Uncover secrets: Daily Youxian "dies" in myopia

The following article source / Huxiang app (id:huxiu_com)


Author / miaozhengqing



"I am very disappointed that the options have not been realized, the salary in June has not been paid, the salary in July has not been paid, and I have been suddenly dismissed." On the evening of July 28, Wuping (a pseudonym), an employee of Youxian daily, told Hu olfactory.



What made Wu Ping most angry was that July 28 was originally the "day to pay back the salary in June" agreed by Youxian daily and the employees, but the senior management of Youxian daily chose this day to notify everyone to "leave".



What's more strange is that at 19:26 p.m. on July 27, Youxian notified all staff to work at home the next day (July 28) on the grounds of "air problems in the company". In the official notice, Youxian sent a copy to employees every day: "in order to provide a safer office environment for everyone, the company decided to add an air treatment".


An employee told Hu olfactory that "this air control" is more like an excuse to "tie employees at home to avoid emotional events caused by layoffs".


At about 14:00 p.m. on July 28, Wu Ping and other employees were pulled into a flying book group and were notified of this "online meeting". At that time, Wu Ping and other employees mistakenly thought that the theme of the meeting was to discuss "how to pay the salary in June".


According to more than six employees of Youxian daily who participated in the meeting on July 28, Youxian daily launched a round of layoffs in May this year. For the remaining employees, the company adopts the method of "delaying the salary". Under normal circumstances, Youxian daily will pay the salary of the previous month on the 10th of the month, but on June 10, the company informs everyone that "the salary will be postponed to June 30". (an employee revealed to Hu olfactory that since May, Youxian's social security payment has been postponed every day.)


Sadly, during the 20 days of waiting for salary, many employees were brainwashed and worked hard. Some middle and senior managers and department leaders have conveyed to some employees, including but not limited to "a large amount of financing is about to arrive", "share the difficulties with the company, cherish the brand that works together" and "just postpone the payment of wages, not without wages".


And until July 27, all employees of Youxian daily still have to punch in at 10 o'clock on time - in the state of being in arrears, the attendance system and assessment system of Youxian daily remain the same.


On June 30, daily Youxian didn't pay the salary that should have been paid on June 10 (actually, it was the salary in May). After that, the date of paying back the salary was postponed by the daily Youxian senior management for many times, and was finally fixed on July 28.


Since May, some employees have initiated labor arbitration with dailyfresh, but there are still some honest employees willing to believe in dailyfresh. Two key factors made these honest people willing to wait: on July 15, daily Youxian announced in the form of "official announcement" that it had reached an equity strategic investment cooperation agreement with Shanxi Donghui group and obtained equity financing of 200million yuan; And many employees told Hu Xiang that as a US listed company (dairyfresh was listed on NASDAQ in June 2021), they believed that dairyfresh would not fall easily.


Almost all employees attending the meeting on July 28 mistakenly thought they would hear "the good news of salary".


"We brush the mobile news every day, and we have seen the financing of 200million. I think the company has raised 200million, and my salary of more than 10000 is certainly no problem." Xiao Ni (a pseudonym), who originally planned to get married, told Hu olfactory that many employees of Youxian daily had options in their hands. After listing in June 2021, everyone thought that "there was a rush in life", but with the continuous decline of the stock price of Youxian daily, the dream of "financial freedom" was gradually drifting away, but she never thought that one day the company would "not be able to pay salaries".


But reality hit her head.


On the afternoon of July 28, daily Youxian hrbp told everyone on behalf of the company: "most of the people (referring to the online meeting of Feishu) have been working until today, July 28. The social security and provident fund in July are paid by the company, and everyone has to take care of themselves since August." It is worth noting that according to Hu olfactory, the "human resources" who spoke was not even the head of the daily Youxian HR department. At the critical moment, the CEO of the company did not appear, nor dared to face the employees to "announce layoffs"


As of July 27, Eastern time, the daily closing price of Youxian was $0.236, with a total market value of less than $60million. Since its establishment in 2014, the cumulative financing amount of Youxian Daily has exceeded 12billion yuan. On June 25, 2021, Youxian daily landed on Nasdaq, but it broke on the first day of listing - the closing price on the first day was 25.69% lower than the issue price (the closing price on the first day was $9.66). Since then, the share price of Youxian daily fell precipitously in a year. After March 2022, the share price of Youxian daily fell below $1 and began to face a "delisting warning". (Note: due to the fact that daily Youxian is lower than $1 of the NASDAQ listing compliance standard for 30 consecutive trading days, daily Youxian has been required to restore its share price to $1 or more before November 29, 2022, otherwise it will be required to delist.)

"Daily Youxian continued to lose money. The overly aggressive pre position mode and blind assistance of capital made it in a state of growing seedlings, and the hidden disease has been buried in the bone marrow. The impact of the epidemic and weak consumption made the hidden disease of daily Youxian amplified, and finally became terminally ill." Liu Bin, an analyst, believes that even if there is no epidemic, daily Youxian's "rapid expansion of money burning in the middle and early stages and the rush to make profits in the later stage" have hidden dangers for the company.


Shen Meng, chief strategist of Guangke consulting, told Hu Xiang about the fate of daily fresh food: "daily fresh food did something that might be ahead of schedule at a wrong time. There is no problem with the mode of fresh food e-commerce based on front warehouse. But at present, in such a cycle of economic downturn and consumption contraction, its mode, especially logistics cost, is a bottleneck that is difficult to change, and eventually leads to the collapse of business logic."


01


Who is working for Youxian daily?


"There are many excellent cadres every day, and there are many vassal towns."


A middle-level employee who has worked in dailyuxian for more than four years revealed to Hu Xiang that from 2014 to 2021, dailyuxian's "Qian gen" was based on several major cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Hangzhou. With several major cities as the core, daily Youxian has formed its own regional system - there is a basic city in almost every region, and regions, cities and the context based on this form an obvious "faction".


People in the same region take care of them layer by layer. A very typical saying is that the person in charge of the city can not answer the phone of the boss of the headquarters, but can answer the phone of the superior of the region at any time within 24 hours.


In the critical period of expansion (2018-2020), in order to deal with friends, the highest level of daily Youxian has given each region a high degree of autonomy: regional personnel "appointment rights" (stronger recommendation rights), management and assessment rights, and even some financial rights (to cooperate with local suppliers).


Due to the "huge money burning attribute" of the front position mode, there is a lot of profit making space. People of "the same faction" are close together. In the process of rapid expansion, these "close" people, because of fighting side by side and conspiring for wealth, eventually become local self-contained "vassal towns".


The above-mentioned person told Hu olfactory that from 2018 to 2020, the local jurisdiction of daily Youxian headquarters was gradually weakening. From 2020 to now, the overall situation has evolved into a situation of "it is difficult for a government order to leave the headquarters of the company". A detail worth pondering highlights the "separation" between daily Youxian headquarters and local governments.


Aware of the high cost of logistics and supply chain, daily Youxian began to develop the company's overall digital system as early as 2016. In order to ensure data security and practicality, daily Youxian expanded its technical team of more than 400 people to build a digital system including procurement, logistics, marketing and enterprise OA from scratch. At the same time with the birth of these systems, Youxian Daily has successively formulated detailed operation procedures and use standards.


However, it is embarrassing that until 2022, daily Youxian is about to "collapse", and some "Fanzhen" in local regions still refuse to adopt the company's unified system or operate in accordance with the company's standard processes.


One of the reasons behind this phenomenon is interest. A former employee who participated in the construction of the daily Youxian digital system told Hu olfactory that the headquarters of the daily Youxian company has always hoped to make clear statistics of every "money" of all businesses in all cities, and hoped to standardize and systematize all processes through digital means (based on this, the headquarters of the company will also increase the monitoring of local areas). However, in the process of expanding resources and discussing cooperation with suppliers, there are many links that are "inconvenient to be publicized", so that the ideal "cost reduction and efficiency increase based on digital system" is on paper.


At the same time as "it is difficult for the government to get out of the company headquarters", there is an expansion of the number of middle-level people in the region and even the company headquarters. "Every senior executive has his own brother, and the person in charge of the region also has his own brother. There is also a younger brother under the brother. The number of directors and directors surged after 2018."


The "fatal problem" appeared after the two financing in 2020.


In 2020, daily Youxian had two consecutive rounds of financing. At that time, in the primary market, many institutions that had invested in daily Youxian began to become cautious. "Since 2014, this company has been making huge losses. In 2020, there will be multiple impacts of the epidemic and international trade, and everyone's confidence fluctuates." An investor told Hu Xiang that the adverse factors of the general environment made people pay more attention to the "profitability" of the invested enterprise, and at that time, daily Youxian was "unnecessary spending" in the eyes of some institutions.


Shortly after the success of financing in 2018, daily Youxian started "enjoyment" in advance while expanding its market: at the company headquarters, daily Youxian matched employees with benefits no less than some "big factories" - free fruits, coffee, popsicles. You know, until 2022, big factories like meituan did not match such benefits to their employees.


In the process of product promotion, daily Youxian has been frantically "advertising" in some cities, and even some channels with low ROI have also received daily Youxian investment. At the same time, Youxian daily is constantly expanding its enrollment. In 2019, the total number of employees of Youxian daily reached a new high of 1771 in the history of the company



"When Youxian daily tried to raise funds in 2020, all institutions hoped that it could significantly reduce costs and unnecessary expenses." The above-mentioned investors said that it was for this reason that daily Youxian started a round of layoffs in 2020.


According to the data from the prospectus of Youxian daily, the total number of employees of Youxian daily fell to 1429 in 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 19.3%. The key question is, who was laid off?


"Supervisors and directors have not decreased significantly. In fact, there are fewer employees working on the front line." A person familiar with the matter said that the layoffs in 2020 made the company structure of dairyfresh further show a situation of "relatively more cadres and relatively fewer workers". The unique "company culture" of daily Youxian makes the "retention rate" of people working at the grass-roots level lower.


It is reported that the senior management of Youxian daily company attaches great importance to the resumption meeting. However, in many resumption meetings, the management method adopted by the senior management of Youxian daily is "traditional abusive method". A person familiar with the matter told Hu olfactory that some senior executives would "greet their families" directly, while subordinates who had been criticized beat themselves "mouth" in order to show "loyalty and attitude".


This kind of atmosphere spreads layer by layer. An employee who once worked for Youxian daily revealed that whether it was a resumption meeting or a project approval meeting, some middle and senior managers of Youxian daily were easily "emotional". "It's hard for everyone to give some reasonable suggestions rationally and calmly, but they will vent their anger."


02


Kidnapped by "immediate interests"


In order to win financing, daily Youxian is also looking for other ways to "reduce costs and increase efficiency" in addition to layoffs.


Two tricks that can be called "failures" today are: raising prices + cutting down some seemingly "unnecessary" services. “


Since 2020, the top management is more concerned about profits and shipments during the meeting. If you check our development history, you will see that the boss who is really responsible for user experience left during that time. " A middle-level manager who used to buy fresh food every day told Hu olfactory that a large number of products with higher gross profit margins were put on the app of fresh food every day. In order to reduce the "selection difficulty", some high gross margin products get better recommendations on the home page of the app, and even cut down some "SKUs that are easier to be selected by users but have lower gross margin".


The cost can also be "optimized" from the supplier side.


Some vegetable suppliers have supplied to many fresh food platforms. He once told Hu olfactory in the second half of 2021 that the platform would charge costs from some small details. "For example, is there any process of refinishing vegetables before they are put on the shelves? It affects the user experience and the cost. Our suppliers have no choice. We work according to the order."


As a "major consumer" of vegetables, how to deal with the "damaged goods" in the transportation process also reflects the values of the platform. The above suppliers mentioned a detail. Dishes such as cabbage have a relatively high loss rate, but there is a "gray space" when removing "several layers of outer leaves" when loading. "To be honest, sometimes a little makes a lot of money when you choose a leaf or two layers. When you send it to the consumer, you won't say anything once or twice, and the experience will be affected after a long time."


And, the mood of suppliers will also affect the quality of platform products. “


Every day Youxian defaulted on my payment, which has been delayed for more than 180 days. " A supplier of daily Youxian told Hu olfactory that the payment cycle of daily Youxian will gradually lengthen from 2020. Since 2021, the problem of "late payment" of daily excellent fresh food has become more and more serious. An invisible challenge is that some suppliers will have a hard time in 2021 under the impact of the epidemic.


"The price of raw materials is rising, the logistics cost is also rising, and the epidemic is also affecting us. Many suppliers are difficult to supply daily excellent fresh food. On the one hand, it is because of the trust relationship of many years of cooperation, on the other hand, it is a listed company, and we originally believed that it would not owe money." The supplier said that some cooperative businesses even continued to supply the platform under pressure in 2022; Some suppliers were "delayed" for half a year and still hoped to continue to supply, but were surprised by the news of "layoffs" on July 28.


Some suppliers found the relevant counterpart of the platform, but could not get a reply because the "counterpart" had been "resigned". Some suppliers admitted that they didn't know the higher-level managers of Daiichi Youxian and didn't know how to communicate the payment for goods in the future.


"Daily Youxian is in a hurry all the way." Liu Bin, an analyst, believes that from 2016 to 2020, dairyfresh has repeatedly successfully raised funds in the capital market, expanded rapidly after financing, and lacked "painstaking efforts" in refining the supply chain and internal management ecology. After feeling the huge cost pressure in 2020, Youxian daily eagerly tried to make profits through a series of ways such as "layoffs", adjusting SKUs, and changing user experience, but these ways "are not a long-term way, but more like drinking poison to quench thirst in the short term."


Shen Meng believes that the "economic downturn" is the fundamental reason for "crushing" the daily excellent food. "If the economy is in an upward cycle, the cost of front-end warehouse operation continues to decline, while consumer demand continues to rise, its business model will be no problem. But precisely because of the acceleration of the epidemic, the past two years is an opposite cycle. The epidemic is only an accelerator, and the economic downturn is the root cause, which is a systemic risk that no single enterprise can and cannot change. Large enterprises investing in fresh e-commerce can cooperate with other e-commerce businesses Cost sharing, but for single business enterprises, there is no such risk dispersion mechanism.


At present, the problem facing daily Youxian employees and suppliers is when they can get the "replacement salary" and "payment for goods". The insider told Hu olfactory that at present, the "information flow" within Youxian Daily has been in a state of failure, and the vast majority of employees who are still working "are" difficult to know "what the senior management wants to do.


But the only thing that can be confirmed is that the 200million yuan strategic investment of Youxian "official publicity" on July 15 did not arrive on time. In this way, Youxian daily needs to face greater financial pressure and the "delisting difficulty" in November.


Source / Huxiang app (id:huxiu_com)

Author / miaozhengqing