Coupons are not a good business pudding transformation reflection: which O2O do not

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After the maintenance of the city, Cool Peng Network, once again proved that the coupon is not a good business.

Lead: In 2010, when O2O was just budding, pudding began to do coupons business, this year to the fourth years, O2O, they are in transition.

Corporate decoding

Last month there was news that Tintin discount will close all its branches, following the Victoria City, Cool Peng Network, once again proved that the coupon is not a good business.

At present coupons are still the main source of income for puddings, but Pudding CEO Lei revealed that the company now has only a small group of 10 of people in the maintenance including Pudding coupons, pudding movie tickets, McCann coupons and a series of products, positioning car owners service "micro-car" will be the company within two or three years the only core.

Coupons--Do not make a O2O cash cow

November 2010, Pudding moved the first product pudding coupon on line, offering the coupon content of restaurant chains including McDonald's, Pizza Hut, DQ, Yoshinoya and so on.

Compared to tens of millions of independent restaurants, restaurant chain does not like group buying as a strong push team, in the content management and cooperation is much lower, merchants and users have the corresponding needs, the Giants can not see such a small business, pudding coupons business for a while.

But the problem soon followed:

1, the willingness of the merchant to pay more and less, because the merchant release information more and more channels, surging group buy let the merchant no longer rigidly adhere to the coupon;

2, coupon continuity is not good enough, Pizza Hut, DQ and other restaurants coupons are provided in accordance with the promotional season, not even coupons when the off-season, sometimes the content of the experience becomes very poor;

3, the user's demand is too concentrated, in order to solve the second problem, the pudding has once used ground troops to increase the type of coupons to tens of thousands of, but finally found that 60% coupon flow is 0, the cost and income seriously unbalanced.

In the April 2013, the cooperation of KFC became a chance for the transformation of Pudding coupons.

Lei found that, after the access to KFC, pudding coupons 70% of the flow from KFC + McDonald's, and the two due to long-term stability of the competitive relationship between the provision of coupons is consistent, and not like Pizza Hut and other restaurants produce huge fluctuations. So in the same year pudding coupons simply renamed "McDonald's KFC coupons."

Last year at the end of the pudding to do subtraction, simply remove other chain restaurants, launched the independent product "McCann", Lei introduced, McCann coupons active users in just a few months has exceeded the original pudding coupons.

In addition to the coupon itself, the pudding's revenue comes mainly from app distribution, Lei expects this year's coupon products to bring the company 300.05 billion revenue, but because of the low ARPU and low conversion rate, the coupons and distribution of income can not be "big company."

The abandoned cuckoo.

2012 Pudding also launched a business-oriented "cuckoo" Audio verification system, allowing businesses to track and manage the coupons issued.

Users to the restaurant consumption, the phone coupons close to the Merchant Counter "cuckoo" system, the system through the ultrasound to obtain and record data, merchants can use this data to view the coupon usage.

This is an evolution of "internet thinking" compared to the city of Vigo, but the project has ceased to be a year later, as it is a "past-time" product.

"At that time we had a cuckoo hypothesis that the merchant's network was not good enough." Lei said, "Because the Cuckoo has a basic premise is point-to-point verification, do not need to rely on the network, this two years ago, the demand is higher, but now merchants and users have been involved in the internet, mobile phones have been very easy, the trend has been so, we do not need to continue to advance." ”

Why not do takeout?

In addition to coupons, pudding has tried a product "pudding takeout", follow the path of coupons, to provide McDonald's, Yoshinoya, Yonghe King, Mr. Li, such as food chain of the delivery service, from last year, Hungry Mody, small secretary to order the sale of products began large-scale promotion, and pudding take-away app has not been updated for six months.

Lei that, take-away food is the only one may have a major breakthrough in the direction, because the real demand for business only two: site selection, reduce rent costs, takeout can improve the utilization of the kitchen, a certain cost can reduce the cost of rent, the business is there is a demand.

Why did the pudding not do it? In Lei's view, the "potential" of the take-away market has already started, and the "time" has not yet arrived.

Lei said that the biggest piece of takeout market is the noon lunch, this part is usually the company to order meals or staff downstairs to buy, it is difficult to be replaced by Internet take-away, in this market Lihua and other fast food has obvious advantages-low cost, standardization, rapid distribution, and Internet companies, offline ability, logistics capacity is the bottleneck.

The second big chunk is the family dining, the family meal takeout basically by McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and so on chain brand monopoly, these chain brand, the store and the logistics superiority, decided that the takeaway website cannot compete with them.

"China's takeaway culture has not yet come to a tipping point. Lei said, "This tipping point is that I invite friends to dinner, say you come to my house, we call takeout, only to this culture, China's takeaway market will really open." ”

Trans-line Transition "micro-vehicle"

After experimenting with a series of products, the pudding began to shift its focus to "micro-cars", from the products on the table across to the products on wheels, a bold transition.

In recent years, the combination of auto market and Internet has started to hot. The reason for Lei's determined transformation is that there is "huge information asymmetry" in the business.

Lei expects 50% people to buy cars online in two years, and a product is needed to help users solve the problem of asymmetric information.

Car insurance is a typical example of two features: 1, every year to buy, buy which is likely to depend on publicity; 2, users do not understand the type of insurance, only according to the total price choice.

Micro-car entry point is a violation of the query, on the one hand, this is a rigid demand, on the other hand, the product does not require users to "remember", through the push mechanism, it will be in a specific scene in time to appear in front of the user.

Lei said that the future of the micro-car imagine a lot of space, such as the micro-car records the user's driving and violation information, can help the owner analysis should buy what type, price of insurance, and insurance companies can also through this information to find better customers.

In addition, for the owner of the group recommended self-driving travel and other vertical information may also be the direction of the future of micro-vehicles.

Lei said that pudding has two important product views: 1, do not do depends on his understanding of the product is enough, 2, through the content and basic services can attract users, but must have derived business model, which is the nature of the Internet.

Entrepreneurial team

Lei, founder of the pudding, is a ph. D. at Tsinghua University, a ceibs EMBA, a continuous entrepreneur with more than 10 years of entrepreneurial experience. Before the creation of pudding, Lei and Tsinghua Brothers co-founded Chip design company with Fang Microelectronics, and in the company's services for 8 years, the former CTO and vice president.

In April 2010, Lei joined the Innovation Workshop team as general manager of the Strategic Development Department and participated in the operation and investment of early dim sum OS and other projects. In November, Lei and Bao 5 founding team members co-founded the Pudding movement and started his two-time venture.

Pudding Coupons are the first product of the pudding movement, but also the initial o2o of the incubation of the Innovation workshop, after the small has become the pudding after the victory, the introduction of the pudding movie tickets, pudding karaoke, pudding film, pudding Gourmet, pudding takeout and other vertical products, and launched a cuckoo system for merchant.

After a series of adjustments, the pudding moves the core products focused on McCann coupons, pudding coupons and micro cars.

Investor comments

Origin Capital Ellen

In fact, group buying is a higher form of coupons, there are fast hotel housekeeper and other products, directly to the user concessions, robbed the share of coupons. In the final analysis, the coupon product is too thin, the future imagine space is already very small.

In the current transformation of the pudding field, similar to a micro-car, a number of illegal inquiries have been done, the idea of the same as the micro-car, the next to spell operation. This is the same as coupons, is also a competitive, low threshold of the industry.

And for the insurance of this piece, they need to pay attention to "car insurance without worry", although not the main business insurance, but already have a corresponding app, other applications if just have a app, feel lighter, it is difficult to build barriers.