Group Buy website "Hunger Games"

If the 2011 group buying industry is "hundred Schools of Contention", the 2012 group buying industry seems to be a bad thing recurrent: blindly burning money, mass layoffs, arrears of business loans, shoddy, consumer complaints difficult to solve ... In less than two years, "buy" from a fresh lively "magic boy" into the eyes of the public "bad boy."

Group buying industry has been a lot of venture capital and the world's pursuit. Groupon's IPO in Nasdaq last NOVEMBER gave the Chinese group buying industry a shot, and several large group-buying sites have been scrambling for a "Chinese Groupon" to try to become the first group-buying company to move to the IPO. The continued slump in Groupon's share price and the recent sell-off by investors have left the public with an unknown fear of the group buying industry.

Prisoner's dilemma and the way of innovation

Group buying this game has long been small and medium-sized sites please out of the main stadium, into a new round of knockout stage. The top 10 national web site days as bad, although the United States Regiment, handle and other large group buying stations have announced their profit plan this year, but from the industry status quo and not optimistic.

This "Hunger game" PK unusually brutal: contestants from the same division, only a few survived, and only the survival of the people have the opportunity to endure to the end of the good Times (group buying industry profit margin to return to similar to the U.S. market 40% to 50%). But before the finale, no one dared to raise the price, because it would lead to the flow of users to other players, thereby speeding up their own death. The increase in the gross profit margin of the site seems to have become a knot, each want to raise and dare not be the first to improve, so caught in the short-term instability and stalemate, and the stocks of the family are constantly consuming ... Again put on a game theory of "prisoner dilemma."

In the capital market continued cold, the majority of group buying sites do not have enough capital to further expand the scale of the current domestic overall group purchase users for several months has been in 40 million people up and down, unable to break through.

Local Life service is a tens of millions of dollars in the market, and now the entire group buy industry output value only around 20 billion yuan, there is no doubt there is still a huge space for development. The top 10 comprehensive large group purchase website is currently stable, occupying nearly 90% of the market share. Although the group buying industry "Matthew Effect" is obvious, but the vertical subdivision of the field of group purchase site and have a unique local merchant resources of small and medium-sized stations will still have a unique development space, this "Wal-Mart + Community Supermarket" of the coexistence model, perhaps the most in line with the Chinese urban consumption differences.

2012, group purchase is gradually popularized from the key cities to more ordinary cities. Regiment 800 data show, October has the local service group buys on-line city to increase to 335, medium and small cities and the key city "28 open" proportion already walked to "37", these still have to dig and excavate three or four line city may become the final each group purchase website to discharge the seating key node. After all, as the group buying industry is becoming more and more standardized, it will gradually highlight the advantages of saving consumer spending for the residents and form a rigid market demand.

Group purchase site to improve the gross profit margin of another breakthrough route, is the last six months more in the catering, leisure and other categories of the quietly transformed. October 2012, Restaurant group purchase from the same period last year 48 percent rose to 51 percent, life services, leisure and entertainment categories from the same period last year 18 percent and 29 percent rose to 23 percent and 33 percent. In the past, only the sale of ultra-low prices on the day of purchase activities have been rare, more is a number of consecutive days to sell the group purchase products, the price also from 20 percent-30 percent to the coupon cover of 40 percent-70 percent of the price range, such as the litters Group sold the South Beauty 100 Yuan cash coupons for 75 yuan, valid even until the end of March 2013.

Any industry has experienced the initial rush to imitate the stage, then a small number of enterprises rely on innovation and scale effect to form their own unique brand card, in the ebb tide survive.

Most of the cooperation between group buying site is divided into models, mutual benefit to achieve a winning situation. And Jingdong, when, such as the electronic business of the open platform to attract handle, litters Regiment, tick group, full network, such as independent purchase site settled. From the electricity business site "mixed group buying" move, can see its local merchant service center of gravity in the unceasing promotion, the independent group buying website also is not abandons own brand and the domain, but relies on the platform the huge flow to increase the sale.

"Reverse group purchase" is also a more typical of a innovation, it is consumer demand-oriented, user from passive to active, the site itself quickly accumulate popularity to reach the effect of Word-of-mouth transmission. But this model technology is simple, entry threshold is low, once the foreground is optimistic, other imitators will flock in, at the same time the user is driven by the price, the design, the style and so on the bigger, the user loyalty degree is relatively low. According to our attempt, the net buys the kind product to be more suitable this direction, but the localization buys the product tune, cannot let the consumer form the opinion unification, also cannot form the big enough reverse buys the bargaining power and the merchant to deal.

Can mobile internet become Noah's Ark?

Mobile internet will become the O2O industry rapid growth of the soil, and as the vanguard of O2O industry, with pre-charge and closed-loop verification characteristics of the group buying business has a natural advantage, can follow the whereabouts of the following users to provide a better recommendation-in mobile scenarios, users are more inclined to buy at anytime, anywhere This gives new sales opportunities for group buying. The next stage, the purchase of the dispute will be from the "Merchant's contention" mainly into the "mobile dispute."

But the group buying industry as a whole in mobile client development is not optimistic. At present, the domestic real development of mobile phone client Group purchase station only 10, accounting for about 0.3% of the total number of group buy station. This and the group purchase station itself has a certain relationship with the product shape, because the single group purchase station merchant coverage and China's regional restrictions, it is difficult to meet users at the mobile end of the time to inquire about the need to buy information and direct purchase of the demand, and users can not install all group buy clients. This gives a similar "group purchase" and other group buy navigation app development opportunities. This is a lot of group buy website, is also a more realistic and feasible scheme, give up the development of independent clients, and mobile phone on the group buy navigation platform to work together to do a good job offline products and services.

Group buying site in the mobile end of another development, is with the offline preferential platform cooperation. Group buying in 2011 not only cultivated the consumer buying habits, but also opened the Merchant Resource Reserve and consumer certification system. This allows group buying advanced-"coupons" and "affiliate marketing" model has a development base, coupons so that merchants in the gross margin and service cycle to obtain more flexible space, but also reduce the purchase station to excavate new merchant pressure, increased the repeated utilization of the merchant. We have just launched a new product 800, on the reorganization of the aggregation of a single merchant's preferential information, through the mobile phone lbs function to provide consumers with a one-stop search for the possibility of surrounding concessions.

At the same time that everything seems beautiful, mobile payment becomes the problem that the group purchase website must solve. Mobile payment functions often need to rely on the user's trusted Third-party payment platform, while the mobile phone platform transaction rates are much higher than the PC platform, which makes the number of Maori revenue has been a handful of group buying sites can not be willing to take the initiative to bear this extra expenditure. As a result, this has become the "narrow door" of the group buying website in the mobile Internet development.

The domestic group buying market 2011 sales exceed 11 billion yuan, equivalent to 2010 5.5 times times. In 2012 years, although the number of group buying continued to decrease, the entire group purchase market sales have gradually achieved steady growth, 2012 1-October group purchase cumulative sales amounted to 17.36 billion yuan, nearly 376 million people "Hug Regiment" to buy.

Many people will use the Doomsday of 2012 to describe the future of group buying sites, in fact, the average age of less than 3-year-old Web sites in the watch, but also in the disappointment to find hope.

(author Group 800 co-founder)