros and cons of each platform or the rationality of FMCG companies testing home delivery e-commerce, but rather aims to provide some thoughts and suggestions for cooperation between brand owners, distributors, and home delivery platforms through an introduction to different types of platforms. -01- Classification of Home Delivery Platforms First, based on whether the platform owns the goods, we divide home delivery platforms into pure platform-based and self-operated home delivery platforms. In short, platforms that own the goods are called self-operated home delivery platforms, such as Miss Fresh, Shihuituan, Xingsheng Youxuan, and Dingdong Supermarket. Conversely, platforms that do not own the goods but only provide connection services for both parties in the transaction are called pure platform-based home delivery platforms, such as Ele.me, JD Daojia, Meituan Waimai, Taoxianda, and Duodian. These platforms often have a large user base and play a role in secondary traffic distribution between merchants and consumers. Based on differences in warehouse area, operation mode, and fulfillment method, self-operated home delivery platforms can be further divided into store-warehouse integrated platforms, front-warehouse platforms, and community group buying platforms. Store-warehouse integrated platforms not only serve retail functions but also have warehousing and transit functions. These platforms are often based on medium and large supermarkets, covering an area within 10 kilometers, with physical retail as the main focus and online home delivery as a supplement. Yonghui Home and Hema Fresh are typical store-warehouse integrated platforms. Front-warehouse home delivery platforms refer to platforms that focus on online retail and rely on a large number of front warehouses for fulfillment. Front-warehouse platforms often do not have physical retail stores, covering an area within 3 kilometers. In the early stage of development, they often acquire customers through subsidies, and in the mid-stage, they strengthen operational capabilities. Dingdong Maicai and Miss Fresh are typical front-warehouse platforms. Community group buying home delivery platforms refer to platforms that rely on communities, use group leaders as a link, and conduct online pre-sales with offline self-pickup. Community group buying platforms are based on individual communities, covering an area within 3 kilometers. Group leaders can be mom-and-pop stores with physical stores or mothers without stores. Xingsheng Youxuan, Shixianghui, and Shihuituan are typical community group buying platforms. -02- How to Cooperate with Home Delivery Platforms? Since pure platform-based home delivery platforms do not have ownership of goods and do not directly purchase products, our discussion on cooperation with home delivery platforms mainly focuses on self-operated platforms. Store-warehouse integrated platforms: Since the operating entities of such platforms are often offline supermarkets, home delivery business is only an auxiliary sales strategy and means. Brand owners and distributors only need to establish good supply relationships with offline supermarkets, especially those that have developed online home delivery business, which is the top priority for cooperation. Front-warehouse platforms: The delivery time of "29-minute delivery" or "half-hour delivery" determines that front warehouses are often located deep in communities, in areas closest to consumers. Unlike store-warehouse integrated platforms, the offline warehouses of front-warehouse platforms are only used for circulation and transit, and goods are not stored for long periods. This determines that the products operated by such platforms are mainly high-frequency consumer goods such as fresh vegetables, meat, poultry, eggs, and short-shelf-life dairy drinks, while planned consumer goods such as daily necessities, personal care, and household cleaning, as well as white wine and red wine, are relatively unsuitable for cooperation with front-warehouse platforms. In terms of specific cooperation methods, since front warehouses often do not have purchasing authority, brand owners can directly connect with the headquarters procurement of the home delivery platform, establish a comprehensive cooperative relationship with mutual recognition, and then connect with regional sales managers and regional distributors for cooperation. In addition, since some front-warehouse platforms such as Miss Fresh have independent purchasing authority in various markets, distributors can also contact local platform managers for cooperation. Community group buying platforms: Community group buying conducts online pre-sales, and goods are delivered the next day. Since community group buying users' consumption is mostly non-immediate and products are mainly household consumer goods, they pursue higher cost performance and have relatively weaker demand for delivery speed. This determines that large packages and family-size products are more suitable for sale on community group buying platforms, such as large bottles of beverages and milk, snack foods, and large packages of rice, flour, and oil. Moreover, community group buying platforms mostly pursue extreme cost performance, which requires brand owners and distributors to adopt differentiated product and pricing strategies when supplying to community group buying platforms. Under the premise of ensuring that the existing distribution structure and price system are not disrupted, the supply price should be as low as possible compared to other channels. Under the above conditions, distributors can directly negotiate cooperation with local community group buying platforms. It is worth noting that the biggest difference between community group buying and store-warehouse integrated and front-warehouse platforms is that the former is recommendation-based e-commerce, that is, users buy what the group leader recommends, and the product structure is highly expandable, which can sell not only fresh products, daily chemicals, and rice, flour, and oil, but also expand to cleaning, home services, ticketing, and travel services. However, the number of recommended products per day is limited, with most community group buying platforms recommending no more than 50 products per day; The latter two are search-based e-commerce, where users can directly search and retrieve what they need, and the product structure and quantity are limited by offline stores and front warehouses, with limited SKU numbers. For distributors, the limited number of daily recommended products on community group buying platforms determines that product sales highly depend on platform activity recommendations, and sales will not be as stable as those on store-warehouse integrated and front-warehouse platforms. This also makes it difficult for community group buying platforms to become long-term stable sales channels for brand owners and distributors, and they can only serve as special channels in specific periods and situations. -03- What Pitfalls Should Be Avoided When Cooperating with Home Delivery Platforms? Do not rush to seek medical treatment when critically ill. Plan before acting. Finding the right platform and choosing the appropriate cooperation method are key factors for brand owners and distributors to break through during the epidemic. Otherwise, they may "lose 800 to kill 1,000," failing to achieve expected sales growth while disrupting the offline price system, which would not be worth it. New Distribution's suggestions for brand owners and distributors on cooperation with home delivery e-commerce platforms are as follows: 1. Home delivery e-commerce channels are still only supplementary sales channels, and traditional offline sales remain the mainstream. Brand owners and distributors should clearly recognize that online sales are only a supplementary sales strategy, and most consumers' purchasing and consumption behavior still occurs offline. Do not neglect one for the other. The significance of cooperating with home delivery platforms for omni-channel coverage is not about short-term sales acquisition and improvement, but about reaching users in all consumption scenarios and seizing market share, thereby gaining more first-mover advantages compared to competitors. 2. Before cooperation, understand the development of each platform, control the payment cycle, and avoid unnecessary risks. For brand owners and distributors, capital security is the primary prerequisite for choosing a home delivery platform, and risks should be strictly controlled. Therefore, before cooperating with a home delivery platform, brand owners and distributors should understand the specific situation of each platform in detail, including cooperation methods, payment cycles, financing status, market layout, and future development strategies. Know yourself and know your enemy, so that you can advance or retreat during cooperation and avoid losses. 3. Find professional operation outsourcing companies for omni-channel coverage cooperation. Although most brand owners have established dedicated new retail departments to cope with the ever-changing digital channels, staffing is still limited, and it is impossible to assign dedicated personnel for each channel. This makes it difficult for most brand owners to do well in operating new e-commerce channels. In addition, it should be objectively recognized that home delivery platforms represented by community group buying are still in a scattered state, with hundreds or thousands of community group buying platforms nationwide. Except for leading platforms like Xingsheng Youxuan, Shixianghui, Tongcheng Life, and Shihuituan, it is difficult for brand owners to have the time and energy to cooperate with regional platforms across the country. In this case, seeking cooperation with third-party operators or supply chain enterprises is a good option for covering community group buying channels. 4. Strike while the iron is hot; establish a complete and efficient supply mechanism to cope with the ever-changing digital channels. As more brand owners and large distributors enter home delivery e-commerce, the supply-demand environment of home delivery platforms is changing. In the past, as long as there were goods, the platform would cooperate. Now, not only goods are needed, but also product images, text information, digital docking systems, and rapid response mechanisms are required by e-commerce platforms. This places higher demands on the team personnel and system backends of brand owners and distributors. Although the home delivery business is good, it is not as simple as imagined. It poses significant challenges to brand owners and distributors in terms of team building, product selection, and operational capabilities. Therefore, before doing home delivery business, choosing the right platform and providing suitable products are crucial. Do not put all products on home delivery platforms just for sales during the epidemic, and do not blindly cooperate with home delivery platforms in a panic. Doing so will only lose the big for the small and ruin your own business.