The reporter visited the source of low-cost explosive sanitary napkins, who made the cost of 1 cent?

This year, the "618" platforms have fought low prices to the extreme. One of the 9.9 yuan 50 pieces of sanitary napkins in a shopping platform for more than 80,000 orders, such a low price and quality, how to distribute the benefits of the entire industrial chain? The reporter visited the source with this question.

The cost is 0.1 yuan a piece, who makes the money?

In order to understand the quality of products and the distribution of interests in the industrial chain, the reporter came to a factory in Tancheng County, Linyi City, Shandong Province to conduct a field investigation. This company is mainly OEM-based, taking a brand of sanitary napkins of 9.9 yuan and 50 pieces that are sold on a shopping platform as an example, a daily 245 mm cotton sanitary napkin, the factory cost is only about 0.1 yuan.

The reporter saw in the production workshop of the factory that all the production raw materials, production processes and related qualifications are in line with national health standards. In order to verify the quality of the product, the reporter asked the staff of the manufacturer to test the water absorption and water retention ability of the sanitary napkin. The test results showed that the maximum water absorption capacity of this sanitary napkin sold on the Internet is 50ml.

According to a person in charge of the manufacturer, a big cost consideration for the price of sanitary napkins is the use of "polymer water absorption factor".

Through further understanding, a cost breakdown was presented in front of the reporter.

The cost of buying sanitary napkins online is mainly composed of raw materials, production and processing costs, packaging costs, transportation and marketing costs. According to market research data, the cost of raw materials accounts for 40%-60% of the total cost of sanitary napkins, especially the materials of the absorbent layer and the surface layer. The cost of production, processing and packaging has decreased with the increase of automation, and currently accounts for about 15%-25% of the total cost. Transportation costs are affected by logistics efficiency and economies of scale, accounting for about 15%-20% of the total cost. Marketing costs are closely related to brand promotion and channel construction, accounting for about 10%-20% of the total cost.

A pack of 50 pieces of 245 mm sanitary napkins of a well-known brand sold online at 9.9 yuan has a cost of 4 yuan a pack in the factory, and the ex-factory price is about 4.5 yuan, and the manufacturer earns 0.5 yuan for a pack.

When it comes to e-commerce, there is a courier fee of 1.8 yuan per package.

For brand merchants, the hard cost has reached 6.3 yuan per pack.

The final price of the platform is 9.9 yuan, and the profit of the e-commerce platform and the brand is 3.6 yuan per package.

From this set of figures, it can be seen that manufacturers only earn 0.5 yuan for a package, while platforms and brands earn 3.6 yuan, and the income of the physical factory with the highest cost pressure and inventory risk is relatively low.

(A female consumer buys hygiene products at a supermarket in Qingdao.) ）

Is such a low-priced market really healthy?

As a daily necessity for women, sanitary napkins have a high repurchase rate and consumers are also highly sensitive to price.

According to consumer survey data, about 60% of consumers consider price as an important consideration when choosing sanitary napkins.

The reporter bought 30 pieces of daily sanitary napkins from a well-known brand with a high market share of elastic close-fitting soft cotton from supermarkets and online shopping platforms, the price of which in a supermarket in Qingdao is more than 20 yuan, the price of Jingdong is 17.9 yuan a pack, the price of Taobao is 19.9 yuan a pack, and the price of Pinduoduo is 12.9 yuan a pack. In terms of price, online shopping platforms have more advantages than physical supermarkets.

Even in the cheapest channel, a well-known brand sanitary napkin is 0.43 yuan, which is more than double the price of 0.2 yuan a piece of ordinary unknown brand sanitary napkins.

In terms of market competition, the sanitary napkin industry presents the characteristics of many brands and serious product homogeneity. According to market research data, well-known brands such as Sophie, Gaojiesi, Hushubao, etc., have established a high degree of market recognition through a large number of advertisements and brand building, accounting for 60%-70% of the market share.

Miscellaneous sanitary napkins rely on a low-price strategy to occupy the remaining market share.

In 2024, the automatic price comparison mechanism will become an important part of the development strategy of e-commerce platforms.

In 2024, Douyin e-commerce will clearly take "price power" as its core strategy, highlighting price elements through measures such as the layout of the industrial belt on the supply side, and the traffic tilt to cost-effective brands and consumer traffic guidance, and adding price tags on the merchant and user side pages to increase sales and user engagement.

Pinduoduo has launched an automated price matching system, which allows the platform to automatically adjust prices within the price range set by merchants to maintain a low price advantage.

E-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Taobao are also making similar strategic adjustments.

The automatic price comparison mechanism takes the low-price strategy to the extreme, making the merchant's profit thin enough to maintain the cost.

According to the data of the e-commerce platform, the proportion of sanitary napkin sales in e-commerce channels has increased year by year, and has now reached 30%-40%. In terms of price competition, the price reduction space that e-commerce platforms can achieve by compressing circulation links and improving efficiency is getting smaller and smaller, and the pressure of fighting low prices is finally given to the production link.

Some media have tracked the price trend of sanitary napkins in the past four years. 4 years ago, 54 pieces of sanitary napkins were 77.6 yuan, which is equivalent to 1.43 yuan for 1 piece of sanitary napkins. Today, even for some well-known brands, the online price is only 0.43 yuan per piece, and the price has dropped by as much as 69.9%.

Due to the simple production process, sanitary napkins are relatively easy to compare prices. In fact, the current situation of small and medium-sized sanitary napkin manufacturers surviving with small profits is just an example, and there are many physical factories facing a survival crisis under the profit squeeze of "platform pricing power".

It is difficult for brick-and-mortar businesses to move forward in the context of "mutual rolling".

Not only is the sanitary napkin industry "rolling each other", but the competition in other physical industries is also quite fierce.

As the largest small seafood enterprise in northern China, Qingdao Gangdong Haitian Food Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in the production of spicy small seafood and spicy sauce, with a revenue of nearly 10 million yuan last year, of which online sales accounted for 40%. Wen Cheng, the company's marketing director, said that the competition of Spicy Small Seafood on online platforms is also quite fierce. Their own brand "Spicy World Zhang Qi" sells a bottle of spicy crab claws online for about 25 yuan, and the factory price is about 10 yuan. The factory provides a dropshipping service, because of the need for cold chain distribution, ice bags, foam boxes and other logistics costs are as high as 10 yuan, in order to make the online sales store owners have enthusiasm, the factory can only try to give up their own profits, basically a bottle of spicy crab claws The profit of the factory is less than 1 yuan, and the profit margin is about 4%.

For books, the online low-price competition strategy is a common means of sales, a book sales anchor said that every time a live broadcast is opened, the best sales are still those low-priced books with price advantages, especially 9.9 yuan and other single-digit free shipping books are very popular. A book priced at about 50 yuan, sold in the live broadcast room at a 2% discount, is basically a loss to make money, a live broadcast, even if it is sold for tens of thousands of yuan, the profit is very small, and it is not enough for the publishing house to make any money.

The low price strategy is prevalent not only in industrial products, but also in the service industry.

Boss Su, the owner of the pot chicken shop in the No. 98 compound of Zhonghan Street, Laoshan District, also shook his head at Douyin's online group buying: "Now the catering volume is too powerful, and the 88 yuan 6-dish package we launched is almost selling at a loss, just to attract some customers, hoping to convert more repeat customers through the quality of the dishes, but the reality is that many consumers are here to buy wool, no matter what the taste of the dishes is, after eating this package, they will not come again, because there may be better wool waiting for them to go." Boss Su said that the store itself is located in a remote location, and if you don't do group buying, there will be almost no customers, but if you do, you feel that the people who come will not let you make money, which is really a dilemma.

The well-known pastry brand Dasheng Hutchison, in order to attract traffic, launched an online group buying activity of 1.9 yuan for 6 puffs. A puff maker at the Taitung store said that in order to ensure supply, he has been cramping his hands and feet recently. "The popularity of the store has increased a lot, but many consumers who come to line up only spend 1.9 yuan to buy 6 puffs and leave, and the cost of 6 puffs is more than 6 yuan now, basically losing two orders for every single sale." The clerk said.

The platform squeezes the profit margin of the supply chain with its dominant position in the industrial chain, resulting in more and more small and medium-sized business owners facing survival difficulties. The low-price model of e-commerce makes the market competition seriously involuted, and in the long run, it is likely that merchants will not be able to make money, factories will not be able to open, employee income will not be able to rise, consumers will not be able to buy good things, and they will enter a vicious circle, and it is the whole society that will pay in the end.

Reporter: Hao Lin