Many people say group buying is dead

Many people say group buying is dead. After the Hundred Regiment War, the Thousand Regiment war survived not dead also dying, most are seeking transformation.

Do you ask why they are unsustainable? Nothing more than to do group buying, expansion investment is bottomless pit, the current business model is unsustainable.

Group buying business model itself has inherent problems. Low-price discounts of goods and services to the recipient-users, is to obtain income, and the provider-merchant, is the interest of damage. Group buying for offline businesses, in addition to pull the function of the new guest, for the day-to-day marketing contributions to businesses are few. A merchant just opened a shop or business bad time discount attract guests, he is willing, this is a very reasonable value. But catering net profit is 10%, long-term do damage is very big. If the merchant's business is by group buying, short-term let you very high, a lot of traffic, but in the long run this will eventually die.

Simply offering discounts to price-sensitive users is a marketing rather than a business model, because the merchant is making a profit on the marketing cost. And who has seen every day discounts to sell goods/services business, this is unsustainable.

Group purchase provides a "abnormal" low price, because the cost of goods and services has not been radically reduced, the low price is dependent on businesses to lower profits. In stark contrast to this, compared to Taobao, such as electricity, 0 of cost to the platform, saving the real store rental, tax, part of the operation of the management costs, the low price offered by the merchant is real and healthy, so there are more and more settled. With the Taobao platform gathered a variety of rich quality and cheap goods, alipay and efficient and inexpensive logistics system to establish, only to attract more and more consumers online shopping. First drive the merchant, then drive the user, both sides have a positive cycle, finally changed the Chinese consumer shopping habits.

The essence of group buying is O2O, to change of course is also the consumption habits of life services, will be mostly online under the beer and Skittles migrated to the line. However, in this process, do not seem to have thought of group buying, what is the value you have created for the offline merchant, and what is the cost savings?

Real, buy to get rid of the current predicament, the following three "Cross-border" examples are very enlightening.

The first example, Apple Pay, don't say no.

Mobile payment is recognized as a promising industry. The development of the industry is not a short time, but there is no "intermediary", can realize mobile payment complete chain of banks, credit card organizations, mobile payment software system, mobile payment hardware system bonded together. Why？

The apple that subverted many industries, Cook released Apple Pay, said the phrase, "Most arranges who have been sharable to this have started to focusing on creating a Business mode that is sitting (?) around misspelling own acquires instead of focusing on user experience. We love this kind of problem. "Simple Overview:" They started thinking only about building a business model, their interests and concerns only in how to profit from the new business, and this gives Apple the opportunity. This may also be the most important reason why Apple can "subvert" many industries.

A new thing, an emerging industry has been slow to develop: not the same, but the benefits. This example is also suitable to describe the plight of the current group buying: The interest will let your attention point turn, not enough focus, once the group purchase enterprise once encountered the fund difficulty, the profit model is unable to establish, starts to seek the difference development way, does the business model the transformation and the grafting.

From the beginning of the thousand-group war, to the regiment treasure nets, 24 coupons and other closures, as well as glutinous rice, full, handle the acquisition of the industry's remaining less than hundreds of. In the face of difficulties, the families are only doing two things, find the Godfather or find a new model. In addition to the United States Group is still doing a real group buying mode, the public comments have turned to platform advertising mode, Baidu glutinous rice map lbs mode, as well as the litters group "shop through" the mobile direct marketing model.

When emerging things appear, the composition of the industrial chain each node can not see their role, either want to split a cup of soup, or just see the immediate interests and ignore the long-term. This time, who can do the opposite, and stick to it, its chance of its pattern will be very big. Therefore, when other people encounter difficulties in the face of singing decline are "transformation", the United States to adhere to the traditional group buying the more and more.

The second example, Internet thinking, is to find the value of free.

First of all, here is the "real" internet thinking, not pseudo Internet thinking, here do not cite the example of millet, do not say Lei, do not play lies.

Real Internet thinking subversive industry example, the author currently only see two, one is Alibaba beat ebay, one is Zhou 360 security guards. They have grown up in a process that has been practicing two of things. One is to help target customers reduce costs, and even provide free service. Second, to help customers solve problems, the small white thinking.

ebay to the platform of the merchant charges, Taobao will not accept. Antivirus software to charge, 360 will not accept. It all seemed incredible at the time. When Taobao Merchant formed a huge amount of ecology, merchant search rankings, page ads, traffic import and export, margin system, cat entry eligibility, these "unexpected" business model is so established; When the 360 client's share has been hard to shake, various means make it increasingly difficult for users to leave it, online marketing, The software distribution, the page swims the transportation, all naturally becomes the revenue source.

And to help customers solve problems, the practice of small white thinking, but also has the accumulation of users and the development of new products dual role. Alipay is to simplify the online transaction payment problem established, no charge, in the desktop end Mobile end of the initial promotion even offer discounts. When Alipay has become a huge pool of funds, do high income balance treasure conditions are also available; 360 client set up, followed by the development of 360 Web site Navigation page, 360 security desktop, 360 software butler, respectively, to solve the small white customer search function URL, desktop beautification, software installation and simple installed requirements. Further accumulating more users, these additional products contribute 360 of the largest piece of revenue.

Everything can find its value, even if it is free.

How many do buy the enterprise, the first came to think of is the circle of money, rather than circle users, circle merchants. On the contrary, who can start to insist on the business of free entry strategy, the intention to help the user to solve the problem, long-term adhere to, what will be rewarded?

The third example, Tesla electric vehicles, solves the problem by requiring Cross-border thinking, starting from the root and reshaping a better model of the solution.

Electric cars have been tepid for a long time, even though the global government has paid more attention to environmental protection than ever, and all kinds of subsidy policies are good, and there is no real fire in electric cars, because battery technology is hovering. But before a major mixed internet-circle figure, in just a few years, the development of a sports car class performance, stunning security, intelligent control/high reliability integration, so that the traditional car giants dwarfed by the electric vehicle--tesla Model S, successfully scrambled the market and attracted global attention. How did this subversion happen?

Traditional electric vehicle manufacturers use large batteries in order to facilitate power management and access to much of the storage (lift mileage). Large batteries because they contain more energy, more dangerous, but also forced to choose a low energy density electrolyte, to solve the problem of the large battery easy to fire. Further, in order to solve the low energy density of the defects, they create a more easily held together flat-shaped batteries, the entire battery module size, management difficulties, safety factors are "out of control", the electric vehicle's endurance is also difficult to upgrade.

Tesla but against its way, from the beginning to choose a large battery derived from a series of problems, they chose to so far so many manufacturers have been unthinkable, thousands of 18650 batteries in tandem. This is the key to solving the problem of energy density, which is a big boost to electric vehicle mileage. Furthermore, they successfully solved the problem of security and reliability by using the system of Hierarchical server cluster management in 18650 Battery series management.

Return to the nature of the problem, using cross-border thinking, to reshape a better solution model. Return to the reason for the existence of the industry, rather than reference to the status quo, and then deduce a most consistent with the essence of the model.

Group buying is a kind of O2O, different from the general to do a restaurant/tourism/Hotel app, it solves two problems: first, let the local life service O2O category more complete, a large number of goods and services, means more choices. Second, the discount represents the low price, which is fundamental.

So, there are two problems to solve, to find effective horizontal category expansion path, as well as provide a stable, healthy discount merchandise discount services. Starting from these two problems, we should reshape a better solution model.

The traditional group buying mode volume expands the benefit, more is at the user level. There are more projects, meaning that group buying can attract more target users, and more users can attract more merchants to settle in. Other people take the traditional group buying mode will be dying or closed down or be acquired, largely because only online expansion.

How to offer discounts on goods, this is the place that needs to be really explored attentively. Expansion volume, with a larger user base, of course, with the settled merchants have greater bargaining power, this is not urgent. At this stage, to provide more discounts, we need to explore the vision and ability of the project: not just to eat and drink life services, custom goods, custom services, those with a long middle premium link industry is most likely to be infiltrated by the Internet.

After fierce competition, the whole group buying industry into a low ebb, on the other hand, but also eliminated the quick success and lack of capacity of enterprises, so that the transfer of more market space. Group buying industry is not optimistic about the present, the opportunity may only really appear.