Surpassing competition (4) Case study: the niche myth of Douban's Chinese Internet

"Niche" is the translation of niche. A niche market refers to some market segments that are usually ignored by large enterprises. A niche market strategy refers to the strategy adopted by enterprises to occupy these markets through professional operation, so as to maximize profits. Under the conditions of a market economy, some enterprises focus on a specific segment of the market. They do not compete with strong enterprises and "Don't take eggs and stones ", instead, it occupies a favorable market position through professional operation and cutting-in, which can be called a niche market.

Douban douban.com is a website for books, audio and video, and movie reviews. Many people have analyzed Douban's various aspects. So I will analyze Douban's model from the perspective of competition. Douban is a successful website. Although there are many copywriters, I don't think anyone will surpass Douban, because it seems that the formation of intangible barriers to competition is already very high. So I will focus on the factors that can make him a successful competitor:

1. the market Pioneer has a certain leading advantage. Douban was born with the emergence of web in China. At that time, its style was indeed different and had a strong innovation, so Douban has always been admired by others, and it has some inherent advantages, which are not available to later users.

2. the special nature of the cultural industry, limited market scale, and limited capacity to accommodate competitors. China has the largest population in the world, but how many people love reading? How many books and surfing the Internet are there? How many Douban products are available on the Internet? A friend made statistics and finally estimated that the final population was 5-10 million, which is exactly the current development of Douban. In such a large market, Douban has done a good job, so it is certain that imitation and copywriting are difficult.

3. Conflicts in brand images prevent competitors. Sina, maopu, and qiku all copy Douban. Sina and maopu make a topic, which belongs to the value-added services of the portal. Due to brand conflicts, they cannot develop on a scale. However, the effect of copying a complete Douban is still unclear after some time. Monographs can certainly bring about market opportunities and deepen the market segments, rather than expand.

4. The network Matthew effect is becoming more and more obvious. The more users Douban has, the more people they attract, and the more together they gather. The development of imitation, after losing all kinds of competitive advantages, is exactly the opposite of this situation. Users are also reluctant to switch to websites with potential counterfeits.

5. Conflicting direction decisions impede competitors. A strong competitor rarely thinks about making a Douban, and the transformation has to pay a painful price. Web means a revolution. However, traditional websites are likely to be "old-fashioned ". Although qianniu failed to buy Douban, maopu only added a channel because it made a single Douban. In the face of the public market, the hacker's ugly name and user group conflict, and how much money should be invested to see the results? The most important thing is that even if all are done, it may not create value. The 5q is different from that of qianrubber. The market is completely different.

6. The last thing is the value of word of mouth. Douban is already a typical case of word-of-mouth marketing. If a company can create reputation value, it will be very difficult for competition.

This is why it is difficult for us to see that the imitators of Douban can produce obvious results, because the operation and strategy are a system engineering that requires enterprises not only to properly lock every strategic element, they must also be combined into a unified system to achieve value innovation. It is not a piece of cake to imitate such a system.

Douban is a website with a longer development time, more users, a more intense atmosphere, and a stronger concentration. However, the market is relatively narrower than other fields, and it is also a special cultural field, so it is very likely that Douban is a very competitive website. Although many people can see it now, it is essentially in depth to achieve true competition. However, in this case, Douban may be the only one, but other fields are completely different.