Electric Dealer Vertical Limit

The Platform Electric Trader Thunder is strong, the vertical electric business also is not dead. Make a good product, make profit, can squeeze into the survivor list

"From now! Who let people flow big! "Always big Mouth" Dangdang CEO Guoqing made an important decision: Dangdang Book and department store category will be fully settled into the day Cat Mall. In "Singles Day" electric Dealer big promotion is coming, guoqing move quite some helpless, he claims, Dangdang will focus on books, daily necessities, baby supplies and clothing four areas, no longer carry out new category expansion.

Compared with the platform electric quotient of the deep and rich, only to do a subdivision of the field of the vertical electricity business day is obviously more sad, they have chosen the platform with the Electricity Quotient Alliance: In addition to Dangdang, where the customer Prudential products, Lok Bee network, excellent purchase network and other well-known vertical electric operators also began to cooperate with the platform.

As Guoqing said, now is the electric business of the great winter-and, more is the vertical electric business of the great winter. However, only in the cold and windy winter, to be able to screen out the preparation of high-quality electrical business, and only at this time, the universal law of the market will be paid attention to whether a company has long-term value, or depends on its profitability.

In the dotcom bubble of 2000, people valued Internet companies based on web browsing and users rather than net profits, which turned into market dream rates, and when the bubble burst, profitable companies survived and developed.

10 years later, people also "invented" another unreliable indicator "market rate" (the company's market value/operating income) to measure the values of the electricity quotient, which also forced all the electric operators on the narrow road of expansion, until found this is a dead end. In the 2012, some vertical dealers first reached the limit of scale expansion. Hit a badly beaten, sober up they began to return to the essence of business, just like every guest, began to seriously think good products, to win profits. History is always strikingly similar, and perhaps 10 years from now, when counting the survivors, you can say, "You did the right thing."

Return to the Essence

For the aged, 2012 was the most placid year of his five-year creation of the goods. In this year, the electric business industry has taken several large-scale battles, but the war on either side of the camp can not find the figure of every guest, so that people even think, has been extraordinary every guest, now really go to mediocrity.

Aged in the dark exerting force. October 31, every guest investor, Qiming venture partner Gan Jianping revealed that all the guests are ready to go to the U.S. listing, are choosing to submit a prospectus timing.

"We are really ready, after all that time last year, but the key is to look at the capital market." "What I'm most concerned about now is profit, which will be profitable in the fourth quarter of this year," he said. Although we are not profitable all year round, we will work towards this direction next year. He habitually "hei heh" low smile two.

This is not last year, the heroic dry cloud, claiming that five years will every customer to achieve the size of 100 billion yuan old, is no longer the claim to buy Louis Vuitton and converse of the old, for the garment industry has hundreds of years of accumulation, as a subversive of the age began to have a fear of the heart. This year, he spent one months, focused on Anta, Sen Ma and Nine Pastoral King (601566, shares bar) and other domestic excellent clothing brand manufacturers, learn their advantages. "Traditional brand manufacturers are worthy of our reference is too much, such as the quality of the focus on the supply chain integration." We will take their long and make up our own short. ”

However, he has targeted the Japanese fashion giant gifted Uniqlo. Until now, he remembers his strategic partner, Toray, who visited the Uniqlo in Japan. Just walked into Toray company door, he also thought since is Uniqlo partner, estimated first to give him a look at clothing. The first thing to see is a bicycle, puzzled by the old hand weighed, can not help but take a surprise-this bike is even lighter than an ipad. Then he saw a tennis racket that was lighter than a piece of paper. "Now I know what the core competencies of Uniqlo are." He found that the research on raw materials by European, American and Japanese brands was unmatched by Chinese apparel (000902, share) companies.

Then, Anta chairman Dingzhizhong gave him a Bo. At that time in the old office, Anta executives to their bosses to tell their boss how to do good brand marketing, Dingzhizhong is a sudden: "Do not sell the customer is not the product?" ”

"I think he said very right, our brand core or product, High-quality products plus good service is the core of the brand." Without these, the brand is nothing. He has a deep feeling. 2012, where the customer cut off is not good at home appliances, digital, department stores and other categories, focus on creating the competitiveness of clothing.

With a rain, Beijing, the lowest temperature in the blink of an eye to the zero or so, down jacket sales season has to, where the vice President and the Fifth Division head Chen will be busy for a while. If it was officially started last year, this year would be the second year for every guest to do a down jacket. Chen with Toray, the introduction of more lightweight down jacket, he set his benchmark in Uniqlo and the world's largest down jacket brand Bo.

Where the customer did a down jacket last year some problems, this year has improved: down jacket fabric using Toray Company products, the internal selection of high-quality large plush, and improve the production process to solve the problem of cashmere translocation and drilling velvet. Although the company predicts that China will have at least three young thin jacket to be popularized, Chen is apparently willing to do more, he introduced more lightweight models this winter, but also designed many such as big hairy collar, wave points, etc. with popular elements of the fashionable down jacket. Compared with last year's 500 variety of products, this year will add one to 1000 variety of down jacket.

"Every guest's T-shirt after washing out on the balcony, outsiders still think Yao is wearing" This joke makes everyone embarrassed. It has paid close attention to product quality and has established a closer relationship with Shen, the world's largest manufacturer of knitted garments (the latter is also the Uniqlo manufacturer). With price/performance advantages, VT (where the main push T-shirt series) in 2011 sold 12 million pieces.

The old pressure also passed to every guest assistant President Zhou, he is responsible for footwear First Division. This year, Van Gogh shoes are expected to sell to 6 million pairs, from sales have surpassed the old joking ready to "buy" the US Converse. However, according to sales figures, Van Gogh's canvas shoes and converse There is still a big gap: with the three hundred or four hundred yuan Kuangweifan cloth shoes, van Gogh shoes price only more than 100 yuan.

The four-quarter is usually the off-season for canvas shoes sales, and Zhou has begun planning next autumn's products. Similar to the traditional footwear brand, where customers are also planning products according to the quarter, but the replenishment speed is some faster. He has sent a team to Hong Kong to see what some of the local "tide cards" are doing.

Zhou plans to add two more designer teams, one in Guangzhou, the other in Beijing, and two designers in Shanghai and Spain, where there will be four team of designers working on footwear. "Long time designers will be tired, but also have limitations." "These designers do not belong to every guest staff, but also in a" half-pack-keeping "state: they often only with very few clothing brand cooperation, and the most important focus on the guests.

Aitor Juan Quices, a designer from Spain, is a main designer of every guest, as young as 26 years old, he has cooperated with every guest for four years, he resident Beijing every guest headquarters, every year for every guest design 160 canvas shoes and 100 leisure shoes. His action design room is located in Spain's Santiago, where the headquarters of the famous fashion brand Zara. Now, a colleague also resident in Beijing to cooperate with Aitor and Spain, and in Spain there are also two designers to do some ancillary design work.

The Aitor, who has been in the design room for more than seven years, has inherited the essence of the European traditional handmade designer, and he is very good at using all kinds of new materials and doing some blending. He used to design a few denim and leather shoes with canvas, the result is very popular. He also has a specialty is the pattern design, every guest some dazzling graffiti pattern canvas shoes also from his handwriting. "I'm going to get to know something Chinese like, go to some activities, go to the bar and watch the young people dress up, go to the music festival and see how they wear alternative outfits and see the fashion magazines that are popular in China." "Of course, he has more time to communicate with Aitor's product team," he said. Each quarter, he will be based on European trends, combined with domestic situation to make a batch of shoe to the customer product team, they screened out the mass production products. Over the years, he has found that Chinese consumers are more and more willing to try something that looks bolder.

Zhou is ready to sprint 8 million pairs of canvas shoes next year. He counted, and found that the first half of this year canvas shoes have begun to profit.

Making money is the King

If not an accident, where the customer will be in the fourth quarter of this year profit, although it is far behind the size of Jingdong Mall and other platform-type electric dealers. In those days, it was the power of the capital that drove every customer and other electric dealers madly in horse-race enclosure; now those who are abandoned by the capital can only return to the essence of business-profit.

From the pursuit of scale to the pursuit of profit, the aging transition began last July. After 2011 years of the first half of the race, old suddenly found that every customer in the pursuit of scale expansion has run too far, and this may be a one-way road. When he found the warehouse backlog of a large number of unsold mop, see the newly hired staff in the downstairs café do nothing, realize that every guest is on the verge of losing control.

Old Readme "surprised out a cold sweat", he summoned high-level meetings, cut off clothing unrelated products, made a major organizational restructuring. Previously responsible for product planning of the two major parts of the division into products for the center of the 12 division and product line, responsible for product promotion of the marketing center has been dismantled to the major division. From this, the Division undertook the entire function from product planning, development to marketing, also back on the sales and profit and other key indicators, responsibility than before clear many.

Aged to find senior Vice President Kang Xiaoyi, let her lead the establishment of a dedicated data center, responsible for all business data induction, collation and analysis work, he thought that this is the most important thing that the guests did last year.

For the Department of Assessment, from the past sales into sales, gross profit, sold out rate, inventory turnover and other diversification indicators, including gross margin mentioned a higher weight, which also forced each department to improve their management refinement level. "The last SKU has not been judged, now if the sales are not up to a certain amount, in addition to consider the SKU's profitability and turnover capacity." Kang Xiaoyi revealed that only the healthy categories of data would be supported and continued. It is understood that this year every customer planning new products, if the gross margin of less than 40%, generally no longer large-scale promotion. Starting in September this year, each department head will see the gross margin of last month, which is based on the data to plan for this month's spending to live within its means.

The first Division last autumn and winter had launched a batch of retro sports shoes, at that time prepared hundreds of thousands of of the goods, the price sold very cheap. They found the category to be popular, and some new models came out this fall, but prices were all mentioned above 119 yuan. The massive inventories that had emerged last year made the bosses of the division more cautious. "For some of the new, I would rather start with a small amount, found that there is a market to heavy volume." I would rather lose some sales and avoid inventory risk. "Zhou that the huge inventory is precisely the entire Chinese clothing industry is facing a big problem."

In the past, the department's shirts have been priced lower and are now considering details and adding accessories to boost prices. In the past for style management is more extensive, classification is divided into long sleeves and short sleeves, now subdivided into styles, styles and further subdivided into specific colors and sizes. The amount of advertising on the internet dropped sharply this August or September. For this change, the director of the company's overall marketing promotion of senior Vice President Wang Chunqi think, every customer now vote every penny need to see the effect. Last year, every customer in advertising and other marketing promotion on the investment accounted for 30% of sales, this year the proportion has dropped to 15%. "We want to bring down those ads that are not profitable," he said. ”

Because the traffic and ROI of the four portals have obviously dropped, we must find new marketing channels. To this end, aging requires the new media department to do only two things, one is Weibo marketing, the second is micro-credit marketing. "There are not too many indicators for this department, just ask them to do the fans and influence, forcing them to do more innovative things, see what fire is going to try." "effect-oriented greatly reduced the cost of marketing promotion." Wang Chunqi revealed that this year, every customer acquisition cost of each new customers has been reduced to 60 yuan, and last year was as high as 140 yuan, which also makes the visitors have enough profit space.

Professional value

This March, every guest and Han Han endorsement contract expired. At that time coincides with Han's personal image tottering, whether or not to renew, where the customer marketing team rather hesitant. This time or old took the board: "Do not sign Han Han others still scold you, signed a chance." However, April will be published advertising, the end of March advertising words have not yet landed. That day, aged and Wang Chunqi sitting in the same car to tombs spring outing, brain still in the advertising word, see the window full of spring, he suddenly blurted out: "There is no fear of spring." This sentence is tailored for Han, but also aged in the cheer for themselves.

At this time, that year to find and sign the Han Han's original van Xu Xiaohui, vice president of the business has been entrepreneurship for two years. After leaving the van, he created a more vertical clothing web site-The first-time network. Compared with the old club, where there are fewer clothing varieties, the taste of literary and artistic youth is more concentrated, advocating the "slow life."

Like Xu Xiaohui, another person who has been through the barrage of electric dealers has chosen "slow business". In the Shengjing International mansion outside Beijing West Five ring, this is away from the noisy Zhongguancun place, the Zhiquan starts the second pioneering work, the direction still is the familiar vertical electric quotient.

2006, Zhiquan founded Century electrical network, initially do flat-screen TV online sales, and later extended to the entire home appliance field. November 2010, has changed its name to the bowser net of this vertical electric dealer by Gome Purchase, also participated in with Jingdong Mall, Suning easy to buy electric business war. In early 2012, Zhiquan left Bowser net, in 2011, Bowser lost 194 million yuan.

Through the first venture, Zhiquan summed up some experience and lessons. He believes that many traditional industries and areas are still far from the Internet, in these areas to do the vertical electricity business is promising. However, some areas are not suitable for vertical electric business start-up, including those products highly standardized and industry highly concentrated areas, his original Bowser network is in the "Dead Sea."

Once again, he chose household items, where the goods are non-standard goods, the industry concentration is very low. He found a senior person who had been a home for many years as a partner and established the "Great Park Net". He imported high-quality raw materials such as Egyptian cotton, processed into high-quality towels, pillowcases and bedding, trying to create a middle-class life style home Life website.

Zhiquan and Xu Xiaohui all firmly believe that the vertical electric operators must build their own brand, which does require the slow work out of the malt. However, in the marketing and promotion costs are still high, to truly establish a brand known to the public, the need to invest in the energy and cost unimaginable. Fortunately they have put down their figure, eyes only focus on a smaller segment of the population.

"Entrepreneurship for five years, my biggest feeling is to make a brand is not easy!" "Old though in the own brand this road to move forward, but he does not think that this is the only right way for vertical electric." "I think (vertical electric business) Each mode has its own way of survival, channel-type electric dealers also have survived, any one of the models have success and failure." ”

Previously, the Mai Lin, red children, such as channel-type vertical electricity business life is not easy. Can be as old as said, everything is not absolute, in the capital market for the electric trader cold relative to the September this year, the establishment of less than three years of the Jiuxian network has been Beijing, the Capital Management Center and other funds of the combined investment of 200 million yuan, which is the company's third round of financing.

"Our greatest advantage is professionalism. "Jiuxian Network chairman Shang that from 2001 onwards in Shanxi Province to sell beer and agent Fen Zi brand, he and the team has been in jars for 11 years."

2008, Shang Company has become the largest liquor agent in Shanxi, with many famous wine factory established a long-term cooperative relationship. He and several colleagues went to Chengdu to attend the national sugar and wine trade fair, and during the meeting, several of them boasted that they would do the world's largest wine merchants, surfing the internet for a silly eye-the world's largest wine trader Diageo's sales amounted to $17 billion trillion. They lower the target, first from "China's largest wine merchant" start, this light by wholesale can not be achieved. So even QQ will not be on the Shang aggressively to start the electrical business.

October 2009 Jiuxian Network officially online, initially in the site construction and operation of a lot of detours. It first outsourced development, and then introduced their own technical team to push back, tossing down, more than a year's time passed. However, Shang moved the company from Taiyuan to Beijing, built warehouses, found a distribution partners, began to increase the variety of online wine. Jiuxian Network successively and Maotai (600519, shares bar), Wuliangye (000858, shares bar) and other well-known wine brand signed a direct agreement to get through the entire supply chain. November 11, 2011, it finally ushered in the outbreak of that day. In the large-scale promotion, the day received 10.39 million yuan of orders. This year Shang proposed an ambitious "supply 100" strategy, with the country's leading 100 wineries all signed a direct agreement, which in turn will bring greater value to the Jiuxian network. At present, Jiuxian Network has "contracted" Dangdang, No. 1th Shop, Bowser network, such as electric and commercial liquor channels. "They used to sell liquor for no guarantee of quality, we were more professional in this area and therefore hit." "Shang said.

What investors value most is also the industry accumulation of Jiuxian net. "Jiuxian Network to narrow the distance between the wine manufacturers and consumers, so that consumers have a trusted platform to purchase real wine directly, enhance the liquor brand reputation and product availability." "Jiuxian Network third round of financing of the leading investment party, Wo-Yan capital related to the owner said."

Similar to the Jiuxian network, online sales of excellent shoes are also on the rise in the channel, they have a unique industry advantage-not only to get the China's largest brand manufacturers hundred Li Investment, but also received a number of hundred Li's shoes brand online agent rights. Back to the tree good shade, hundred li not only has hundred Li, Heaven, "he she" and other private brands, or some of the domestic sports shoes brand main channels, accounting for Puma, Converse and other shipments of more than half. At present, the excellent purchase network has 70% sales from the hundred Li and its agents of the major brands.

Whether it is ' all-inclusive ' or ' small and beautiful ', whether or not the electricity trader succeeds depends on whether the consumer approves of the business model and whether it is sustainable or not. "The" Sustainable development "is the most common lesson for China's electric dealers," said the capital-related person.