China's e-commerce industry warning: bubble Devil is approaching

Sin Yuan Wei Shanghai reports Pandora's Box has quietly opened, bubble this demon is approaching the jubilant Chinese E-commerce industry. Following the "Happy group purchase" cut off hundreds employees, "high peer net" layoff 25%, there is a benchmark status of the customer prudential products have also made a decision to lay off 5%. For the mass layoffs, all customers have been taking "no comment" attitude.　　The industry has concluded that there is no doubt about its internal cost-cutting and preparation for IPOs.　　This, perhaps is the Chinese electric business environment A sign of a precipitous downturn. In the past two years, once conservative, steady development of China's e-commerce suddenly like to be injected "catalyst", from the business model development, to the financing environment are ushered in an unprecedented spring.　　But behind hope is greed, false exuberance and vicious competition. "At present, a lot of corporate marketing costs have accounted for 30% of total revenue."　　"The CEO of the E-commerce company, who did not want to be named, told reporters that this led to a push in the profit schedule of many electric companies." "High flow access costs", "marketing costs over marketing" and "the phenomenon of a serious clique" and other like a cancer eating away at the healthy development of electricity business.　　Bubble has become an unavoidable fact in China's electric industry. Along with this year, the sudden change of overseas capital market, the tightening of the financing window of the US listing, investors and electric dealers are beginning to reflect on the changes　　According to the reporter understand, considering the electricity business investment return may be reduced, a few VC, PE has begun to turn the main eye to the wireless internet. "We and Baidu navigation station 123 talk about cooperation, monthly need to pay 700,000 yuan, once we think this price has been too high." But did not think, buy a website to come in, direct the price to raise to 2.7 million yuan/month.　　A CEO who declined to be named complained to reporters. China's e-commerce accounted for China's total social retail product penetration rate of less than 2%, while the United States, Korea, Japan and other developed countries generally 7%-10%.　　The huge space of imagination attracts a lot of investment, and the booming of the electric business eventually turns into overheating, and the most obvious performance is the rising cost of traffic. According to the reporter understands, the electric dealer puts on the on-line marketing channel mainly has three kinds of ways: The Network Alliance, the navigation bar and the search engine keyword purchase.　　Among them, navigation bar and search engine keyword by several monopolies, the cost is high. Industry insiders told reporters that the navigation bar advertising prices are doubling every quarter of the speed of growth, to the third quarter of this year, the price of the navigation bar has been the first quarter of 8 times times.　　According to some e-commerce companies, through the navigation bar to obtain new customers the cost of more than 100 yuan/bit. Baidu and Google as the representative of the keyword purchase cost is also high, the average acquisition of the cost of a new customer is about 80-90 yuan/bit. However, this part of the launch can be based on the site's own needs to do dynamic adjustment.　　The person said.　　Network Alliance, because it is a number of Web sites, to obtain relatively reasonable and low-cost, the cost of new customers about 30-50 yuan/bit. The rising cost of online marketing has made it possible for electricity dealersMiserable。 Dangdang CEO Guoqing even in 2011 sent on behalf of E-commerce Forum on the participants nearly thousands of peer-blasting: "Baidu hao123 such an expensive fee, still stay there Why?" "In addition, according to the reporter understands, because unbearable Portal website banner Display class advertisement high cost, expect in the fourth quarter of this year, most electric dealers will abandon this field of investment."　　and offline outdoor advertising, due to input-output ratio difficult to calculate, in addition to a few new entrants to this favor, Beijing-east, Fank and other large electric dealers also tend to cautious, gradually less put. Still, this does not reduce the cost of advertising and marketing for some electric dealers. For example, the 2010-year advertising volume of about 400 million yuan, sales of about 3 billion yuan.　　But at the beginning of this year, every customer Prudential product CEO aged claims, 2011 marketing costs will reach 1 billion yuan, sales to 10 billion yuan. This is a double-edged sword. Huge advertising spending can lead to sales growth.　　However, excessive advertising spending may squeeze the purchase costs and product quality of customers, but also affect the profitability of e-commerce companies. It is understood that at present, China's main e-commerce is difficult to achieve profitability. Jingdong Mall first to achieve profitability also need to wait until 2012.　　Already listed Dangdang, the second quarter of this year net loss of 4.4 million U.S. dollars, the year-on-year increase of 60%. It is undeniable that this kind of light burning money does not make money is to drag down the competitiveness of the electricity business. Electricity dealers are also beginning to think of cutting costs in disguise, and layoffs are one of the important measures. This March, the size of the guest staff reached 6000 people. With a 5% job cut, the layoffs will cut 300 people.　　In accordance with the monthly salary of 4000 yuan per employee, every customer save at least 1.2 million yuan per month. In addition, the reporter learned that the early this year, the business sector frequently burst into high pay-digging, the beginning of the year, salary premium ability gradually tightened. A person in the industry told reporters, "want to switch to the electric business people will basically choose to finish in the year, because by the end of this year, the situation is completely different." "For companies that want to finance, they will try to do it as much as possible this year," he said.　　By the end of this year, I'm afraid it will be difficult.　　In fact, the madness of electronic commerce in the past two years is inseparable from the fuelling of capital.　　According to China e-Commerce Research Center monitoring: 2011 1-June e-commerce (including business and Business-to-business, excluding online group buying) has disclosed 44 investment and financing, of which 42 of venture capital, the total amount of more than 1.83 billion U.S. dollars, 2 IPOs are in the domestic gem, a total of 837 million yuan. "At the end of last year, we looked at the project every day and saw a lot of electrical business projects." "A person engaged in the venture told reporters. At that time, the electric dealer has become the standard of the VCs, who did not invest in E-commerce, who will miss the next High-profile star. He told reporters: "Now we feel that the electricity business investment opportunities are not much, began to more biased wireless internet." "This round of electricity dealer's crazy circle Money starts from every customer sincerity product 2008 years of financing." Most electric companiesA round of financing is mainly concentrated in the second half of 2009, the first half of 2010, the amount of financing is generally 20 million yuan, the second round of financing to reach about 20 million to 40 million yuan, the third round of financing basically more than 100 million yuan.　　At present, more than 40 electric companies, including diamond birds, wheat bags, Amoy, Massamasso and Dunhuang nets, have received two rounds or more rounds of investment.　　But with the ups and downs of US capital markets, the credit crisis broke out in April this year, and after the US debt crisis triggered a global stock market slump, the window to the U.S. listing is tightening and the financing environment for E-commerce is deteriorating. "The turmoil in the public market has some impact on investors ' mentality, for example, when it comes to making a provision, it's more hesitant." Valuations are also more conservative.　　"Ecapital Capital CEO ran that China's e-commerce sector has become more rational than it was six months ago." It is understood that in the past two years, VCs in the investment in E-commerce companies mainly for its sales, market rankings, team operating capacity and industry space and other factors to consider. "In the process of financing, the situation will be different, there is no specific calculation ratio." However, according to the current situation, if the company expects operating income of more than 100 million yuan this year, investment in the first half of this year is expected to gain investment of 150 million yuan, if expected next year revenue will exceed 500 million yuan, the second half of this year or will melt to 500.08 billion unequal scale of investment.　　An insider told reporters. "For the electrical business, the annual operating income of 100 million, 500 million or 1 billion yuan, are different thresholds."　　"The person told the reporter, each break through a bottleneck, the late need to pry the market lever of funds relative reduction." But, compared with previous madness, electricity dealers and investors are aware that not all areas are suitable for e-commerce. "In fact, the development opportunities in the field of E-commerce are not as big as they think," said a CEO of the company, who declined to be named. "In the past year, in addition to 3 C, clothing and footwear and other fields, in different segments of the rise of electric companies, including alcohol, food, decoration and building materials." "However, in some areas, its return costs are too high, the fund Yahuo phenomenon is serious, not suitable for all to do the business."　　The person said. "There are already more than 50 Chinese Internet companies listed in the US," said Donshau, managing director of Qiming venture. When new companies come on the market, U.S. investors will compare the shares of Internet companies, if the new business can not be shaken or replaced, even if you do a good job, the U.S. investors will not bother.　　"In other words, the water capacity in the pool is limited, and when more containers are available to divide and grab, the difficulty of jostling is increased." Reporter learned that the current electronic business financing difficulty has been greatly increased. An industry insider told reporters: "For companies that want to raise capital, they will try to finish it this year." By the end of this year, I'm afraid it will be difficult. "And for companies that have not yet made a third round of financing, their development willDifficult step.　　New spoiler for the advent of the bubble, the electrical appliances business mentality is different, some people look forward to, some people are nervous, but also someone actively looking for new ideas and development methods. The most noteworthy is that Sina, Tencent and other large internet companies in the aggravating. Wu Yu, senior vice president of Tencent, said in an interview: "We have begun to think about how to help the electrical business not only rely on search to obtain traffic, but also from the social network to obtain more efficient traffic." "Social networking sites are a strong place for Tencent. It is understood that, if the pure according to exposure, QQ daily exposure more than 30 billion, Tencent Web page traffic added up to more than 8 billion, wireless Internet traffic is about 15 billion. Besides, the flow of SNS is about 3 billion.　　If its flow is fully utilized in the field of E-commerce, its volume and size can not be underestimated. Wu Yu Light said: "We note that the original Internet companies are strong and strong phenomenon, and later it is difficult to break the monopoly advantage of the first-time person." However, in the field of E-commerce, the entire industrial chain is very different. Although Taobao still occupies a strong advantage, however, can not block the rise of the unique experience of vertical. "It is understood that Tencent network is planning to promote the development of e-commerce in three areas."　　The first is to launch a new Business-to-consumer mall in the fourth quarter of this year, with the current large number of operators to provide a one-stop electronic business platform; the second is to provide a more open module to improve the conversion rate of the entire electrical quotient; third, through the opening of wireless traffic, to strengthen cooperation with the electrical business. In addition, in the 2011-year Internet Conference held a week ago, Sina CEO Charles Chao said Sina would try not to rely on logistics for "light e-commerce" such as virtual goods sales. At present, Sina and Jingdong Mall has become a "strategic partner", the introduction of direct-click Shopping Enterprise version of Weibo.　　This March, Sina announced that it would spend 66 million dollars to buy 19% of its shares. For the already dominant companies, they expect bubbles to burst soon. Lok Tao Network CEO Bi Sheng to reporters: "We hope that the bubble burst as soon as possible, only so that the market can enter a stable and healthy development."　　"At present, Lok Amoy Network in China's footwear industry first camp, but subject to the high cost of marketing, as well as talent, the market" burning money war "obsession, the company needs to constantly explore new market opportunities, including wireless internet, the former shop after the factory and other business models. The early bursting of the bubble will allow a group of potential competitors to be eliminated as soon as possible, and marketing costs will not grow as the new entrants drive up.　　In the market stability, in the market in the dominant position of enterprises can deepen the product and service quality improvement and development. And for the lack of financing, and desperately forward to the electric business enterprises, their days are the most difficult. "The companies that have been Donshau have begun to prepare for the winter," he said. But the company that has not yet melted into the C-round investment is harder. Although some of the most daring CEOs continue to scale, but more companies will try to keep the cash flow flat. And, to be honest, investors are wary of a C-round financing. In other words, China's electricity dealers are now more rational and cautious than they were in the past two years when they were "making a profit", "being King of the scale" and "capitalizing on speed". Share to: