Group buy "Leftover" the five major embarrassment of the United States network

After 2010 years of the rise of Chinese group buying, the 2011 bubble, the 2012 rationality, to the present pattern has been basically stable, the United States Group Network is considered to be the most strong "left" in China group buying market. February 23, 2013 U.S. network CEO Wang at the annual meeting announced 2015 years to reach hundreds of billions of scale, more long-term 2020 will achieve the trillion-scale goal, its "left the King" mentality is ready. Although the United States Group Network has established a certain advantage, but at this stage its development still faces many challenges; the quality of the road summed up the United States network five aspects of the embarrassing situation, only for reference.

Embarrassed one: The group buys to lose faith, the American regiment cannot be immune

Objectively speaking, the United States network in safeguarding the interests of consumers more than most peers, including the March 2011 proposed "Expired" and July 2012 launched "At any time", which has accumulated a good reputation among consumers, The United States Regiment also by virtue of its good service in 2012 years after the smooth realization of the curve overtaking to seize the first group buy the throne. But there is no denying that the group purchase since 2010 into China has been negative, there have been many group buying sites because of lottery fraud, selling counterfeit products, arrears of business and other reasons such as forced out. The United States network of the practice is not improper, but from another point of view, the group buying industry's negative reduce the overall trust of consumers, a group purchase site out, its market share only part of the remaining peers to absorb, the rest with the consumer away and disappear.

2012 Group buying shuffle year, the overall market growth is significantly lower than 2011, group buy this cake increase speed slowed, each group purchase site without exception will be adversely affected; flame, the early major group purchase website Crazy Market propaganda, the United States regiment nets ride the car and benefit And at this stage, more and more of the group purchase website closed off, users because of the negative and abandoned group buying industry, "the remaining" United States network is inevitable not to become lonely and defeated. Therefore, product advice, as a leader in group buying market, the United States and the network need to give up the practice of being alone, in order to build a healthy group buying industry to contribute to the ecological and even when necessary to support competitors.

Awkward two: transformation O2O, difficult to get rid of group buy label

Group buying industry because of the negative too much to be abandoned by many consumers, now the majority of group buying website began to publicize themselves is O2O site, trying to remove the "buy" this slightly negative vocabulary; The United States Network is no exception, now a variety of occasions the United States network more publicity itself is O2O website. But unlike other, in addition to changing domain names, the United States Group Network has been difficult to get rid of the label. Need to see is that the word purchase is because of the negative and by some consumers are not welcome, but the concept of O2O may not be able to let consumers buy. First of all, it's hard for most consumers to understand the concept of O2O also do not care about the difference between O2O and group buying, discount is the user's concern; second, the concept of O2O, although originated in the United States, but not in the United States is not popular, the O2O label may be able to domestic investors, but it is difficult to the United States Network in the future listing benefits. Product advice that O2O concept in the consumer and the capital market is no benefit, the United States and the network with the drift, rather than continue to boldly publicize themselves is a group buying site.

Three: China group buying first, valuation lost to the public comments

The current pattern of group buying, the United States Group Network ranked first, and in the sales scale has a greater advantage; and the public reviews have a decade of local life service experience, accumulated a large number of merchant resources, in the consumer decision-making entrance to maintain a dominant position. April 2011 and August 2012 public comments on the 1 billion U.S. dollar valuation respectively to raise 100 million U.S. dollars and 60 million U.S. dollars, and another group buying Web site has also received a 1.1 billion dollar valuation. Compared with the general public, although the United States Group Network in group buying business leader, but at this stage in the valuation is still not lost on the public comments, but also because the capital market cold has not been able to get more than 1 billion U.S. dollars over the opportunity to valuation. Although the first two rounds of financing still have surplus, and has been able to maintain the basic balance of deficit; but at present its leading advantage did not reach the so-called "7:2:1" (first occupy 70% share) structure, whether it is the technology development or the promotion staff welfare all still need the massive investment; Tencent and other large platforms, sufficient reserves of funds is very necessary. But the valuations of investment institutions have been unable to satisfy the US network, one reason why the group has been slow to finalize a new round of financing. To offset the advantages of public comments, the United States Group Network to adopt one of the responses is to encourage users to the business service ratings and comments, trying to be based on real transaction reviews to compete for consumer decision-making entrance.

Embarrassed four: The amount of the sale is small, the listing is subject to Groupon

The 2013-year goal of the United States Mission network is 18.8 billion, and it needs to be seen that even if the target of 18.8 billion is successfully completed, the level of the order from the revenue point of view is still very small. At present, the Chinese group buying industry's gross profit margin is still low, 18.8 billion of the turnover to remove "at any time" and "expired", according to 10% of the United States Group Network 2013 years of revenue around 1.5 billion. In contrast, Groupon, the originator of American group purchase, had a revenue of $2.33 billion in 2012, but less than $3.5 billion trillion (May 7, 2013), even though the US-net deal was more than Groupon in 2014 years, but its revenues were harder to overtake Groupon for a long time. At present, the United States Group Network is still in the stage of trading volume, a large number of purchase orders of the gross margin is very low (such as movie tickets), a large part of the volume does not generate real revenue, the United States network in the turnover of the small amount of the embarrassing situation. Quality Road advisory that the group's network of revenue is still too small, the company's IPO prospects are not optimistic until Groupon regained confidence in the capital markets.

Embarrassment five: Dream into a giant, or make a wedding dress for the giant

The United States Group network released 2015 billion, 2020 trillion targets, you can see it wants to become a giant dream. The logic of the United States is the network of Life service is a far larger than the real electricity market, even Taobao (Taobao day cat) can rely on the physical network to do a trillion scale, the United States network can certainly do trillion scale. From the actual situation, the United States network does have to become the next Taobao may, but the difficulty will be very large, there is a huge gap between the ideal and reality.

First of all, group buying requires a large number of offline personnel to negotiate and maintain business cooperation, which is the threshold, but also restricts its further development of important reasons. 2012 United States network more than 5 billion of the transaction size of nearly 3000 people support the size of the staff, even if the United States to adhere to the technology-driven, to achieve billions of goals also need a very large team, operation and management difficult to imagine. Hermitage Group different, Taobao is a platform, by launching various sizes of businesses to get rapid growth. The United States Mission network to achieve billions or even trillion targets, must take the platform rather than the proprietary route, and if the road is the platform line, this and gradually exert life service Taobao, Tencent Micro-letter, Baidu Map and other Giants to form direct competition, the United States network whether brand awareness or financial resources are at a serious disadvantage. Second, Taobao has gradually built its own ecosystem since 2003, especially in the area of payment. Chinese netizens have been accustomed to trading through Alipay, and at this stage, most of the trading in the United States is also Alipay; if you want to be a real giant, you have to be prepared for a key trading link, and controlled's big dream will be seriously challenged. At present, the gradual awakening of life services businesses began to open on Taobao shop, the United States Group network early spent a lot of manpower and resources to cultivate the market, but it may be just to the giant to do the wedding dress.

The above five points of the embarrassing situation of the United States network, more and objective market environment, the United States and the development of the network is still optimistic. In Bat (Baidu, Ali and Tencent) rampant today, hope that the United States network can quickly become the new 1 billion U.S. dollars market value of the company, can withstand the pressure of Ali not be its holding and acquisition, bless the United States Mission Network!

Original articles, reproduced please specify the Source: Huang (Product research director, Internet industry analyst), Sina Weibo @ Huang.