A shopping guide is a good business, but it's hard to do.

NetEase column authors fly to write a "shopping guide is a good business but difficult to do", this is a good business, but for three reasons it may not be a big deal (flying does not mean that this is about the value or the amount of revenue). He cited three reasons: "First, to change the size of money to pursue the ultimate speed of the development model; Two, premature aroused the vigilance of Taobao; third, VC overweight participation, team pressure. ”

First look at why the social shopping guide on the rise. This question I and stroll the founder, is also former Ali employee White Raven chatted. He gave me an example: just across the street, the market for buying all kinds of fishing gear. On this side of the street, some people say that the hook is good. But running across the street, some people say that a good hook you are going to suspect: is not which store salesman?

This example is the same in the field of electrical business. You are in a forum to see a product of praise, and you see Taobao on a product of praise, trust is not the same. If you can add a little bit like a weak relationship of the so-called friends, the degree of trust is different. Social Shopping Guide basically belongs to the street opposite a speech market, not in the trading market, which is a social shopping guide can be set up a very important reason.

However, the social shopping site to be very wary of businessmen running this speech market too much active marketing (or five Mao Navy). The White Raven himself has a little abhorrence of this aspect. The market will be destroyed by the marketing force, and the cornerstone of the social shopping guide can no longer exist, and then there will be no more.

So I asked, if so, why can be molded more famous is beautiful said Mushroom street, there is no second beautiful said the second mushroom street possible? The problem is a little more complicated.

E-commerce Three streams: information flow, cash flow and logistics. In general, we will think that the flow of information has been resolved, and cash flow has been basically solved with the help of third-party payment tools such as Alipay. Now the bottleneck of the electrical business in logistics, so whether Ali or Jingdong, are beginning to focus on logistics. But in fact, the problem of information flow has not been solved.

Look at Taobao (or Jingdong, Amazon, China, etc.) page, is roughly a "library classification" style of the channel set column structure. The product category is doing this, through a set of keyword system, the same goods may appear in different categories, but basically, this classification method is more rigid. And this kind of rigid classification, if the commodity is not much, is enough to use. But when the mass supply of goods, there will be problems. This is just like the early web site is not much, Yahoo that kind of directory-style Web site can reign over the moment, but a lot of sites after the directory site can not meet the demand. Today, the global hundreds of millions of web sites, to get the directory index, is almost impossible to complete the task.

So the search engine appeared. In the same way, the Big electric Dealer's website also needs the help of the search bar, in order to facilitate the buyer to quickly find what they want. However, the question is again, how should the seller's things be sorted into columns? Search engine using the so-called PR algorithm (Web page importance), the electrical business search inside, how to complete?

Taobao is basically based on the rules that are related to its business model. If you sell a lot of goods, you can be in front of the line, or the seller will buy the key word, you can list it ahead. The problem with this approach is that the big sellers will lean ahead and the small sellers (which cannot sell too much or have no money to buy the keyword) will not be able to do so. In the same nature, which item in the channel column can be listed in the front? It still leans to the big seller.

Taobao is difficult to change this way, a search or channel column page, those and advertising revenue closely related. Secondly, even if Taobao big hearted, do not want to make this money, you let it how to arrange the goods?

This is a very different place between the electric dealer and the offline merchant. Again big shopping mall, can not have big electric quotient such quantity big enough to use "massive" to describe supply quantity. It is certainly a learning business how to display goods under the line, but this knowledge is far less complicated than the electrical business.

White Crow said, Taobao a few years ago, one of the biggest mistakes is: no style to build goods category. Beauty said, Mushroom Street is drilled this loophole, took advantage of. Of course, the first-level channels of the two sites (such as bags and clothes are always separate), but more focused on the "style." Beauty said there are so-called popular style and hot elements, mushroom Street there are so-called fashion elements, style occasions.

However, because of consumer relations-for example, men in the online shopping on the overall flower will not be too much-social shopping center seems to be able to do, but actually very vertical, basically around the female shopping, according to the White Raven, the more vertical point: the girl. Consumer groups of limited, making this market is difficult to say in the beautiful mushroom street outside the new shopping guide station. And Taobao also realized that their mistakes to small and medium sellers brought great disadvantage, in the "Small and beautiful" slogan, last year, especially the double 12, began to layout for small and medium sellers to provide help style display.

But is not like flying said, caused by Taobao Alert, shopping Guide station on the "difficult to become" it? I don't think so.

In fact, the shopping guide station a bit of "secondary platform" meaning, they single-handedly from the search engine, micro-blog SNS and other places into the flow, the hand again these flows to the seller of electricity dealers import. One of the key points here is the shopping center to guide the goods, not the merchant. If the latter, in the past, users will skip the shopping guide station. But if it is the product with style combing, the user does not have this reason to give up the shopping guide station. Although the current two shopping guide station in the flow introduced a lot of input, I would like to this situation as a new thing need a process to accumulate its flow.

As for Taobao vigilance, shopping guide station is not too big foreground, that is Taobao too high. Indeed, Taobao (including the cat) is important in China's power firms, but it is not fully monopolized. After all, the market also has the so-called electric quotient seven in, as long as the pattern of oligopoly, shopping Guide Station N home, its own way of survival. For consumers, to buy their own desirable and inexpensive things is the first, as for the end of Taobao or in Beijing East, it is not the most important.

Beautiful said by the founder of the Xu Yijong shrimp nets created, media-owned sites, more adept at marketing, and Mushroom Street Four founder of the three were born Taobao, more inclined to understand the seller-this is the Mushroom Street start later than beautiful said but can and its equal reason. With more and more developed E-commerce, shopping Guide station to survive the soil will become more and more big, can not say "difficult to do".

However, it is necessary to add that the market may not tolerate too many companies, not because the market is small, but consumers need a shopping guide, but they do not necessarily need a variety of shopping guides. Some focus on a field of the so-called vertical shopping guide site, to boil the time will be very long, may die in the boiling road.