C2B: Not just Priceline

When it comes to the C2B model, everyone should think first of Priceline, the world's most valuable OTA, the model on which to start is C2B. But to say that other areas of successful C2B model, it seems very difficult to think of, in fact, our thinking a bit narrow, c2b not only reverse bidding, not just Priceline, not just travel, in fact, C2B in the business community has been everywhere.

To give a simple example, the author of the breakfast is often the company's garden at the entrance of the pancake fruit, generally I will talk with the stall aunt said, two eggs, crisp cakes, sauce, a little spicy ... So aunt did, two eggs two yuan, crispy cake one yuan, bread one yuan, sauce and spicy free, a total of four yuan ... Pay to eat. This kind of scene believes everybody has met, but has anyone thought actually this is C2B? C2B literary point of view, is the user to provide personalized demand, businesses based on these needs customized products, and finally reached a transaction model.

Alibaba's chief strategist, Mr. Zeng, wrote an article in February this year on the new business model of the C2B Internet era, which mentions that the C2B model is a complete reversal of the industrial-era mode of business, a consumer-driven, networked collaboration, and a custom-created model for value-creating. And that the future of Taobao is C2B, I deeply agree! There is only one question, that is C2B itself is not a so-called new model, but a return, before the industrial era, small workshop production of the era, the kind of B and C barrier-free communication, like the author and the mother of pancakes between the communication ... After the industrial era, such communication in many areas have disappeared, in the survival and food and clothing of the historical era, with personalized to exchange low-cost and high efficiency is the inevitable choice.

But with the progress of society and science and technology, when the survival and food and clothing is no longer a problem, when the personality manifested into the characteristics of the times, after a cycle, c2b era may really want to come back! Perhaps we really should think, how to greet the return of C2B? How do C2B need us to change?

It is obviously impossible to travel back to the small workshop, and the development of productivity is irreversible. What exactly should be done? There seems to be no clue, but perhaps not as complicated as I thought. I think the main thing to do is to do two things, let's take a tour product as an example to illustrate it:

First: Flexible production

Producers are doomed to not meet all the personalized needs of users, but can be based on a number of high concentration of demand, the product of modular transformation, that is, flexible production. For example, Yuyuan, Waitan, Nanjing Road, Museum, Oriental Pearl, Lujiazui, Pujiang tour, acrobatic Show and Expo Park are the tourist attractions to Shanghai. The practice of the industrial age is to list these sites as two day-trips products, so that visitors can choose one of them. C2B's approach should be to transform these attractions into modular, packaged into four half-day products and two night-trips. The user can combine these products freely, choose the products that they are interested in individually, and arrange their travel time reasonably and flexibly. This process is in fact the user involved in the product design and production, kneading their own personalized needs, get a most satisfied with their products.

But flexible production is far less simple, there must be a risk of change, short-term also must pay cost. Or take a day in Shanghai as an example, modularity must be the cost of rising, two day-trips products, split into four half-day travel products means that the guide, vehicles and other fixed costs increased by one times, sales pressure also increased by one times. It turns out that as long as the two car guests can make money, now have to collect four cars. But the opportunity is also hidden in it, when your modular day-trip products to meet the user's personalized needs, access to more and more users, and ultimately defeated competitors, then the initial risk and cost increases also vanished.

Second: The reverse flow of information

In the industrialized age, the merchant produces the product, then transmits the product information to the user, then buys the product by the user, this is the forward flow of information, the Merchant also collects the user's feedback, to improve the product, but this is after the transaction occurs, before the deal, the information flow is one-way. The face of the product, the user's choice is to buy or give up, but why they buy, why give up, the business is difficult to know. C2B's approach should be to unblock the reverse flow of information. Take the hotel as an example, when users compare the two five-star hotels on the Internet, a,b check the price, read the comments, look at the photos still difficult to make a decision, so can only rely on the "feeling" to choose one, the "feeling" is a hotel room looks a bit bigger, but now the selected and unsuccessful hotels do not know what the user is "feeling", And this "feeling" is in fact the competition between the two hotels is very important! If the reverse flow of hotel B is very smooth, the user's feeling a hotel "larger room" was promptly passed to the B hotel, Hotel B According to this "feeling" immediately optimize the product, to upgrade the user to a larger room, not only to seize the user immediately, but also to find the problem: why our room photos on the internet, Looks smaller than a competitor's room? Change a photo now ...

However, the reverse flow of information is also facing challenges, first of all, how to collect user requirements is a problem, although Taobao and other large platforms in this direction, but currently immature. Many of the user's needs are fleeting, to allow users to express, but also timely grasp the demand, which is very difficult task. Second, the ability of businesses to efficiently address these user needs will be critical, take B hotel, even if the user found that the room is too small this information, but also the fastest speed to develop targeted programs, in the shortest possible time to give users feedback, will have effect, the current business mode of operation is difficult to achieve rapid response, must be reformed.

So the platform and business cooperation is very key, need to adapt to C2B, platform to help businesses meet more personalized needs, to obtain more orders, together to share the benefits, thus forming a virtuous circle.

In short, C2B is a different from the industrial era and the business-centric model, which is a user-centric to the user's personality needs as a starting point, so that users participate in the production of the link between B and C information two-way flow of the "new" mode. C2B also need to further explore the advantages of the Internet in technology, so that the Internet to become the user's consultant, designers, procurement supervisor, pipeline controller, quality supervisor ... The advent of the mobile internet era will accelerate this process, as information interaction will no longer be constrained by location, and users ' immediate needs are more easily delivered to businesses.

Priceline first proved the success of C2B in tourism, in fact, there are reasons, the tourism industry is mainly service products, more flexible and modular, in addition to the timeliness of tourism products, but also let C2B become merchants to deal with tail goods, without affecting the normal price system of the best choice. However, in the tourism industry to define C2B as reverse bidding is not accurate, reverse auction is only one of the C2B way, there are many other ways, such as air tickets, hotels and car rental and other dynamic packaging products, as well as high-end customized tourism products, etc. should also belong to the category of C2B.

Personality Emancipation is the inevitable trend of China's social development, and the upsurge of personalized demand will impact on all aspects of business society. Priceline got C2B patent in the United States, but could not get another patent-the spirit, the patent should belong to the entire business community, C2B is such a spirit, not only in the tourism market, it will eventually run through the entire business community, bringing a new business change.

Source: Chinaventure Invest in China