Group Buying is full. Is o2o just a joke?

After years of "fermentation", the group buying habits of most users have been developed. The price difference between a single movie ticket purchase and direct on-site purchase is more than doubled, of course, the other situations in the o2o field are similar. In the face of obvious "discounts", users are certainly willing to use the group buying service.

Many people are used to regard o2o as a closed loop, from online payment to all online purchase activities, and then return to offline for consumption. Experts believe that the user does not leave this entire industry chain is a complete closed loop. The closed loop is a pseudo proposition, because no link is seamless, from the online and offline links, from users' personal habits to the defects of online and offline products, it is impossible to form a closed loop.

In the o2o service industry chain, group buying is seen as a very important part. It is not indispensable, but the o2o industry chain with group buying services will increase user stickiness in the entire o2o chain.

Most o2o online services (author's Public Account: Guo Jing's Internet circle), including payment, purchase, and selection, can satisfy users' needs. Among the core o2o services, offline services are not as advanced and enlightened as online services. On the contrary, o2o is lagging behind when it returns to the offline stage.

A considerable number of users have reported that, although many merchants have also launched the group buying service, in actual operation, if there are holidays or large passenger flows, offline service personnel will directly prompt users with restrictions such as "group buying is full or group buying must be booked". To a certain extent, they will adopt measures to restrict the use of group buying. The actual situation is, there is still a lot of room for booking, which is more obvious on holidays.

Let's analyze several roles in the group buying process:

Seller: the benefit is king. First, group buying has several functions for sellers. The first is to expand the Enterprise Brand, the second is to bring direct sales, and the third is to increase the customer retention rate. When offline services are saturated, sellers are reluctant to include group purchases. group purchases are cheaper than physical purchases, and sellers earn less profits, no one is here, so group buying is just a false one.

When there is an empty window for offline services, group buying is required to bring sales and popularity. In the entire structure, merchants play the inherent nature of merchants and focus only on their own interests.

Group purchase Website: innocent victims. The Group Buying website is a link between users and offline businesses. It is similar to the nature of "intermediary". Of course, the Group Buying website has more features than ordinary intermediary companies. On the other hand, as the competition for group buying websites intensifies, the competition for group buying websites for merchant resources is fierce, and the competition based on kickback "points" directly starts a price war. In the competition for precious offline merchant resources, the Group Buying website must follow the path of offline merchants.

Next, users' purchases are directly connected to the Group Buying website. The final results of offline user complaints will be fed back to the group buying website. Similar to rongmiao, the user is obviously not a good service provider.

User: powerless resistance. The purpose of group buying is to offer more discounts, but is "greedy and cheap" so greedy? Is offline sellers so kind? Obviously, most sellers are unfriendly. At least in the face of Saturated traffic, Group Buying users are not expected to be seen.

Therefore, in the face of situations such as full group buying or pre-booking, users cannot resist. the only platform that can complain is the group buying platform, however, the group buying websites and offline merchants are "wearing a pair of trousers", and offline merchants are not managed by the group buying websites at all. Users can easily "complain ".

According to the 33rd China Internet Development Statistics Report released by CNNIC, the number of group buying users in China reached 2013 in 0.141 billion, and the utilization rate of group buying was 22.8%, an increase of 2012 age points compared with that in 8.0, users grow by 68.9% per year, which is the fastest growing business application.

The o2o industry chain without group buying is incomplete, but the problems exposed by group buying in its own o2o service process cannot be ignored. Similarly, for the entire o2o environment, the biggest problem with o2o is exposed. Offline services that are lagging behind and can't keep up with the rapidly growing online services.

The Group Buying problem is just a small microcosm of o2o in offline services. Other problems include the offline merchant's own environment (for example, a restaurant that is clearly broken but looks good at pictures, there are too many differences between photos and objects) and offline services (basic services such as eating meals and attitudes of waiters are also very important) offline physical product problems (for example, if a group purchases a dish may encounter a "shortage of two"). offline is the core of o2o services, in the end, users still have to return to the taste of the coffee shop and the overall service environment. The channel advantages and payment advantages provided online become misleading.

From this point of view, o2o seems to have become a joke, which is purely a comfort for the online environment. The offline pace is completely "self-control", without the offline link, can o2o be called o2o?

Therefore, in order for o2o to truly develop, we must first have a good offline service quality, including product quality and service quality, which can be improved. As for online payment and group buying, you can keep up with the pace of the two, to avoid a single offline "contract destruction.

From: http://it.sohu.com/20140321/n396967597.shtml