Promotional fatigue or double loss

Absrtact: As a marketing means, price warfare also spreads to the field of cosmetics vertical business. March 1, Poly-mei Gifted and Le bee nets will set off the electric business industry in the snake of the first war. From the stress supplier two to choose one to the United States too large flow lead to downtime, falsehoods

"Price war" as a means of marketing, but also spread to the cosmetics vertical manufacturers in the field of electricity.

March 1, Poly-mei Gifted and Le bee nets will set off the electric business industry in the snake of the first war. From the coercion of suppliers "two to choose one" to the large flow of the United States led to downtime, falsehoods so that users can not be resolved. It is noteworthy that the two sites behind the same investors are Sequoia Capital, the move also led to the industry's suspicion of its joint speculation.

There is analysis that, in the face of the challenge of traffic to the integrated platform transfer, two sites need an eye-catching marketing campaign to prevent the decline, relying on price war to obtain a certain degree of attention is also the industry's usual means, to maintain the industry's leading edge on the vertical electric business is very important. However, the daily economic news reporter learned that the United States excellent product CEO and Sequoia Capital both denied the above statement.

Promotional fatigue or double loss

When the "I speak for myself," the advertising word of poly-Mei products became a hot topic on Weibo, its rival Le Bee network began to fight back.

February 25, Lok Bee Network in its official microblog posted on the news that received a number of U.S. makeup supplier complaints, poly-U.S. products coerce suppliers, forced its next promotional activities in the "two election." Subsequently, the Lok bee Nets first in the United States before the zero, on February 27, launched the "Peach Blossom Festival" promotion, and announced the whole network parity, even at the same time to focus on the United States excellent commodity prices, ready to make a downward adjustment.

With the previous High-profile publicity, Poly-Mei Excellent products in March 1 launched the anniversary of Daqing. Because the traffic is too large, the site was once a large area of paralysis, at the same time, freight logistics has become the sequel to the promotion.

A seemingly fierce electric business marketing and price war, in the two sites can bring how much revenue?

According to the data announced by Le Bee Network, its "Peach Blossom Festival" sales of 122 million yuan a day, sold 570,000 orders. And the United States quality products related to reporters that the March 1 turnover reached 500 million yuan, the number of orders more than 2 million.

Public data show that 2011, Lok Bee nets, poly-mei Excellent goods sales are 630 million yuan and 400 million yuan respectively, the 2012 Lok Bee net sales of about 1.5 billion yuan, Poly beauty Excellent product sales also more than 1 billion yuan.

Therefore, the Lok bee nets and poly-Mei Excellent products This price war, quite "wool" means. The seemingly scenic data, has not been recognized by the industry.

Eric Consulting analyst Huang Analysis, in terms of sales, there is not much difference between the two. For the Electronic business site, from the order to the real out of the library there will be more than 30% of invalid orders. In the face of real sales, two sites are not necessarily really satisfied.

At the same time, the reporter learned that consumers to the frequent sales of the war also produced a weak state. Online shopping Cao Quite a bit disappointed to tell the daily economic news reporter, the same day, she was in the United States and Le Bee both bought a lot of goods, but did not imagine so cheap, after receiving the goods with two-dimensional code compared the price, found that some more than other sites are expensive. "Perhaps for the price of goods below the Hundred, poly-mei Such sites are not reflected in price advantages." Later still will be a little cautious purchase, can no longer easily believe that the price war. ”

Also has netizens to reflect, from March 1 early morning activity starts soon, gathers the beautiful product homepage to appear frequently to go down, cannot open the phenomenon. Users have also said that "advertising is better than spending more energy to improve the experience."

In this respect, Chen Au CEO in Micro-blog gave an explanation, "because the user is too large, estimated only millions of users, March 1 the same day is the tens of millions of users at the same time login, so the use of a triage approach." ”

In fact, the predecessor of the group to buy the site's excellent products, in less than 3 years, its sales category from cosmetics group purchase, to skin care, body care, food health expansion to the mother and child products and other categories.

Some people in the industry believe that the vertical type of electrical business site or should be trained to concentrate on their own areas, price war is the same. "A short time to deal with industry competition is understandable, but the category is more likely to do not fine, price war will also reduce user loyalty, allowing users to price as the only measure." ”

Investors deny joint hype

And the Sky cat, Jing Dong, suning vigorous price war, Poly-mei excellent products and Le Bee network how much appears to be a little volume too small.

In this price war, investors behind the two sides of Sequoia Capital also received great attention. In 2007, when the Lok Bee Net was not established, Li, founder of the Sequoia Capital China Fund, received millions of dollars of investment from its founding partner, Shen. 2012, the CICC Joint Broadband Fund again to the Lok Bee net investment 40 million dollars.

Chen Au in 2010 to get the famous angel investor Xiaoping a sum of money, the same year, the creation of Poly-Mei excellent products, 2011 Poly Excellent products complete 6.5 million dollars a round of financing, investment founder is Sequoia Capital.

Although the same is a direct competitor in the vertical field of cosmetics electric dealer, but the model of the Happy Bee net and poly-Mei excellent product is different. Le Bee network to take the "own brand + up to the economy + social shopping Guide" model, with the help of its own brand this high margin commodity profitability; poly-beauty products are limited to the special selling mode, the main sale of the market's best-selling cosmetics.

An unnamed wind investment bankers told reporters that a VC investment in the same industry two companies are not new, may indicate that the VC particularly optimistic about the industry. "or VC in order to avoid risk, no matter two websites which side finally can grow, the final investment party will not have the loss." and two sites fundamentally, or the relationship between competitors, of course, do not rule out the possibility of joint speculation. ”

Competing products are the usual "tricks" of Sequoia. Online travel web site Donkey mother and cattle travel network have been obtained Sequoia Capital Investment, Wan Xue education and excellent education is also a product of Sequoia competing products. As opposed to other companies, the Lok Bee Network and poly-Mei excellent products have been in a confrontational situation, the founders of both sides at the micro-blog to publicly refute opponents.

Sequoia Capital related people in the "Daily economic news" reporter interviewed, then directly denied the "joint speculation", but for the two sites in its investment in the consideration and positioning, the person did not disclose.

Poly United States excellent product CEO is to reporters Zhi le bee net this move is the opportunity to hype. "From the outset, the Lok Bee Network hired a public relations company for a lot of hype, or even micro-bo marketing." And our company did not take the initiative to publish any information, from this point of view, who in the hype is very obvious. ”

The reporter tried to contact the Lok Bee Network related people to verify the matter, but was told that the director of Media PR has left, has not been replaced.

In the past year, the vertical electric business has experienced several life and death struggles. Dimensional cotton net capital chain rupture, red children by suning low price acquisition, walk show nets and Amoy also into the decline. The cosmetics industry, which is smaller in volume, is just beginning.

According to Iris data show, 2011 Chinese Cosmetics net buys the scale is 37.26 billion yuan, in the net buys the overall proportion is 4.86%. A large number of cosmetics consumption behavior is still concentrated online. In the case of L ' Oreal, in 2012 its sales in China were 12.05 billion yuan, and online sales accounted for less than 5%. Therefore, for the cosmetics industry, online channels are just beginning.

Huang that the greater significance of this price war is reflected in the positive promotion of the entire cosmetics online channel. Cosmetics and other categories, online channels do not get the brand manufacturers, especially the international high-end brand's real attention. The marketing war, whether it is the Lok Bee network or poly-Mei excellent products have mobilized a considerable part of the brand manufacturers support. Whether or not the two can be decided, cosmetics online channels will benefit.