Groupon is worried about how hard it is to replicate its model in China

Groupon's first page in China is pretty bad, and what I'm trying to say is that it's going to get worse. There's no personal bias-if anything, I'd like Groupon to be successful in China, so I have at least one more option as a consumer.

Few companies, like Groupon, have offended their rivals before they enter a market. Like a passionate, wealthy but not-so-emotional young man, it broke into an ancient country and declared itself to be the ruler of the place--the end of the story. It brings not only the authentic group buying model, sufficient capital, but also an outdated arrogant heart. If Groupon's Chinese leaders learn a little bit about Chinese history, not just the MBA textbook, they will find it impossible to take the world by force alone.

From the market point of view, I do not think that high prices to dig people what is wrong, and arrogance is only a mental state, it is difficult to really affect the market. Groupon seems to have started out as a "real villain," not emotionally, not on the dock, but about the gory rules of survival. As a result, the hands have not yet been handed over, but they have been bloody. Because in China, the real villain generally does not have any good end, the true gentleman and the hypocrite all has to punish.

In fact, the above are all bars, if realized, it is not difficult to change. The reason I'm pessimistic about Groupon's prospects in China is that the market is out of its place.

Group buying is a very low threshold of the industry. Groupon's strength lies in its vast database and analytics capabilities, and in addition to its strong capital. And when it faces China's rivals, such advantages are not obvious. Group buying is a strong region of the industry, the U.S. data in China is basically waste paper, its analysis model depends on China's actual combat to fill data, and this point, the Chinese website has been done for more than a year. As for capital, Groupon seems to have an obvious advantage, and in terms of valuations, domestic websites are mostly dozens of levels behind it. But behind these websites are countless idle money, which also has a powerful force. So, there may be several problems with the capital chain, but overall, China's group buying sites are not bothered by money.

Groupon's disadvantage is quite obvious. Unlike the traditional Internet industry, group buying is a line-and-line coordinated operation of the industry, its core is "people", whether the formation of a tough marketing team is essential. In the face of the local service market, the local marketing team is the only option, and Groupon has no advantage whatsoever. A high price can certainly solve some of the problems, but the construction of the marketing team has to start from scratch, which is a little bit of an urgent taste. The boss of a domestic website joked that Groupon knows that there are no "infernal Affairs" of Chinese rivals in the people who spend their money. What a dangerous step.

Groupon, too, realized that strangers were hard to make, so he pulled on Tencent to try to make alliances. The result is a strong enterprise met a more powerful enterprise, such cooperation is difficult to make people optimistic. The two do not give in, the result of a 50% to 50% of the shareholding ratio, as if afraid of the board after a few things. The decision is impossible, do vice heart have unwilling, these two enterprises marriage difficult to have happy ending.

In retrospect, almost all companies competing with Chinese companies in the lower-threshold industries ended up failing. If Groupon is just trying to replicate its own model in China, then let it go, because these Chinese peers have done it for you. The Chinese market to Groupon is a tasteless tasteless of food, even if reluctantly left, will live very hard.