The 2012 Spring Festival, the Chairman and CEO of Red Children's company, Xu Xianxin, wrote in a letter to employees: "Cold winter for the practice has been practicing the internal strength of our will not have frostbite risk, the capital of the winter theory is very normal, for the active transformation and successful completion of the company, like a dredge up the road of congestion, Provides better driving opportunities, which is what I want you to know. ”
Red Children, the once the scenery Unlimited, the highest voice, annual growth rate of up to 300%, is considered the most likely to be the first listing of the mother and infant E-commerce companies, in many people think out of sight and deeply regret the outside voice of the more than two years of low-key. In the past few years, red children have also been "avoiding the edge" in the completion of their own major turn: With the end of the last quarter of 2011, the company started with the direct Mail directory to fully transform into a complete E-commerce company. Directory division, respectively, merged into the mother and child Han purchase marketing department, and the form of the catalogue will also bid farewell to sales function, and become the old customer precision marketing channels and tools.
at the same time, in addition to mother and infant, main cosmetics, food, home and other categories of "Plantronics Purchase Network" Independent on-line. The results of the figures show that the 2011 Red Children Company Cumulative breakthrough 4 million, sales of 1.5 billion yuan, mother and child accounted for 58%, Plantronics purchase accounted for 42% of the total.
relative to the volume and rate of growth of the child before Hom, this is not a particularly powerful figure, but the electrical appliance companies experience the Peak Valley and rhythm because the internet world has underestimated the rate of change and lost the best time, but also because it has run fast and make it large and not down, so that many people have a reference and imagination.
and the Red Kid Company is also in the low-key and convergence of return.
Internal Node
to Red Children's recovery, from red Children is a directory started business. Today, red children become an E-commerce company, the process is bound to encounter a lot of conflicts and challenges. Everybody seems to have a question, why does the red child not change early?
According to the people inside Red Children said, red children in fact, the earliest want to do E-commerce, 2004 was founded, just is Amazon market capitalisation, although believe that "let business electronic will certainly improve efficiency", but at that time did not understand methods and models, so from the directory started.
but from the microscopic market, the mother and child business has a natural problem. The child's consumption ability from 0-3 years old, actually from 1-Shing half although the user's stickiness is very strong, but the time is very short.
2007, Red Kids are strategically determined to expand their category, "Our category expansion is actually different from others to do category expansion, after two," Xu Xianxin, "one is that we take more products to meet the needs of children's mothers, such as the mother makeup, food to do, When there is a certain foundation, through makeup and food extended to unmarried women and let them become my clients, therefore, the strategy is no longer with the different mother and child industry to compete, but advance access to services, which is a company's established strategic issues; the other is from the mother and infant industry market angle, from the customer's stickiness, And how to serve the customer's point of view, to adjust the category decision and strategy, this is actually the second step of the development of red children. ”
the rapid expansion of the process, will certainly encounter a variety of imbalances, this is certain. Xu Xianxin also Blunt, as the enterprise grows bigger, this kind of trial and error cost is also getting higher. In the process of "converting from one category to many categories and doing vertical specialization in many categories", this "professionalism" is learned through trial and error.
Rapid category expansion, red children have been two of the category later proved to be a failure: drugs and luxury goods. Until today, Xu Xianxin saw the rise of some pharmaceutical electronic commerce, also will chujingshengqing think of the original trial and error, "Child cough tablets, easy to zinc although customers need, but we also need drug license plate, we gradually learned that this category is so standardized, norms to you can not do the whole country, online do and offline do completely different, The FDA requires the sale of local physical pharmacies. This operation, the enterprise's burden is growing. "he said. And the luxury is because and its own user base does not match the needs of the online 3 months to end the line.
in a sense, the electric circle of the wrong strategy is not much, but the strategy to implement a good few. "Although there is a trial and error, but I think from the big strategy, red children have nothing wrong." "But in implementing the strategy, it's really late for us to have the plane repaired," Xu Xianxin.
and a lot of senior electric dealers regret the same, red children's "electricity quotient transformation" is indeed a bit late.
in fact, until 2010, "catalog Sales" contributed 900 million yuan to the overall performance, accounting for 60% of total income. But when the industry's general trend is largely predictable, the company is clearly underestimating the speed at which the tide of the internet has changed. The sharp atrophy of DM, just let red children ready to quickly complete from the directory business to the Internet business transfer.
How do you turn? The traditional procurement system is deep-rooted, but the presentation of E-commerce is different, the original marketing cycle of the catalog is two months, and the electricity business site is a week or even shorter. A purchase of the time, should be the catalog of the sales inventory is a cycle, should be changed to the site, almost every day to start with the brand to carry out inventory, promotional methods, price communication.
therefore, under the double coercion is bound to import a new system, to complete the new round of Web site architecture and construction, as well as the introduction of Internet talent. At that time, when the new system framework, is the professional managers and the company's business, such as Daniel, and put into the project team to build a new system ... After several adjustments, constant overthrow and repetition, in addition to the "slow half beat", restricting the development of business, internal friction is difficult to conceal.
Fortunately, now the "directory" has not been completely stripped, but to become a communication with customers marketing tools, the company after the completion of the turn, but also in 2011 launched in the mother and child outside the other platform "Plantronics purchase network." At present, the Red Child Company's online business is walking on two legs, one is to maintain the main maternal and child products of the Red Children's website, the target customers for mothers, and the second is positioning in cosmetics, home, food, kitchen supplies and health products Plantronics Shopping mall, targeted at the age of a wider range of female groups.
Industry Deduction
Amazon's slump determines the company's founding genes, which is just the beginning. Red children These years of brilliance and dim, are inseparable from the industry trend and its strong force.
"I think the path of the red children has always been faster than others, we walked the road, others will walk." Xu Xianxin thinks so. The growth of the red child itself, and the whole development environment of electronic commerce, is a whole complement of logic and clues. If you draw an axis, you will find that in many steps and frequencies, the red child is actually a quick step, but because there is no grasp of the transformation of one of the most critical time nodes, lost the time before the cost and industry advantages.
2007, Red Children, who are doing the nationwide expansion, got their first investment. At that moment, the domestic e-commerce industry in the book category, because the mother and child supplies and the market has a new expectation, at that time no one to do scale expansion, the excitement of capital is just become the driving force to speed up the red children fast.
The following is the multiple-category expansion mentioned above. Just before the process was intense internal confrontation. Some founders think that should be intensive cultivation, can develop their own brand of diapers and bottles, and Xu Xianxin that should be extended by the category to drive the extension of the user's life cycle decision ideas and PK also caused a change and slowdown in the company and this time, Ali and Taobao and other words just wind.
in fact, in the electric business, for the red children in recent years in the business operation of the problems have a lot of legends and deduction, especially with the entry of capital, the founding team executives have left this part, this is bound to bring some public opinion of the soil. But Xu Xianxin does not care, "after a few years we look back, everything when the time is up, can be settled." ”
in Xu Xianxin's explanation, this 2009 is known as "professionalism" of the process, is Xu Xianxin want to let the company more retail gene, the future of better to the electricity business, "we are all in accordance with the established policy to go, there are assessment." Some people say that I am professional too early, I said everything is normal phenomenon, iron of the battalion plate running water soldiers. "But as one of the red Kids recently wrote on Weibo," the first thing that a company does at every major meeting is to applaud the old employees who have contributed. ”
's large environment was rapidly elevated in the 2009 and 2010, and the concept and market of e-commerce in the United States has matured. In order to control the business, red children are almost as professional as the SAP system. With huge sums of money to restructure the core business processes, the background of category management, commodity management, treasury operations, financial balances and other integration.
from 2010 to 2011, the peripheral environment seems to be in the "continuous addition": The Beijing-East in a large distribution of logistics, but the quality of goods and logistics customer complaints have encountered a lot of problems; and the category expansion of the customer has been a rapid expansion and inventory of the reflection The rise and fall of a large number of group buying companies have died because of the madness and cooling of capital.
in the Jing Dong van Daxing Logistics, Red children gave up the logistics of the part and completed the IT system reorganization, really turned into an e-commerce company; in the bus, elevator, TV is full of electric commercial advertising, and internet advertising on the price of the rising, The red child's budget is the board of Directors each quarter discussion orientation, and does not do the traffic advertisement, but will promote the expense to put on the new website "Plantronics buys" on.
Next
"In the current situation of electronic commerce, we do not think that great value, but strong and refined more valuable." Some people think we are dim, but from their own point of view is called Dodge. ”
Although Xu Xianxin has just issued a number of options internally in April, but in the eyes of the outside world, the red Child the company is gradually fading out of sight really low-key for 3 years, in the completion of the various adjustments and turn around, the beginning of 2011, red children with the accumulated 4 million or 5 million user groups began to do the brand, Now pay more attention to cultivate mother and child Han purchase of internal strength. "In this chaotic situation, we do not think that great value, is strong and refined more valuable, so we chose professionalism." Some people think we are dim, but from their own point of view is called Dodge. "Xu Xianxin said.
in his view, red Children's operating indicators are very good, even said that "better than others health." According to the Red child internal staff, although there are COO Chen Yu and CMO Tanaka and other general line leader, but the Xu Xianxin is still very concerned about the habits of various numbers, from the category of turnover rate, conversion rate, repeat purchase rate, logistics accounted for such figures, these meticulous indicators he has to measure. In these benign data rolling, it is understood that 2012 red child sales will reach 1.5 billion yuan.
"We are very idiosyncratic", Xu Xianxin told reporters that the characteristics embodied in several aspects, one aspect of the user's 90% is female; the second is to establish a strong relationship with consumers, the old customers to maintain at 70%; third, the professional, red children from the beginning of 2005 to build the community website, Now it's about more than 700,000 members. Now the trend of community-electronic commerce, red children have been deep in the years, but also proved the strategic vision.
at the same time, brand manufacturers can get his own user stickiness on the community website, and the growth, development and other data of Brand's Word-of-mouth. 2012, red children and the domestic top maternal and infant Professional magazine has set up a strategic cooperation framework, but also includes some such as mother said, childcare nets, baby trees and other maternal and child Professional forum. For red children, the goal of these collaborations is to combine manufacturers and users to maximize their benefits, "there is no direct competitive relationship, which is to do in-depth user marketing a very good alliance." "said the red child brand leader.
Xu Xianxin told reporters, but in advertising this piece, red children now is not a diversion mode, but all the promotional costs are based on brand promotion.
However, from the business level, red children Han purchase at this stage mainly by COO Chen Yu and CMO Tanaka led deep and meticulous operation. and Xu Xianxin at this stage of the task, is in the future play, it seems he has been in the higher level to consider the future of the enterprise path. Nearly 5-6 months time, Xu Xianxin Weekly has 3 days or so time to the company, other times, he ran Hong Kong, Shanghai, many places and people to discuss the great trend of communication industry.
in fact, from the external environment, the domestic electrical business of the cold winter, as well as the United States market for the electricity quotient, the current situation of stocks, what the next possible breakthrough, is a lot of people are very confused. For example, is it possible to take advantage of a merger or other game, whether it's Amazon and Zappos, or just the sweet potato merger episode. Video industry in the case of strong alliances, to get rid of the chaos emerged from the new oligarchy pattern. Everyone is guessing when the electricity business will be known.
These two years, the electric business industry has too many fireworks and the growth of smoke bombs, but are difficult to escape the cold winter and cleaning up, do the addition of the company has been the mainstream, it is rare to be quiet down to do subtraction. For the entire 2012 years, all the adjustment has been completed, how to maintain the advantages of mother and child, and how to use 2-3 years to do "Plantronics" brand building, and deep deep precision marketing is the key to the return of red children. However, in the face of a lot of constant internal friction, which led to the transfer of the Internet to the next step behind the people, red children lost the time to maintain the advantage of a lot of the front "fast people One step" of the time cost, which is always a regret. In many cases, the pace of alignment is more effective than one step.
