Japan Lotte fail China: Search traffic difficult to promote sales of electricity dealers

In the fight with Alibaba, Jingdong Mall and other local electric dealers, Japan's largest online shopping company Lotte declared a defeat: will be closed on April 27 Lotte and Baidu in China joint venture business website cool days.

"In China, there are too many electric operators, we are very hard, from the environment to see the competition is very fierce." "Le Cool Day CEO Jiang said.

Jiang said that in the Chinese market two years ago did not expect competition is so fierce, but the current situation and expected to leave, shareholders need to consider the return on investment, so the current exit for shareholders, Lotte and le cool days are good.

Baidu, one of the shareholders, said the closure of Le cool days is the resolution of the Lotte Board of directors, Baidu and Lotte are negotiating a follow-up program.

"Search" traffic is difficult to promote sales of electricity dealers

"Universal search and vertical search are two concepts, and traffic is not equal to sales." "The reason for the fail day is pointed out by the electric business observer to the first financial daily," if only rely on Baidu's flow injection, no good promotions, no marketing, no user training, no external cooperation and operations, in China such a brutal internet market, to be able to make money immediately profitable, difficult. ”

October 2010, Japan Lotte and Baidu joint venture shopping mall "Le cool Days" officially online, both sides jointly financed 50 million U.S. dollars, Lotte, Baidu accounted for 51%, 49% of the shares.

Le Cool Day Mall products cover clothing, jewelry, home, home appliances, digital, maternal and child, cosmetics, books, audio-visual, jewelry, automobiles and accessories, such as the whole category of mesh shopping products, mainly by Lotte operation, Baidu is mainly responsible for the cool days of the entrance and flow problems.

In the early stage of platform promotion, backed by Baidu's largest Chinese flow "export" Le cool days, not only to enjoy the same with Baidu account, Baidu registered users can directly login to cool day platform, and other promotional resources such as bidding rankings, advertising alliances, display ads, Web site navigation, box calculation, Aladdin's show, Baidu helps as much as possible.

But to Jiang one puzzled is, the mall has been underperforming since the line.

According to the latest data, the volume of Chinese Business-to-consumer in 2011 reached 240.07 billion yuan, an increase of 130.8% per cent year-on-year. Alibaba's Day Cat Mall to get 40% of the market share, Jingdong Mall also points 14.7%, and cool days accounted for less than 0.1%. From the Alexa website inquiries, le cool days of the recent three months flow ranked nearly million.

O Song Communications marketing director Dongyang that the operation and search of the electric business is still a difference, whether it is the search company to do E-commerce, or e-commerce companies do search, undoubtedly indicates a new network service mode and the formation of the industry, that is, "search + shopping." Baidu's foray into electricity and Alibaba is not a concept, because general search and vertical search are two concepts, traffic is not equal to sales.

Another market view is that the last straw that overwhelmed cool days at home is due to the withdrawal of Baidu. The weight of Japanese management is too great management chain too long, resulting in limited localization authority, since the end of last year, both sides increasingly deepen the contradictions, Lotte began to operate the cool day alone, the revision will no longer highlight the relevance of Baidu, title from the original "Baidu Lotte" into "Le Cool Day Mall", Hundred pay disappears from the payment page when the payment is made.

From the cool days of the business to evacuate, said it has been difficult to obtain flow support from the cool days, which basically ended the cool days in China's development possibilities.

Le Cool Day spokesman told this newspaper, although the site closed, but and Baidu set up a joint venture still exists, and maintain the previous shareholding structure unchanged.

Not enough localization

Electric Trader Senior Personage Shangxiang to this newspaper, the beginning is not optimistic about the development of Le Cool day. Do a good job in foreign e-commerce sites in China will often encounter acclimatized, and Le cool days in China did not use good and Baidu's cooperative relationship.

"On the one hand they do not understand the situation of Chinese electricity dealers, including user habits, such as Hubei netizens and the netizens in Beijing are certainly not the same, in addition to the different Chinese businessmen, small entrepreneurs, do wholesale, do brand, business needs are not understood by the Japanese, so consumers and users do not do well at both ends, Not to mention anything else. ”

But Jiang has always believed that the cool days of the business is not localized do not good enough, but the competition is too intense.

"From October 2010 onwards, the business model is gradually improving, we have brought the Japanese electrical business experience, and strive for full localization." "He has publicly stated that from the business of cool days, from the Web architecture, payment patterns, to services are localized."

However, a cool day merchant believes that cool days are not enough localization. "Le Cool day UI interface is not in line with Chinese habits, such as the home page of the activity attracts less, the interface of the picture with a size of 160 of small pictures, another search is not to force, in Baidu search for pregnant women pillow, out of the cool day of the baby car interface." ”

"Activity is not enough, can not pull old customers, but also attract new customers, most of the shops are lifeless, the original as a gimmick for the ECC Commissioner also to our mall store mainstream show envy Taobao sentiment, attitude let people disappointed." "Put all the energy in the cool days of the above merchant said, le cool days and no dedicated staff to butt, want to solve problems are not found, although the pattern and Taobao mall similar, but the lack of Taobao online customer service communication mechanism."

However, le cool days also said that the closure of the site does not mean a complete withdrawal from the Chinese market. "We are not giving up the market, Rakuten has 2 travel companies and a development company in China that will operate normally." In this part of the electrical business, the future will not be ruled out in other ways, but there is no specific timetable and plan. Jiang said.

Schedule 2011 China Merchants online retailer turnover top five

Source: Our Newspaper

Ranking site name 2011 turnover rate

1 days Cat 92 billion $206.7% 55%

2 Jingdong Mall 30.9 billion Yuan 202.9% 19%

3 Amazon China 6 billion $100% 4%

4 suning easy to purchase 5.9 billion Yuan 490% 4%

5 QQ Mall 5.3 billion yuan 165% 4%