A letter from Epak
Dear everyone,
Hello! Today, we are pleased to tell you that a new food packaging platform is coming online, its name is "Epak".
Now, industrial development has become the focus, and the core trend of the future economy has changed from Internet-type expansion to industrial chain symbiosis, and in the interconnected long industrial chain, all forces are promoting the rise of ecology and industry.
Why do food packaging platforms
First, we focus on food packaging, because our start-up team has been deeply engaged in the food packaging industry for several decades. We have a lot of industry resources and practical experience, and a professional technical and marketing team; Secondly, it has advanced large-scale research and development base, and the strength is hard enough. We are well aware that food packaging is a very traditional industry, and in this vertical industry, there are chaotic circulation links, many distributors/traders formed a multi-tier distribution structure, and high logistics costs and complex product delivery. The number of manufacturing factories is large, small scale, and geographically dispersed (some regions cluster together to form "industrial clusters"), which simply cannot play the efficiency of large-scale production, and lack of funds to form various defects of innovation ability. In addition, the communication between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain based on telephone, fax, mail, corporate websites and other communication methods has also led to inadequate information interaction and low efficiency of the transaction process. As far as the development of the current Internet platform is concerned, the development of the consumer Internet has been close to saturation, and the industrial Internet focusing on the vertical industrial chain is likely to be prominent.
Establish a digital industrial supply chain platform, eliminate redundant transaction links in the industrial chain, and realize the great integration of procurement, production, storage, transportation, after-sales and other circulation links. Through the realization of online and digital transactions among transaction entities in the supply chain, as well as the integration of online transaction data and internal management data of enterprises, the operation cost of industrial supply chain can be significantly reduced. Improve the transaction efficiency of industrial supply chain. Finally, through the big data accumulated by transactions, artificial intelligence is formed to optimize the activities of each transaction body in the industrial chain and realize the overall optimization of the operating cost and efficiency of the industrial supply chain. Through the upgrading of traditional industries, the formation of industrial interconnection network. The scale of the food packaging industry is huge, so the value space of the development of industrial Internet is also very huge, and there is a broader space for development.
Initial market insight
The longer we stay in the food packaging industry, the more difficult we felt, the various links cannot run smoothly, and there are many pain points in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain that cannot be solved. Only by configuring the corresponding supply chain services can we promote the improvement of industrial collaborative efficiency, and ultimately optimize the allocation of resources and produce higher benefits, so as to promote industrial upgrading. The platform opens up the information flow (online order), commodity flow (online product purchase), logistics (online waybill delivery) and capital flow (online payment settlement) of the client and the supply side to achieve the maintenance of the balance of supply and demand, and each subject in the industrial chain has its own place and benefits, forming a clear multi-party win-win profit model.
Main contradictions on the client side:
Clients generally refer to distributors/traders/food company customers
1. Information asymmetry
Due to the large number of suppliers, it is difficult for users to obtain and master the information of all suppliers in a timely manner, resulting in asymmetric information, difficult to understand the real situation of suppliers, and weak information sharing, so it is difficult to make correct decisions.
2. Interaction inconvenience
Under the traditional manual management mode, the interaction between users and suppliers mainly relies on telephone, fax and other ways, which is inefficient.
3. Quality is difficult to control
The quality of food packaging products on the market is uneven, the after-sales service is poor (often unable to contact each other after payment), and it takes time to inspect different factories, often without extra time and energy.
4. The purchasing process is cumbersome
The procurement of supporting food packaging products often requires multiple factories to supply different components, there is no one-stop matching service, and the procurement process is a long cycle.
5. Gray price loss is difficult to control
Due to the existence of poor information in the industry, the same product is purchased in the same amount, and there may be more price differences in different factories.
6. Risk is difficult to control
Due to the large number of suppliers and complex supply chain, it is difficult for users to timely understand and grasp the risk situation of all suppliers, so it is difficult to take effective risk control measures.
7. Low satisfaction
Limited warehouse and logistics operations, uneven technical capabilities, and no customized B-end credit system led to low satisfaction.
Main pain points on the supply side:
The supply end refers to food packaging material factories and food packaging equipment factories
1. High production cost
Low industry concentration, upstream and downstream extrusion, rising raw materials, labor costs, etc., make the operation of packaging manufacturers increasingly difficult.
2. Industry resource sharing is weak
In the market structure of "big industry, multi-enterprise, small enterprise", there are fewer inter-industry contacts, and it is difficult to form a benign system of multi-factory collaboration, multi-party communication, capacity exchange, and joint innovation between industries.
3. Orders are unstable
The supply chain system is not sound, most of the small and medium-sized enterprise orders are subcontracted, the sales management chain is long, the order volume is unstable, the product profit is low, the production equipment is lacking, the order distribution between enterprises is uneven, and most factories have excess capacity.
4. Poor timeliness of market supply and demand
Diverse market demand, packaging enterprises slow response to upstream and downstream changes, slow industry turnover, low production efficiency and digital degree, information asymmetry, vulnerable to the market squeeze of other enterprises in the industry.
5. High knowledge barriers
Communication is a "work disease" that troubles employees in the food packaging industry, and the cost of communication in this line comes from professional knowledge barriers. A considerable number of sales and business people need to popularize food packaging knowledge, and the knowledge reserve in product and technology is very small. Most users are also more difficult to communicate, they have food packaging needs, but it can be seen that they do not understand food packaging when making plans.
Core benefits of platform users:
• Reduce procurement time cost: The entire procurement business flow of users is completed on the platform, simplifying the procurement business process and improving efficiency.
• Reduce procurement transaction costs: The platform bulk collection form, the price is reduced, greatly reducing the transaction costs of procurement business.
• Transparency and compliance: purchase order information is transmitted through the platform in a timely manner, and the business document flow of the entire procurement task can be queried, ensuring that the procurement execution process is visible, controllable, compliant and efficient.
• Improve supply efficiency: Build a supplier system, conduct dynamic evaluation and management of suppliers, complete the survival of the fittest, improve the quality of supply products, and finally achieve an effective closed-loop supplier management.
• Platform enablement: Provide high threshold standard product formulation and production SOP; Provide solutions to technical problems.
• Control the global supply chain: all systems within the platform deeply cooperate with each other, greatly improving the flexibility of the supply chain, and the global view is displayed in real time.
Epak brand original intention
Today's users are getting younger and younger, too many young people are entering the workplace, and entering this industry requires too much research and learning. So, we want to make it a little bit easier, at least from the supply side. Yes, that's what created epak, the digital food packaging industry supply chain platform.
So, we decided from the very beginning not to do a category brand, not a shrink film brand, not a shrink bag brand, not a MAP tray brand, but to do a new ecological model. But back to the food packaging industry, users have a very rich demand. Do we want to make purchasing that tedious for users? Can we enter a blind buy cannot make mistakes space? So, what we are doing is actually satisfying this increasingly younger user group who want convenience, so that they do not need to spend so much attention on research in this complex industry, at least on the supply side. Hope to meet the needs of this generation, the food packaging industry to do again. We have a wish that our platform is shared for the whole industry and creates value for the whole world. Our value practice lies in making the industry better, in cultivating and serving a large number of excellent practitioners and service providers, and in making users in the whole industry get a better service experience. Let more partners become a platform community, and let all partners in the industrial chain and the ecosystem who agree with us participate!
Based on the food packaging industry, Epak began to prepare for the "digital food packaging industry supply chain platform" in 2023, and officially launched in 2024. In the past year, we have experienced countless intense days and nights in order to launch the platform as scheduled. Two days ago, one of the cooperative merchants of the access platform pilot said, "The platform of this industry is really great! I couldn't even think about it before!" This sentence can move us for a long time, uplifting us for a long time. Only we know, to do the traditional industry, especially such a complex platform, how much determination is needed, how much investment is needed, we know that the supply chain platform will bring changes to the industry to users. The original intention of the enterprise is to help the food packaging industry better in the future, after many years of deep cultivation, we must have their own value!
Epak's anticipation
Epak will open resources and online capabilities, gather and empower quality service providers in the whole industry, create a convenient food packaging service ecology, including food packaging material joint distribution, food packaging equipment joint distribution, food packaging talent sharing, etiquette food joint distribution; Food packaging innovation and promotion, packaging food innovation and promotion, professional technical support and guidance, professional and technical personnel training and transportation of a full range of food packaging services.
Epak will continue to upgrade the platform supply chain system's product technology, quality control and data mining and other advantages, continue to iterate "food packaging dictionary", develop "AI online food packaging" and other innovative technical means, to provide users with a better service experience, through the visualization of online transaction process, offline closed-loop service and platform commitment, Provide security for more users;
Epak will also build a credit evaluation system for service providers, select quality service providers for users, and enable quality service providers and brands to develop better in the platform ecosystem through the empowerment of marketing, operation, supply chain, technical data, finance, trading and other perspectives.
Back in our own organizations, we need to iterate at a higher rate. Every single one of us, every organization, needs to ask ourselves a question every day: What value are we creating for whom? We will become a network organization, each module is a node on the network, discover users, locate value, create value, harvest value!
Epak
April 28, 2024
