Abandon the luxury electric business positioning, show network transformation Overseas brand Mall

Catwalk network is expected to be profitable between the two quarter and the three quarter of this year. March, Shenzhen, walking Show Network CEO Guiven in the interview with the reporter exclusive.

"The service provider model has been largely established in 2010, but we are also reviewing ourselves: why didn't we say so?" "On the one hand, it's a matter of commercial confidentiality, and we actually speak a lot more overseas, because the supply chain is up there," Guiven said. But right now, we're not too bothered because the strength is there and it's not important to tell everyone what we're doing. ”

2012 is like a watershed year for China's E-commerce company. The watershed means that the collective power of the electricity business emerges from the capital mania of the 2011, followed by more differentiated competition. One of the catwalk network is more typical one, the equivalent of a new model is original.

In addition, at the beginning of the 2008, catwalk was once considered a luxury site, but the current positioning is not luxury, but the high-end female commodity platform, mainly selling overseas brands. Up to now, the show network to obtain including ebay, Korea's largest integrated online shopping platform Gmarket, the United States tidal power karmaloop three Taiwanese companies, including 50 brands or platform licensing.

There are at least three questions about the catwalk network: first, how is the original luxury location verified as "wrong"? Second, the new positioning in the supply chain upstream and business model of how to operate. Third, take the show network and ebay's relationship. One argument is that the cooperation between the two sides, which began last November, is not easy, and ebay may have injected tens of millions of dollars into the catwalk.

The reporter noted: on the day of the U.S. "ebay US global investor/Analyst Conference", "ebay's participation in the Show network to bring the global style to the Chinese market" by ebay as its top 5 headlines in the past year. And now the show's official website of the "ebay show price across the line straight" activity, the price of its goods has been quite ebay U.S. local sales prices.

In other words, consumers do not seem to have international shipping and tariffs to buy these items on the catwalk. Speculation from third-party electric circles: this is likely to be ebay's "special benefit" for users of the Chinese market.

Abandon luxury positioning

"Since 2008, we have more ideas about luxury goods because we think luxury goods in China will have a big demand and development," Guiven said, "but after two years, we realized there would be some problems." ”

Ji uses "superficial" to describe this understanding of the past. The so-called "superficial" means that: the price of luxury goods by the hands of the discount, you can pry to move the market.

"But it turns out that our understanding of upstream and downstream is not enough." "Guiven said.

Upstream of the problem is: Although the show network of resources including global luxury brand dealers, but does not seem to equal supply stability.

"Because in fact you will find that the best selling or the most classic thing in the market, you can not get the actual situation." What you can sell on the Internet may be some things that have been in the past season. "It's hard for you to get a complete supply, it's not a way to take it all," Guiven said. ”

The pros and cons of 2010, Guiven to the upstream supply chain judgment is: in fact, there will be a big constraint, space is difficult to have unlimited growth.

And consumers downstream, there is also a limited problem.

"Because users don't actually buy luxury items over and over again, it makes your site look likely to have a high price, but it's also possible that the cost of getting new users every time is high." Guiven said: "This situation continues until 2010:" After my judgment, although the whole luxury market looks very big, but in fact the market is very small. ”

Then the show will "sink" the body, the direction is still to do global goods, but began to fashion field, rather than to the most expensive place.

"The difference between fashion and luxury is that luxury goods may emphasize a certain single and single price, but fashion is more about the public audience." "Guiven believes that fashion does not emphasize something, it is a business that can constantly generate volume, rather than produce high-end price business."

At the same time, he began a global visit. This is actually the main reason why the show network was founded: Overseas brands want to enter China, but really want to enter the difficulties encountered a lot.

such as China's retail system and the United States there are differences. China's retail sales to the main rental counters, any brand to enter after the need to find an agent in China, and then, by the agent to be responsible for each city and the counter talk, and the United States to implement the buyout method.

Take Macy "s as an example. If a clothing brand and Macy "s cooperation, the brand can basically cover to Macy" s in the United States, but if in China, a brand and parkson cooperation, in fact, can only negotiate with the local Parkson, and Parkson in China's other cities outlets is another matter.

"It is a big difference for overseas brands that the Chamber is not accustomed to. "Guiven pointed out that the industrial chain in the international distribution is very thin, usually brand manufacturers only responsible for brand building and production, retail is the business of retailers, but Chinese brands may do anything." In different circumstances, overseas brands often encounter troubles include: Who is the agent, who is the partner, who will bear the inventory, each city to talk about, store investment and so on.

The rising cat of the 2010 seems to be a better choice for them.

"The problem is better than the ground, but there are still problems," he said. "Guiven pointed out that the first is brand positioning, overseas high-end brands tend to be more concerned about the positioning of the platform, if the platform positioning is low, they will not necessarily easy to get the users they want."

"Second, the cat mode regardless of all these shipments, returns, customer relationship processing, access to new users and other issues, which means that overseas brands need to find TP (" Taobao partner "), but this also on TP in the brand culture of overseas brands, service understanding, etc. have put forward very high requirements. "Guiven said.

Up to 20% "Trading Commission"

The outside world may find it strange: the docking of all overseas brands or platforms in the catwalk network was "spewing out" in 2012.

"This is because overseas brands are active, but the negotiations and decisions of these international companies take a long time, and all of our agreements actually take almost a year or so, and these processes are in place just last year." "Guiven revealed.

After docking with three of Italy's top luxury brands, Ferragamo and ebay, Gmarket and Karmaloop, March 11, Xiu-Su announced the world's largest diamond jewellery electric dealer Blue Nile China online sales of exclusive authorization. This also means: Walk Xiu net "butt domestic consumption to upgrade the market, build an overseas brand Chinese store" new positioning gradually wings plump.

"Upstream supply chain, we no longer have the original luxury positioning of those problems." Guiven points out that its cooperation agreement with upstream overseas brands is generally three years. At present, the show network can still be low-cost to obtain supply, the second supply chain "light", and overseas brands or platform docking, all updates to synchronization, the third is the mode of replication and scale.

At present, the mode of catwalk network is equivalent to a service solution provider of overseas brand or platform, responsible for all matters including transportation, return and replacement, customer service, open up new user market and so on.

Take ebay for example: After the user has placed a single on the ebay style show, the catwalk network is responsible for the unified delivery of the order data to the US headquarters in ebay, and then the ebay headquarters began to deploy the goods to the U.S. warehouse and the Hong Kong Warehouse; Catwalk network will be responsible for all including logistics, distribution, customs, payment and return of goods after the whole process of after-sales service.

When the catwalk is changed from the traditional mode of business to the "Day Cat Mall" of overseas brands, the commercial model is also transformed into: charging upstream customers a service commission rather than a cat's trading commission. That is to go to the upstream of the network to overseas suppliers fees are actually: Cat Trading Commission + "TP" fees.

According to the reporter understand: the cat profit model for: Merchants every deal a transaction, the cat from 0.5% to 5% (classified from the target) transaction fee. And Guiven revealed: Walk show net this commission average as high as 20%.

"20% is actually a trading commission, but we want it to cover all our expenses." "Guiven explained," So in fact we will break down, such as to tell customers that 20% of 5% is the market costs, 3% is the logistics facilities costs, we will give him the figure. It's very complicated and it's a long time for us to negotiate. Some companies tend to talk very thin, while others tend to agree to our plan first and then adjust it six months later. ”

At the same time, catwalk network in the site design and so on are no longer as "hidden" customer brand, emphasizing their own existence, but the opposite, such as for each brand to set a two-level domain name, the partner pushed to the front.

According to the show to provide data: the current catwalk network customer price of 500 to 600 yuan, daily average sales of more than 10,000, online sales brand more than 3,000, with ebay docking more than 5,000. At the same time, catwalk network will still be based on the stable relationship between sales and supply to reduce some brands.

Downstream consumer prices, Guiven the "EBay style show" as an example to emphasize: because of tariffs and international freight costs, these items, although not directly in the United States to buy cheaper than consumers, but because the show network channel Large, Its overall cost advantage leads to: show online price is still more than Taobao on the exuberant personal purchasing cost.

Catwalk is expected to profit between the two or three quarter of this year. However, Guiven that the challenges remain pervasive in detail and implementation.

For example, an overseas brand has many people know, but not everyone knows, in addition, the European and American size comparison table and Asian products are different. Again, Taobao has put Chinese users into online shopping needs a lot of picture reference, but for foreigners, this may not be very understanding, their usual practice is simpler.

"We have to explain to him repeatedly that you have to give us more accurate information." "Guiven points out that again, including how to move goods to China at a faster rate, now 12 days, then there are some skills to speed up this is a challenge:" I think the big strategy has no problem, but the details are still far from perfect, we need to go to each and every one. " ”

The image of ebay

It's worth noting that the "ebay Show Price line straight" activity, which is on the show's official website, has the same price as ebay's US local sales price. In other words, consumers do not seem to have international shipping and tariffs to buy these items on the catwalk. There are third parties to the electric circle of speculation: this is likely to be ebay for the acquisition of Chinese market users of the "special concessions behavior."

In fact, the show network with many platform cooperation, "ebay Walk Show" Alliance most traction Electric Circle reveries. In addition to ebay's finally winding back to China's E-commerce market, it was also speculated that may have been to the catwalk network to inject tens of millions of dollars level.

In March 2011, Xiu-Peng won 20 million U.S. dollars in the show net, and in August 2011, the catwalk network was injected with 100 million U.S. dollars by Warburg Pincus Investment Group. In other words, the Show network has a total of 120 million dollars in financing. At the time, the catwalk network is valued at around 500 million dollars.

Experience in the past few years the fierce competition in the electric business, walking Show network operation is not good. A bold guess is that if ebay chooses a massive injection of capital to go on the show, it also means that the catwalk may have already achieved a "curve IPO" and that the venture capitalists are getting the cash. Another possibility is that ebay, which offers a cheaper supply for catwalk, is among the two shareholders in the show network as a minority shareholder.

At last year's press conference, however, both parties shunned any topic due to ebay's policy restrictions, and ebay's global vice president, Chen Yufeng, confirmed to our correspondent: ebay USA will send relevant teams and intervene to run the show network. Guiven said: "The show network still has an IPO plan." ”

"The dispatch of the relevant personnel means that ebay must inject money into the catwalk network." The injection could be a real gold or silver investment, or it could be a resource partnership. According to an electric trader who does not compete with the catwalk, he said, "if it is the latter, ebay's injection should be around 40 million US dollars to 50 million dollars, and the share will not exceed 20%." ”

The estimate is $120 million trillion in total financing, which means that the first two rounds of investment agencies share about 24% of the show. Generally, c-round financing cannot exceed this level. In addition, according to show network in the fierce competition under the circumstances of the operating conditions, its 500 million dollar valuation is likely to have shrunk, ebay may be injected into 40 million U.S. dollars to 50 million U.S. dollars.

"If this amount is exceeded, ebay has been quite disguised in helping to take the show online IPO, which is not in line with Guiven's response." said the electric trader.

If this speculation is true, it also means: ebay has begun to become smart, it is at a lower cost level into the show network, and then gradually heuristic the Chinese market. And then, the show network constantly access to new brands and new platform behavior, the basic is the brand or platform as a project to do. Given that the relationship between projects and projects is not too big, ebay certainly won't stop the catwalk from making money.

"And ebay still has the possibility of wholly-owned control of the catwalk." "The third party of the above-mentioned electric business circle further speculated," No matter what kind of cooperation between ebay and catwalk network, ebay is definitely a figure. ”

"ebay's relationship with us is really different from the other platforms," he said. "When it comes to this topic, Guiven is cautious with words," but I really can't say what we're doing or how we do it. We are really close to ebay and things are changing dynamically. What I can say is that ebay is really aggressive and they have a lot of ideas about the future. ”