Blood Net: The Community electric dealer who makes money by muffled sound

Guide: When the "comprehensive electric dealers" hit the price war and the loss is difficult to stop, the military community web site Blood network of the electric business silent to make a pot full of pot. However, the community has done a good job for 6 years, after selling military products, outdoor goods sold nearly 5 years to reach 70 million annual sales. According to founder and CEO Len Lei, Blood is now 60% of the development speed is not fast enough, the future will also encounter the ceiling of scale, but "specifically where is not clear, because no one has done."

Say the blood of the June Goods mall is a community electric dealer specimen is not too: it is entirely from the military community blood net extension, community users and electrical quotient users highly coincident. 2011 sales more than 70 million, gross margin and net profit margin of 40% and 10% respectively.

The http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/9765.html of the iron and blood products "> development trajectory does not have too many twists and turns. From the end of 2007, founder Len Lei to foreign suppliers a letter to send an e-mail to the current iron and blood to do its own brand "dragon Teeth", iron and blood of the electrical business road can even say very smoothly. At the end of 2007, Iron and Blood on-line the first, but also the only one pricing more than 700 military outdoor jacket, did not expect one weeks to sell more than 10. The unexpected speed of sales to Len Lei emboldened slowly increase the number of goods. In early 2008, the military began to expand the category to sunglasses, flashlights and so on.

The sales figures for the iron and blood products also soared: 2008 6 million, 2009 3 times times more than 26 million, 2010 breakthrough 50 million, 2011 more than 70 million.

2008, the Independent Electric Business Department of Iron and Blood was established, the transformation announced to obtain the stage success. "Our electric business has been profitable from the start. "And every day entangled in the scale and profitability of the comprehensive electricity quotient of the various" xxo "tone of voice compared to Len Lei said this sentence is obviously much easier.

Today, more than 100 employees of the Iron and blood power division have already accounted for nearly half of the total number of employees in the company. Iron and blood provided data that the number of users of the community of iron and blood 10 million, blood June goods mall customers 100,000. Last year, the Iron and blood June product in the summer customer price is 600~700 yuan, the winter customer unit price is 1700~1900 yuan. The user's repeat purchase is approximately two times, and the repeat purchase rate is 70%.

Because of a large number of highly segmented users, the iron and blood of the electric business is almost no need to do on other sites to promote. However, the vertical community hundreds of thousands of of the number of users can not be compared with the tens, so the iron and blood products are also in the excavation of the peripheral users. Like many brands, the iron and blood June goods stationed in the Jingdong Mall, Cat and Dangdang and other large electric platform. But according to Len Lei, sales are "very general".

Blood and Blood in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other place opened 6 Direct line under the entity shop. According to the introduction, the real store turnover accounted for the overall sales of 25%.

Unknown ceiling

If you want Len Lei to talk about doing community electric business experience, he will give you a brief answer to two keywords: users and brands. In his view, the more vertical the community, the greater the likelihood of the success of the electric dealer. The community has a large number of users, this is the source of business value, and brand is a synonym for high value-added, but also the major electric companies try to improve profitability of the preferred way.

Len Lei is the use of these two key words to plan the development of blood and iron June products. As a community, the blood has gathered 10 million of users. As a power trader, the iron and blood June product launched its own clothing brand "dragon Teeth" last year. This is not only to improve the gross margin of the purpose, but also to prevent. "If the future of the integrated electric power market, they are more attractive to suppliers than us, then our supply will be a lot of uncertainty." Len Lei So explains the consideration of making own brands.

At present, the "dragon tooth" sales have accounted for 25% of the overall total. Len Lei for this ratio does not have many ideas, he is now the most worried about "dragon teeth" style design and team operation are not ideal.

The training of operation team, especially the backbone of middle-level business, is not only the problem of "dragon tooth", but also the problem of the whole iron and blood company. Len Lei that this directly constrains the company's pace of development. According to his estimate, this year's sales of blood and iron June is about 60% year-on-year growth. That is not fast enough, compared with the 200% or even 300% per cent growth rate that the General Electric has claimed. In addition, as a result of the backbone of the tension, iron and blood offline entity shop business expansion rate has been very conservative.

"Is this the bottleneck of the blood?" "In the face of this problem, Len Lei's judgment is that the iron and blood products and other electric dealers will certainly encounter the future size of the ceiling, but the military industry this subdivision of the country has no precedent, so the problem is not know the ceiling is where." "I think there is still room for the market," he said. "Len Lei said.

In order to solve this problem, iron and blood decided to carry out the first round of financing, the scale of about 10 million yuan. Len Lei said the round of financing would be used mainly for the development of "dragon teeth". In addition, the company is interested in expanding the line to join the store this year, but not fast, "first try one or two."

Blood before the blood: a business of Tsinghua's anger

2001, Tsinghua University, Materials science and engineering freshman Len Lei is a person in the eyes of the "angry youth." He likes to read the military politics of books, even for this self-study code built a reading Exchange website "virtual war." At that time Len Lei was still a person, in order to attract the first group of users, he sent links to various military forums. The effect of this kind of soil is even good, not a few months, unexpectedly someone began to "virtual war" to cast original novel.

In the 2003, Blood and iron began to develop steadily towards a military forum. At that time the site has accumulated twenty thousand or thirty thousand of readers. 2004, in order to ensure the stability of the content of the site, the implementation of the signing of the author system, that is, from the pure user-generated content model into the contribution to the author payment. At that time, a classmate of Tsinghua University Law School had joined the network, responsible for technical work.

That summer, Len Lei and the law school students graduated, it is also the most difficult time: broadband and server costs more and more, the site has no revenue. Two people in the vicinity of Tsinghua to find a 6 square meters of a single room, Len Lei because Pao, lived in a two months and moved back to school, and the early co-founder in that cramped room for more than half a year.

Also in 2004, there is a game company said to be in the iron and blood advertising, but the monthly fee is only four hundred or five hundred yuan. At that time, Len Lei every month to go on a trip to the game company to get back the paltry "advertising fees"-now Len Lei recall the early years of the hard-earned money, will be surprised to laugh at the incredible.

Strangely, it was a slightly unreal twist: a real-estate business reader cast 1 million of the net. It is the 1 million that underpins the next four or five years of operation. 2006, the introduction of blood and iron Google keyword ads, but one months of income is not thousands of dollars.

Also in that year, Len Lei suspended his postgraduate program for two years. At that time he just vaguely felt the blood "there is hope for bigger", so ready to run the site fully. After the expiration of the suspension, that is, iron and blood has been transformed into electricity business in 2008, Len Lei decided to give up the unfinished straight Bo studies, become a "full-time" entrepreneur. After his incomplete schooling, Len Lei's father finally knew his son's decision to leave school and drop out of school. This became Len Lei Heart still feel guilty of things, "as a man, let Father tears is too wrong." Len Lei not natural to feel the head to say.

The transformation of iron and blood to do electricity quotient of the year initiation in 2007. At that time Len Lei and his partners were thinking about how to increase income. In those years the Internet despite the rapid development, but the value of Internet advertising is "small lotus only show sharp angle", the price is seriously low. The PubMatic Adprice index quoted by the media showed that internet advertising prices fell by 53% in the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008. This is also affected by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.

So in the eyes of the blood, despite the low risk of advertising on the website, the income is too limited. Weighed repeatedly, the iron and blood decided to sell their readers interested in military products. So the story goes back to the beginning of the article.

Source: Sina Science and technology