Diamond O2O: A trap under the Halo

Now the diamond business is bitter! "Diamond-focused Opel Jewelry Network Marketing director Liu Zongyuan exclaimed." If you go now ask those who do diamond e-commerce companies, no one will not complain, thin margins, low turnover, promotion fees, labor costs are rising, business difficult to do. Liu Zongyuan around the name has fallen more than 10 diamond O2O sellers. Liu Zongyuan has been in the jewellery business for more than five years at Opel, and his company has taken over some of the other diamond jewellery e-commerce companies over the years. These employees told him that the situation is consistent with his judgment: if not on the Internet to do the promotion, business will be very bleak, almost no source, turnover is lower than the imagination. This area has attracted a lot of angels and investment institutions, in addition to VCs, there are China's private capital, as well as diamond dealers and diamond processing industry funds. Those who enthusiastically joined in the Diamond O2O, a small investment of millions of yuan, a large hundreds of millions of yuan. Diamond E-commerce, which has been a promising investment in countless people, is experiencing a big ebb. Is it a tragic fate determined by the characteristics of the diamond industry, or is the diamond O2O a false proposition? Besides the few "behind" companies, such as the sang, the Diamond birds, and the giants such as Chow Tai Fook and the other, do other imitators still have a chance to survive? The beautiful story of Diamond O2O in former diamond buildings began as follows: In the past, the price of diamond ornaments in big shopping malls was 30%~40%. E-commerce can help businesses to save the store costs, warehouses can also find cheap remote areas, so you can subtract two large costs, so that the cost of diamonds down. Online sales of diamonds can cover the whole country, from the origin of diamonds directly to take goods, less intermediate links, by virtue of low-cost consumers from the line to attract online. Because the diamond is too expensive, the general people do not dare to pay the purchase online, so to build online experience shop, through the online site to the online experience shop to complete the service and deal. Experience Shop is the standard of Diamond O2O Company, site location is better, people want to be big, style to high-grade, customers want to bag in the solid. The Victoria Square at the junction of Guangzhou Tianhe Road and Sports West Road is the witness and epitome of the ebb and flow of the whole diamond O2O industry. It is the most expensive five-star office in Guangzhou, the past four or five years has experienced ups and downs: the most sought-after when more than 10 diamond O2O companies here to Rob location open shop, a block packed into B block, Rent also rose to 130 yuan per square metre, when Shiko Blue Diamond want to enter the Victoria Square has not been able to grab the position, and the next office price is also at 105 yuan per square meter. 2009 and 2010, when Victoria Square reached its peak, the entire office in two or three floors are a diamond e-commerce companies occupy, every so often three hundred or four hundred square meters of storefront, the deep pockets of a once rented a floor, which makes the shop Victoria Square, a hard shop, is called "Diamond building." The diamond O2O companies have also decorated the shops, from the traditional jewelry stores dug up the service staff, and some even in theHas built a luxurious VIP cinema. In fact, not only is Guangzhou, at that time all over the country appeared "Diamond Building"-Shanghai's Place square, the Nanjing Trade Circle and the Hangzhou department store opposite the office building all became the O2O diamond Merchant's battleground, a later step can not rent to the storefront. Guo Diamond CEO of the year called Diamond Investment, the country has more than 300 diamond O2O e-commerce companies. But by the year 2012, only three of the Victoria Square after the tide receded--Opel, Diamond Birds and Jin. Leaving the diamond shop mostly has been unable to contact, the first half of this year out of the drilling more, Zho Shwai also reluctant to say, a diamond O2O company to answer the phone staff told the newspaper, the company now only two people left. What is the excessive optimism that has hit the diamond miners? Liu Zongyuan said, the industry is popular when those who are not e-commerce practitioners, many of them are large domestic diamond dealers and diamond processing factory private companies boss, they see the diamond E-commerce is too simple-think of their own resources, as long as a business E-commerce Web site can be done. But this is not the case, they do not know to advertise, opening two or three months almost no business, and then they began to try to advertise, but the choice is the subway and the ground, the effect is very little. At that time, Guo, the CEO of the Diamond Net, saw most of the private companies in the diamond building, with small bosses, real estate investors and a handful of brokerage backgrounds. But they earn some money, they want to do the diamond business, but can not afford a long-term advertising campaign, once found business lost, quickly retreat, such a few people. At that time, several diamond dealers came online every month. In Guo's view, O2O's first o refers to online user outreach capabilities, the second offline is to rely on the production and processing capacity under the line. At that time, among his competitors, there are a lot of young people out of business to do the Internet, online do not know how to sell, unable to grasp the user, offline production, not stable supply, such companies are the first batch of the elimination of the next elimination is the line has a diamond resources background of the company. Now, both types of people are basically washed away. Diamond has been considered to be the most suitable for e-commerce products, it does not need to do product education, customer unit Price high, small size, easy to logistics and distribution, marriage must be strong demand. But its upper reaches are in the hands of the four big diamond families of the original origin, the price is low and the supply is in the control of others, the prices of the domestic diamond are almost the same. But the electronic commerce brings the supply channel the flattening, not only lets the dealer not have the market, also let the price information transparent can not escape-the diamond ring in addition to the style, the same quality of diamonds no other value-added and poured into the core competitiveness of the place, product homogeneity is very serious, only the price war, profits are cut very thin. Another important factor is the Internet E-commerce game rules-Network advertising marketing not only high cost, but also water depth. In fact from 2010-the first half of 2012 was electronic commerceRapid expansion, Analysys International analyst Zijianzhe said that in the third quarter of this year's TMT investment, E-commerce investment accounted for 35.5% of the total, far beyond the other categories. Such a concentration of violent e-commerce investment has pushed up the price of online advertising, navigation site home page location Price climbed, the single click of the search advertising price is also rising. According to one industry personage, the Diamond electric dealer should maintain a basic operation and low profit, every month official online effective Click to maintain at least 10,000 times, and two thousand or three thousand of them are converted into real orders to maintain operation, and now Baidu on the average of one click Price is 1.8 yuan, some keywords are more expensive. In fact, many of the dealers to pull out of the diamond building do not know how to do online marketing, so they are in the diamond building filled with easy to pull Bao ads, competing for other from the line into the line of tourists, diamond building "porridge" less monks. The new crocodile sadly left the space to be filled immediately--although the number of industry from the so-called more than 2000 sharply down to 3,500, but the company's CEO Guo, the Diamond electric Trader's investment tide has just begun, industry integration is far from over. The new giants come from the bottom line, such as Chow Tai Fook and Zhousengshen. In recent years, the domestic jewelry industry giants Chow Tai Fook, Zhousengshen, etc. also began to net, in addition to High-profile in Taobao Mall, Amazon and Suning easy to buy E-commerce platform, Chow Tai Fook also opened its own platform for the business. However, in the day of the cat mall waiting for them is about 150 of the diamond shop. In fact, after the price wars of the past two years, the remaining strength of the diamond O2O business is not much. Diamond Bird Line has a better layout, the orchid is Tencent's fancy, and then hit the next about 50 million investment, let the Ke Lan has a strong capital and flow "backer." But the new war is brewing between the traditional jewellery industry and O2O diamond dealers. This year's situation is even more grim. Guo revealed that the marriage industry is a barometer of the consumer industry this year, the traditional jewelry sales are relatively bleak, they have so far probably only completed the early five or six of the plan. But this does not mean that high-end consumer demand has disappeared, but because of the economic uncertainty, people married to the diamond budget cut, but do not want to sacrifice quality, so go to the Internet channel, so high-end sales place under more pressure, so the goal is to increase 20%. This also exacerbated the traditional jewelry industry net urgency. According to an online diamond O2O Market manager revealed that this year's traditional high-end store pressure is very large, general shopping malls in the monthly rent to 300,000-400,000 yuan, then a store to sell to 2 million yuan to achieve profitability. And the best Chow Tai Fook one months to sell 4 million or 5 million yuan, there must be continued advertising. According to Analysys International forecasts, China is the second largest diamond consumer market after the United States, the annual number of marriages in the country has about 25 million people, for a new generation of generations and freshmen, diamond ring and related ornaments gradually became a necessary consumption of the wedding, in addition to diamond jewelry jewelry and investment value function. FutureIn five years, China's diamond power market will usher in tens of billions of market size.