Новый супермаркет упаковочных материалов: сеть Zhaolu строит крупнейшую платформу электронной коммерции алюминием

On the morning of August 3, 2016, at No. 18, Guyang Avenue, at the foot of Nanshan Mountain in Zhenjiang, inside the headquarters of the aluminum e-commerce "dark horse" Find Aluminum Network, four 50-ton large trucks were fully loaded with aluminum coils from an aluminum plate manufacturer in Henan Province, ready to be sent to another large aluminum foil enterprise 70 kilometers away in Changzhou, where they would be further processed into soft packaging aluminum foil.

The flexible packaging industry is a major market for the deep processing application of aluminum materials. Aluminum foil is non-toxic, has excellent heat conduction and light-blocking properties, and possesses unique advantages such as moisture resistance, airtightness and aroma retention. It is a high-end packaging material that has yet to be found to be replaced and is widely used in flexible packaging for the food and pharmaceutical industries. China is the world's factory, which drives a huge demand for flexible packaging aluminum foil materials.

For this aluminum plate enterprise in Henan Province, by leveraging the warehouse of Zhaolu.com in Zhenjiang, which serves as a logistics node for it in Jiangsu and even the entire East China market, the semi-finished aluminum plates it produces are continuously transported to downstream aluminum foil enterprises through Zhaolu.com.

In fact, this aluminum plate enterprise from Henan is just one of the customers of FindAluminum. Besides, many well-known enterprises in the industry such as Weiqiao Aluminum, Xinfa Aluminum, Shenhuo Aluminum, Zhongfu Industry, Dongqing Aluminum, Qinghai Ping 'an and Dongfang Hope have also joined FindAluminum. The product chain ranges from raw materials like aluminum ingots and aluminum rods to finished products such as aluminum plates, aluminum strips, aluminum foils and aluminum profiles, with a wide variety of specifications. It is China's first e-commerce platform covering the entire aluminum industry chain.

The first e-commerce platform covering the entire aluminum industry chain

The business of Find Aluminum Network, in simple terms, builds an online trading platform for aluminum buyers and sellers. Through this platform, both parties can find suitable and acceptable aluminum materials and prices for each other, complete transactions, and have them delivered to their hands through logistics.

However, the actual operation is more complicated than this. Find Aluminum Network spans two major fields: aluminum processing industry and the Internet. Meanwhile, as the transaction scale continues to expand, the difficulty of providing fast logistics services also increases.

What is impressive is that in the first half of the year, Zhaoluowang has been doing very well, and it is completely impossible to tell that it is a group of novices in charge. This difficulty is not formidable for the management team of Zhaoluowang. Like other mature and sophisticated enterprises, before entering a new field, Find Aluminum Mesh made adequate preparations for the difficulties and key points. In the first half of this year, the monthly transaction volume of aluminum materials exceeded 10,000 tons, and it is expected that the annual target of 1 billion yuan will be successfully achieved. According to the five-year plan formulated by Finalu.com at the end of last year, the transaction scale is expected to reach 1 billion yuan in the first year, 2016, 2 billion yuan in the second year, 5 billion yuan in the third year, and over 10 billion yuan in 2020, five years later.

Of course, apart from the efforts of the company team itself, a direct reason for the rapid increase in the transaction volume of Find Aluminum Network is the inherent nature of e-commerce, which has reduced the agency levels of middle merchants, significantly lowering the cost for buyers. Traditional trade, through the system design of agency, general distribution and distribution, transfers the products of manufacturers to the hands of end users through a series of intermediate merchants, and the existence of each layer of merchants means that an additional layer of profit is exploited. The more middle-level merchants there are, the higher the accumulated cost for the end users will be. Unlike traditional traders, Find Aluminum Network combines the characteristics of the Internet such as massive volume, speed and openness, allowing buyers and sellers to post supply and demand information, product uses, specifications, performance, etc. on the Find Aluminum Network platform in a transparent manner. Even prices and logistics can be completed online.

Since 2013, Finalu.com has been planning and officially entered the aluminum e-commerce field by the end of 2015. Within just two years, several aluminum e-commerce companies have already taken the lead in the market. However, in the eyes of those looking for aluminum mesh, they are not direct "enemies". Some are aluminum channel or aluminum department under the black metal e-commerce, mainly dealing in basic raw materials such as aluminum ingots and aluminum rods, and do not involve deep-processed aluminum products. Some professional aluminum material e-commerce platforms, although mainly dealing in aluminum profiles, have not ventured into the aluminum plate and strip product series. Even if they have made a small entry, they have not entered the fields of special and unconventional materials.

Find Aluminum Network is a large online marketplace for aluminum materials. From basic products such as aluminum ingots and rods to aluminum plates, aluminum foils, aluminum strips and aluminum special materials, and then to aluminum profiles, its products are widely used in various industries including aviation, electronics, packaging, shipping, transportation, food, energy, construction, etc. It presents a complete product series of the industrial chain and builds a kingdom of e-commerce transactions for aluminum materials. Xue Weilong, the founder of Finalu.com and the general manager of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry, said that Finalu.com is the only e-commerce platform with the most aluminum products covering the entire industrial chain. At least for now, no other aluminum e-commerce platform has a product chain as long and complete as Finalu.com.

It is certain that from the perspective of the concept of large supermarkets and hypermarkets, the more varieties of goods there are, the more complete the specifications are, and the more reasonable the prices are, the more buyers and users will come to purchase, and the more popular it will be. The feature of the entire industrial chain is another reason why FindAluminum Network has stood out in just half a year.

For those familiar with Yuanlong Aluminium Industry, there is one question that lingers on. Zhenjiang Yuanlong Aluminium Industry was founded in 2003. It has successively invested tens of millions of yuan in purchasing production equipment. The company's sales scale has grown from over 10 million yuan per year initially to 400 million yuan in 2015. Compared with other aluminum processing enterprises, Yuanlong Aluminum Industry has a distinct personality, avoiding homogenization and directly facing competition. It adopts a differentiated market strategy to compete in the niche market. Among them, the aluminum foil materials for central air conditioners it produces account for one sixth of the domestic market share. Whether it is running a business or shouldering social responsibilities, and whether among aluminum processing peers or in the local area of Zhenjiang, Yuanlong Aluminum Industry has received widespread praise and has an enviable industrial foundation. It has established a territory for itself. So why did it suddenly venture into the brand-new e-commerce field to expand its territory? From industry to Internet Plus, what changes has the enterprise development strategy of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry undergone?

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Find a new fulcrum

Yuanlong Aluminium Industry considers itself a small and medium-sized private enterprise that has gradually developed from a grassroots level. In the aluminium processing industry, there are many big shots and financial groups. Grassroots enterprises simply cannot compete with the big shots and giants. Over the years, Yuanlong Aluminium Industry has chosen to deeply cultivate the aluminium market with professional characteristics, formulate differentiated competition strategies, maintain competitive advantages in a few niche fields with outstanding technological levels, and has not competed for total scale. However, later on, Yuanlong Aluminium Industry discovered that without scale, an enterprise would have no say in the market and could not grow into a large enterprise.

In many places in the western and central regions, relying on the favorable conditions of being an aluminum raw material production area, the industrial chain has been extended, moving towards deeper processing with higher technical difficulty and profit margins. They have invested hundreds of millions or even billions of yuan to build large-scale aluminum plate and strip projects and hot-rolling projects. However, in the view of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry, the market for China's aluminum processing industry is mainly in East China and South China. The raw aluminum ingots and semi-finished aluminum plates and strips produced in the central and western regions will mostly enter the markets of East China and South China through logistics, and then be further processed by various enterprises in East China and South China into high-end ultimate products, which will be sold across the country and even abroad.

It is precisely because of the recognition of such demands among upstream raw material enterprises, semi-finished product enterprises and downstream terminal enterprises that Yuanlong Aluminum Industry began to plan for enterprise transformation after the financial crisis. In terms of industry, we will no longer make large investments to expand production capacity. Instead, we plan to take advantage of Yuanlong Aluminum's geographical location in the terminal market of East China to build a comprehensive large supermarket and shopping mall for aluminum materials, attracting material production enterprises and end-user enterprises from all over the country to settle in and gather on this platform for procurement and trading.

An ancient Western philosopher once said, "Give me a lever long enough to move the earth." Yuanlong Aluminium Industry has reached a critical juncture of transformation and requires a new fulcrum to leverage the traditional aluminium market and exert a leverage effect. However, where is this new fulcrum?

Yuanlong Aluminium Industry has been on the lookout and has not acted rashly. It was not until the sudden rise of e-commerce giants like Alibaba, JD.com and Taobao in the past two years, especially the successful comeback of similar e-commerce enterprise FindSteel.com, with annual transaction volumes reaching several billion or even hundreds of billions of yuan, that their thinking was inspired and they suddenly found a new fulcrum.

This fulcrum is precisely the e-commerce platform based on the aluminum industry. Unlike other e-commerce platforms, Find Aluminum Network indirectly possesses a large-scale modern industrial factory, which is a unique competitive advantage that the vast majority of e-commerce platforms do not have. Relying on the complete production lines of aluminum sheet and strip rolling mills, shearing machines, slitting machines, stamping machines, annealing furnaces, etc. of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry, as well as its leading technical processes, and the experienced professional technical service team of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry, Find Aluminum Network integrates the technical consultation of the industry through online services, formulates technical solutions for the different needs of member enterprises, and conducts production and reprocessing. Ensure the success rate of order execution. Most e-commerce platforms do not get involved in the production and processing end; they merely serve to build platforms and facilitate business matching. In comparison, the competitive strategy of FindAluminum to join the e-commerce war is more down-to-earth, and the concept of focusing on serving users runs through many details.

However, as an e-commerce platform, FindAluminum Network inevitably encounters a common problem faced by all e-commerce businesses: whether the logistics system can operate efficiently and whether the overall logistics cost can be reduced are the keys to e-commerce success, which is a major indicator of e-commerce competitiveness. So, how can we build an outstanding logistics management level for Find Aluminum Mesh?

Find Aluminum Network is naturally well aware of the crucial position of logistics services in its development strategy and has a clear goal. Entering the gate of Zhaolu.com, a prominent sign opposite reads, "Zhaolu.com's vision is to become the largest aluminum logistics center in China."

For this reason, FindAluminum Network has chosen to cooperate with third-party logistics companies that have good reputation, strong strength and similar service concepts, gradually establishing an effective logistics management system. In the future, it will be able to support logistics warehousing and distribution services with an annual transaction scale of several billion to tens of billions of yuan.

At present, in the start-up stage, the best coverage range of Zhaoluowang logistics is within a radius of 150 kilometers. That is to say, the enterprises in Jiangsu and its surrounding areas have achieved the greatest convenience and the most significant reduction in procurement costs compared to before. Some enterprises can almost be understood as seamlessly integrating with Zhaoluowang, providing modern door-to-door logistics services.

For instance, downstream user enterprises within Jiangsu Province or in Zhejiang and Anhui used to purchase raw materials and semi-finished products from aluminum material manufacturers in the central and western regions. Now, these manufacturers in the central and western regions send semi-finished products such as aluminum ingots, aluminum rods, and aluminum plates and strips to the Zhenjiang warehouse of Zhaolu.com for storage. Users in Jiangsu and its surrounding areas only need to pick up the goods in Zhenjiang. Not only does it shorten the flow time and process of huge procurement funds for downstream users, but it also greatly saves freight charges. Moreover, due to the short transportation distance, mostly within a 1 to 4-hour drive, downstream purchasing manufacturers can achieve zero inventory of raw materials. Notify Find Aluminum Network the day before, and the raw materials will be directly delivered to the factory the next day, achieving seamless logistics services. That is to say, downstream manufacturers have taken the Zhenjiang warehouse of Find Aluminum Mesh as their own raw material storage facility, reducing the accumulation of raw material procurement funds and reallocating the raw material storage facility and the corresponding warehouse management personnel.

Jiangsu's consumption capacity for aluminium materials should not be underestimated. The Yangtze River Delta, where Jiangsu is located, is known as the engine of China's economy and has a strong demand for various raw materials. Industry insiders say that one third of the national stainless steel transaction volume takes place in southern Jiangsu, and more than 50% of the national aluminum processing industry's demand is concentrated in Jiangsu.

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Local governments stepped in to offer assistance

However, to upgrade from a regional logistics hub in Jiangsu to the largest aluminum logistics center in the country, relying solely on Yuanlong Aluminum Industry, a private enterprise with a grassroots background, is far from sufficient. Fortunately, the local government's state-owned investment company, Zhenjiang Culture and Tourism Group, came to the rescue and made a strategic investment in FindAluminum Network. With the boost of local state-owned capital, the ambitious Find Aluminum Network has entered the fast lane.

According to the "News Culture and Tourism" section on the official website of Zhenjiang Culture and Tourism Group, on September 16, 2015, CAI Chao, the deputy general manager of Zhenjiang Culture and Tourism Group, met with Xue Weilong of Yuanlong Aluminum Industry. The two sides signed an e-commerce cooperation agreement on Zhaolu.com and will jointly build the Zhaolu.com e-commerce platform. Compared with the large-scale investment projects of the Cultural tourism Group in Zhenjiang, the investment in Find Aluminum Network is not large, but it still touches the hearts of the senior management of the Cultural Tourism Group. On March 24, 2016, Chen Xinzhong, the chairman of the Cultural Tourism Group, Qiang Yiming, the general manager, Xie Xiang, the deputy general manager, CAI Chao and other senior executives collectively visited the site of Find Aluminum Network for research and had in-depth exchanges with Xue Weilong. The press release stated, "The communication conveyed full confidence in the prospects of this project," which shows the importance that the Cultural Tourism Group attaches to building the largest aluminum e-commerce platform in China.

Interestingly, the "Find Aluminum Network" caught the attention of the Zhenjiang Municipal Government Investment Company at first sight. Different types of capital, including state-owned and private, have come together, marking a substantial step forward in Zhenjiang's mixed-ownership reform. Behind this, there is a historical origin that today's young people are unaware of. Aluminum processing was once the glory of this city.

In the early 1980s, the state invested in the construction of the East China Aluminum Processing Plant on the national aluminum processing map. The plant was located in Zhenjiang and its products were distributed to the East China market including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. It was as renowned as the Northeast Light Alloy Processing Plant, Southwest Aluminum Processing Plant and North China Aluminum Processing Plant invested after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Xiong Dehao, the former director of the East China Aluminum Processing Plant, as a witness and observer of the evolution of the aluminum processing industry in Zhenjiang, still keeps an eye on the latest changes. He analyzed that the Cultural tourism Group is an investment company of the Zhenjiang Municipal Government, undertaking the guidance of the local government on the development direction of the industry. In today's Internet + era, Find Aluminum Network emerged and stands at the forefront of the trend. If five years from now, Finalu.com ranks among the large enterprises with a scale of over 10 billion yuan, it will mean that it will be the new leader that disrupts the traditional aluminum trade. China is the world's factory, and it is entirely possible for FindAluminum to become the global leader in aluminum trade. Zhenjiang has thus become a logistics center for storage, distribution, delivery and processing of aluminum materials in the domestic market.

Zhenjiang is crisscrossed with railways, highways and waterways, and rivers and seas converge here. 70% of the freight volume of Zhenjiang Port is from the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It is a logistics base planned by the state to serve the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River Basin. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the busiest inland river in China's economically developed regions. In 2015, the volume of goods transported through the Jianbi Lock in Zhenjiang was 140 million tons.

Xue Weilong believes that the transportation of aluminum processing products cannot do without railways, highways and waterways. In particular, railway and waterway transportation are two of the lower-cost long-distance transportation methods for bulk commodities, especially suitable for the distribution pattern of the aluminum industry where the market is mainly in the southeast and the production areas are concentrated in the central and western regions. The well-developed railway, road and waterway transportation conditions are Zhenjiang's greatest comparative advantage.

For a long time in the past, Zhenjiang and Suzhou and Wuxi often competed in industrial manufacturing, neglecting their own comparative advantages. Zhenjiang should have its own characteristics in how a city allocates its industrial, commercial and service carriers. Last year, Zhenjiang City formulated the 13th Five-Year Plan, proposing to build Zhenjiang into an important logistics hub on the Yangtze River Economic Belt and a regional logistics center in the Yangtze River Delta. I quite agree with the concept of expanding logistics. He said.

The era of large-scale logistics in this city is approaching. The logistics industry will become an important sector in Zhenjiang. Zhenjiang has made early preparations and established the Jinguang Industrial Park, with a planned area of 8.96 square kilometers. It aims to build a green ecological industrial park featuring circular industries and professional logistics within 3 to 5 years. Industry insiders say that the Jinguang Industrial Park will integrate various logistics facilities and different types of logistics enterprises for cooperation and sharing, achieving intensive development.

The Zhenjiang Large Logistics Hybrid Fleet has already set sail, and Zhaoluwang, which is on the journey to reach a hundred billion, will be the main warship of this fleet. However, this does not mean that the growth journey of the giant ship of Find Aluminum Mesh will be smooth sailing. It may encounter the stormy waves of the market and the hidden reefs of risks. The real challenge has only just begun.

-- This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/news-324876.html