Internet companies involved in catering O2O are a bit less popular with merchants

Text / Li Yue

Recently I was involved in a restaurant O2O seminar, we raised the issue that Internet companies engaged in catering O2O is a bit uninvited by businesses.

O2O connected online and offline ends, this should be an online user with high-efficiency and low-cost attributes. At present, the acquisition costs have been getting higher and higher, just like the high-efficiency expressways that are supposed to pass the traffic jam once entering the traffic jam situation , Then no efficiency at all.

How to get more cost-effective and more accurate customers by offline merchants, in other words, how to make merchants more willing to share users with Internet products is a tortuous path that many companies have been exploring so far but have not yet A company has made great progress.

Currently, the traditional O2O giants Meituan adopted from the industry, the regional expansion of the way, while the public comment is taken at the B-side C-terminal layout at the same time, to create a three-dimensional ecological approach. In addition, there are some small and medium-sized start-up companies, direct choice of force from the B side of the way.

Which layout is most effective and takes time to prove, but it can be reached consensus that the future will be the field of catering O2O many market value of more than one billion US dollars of the company.

Online user costs increase

Internet access costs of online users are getting higher and higher, before the "relying on users to make business" more and more costs can not be controlled.

Speaking, O2O users come from two directions, one part is through the pre-installed App, its own marketing activities to attract, the other part is through the merchant discount itself attracted. The latter occupy the vast majority.

Specific to the mobile App promotion, last year, pre-installed a software cost only two or three yuan, and now to seven or eight yuan. Thousands of mobile ads advertising prices have risen from 5-8 yuan in July last year, the current 30-40 yuan. With the increase in the number of Internet products, various activities of the bombing, access to users by online means more and more expensive.

Another way of attracting users through offline channels such as discounts may be to reach a consensus with the merchants, and the profit chains of merchants, platforms and users will be able to operate in the forward direction. Otherwise, the users will be profited, the platforms will be profitable but the merchants will be lost. This one-sided damage to the interests of the chain certainly can not be sustained.

Before the buy site 24 coupon COO Peng Lei shared his own experience of buying the noise. 24 coupons with underwriting approach with the catering business a considerable discount package, the user like water raging, and then disappeared without a trace.

Looking at the 24 coupons burned tens of millions of dollars, Penny questioned this marketing approach that relies heavily on discounts to attract users. Because after the wave of sales boom in the past, for businesses, the user retention rate is very low.

For the buy platform, the real value of users and traffic is after the precipitation of stock, rather than short-term activities to the wind variables.

Line into the hard

How to guide the accurate users offline to the Internet is what Internet platform companies have been trying. Through marketing, group purchase and many other kinds of cooperation, it has ostensibly led the on-line users to the merchants. However, it is expected that the offline users will be redirected to X line display rack, roll-up, door stickers and other materials online. on.

However, such a simple display way to attract users with limited effectiveness, and will be some of the traditional business resentment. After several years of edification, merchants of Internet products from the initial blindly follow the trend to understand more sober rational.

Currently, the online O2O platform into the catering of several of the more common products have buy, coupons, reservations, ordering and so on. For these products, Qiao Jiangnan, senior director of sales at South Beauty, shared an interesting point: all Internet products that use online passenger traffic as bargaining chips require us to provide the same things and discounts.

To give an inappropriate example, Internet products have a large number of online users, on the plumbing of the pipeline, and the discount is the export. The larger the discount, the more users it leads, and the fact is that these users may not all be what we need, but pay for those users.

Although Zhao Xigang's words only represent the needs of some businesses, there are tens of millions of catering businesses in China. From high-end brand chain stores to street shops, the demand of each business varies widely. Therefore, it is very difficult to find a standardized product to cut in of.

Take South Beauty example, the guest price of 200 yuan or so dinner business South Beauty, its users to consume more than just food, as well as elegant environment, as well as a variety of enhance the user experience of artificial services. In such a consumer scenario, a single point of such products, mobile phones and South Beauty can not improve efficiency, but will reduce the user experience.

Many internet platforms require docking with merchants' cashier and supply chain systems to develop Internet products that can improve efficiency, but this demand is just the demand of medium-sized businesses with independent IT systems, financial data related to Internet companies Direct access to data will make these brands are concerned about.

The low-end small businesses at present the demand for information is not very strong, only the middle-scale businesses, management clients, improve efficiency, the transaction data confidentiality will not be so high, there will be motivation to cooperate with the Internet company .

In fact, in the final analysis is still a matter of customization and standardization of balance, customization means that high costs, can not highlight the characteristics of efficient Internet products, and standardization means that there will be a suitable audience restrictions. How to find the right way to cut into the business side, O2O companies need to solve the problem.

Collaborative integration is one direction

O2O companies currently in-depth integration of the following several representatives.

Based on the restaurant review information, the public comments on the use of the "combination of boxing" approach to the business website display, buy, book, coupons, takeout and other products as a package program, according to the different needs of business portfolio. Of course, in addition to these see on the outside, the public comments accept Tencent micro-living docking with the merchant member system integration.

Insiders said that this scenario will be the common scenario for future users to make decisions. Because the user's needs more than just discounts, but also may be a service, or even have their favorite location or dishes.

Another O2O giant US group adopted a regional and industry expansion approach to seek a breakthrough in terms of volume. The United States continually increased the number of sub-cities in the third and fourth tier cities, as well as from the catering and entertainment industries to the movie and hotel industries expand. Of course, the main way to expand or buy.

Some people expressed concern about the model of the United States Mission, the risk of such a commercial chain rupture, will wake up with the awareness of merchants and more and more.

Of course, "all roads lead to Rome." Can not say which method is absolutely correct or wrong, but one thing can be confirmed is that who can truly achieve the win-win business, platform, users, who will have a real future.