Originally trapped in distress media gene double-edged sword

Tencent technology Hu Xiangbao July 23 reported

Originally Life Network just ushered in the second birthday, this is known as the genetically modified generous alternative electricity producers both reputation and speed of development are remarkable. But just before it launched a series of activities for her second birthday, the company's two top executives chose to leave.

According to Tencent exclusive access to technology, has served as the director of life and marketing department, the origin of purchasing and distribution center general manager of Hu Haiqing and Chiang Kai-sheng, deputy general manager of life had already been (CAPITAL: Tang and Song Dynasties) two executives have quietly quit, the two high The tube is directly responsible for and involved in the case of Chu Orange, who was once famous for Life.net.

At present, Hu Haiqing started building and investing in agro-brand incubators in the field of entrepreneurship, and Jiang Zewen joined LeTV.

As early as May this year, there have been sources to Tencent revealed that life financing was difficult, the company's capital chain may face the risk of rupture. But originally, the director of internal life also told Tencent Technologies that life had just obtained a round of financing and had already passed the crisis and would not cut off blood in the short term.

In response, Tencent call and send text messages to the original founder Yu Huafeng Life, before the deadline has not yet been responded.

It is reported that the entire domestic fresh electricity supplier industry failed to achieve profitability. In terms of the core competitiveness of fresh electricity suppliers such as the supply chain and logistics cold chain, life did not occupy the dominant position, and its good marketing was difficult to continuously create "Chu orange" type of explosive products. In the high cost, hold high hit the burn strategy, making the loss of life would have been understandable.

As SF, COFCO, Ali, Jingdong, No. 1 stores and other capital predators continue to exert force in this area, the future in the fresh market, as would have been to life like a "big" players will be more difficult to survive .

Media Genes double-edged sword

July 2012, "Originally live net" on the line, the main buy handmade, with the advantage of marketing quickly snatched the blank of the fresh electricity supplier market. Yu Huafeng founder is the elite media, after graduating from the Southern Newspaper Department, to create "Southern Metropolis Daily", "Beijing News" and other media marketing miracle.

Those who are familiar with Yu Huafeng point out that Yu has the idealist and rich human feelings of the media people. Most of his teams are from the media and have rich "media genes."

It is understood that the original core team of life, almost all the Southern Newspaper Department, Netease and other media people, or engaged in the issue of origin, or editor of the editor switch, they mostly follow Yu Huafeng years of comrades, colleagues and their subordinates. Originally in the life, said the buyer responsible for buying the area as a "reporter", the operator is called "editor", the weekly product will be called "selected topic."

It is the media gene, making life is good at localization of marketing and brand packaging to create, its classic orange is an example, the life of the brand has also quickly spread its popularity.

However, in the eyes of analysts, the powerful media gene is a double-edged sword, and the media people can easily transform themselves into e-commerce marketing experts. However, it takes a lot of effort to become a storage expert and a logistics expert one after another. This makes life less than stamina.

One of the incumbent's resignors told Tencent Technologies: "The company's overall team has a single knowledge structure and a lot of enthusiasm, but there are not enough e-commerce professionals. Everyone is not proficient in e-commerce. The cost of trial and error is so high that the whole group is in anxiety. Practitioners in the overall large-scale is also very difficult to play a role in the overall take a very twitch.

In the first half of this year, the company originally planned to divide its business department into three major regions, namely, North China, South China and East China. The company's human resources began to expand aggressively. The team expanded from 200-300 in the Spring Festival to 600-700 at the moment. "There are fewer people, the company's management and strategy play has not shown a problem, as the number increases, the problem also intensified." The above-mentioned people so stressed.

Informed sources have revealed that just last month, "on the tongue, China" program, life would have crushed a 30 tons of Chinese sea fish, millions of dollars in sales but in general, the soft power of the general election of the original life Performance plays a role in restraint.

According to Alexa data, the number of page views that originally lived in the past year showed a slight downward trend. This also proves to a certain extent that during the process of mass burn-in, the flow of the original life did not usher in a sharp rise and potential risks have been laid. These may bring together a major factor in the departure of Hu Hai-qing and Jiang Zheng-wen.

Survival anxiety: break too early

In addition to the team factors, the development of the fresh electricity supplier industry as a whole also left the original life confused with profit and short-term survival anxiety. Much thanks to the influence of marketing influence, there is no essential difference compared with competitors in product experience, selection and supply chain, logistics and so on.

However, by the second half of 2013, with the overall competition of fresh electricity suppliers and the demand of users, the competition intensified and everyone began to compete with each other. The supply chain, logistics and cold chain became the core of each competition. At this time, SF preferred logistics, cold chain advantages, the advantages of the supply chain I buy network began to emerge, and fresh electricity providers burn quickly, and the wealthy SF, compared to COFCO, originally living less financial strength.

In the meantime, Tmall, JD.com and No. 1 stores have risen in the platform of integrated e-commerce. Since they started to work directly with their suppliers, vertical and fresh markets and rules of the game have been broken. However, the seemingly promising fresh electricity supplier The industry entered the stage of shirtless warfare, with the original life of a small Bo began to emerge crisis.

According to insiders, the gross profit margin of 40% to 60% of the original life, but difficult to preserve fresh food, transport loss (loss rate of 20%), and the fresh requirements make timely delivery requirements are high, it is difficult to support returns, That the net profit margin is greatly reduced. At the same time as the user needs less delivery, customer price is lower, the ability of comprehensive selection of high demand. Passenger price if less than 200 yuan, after deducting product costs, logistics costs and circulation losses, the basic no profit.

In addition, because of the high cost of logistics costs, which makes the life of things on the site compared with ordinary markets or supermarkets, there is no price advantage. Fresh electricity suppliers have to have a quality cold chain logistics system, in order to ensure the quality of goods and timely delivery. However, the cold chain logistics greatly increased operating costs, self-built cold chain into a huge, long payback period, which makes the original type of life would have been unbearable.

In addition, although the original promise of full cold chain distribution, but in practice often carry out ordinary transport, the final fresh hard to "keep fresh", received a broken fruit have occurred from time to time. In the original life website is also filled with "fresh and to be expired mixed with the comments." This is undoubtedly a huge user experience harm, but also from the side to reflect the life of the poor operation.

More and more signs that the fresh electricity supplier is not the battlefield that would have been such a small player, insiders believe that life would like to change the current situation, the need to supply chain and cold chain to achieve a breakthrough, the upstream penetration To the base, the middle control of logistics, the end to seize the user base, and ultimately reduce the loss rate, improve distribution experience, control costs.

And all this requires too much investment. Even with the substantial financing, the prospect of a future life will not be predicted under the siege of the giants SF, COFCO, Tmall, Jingdong and No.1.