The Last Mile is Never as Simple as It Seems
This post was prompted by a recent personal e-commerce experience. I ordered a large home appliance from a domestic 3C e-commerce platform that prides itself on exceptional service (let’s refer to them as “E-commerce JD”). Unfortunately, the delivery process turned out to be an absolute disaster, completely ruining the entire shopping experience. Afterward, I filed feedback with customer service. They apologized profusely with great sincerity—but what’s the point? I will never use JD to buy large appliances again.
More often than not, we politely explain this as “one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch” (or a single fish ruining the soup). But if you think about it, the root cause is that JD outsourced their large-appliance logistics simply because they lacked the expertise or capacity in that specific area. They did this to keep logistics from bottlenecking their core growth. However, because the outsourced company has a completely different corporate background, culture, and profit incentive, their service quality falls drastically short of JD’s official standards—ultimately leading to the nightmare scenario I experienced.
Tech folks love using Apple as an example, so let me jump on that bandwagon too. Think about it: Apple designs the iPhone without owning a massive network of physical hardware assembly lines, yet they manage to set the global industry standard for build quality. The secret lies in their supply chain management—which isn’t just about managing upstream and downstream vendors, but rather behaves like a rigorous engineering discipline backed by solid scientific methodologies. Unfortunately, this is not the typical way business is done in the domestic market here. What do we get instead? Start like a tiger, end like a snake (虎头蛇尾). Everything starts beautifully, but the chronic failure to maintain consistent product or service quality is what we see in the short term.
Another defining characteristic of the Internet is its borderless nature; any superior product or service will silently and inevitably phase out outdated, inefficient business models. When the bubble is expanding, no one notices this threat. But now that the winter chill has hit many sectors, if companies continue to ignore product/service refinement and quality consistency, the footsteps of spring may not arrive anytime soon.
To bring things back to earth, let’s look at traditional manufacturing. The massive wave of domestic consumers traveling abroad to buy goods—particularly the recent craze for shopping in Japan—highlights the competitive bottleneck of domestic goods. There is massive room for improvement in refinement and user-centric design; in other words, the current state is quite terrible. This kind of transformation theoretically requires the market’s “invisible hand” to operate, but under our current economic climate and collective public consciousness, it’s virtually impossible for that hand to work effectively.
As the saying goes, market inefficiencies represent massive opportunities. I hope this post offers some food for thought to more people…