That Saturday morning after Christmas, in a bus from Zaozhuang, Shandong province to Liaocheng, 31-year-old Shandong Lad Zheng from time to moment to look at the phone screen, the mind is completely not in the window of the beautiful scenery, although Zaozhuang is a long history, wetlands and the world's largest pomegranate garden famous tourist city.
He is on his way to Liaocheng to attend the end of the month at the U.S. He was too familiar with the city, and as the city manager of the Zaozhuang, he came to this three or four-line city by competition in early 2013, and since then began the state of the road most of the time, from one merchant to another, one to another.
Now, Zheng has a fire team of 14 people, most of them are for business development sales staff. "No one needs to stay in the office for long, we are on the road and everyone is doing their best to keep up with the pace of business growth," he said. "At the end of the phone, the bus's engine sounds are interspersed."
In the past December, the United States Regiment in Zaozhuang turnover has exceeded 10 million yuan, and two months ago, this figure is only 5 million yuan. More importantly, in a short span of one year, Zaozhuang business has been close to break-even. Zheng attributed the result to the size advantage of the US regiment and the growing recognition of consumer buying patterns.
In fact, this kind of situation not only appears in Zaozhuang, in the American Regiment carries on the business the nearly 200 cities, all more or less felt this kind of situation positive change. 2013 United States Regiment turnover of more than 16 billion yuan, the year-on-year growth of nearly 200%, in the last one months, the turnover reached 2.2 billion yuan, and the last day broke through 100 million yuan.
And before 1.5, the founder of the United States Wang in the Forbes Chinese version of the visit, control and adjustment is still the theme of the company. At that time, the United States Regiment one-month turnover of 370 million yuan, the share of 21%, the second litters group for 250 million yuan, the share of 14%, indicating that the industry is still very dispersed, the United States group's leading edge is not too obvious.
Throughout the 2012, a new city in the United States did not enter. Affected by the capital market's decline in confidence in China's concept stocks, as well as vicious competition in group buying (China has over 5,000 group-buying sites in the peak of 2011), Chinese group buying sites have fallen into a slump this year, with more than half of the sites failing.
But the US group's endogenous growth has not stopped because Wang has maintained a modest expansion in the previous bubble boom, so when rivals are in trouble, the United States has ample resources and space to make the most of this opportunity.
Before the crisis, for example, the group had only about half the number of employees in the same trading volume (so there was no mass layoffs like other sites, a bad blow to staff morale), and it has not, like some companies, to the pursuit of higher gross margin and scale expansion, and the need for offline logistics in the field of physical group buying.
"One of the most comforting things I have heard this time, one of the first big decisions made by the new CEO of a group that I know has been to dispose of the hundreds of electric bikes left by his predecessor, which used to be the hallmark of the site's ambitious expansion plan for real-world group buying. Wang recalls.
In fact, as the industry as a whole warmed up (from 2013 onwards, this trend has emerged), the United States Group has restarted the expansion of the extension. 2013, the United States to carry out the business of the city increased by 16, the total reached nearly 200, in all group buying site leader, this and other factors, to help the United States Regiment firmly established the King of Chinese group buying status.
According to the third party group purchase monitoring site group 800 data, November the United States Regiment turnover of 1.7 billion yuan, ranked second in the public comments for 1 billion yuan, two companies occupy 45% and 26% of the share, and a year ago this data is 29.4% and 18.7%, 2013 years ago 11 The Month American regiment and the comment accounted for 41.6% and 23% respectively.
Like most successful entrepreneurs, Wang is very adept at capturing a simple business model and maximizing its potential. This distinguishes him from thousands of other group-buying entrepreneurs. This high school was walked to the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, and a full scholarship to the United States to continue to study electronic engineering (but his PhD is anxious to return to business) entrepreneurs, claiming to be very convinced of the market's own strength.
Embodied in the undertaking of the American Regiment, the belief is that if group buying is valuable to both the merchant and the consumer, it will be accepted and given value sooner or later, rather than the capital market, the media and other practitioners, just stick to their own rhythm.
Over the past years, Wang says, through his revered Amazon research, he realizes that the way to start a business is to go a step further and to change the dimensions of things. "You may need to act three, five, or even 10 years and verify an idea," he said. "he said.
He believes the group's rapid growth over the past year is a verification of the value of the group buying. "There are 600 million netizens in China, many of them have online consumer demand, and there is an oversupply of beer and skittles, once the two sides get through, like Ganci, soon broke out." ”
The logic behind this can also be expressed as: when some of the most adventurous businesses benefit from group buying and turn into competitive advantage, other relatively negative businesses will be forced to follow up, while in the consumer, the price is always the most lethal, the same as the Regiment 800 data show that the entire 2012 The size of Chinese group purchase users has been under 40 million, but by November of 2013, the user size has risen to 60 million.
At the same time, the U.S. group's profitability has continued to improve. Except for a few months, the group was profitable for most of the month of 2013, helping the group to make its annual profit for the first time in 2013, albeit at a meager profit.
Profitability is mainly driven by three of forces: one is from the increase of active login users-the main site of the United States, the active user login more than 50%, which reduces the amount of advertising to the external flow importer, while the rapid growth of mobile end traffic so that subsequent traffic costs are negligible, Because in addition to the initial cost of attracting installation, mobile end users are all from active login.
The second is the reduction in the cost of marketing, technology and other infrastructure for unit turnover. It is clear that these costs will be a fixed expense for a certain period of time to maintain a site as large as the United States, because the cost of maintaining basic operations is essential regardless of the amount of turnover. For example, because the United States has a complete infrastructure, it is possible to reduce these costs when it enters new cities or new business areas.
The third is the improvement of productivity per capita. 1.5 ago, the U.S. Regiment monthly turnover is 370 million yuan, its total staff of nearly 3,000, and now income compared with the increase of nearly 500%, employees only increased by less than 1 time times. This is largely due to consumer and merchant acceptance of group buying, as well as the promotion of the United States Group brand recognition.
But in what is often considered the most immediate factor that might improve profitability – the rate of Commission (i.e., the amount of money that the US group can leave per 100 yuan), the group still does not show any upward trend, averaging only about 5% per cent. As in the 1.5 interview, Wang that group buying is itself a low commission rate business.
At this point, he and his early start of the study benchmarking Groupon has a fundamental disagreement. At the start of the American Regiment in early 2010, Wang almost completely copy Groupon's model, such as a day, but soon the two companies ' models went further and farther.
At Groupon, it's more like an ad marketing platform, targeting the demand for business promotion than the demand for deals, so Groupon's commission rate is very high, usually over 40%. But Wang will be located in the same intermediary trading channels as Amazon, so it must be both to curry favor with consumers, but also to make the cooperation of businesses from each cooperation to make money.
"We aim at a very large market, which may be tens of billions of dollars, so the commission rate cannot be too high, it will stay under 10% for a long time, 3%-5% at a low, and 6%-8% at the height." ”
It is not yet possible to say which model is better, but the strong stamina of the US-style model has been revealed. Compared with the 200% per cent growth in the US (Wang that the group will still be able to maintain this level of growth over the next few years), Groupon appears to be in a weak position, with a turnover of 5.68 billion dollars in the past four quarters, up from a year-on-year growth of just 11.8%. Also, the group has been profitable in the past year, and Groupon is still in the red.
But on the other hand, even if the US team has the ability to improve profitability, Wang will still not act lightly, because doing so could risk losing market leadership – the industry is still at a rapid expansion and potential rivals are still eyeing, and if the industry looks too attractive, new capital may pour in. So that the improvement of the industry pattern aborted.
Now Wang more concerned about how to seize the opportunity to continue to increase the breadth and depth of the United States, the former refers to the United States into more cities, and to provide consumers with more products, the latter refers to a project called "T strategy."
For the former, the first challenge is how to control costs and maintain executive power while expanding. In this regard, the United States has its own set of a complete and effective system-for the electronic engineering background, like to ponder a variety of mathematical problems Wang, this is certainly not the case.
Specifically, the U.S. team will first find those who can bring troops to fight the platoon commander, and then fully authorized, strong support, real-time control of key indicators.
For example, Zheng, who only had a high school diploma, was one of the dark horses found by the system, who joined the United States in his home town of Jining, a city near Zaozhuang in late 2011, and emerged from many of the candidates in early 2013.
Zheng thinks Zaozhuang's rapid growth, all is thanks to the United States Regiment formidable platform support to give, in his words, "rides the bicycle to be good, also inferior rocket airplane".
With a strong IT system, salespeople can complete contracts through the Web at the merchant's end, taking less than half an hour, and the headquarters can keep abreast of the business progress of every salesperson in every city in the country, all in a near-transparent state.
The platform advantage of the United States is not only these, because the United States is a truly national group buying site, which makes it enjoy other regional sites do not have the advantage.
In Zaozhuang, for example, since the United States regiment in Shandong 17 areas under the jurisdiction of 13 already have business, including several cities around Zaozhuang, which let the United States Regiment before entering Zaozhuang, it already has about 20,000 users through the Zaozhuang telephone registration, most of them are students or often on business trip white-collar.
"Since they are already users of the United States in other cities, they have brought us here when they return to Zaozhuang," he said. and other cities in the United States when the user came to Zaozhuang, they also become some of our products of the first users, such as hotels. Zheng said, according to him, the current United States Regiment in Zaozhuang users have grown to 150,000.
However, it is not to be overlooked that a large number of regional group buying sites, established during the bubble boom two years ago, have also made important contributions to the user's nurturing process, but they have not become the ultimate fruit picker.
When Zheng first came to Zaozhuang, there were 7 local group buying sites, and it was through their website Zheng and colleagues that they learned about Zaozhuang merchants ' firsthand information. But now, only two sites are still struggling to get by, and the others have either switched off or changed careers.
In addition, in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of these three or four-line cities located far from the center, the team also asked Zheng that they must organize an employee team building campaign every month to "increase team cohesion, passion for work, and happy life". This weekend, Zheng has just organized this month's outing, all staff and family of 30 people to go skiing together.
There is only one request from the United States: every city has to "shop like a tree". Because only in this way, to maintain the attractiveness of consumers, and first encirclements the best quality of business resources, less opportunities for the latter.
As for the "T strategy", ostensibly to operate in more areas of refinement, the hidden behind is a huge ambition.
In fact, according to Xu Wu, who is responsible for the U.S. Mission's cat's eye film business, as early as in 2011, Wang told him that group buying is just the tip of the iceberg, is the United States to cut into a larger O2O market entry point.
The cat's Eye movie is the first attempt by the American team to dive into the vertical field. In 2012, when the United States Regiment decided to implement the T strategy, the film contributed to nearly 30% of the turnover of the United States, and more importantly, as the Chinese government stipulated that each new movie theater to open, must be from six kinds of designated ticketing system to choose one to install, which led to a higher degree of it in the film industry, and more standard.
In addition, the excessively high film fares, as well as the overall oversupply, also left enough room for the group buying business. But soon, the group raised its expectations of cat's eye film as the company's first O2O trial business.
For example, before the American group film only positioning in the movie ticket purchase link, and now with the full based on the mobile end of the cat's eye film, the United States Regiment will cover the film marketing, group buying, booking, evaluation and exchange of all aspects.
2013, the United States Regiment from the movie ticket turnover of about 1.6 billion-1.8 billion yuan, may account for the Chinese film box office 8%-10%, of which the cat's eye movie volume has been billions. There are more than 1,500 cinemas that have cooperated with the United States, including the hundreds of cinemas of Wanda and Jin Yi's two renowned home lines. In 1,500 home appliances cinemas, about 1/3 can support the United States team cat's eye film.
In the 2013, when the "Small Time" was aired, the cat's eye was emerged, and at the peak, 90% of the users who bought movie tickets through their cat's eye saw "The Little times". In the opening of a movie theater near the Chongqing Liberation Monument, the cat's eye film provided 80% of the user's source for the movie's Day.
Now, Wang is going to copy the cat's eye film to more fields. For example, recently the United States Regiment has just been on the line to focus on catering business, and by his long-term partner, the company's vice President Wang Huiwen personally. In this business, the United States will be positioning itself in the information and trading platform, and the distribution of such links to the business or Third-party Professional distribution company responsible.
His inspiration came from a friend, the friend was a logistics giant DHL, a management staff, and then started a community service class of the electric business site, but because of both trading and distribution, so slow progress, finally the friend stripped off the trading link, focus on doing community distribution, now business is booming.
For the United States, the development of similar vertical business, there is an imperceptible advantage, that is to enable the United States to form a huge root system, which can improve the U.S. mission in the still uncertain market risk-resistant ability to form an oriental not bright Western bright pattern, this strategy before the Qihoo 360 where the excellent application- A large number of clients to prevent the latter by Tencent, Baidu, such as the rapid suppression of powerful opponents.
Wang has already foreseen this. The main concerns about the future of the country's biggest group-buying site include: a micro-letter-led mobile internet power may change the user's habits, and the lack of a map link could lead to loopholes in future O2O layouts and the sustainability of profitability.
His judgment is that the existing models will be constantly integrated, the new will continue to rise, and no one can predict the future on the move, he is inclined to think that the future will be multiple entrances, and mobile phone is not the ultimate form of mobile devices.
What the United States can do is to firmly grasp the core of the choice has been chosen: the connection between merchants and individuals. What's more, the impact of the U.S. regiment on the mobile side has also risen steadily, with more than 50 million mobile users and more than 65% of the turnover being generated by mobile end.
"It may be that the experience of the shop owners will mature, and it is this that limits their acceptance of group buying, but they are too small and too fragmented to afford the cost of an online trading team, which keeps them dependent on our offline service team, It is difficult for competitors who do not have the resources to escape the time limit of accumulating such a team. ”
As for the map, he shares the view that, as long as there are two map suppliers in the market, it is not necessary for the United States to establish its own map, because the company has other more urgent things to do.
Perhaps the only problem is that now one of the main map providers, Gould, has been incorporated into Alibaba, and Alibaba is only a small shareholder in the United States, and another major map provider may be in full control of a giant in the future.
According to his plan, by 2015, the United States will be more than 100 billion yuan in annual turnover (if this goal can be achieved, the United States Regiment will become the fastest growing in China and the world, one of the heavyweight internet companies, can be compared to Jingdong, and completely surpass its master Groupon). For a company at this level, if you want to remain independent, you must avoid any vulnerabilities that are strategically controlled, and maps can be such a vulnerability.
In general, there are a lot of places to spend, and the company has been 50 million dollars (also the second round of financing) for the last two years, and all the money must be used selectively before a new round of financing is put in place.
There has been a view that the United States should seize the opportunity to pick up the industry reshuffle, but compared to the recruitment of these sites may be a better choice for the staff, because they do not have to carry a lot of baggage, but also save money, which will reduce the demand for capital and urgency of the U.S. regiment.
But even so, in order to meet the growth plan for the next two years, the number of cities and employees planned to operate in the United States is likely to increase by 2-4 times, this means that the corresponding demand for capital will also multiply-the US group still needs to seize the renewed enthusiasm of the capital market for the Chinese concept unit and quickly get enough new ammunition.
But this is nothing, Wang has been accustomed to in this complex situation, the elimination of interference to keep pace. "All you have to do is stay awake on one issue, and that is that everything is changing, and the danger may have come to you when you think you've figured it out and changed a little." ”
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