Public comments Zhang Tao: continue to explore cooperation with WeChat

Taoran technology Taoran reported on June 26

Over the past year, the concept of O2O has rekindled. Giants competing layout, the emergence of start-up companies, all the public comment on this veteran players once again to the important position of the industrial chain. With the acceptance of Tencent's strategic investment and the injection of a number of start-up companies, the layout of this company in the field of O2O is gradually clear.

The reform of the newly completed SBU can well reflect these changes. Since the second half of 2013, the public comments have successively set up information platform business, trading platform business, hotel travel business, wedding business department, book business division and promotion business unit. One of the trading platform division mainly to do the following group catering, payment and other services; promotion division to do the main business marketing, including keyword ads, coupons, display ads.

Adjustment of public comment architecture, clear its tone in the next few years - two-legged walk. One leg is to continue to expand in the field of catering in depth, that is, to the group purchase, booking, take-away and other services in-depth; the other leg is the horizontal expansion in the industry to marry, tourism and other new areas to march. At the same time, in the business model, buy-based, book-based trading model and the traditional advertising model, the public comment has been difficult to distinguish between what is more important. Income contribution of the two models basically flattened, and divisions from the division, we can see that advertising and trading will be long-term co-located in the public comment on the important position.

In the words of Zhang Tao, "We are split now, doing advertising while doing business. Both of these things may not be the same for the company's DNA attributes."

In addition to balance the relationship between transactions and advertising, the public some time to comment there are many things to do. How to explore more product-level cooperation with Tencent, where the focus of horizontal industry expansion is concerned, and how to further expand the existing take-away and order meals service in the field of catering have yet to be solved.

In 2014, it will still be a year for the public to comment on the rapid moves and changes.

The following text comes from oral summary of Zhang Tao and Tencent technology meeting:

Public comment on the two modes

Our business unit reform, one is to go to the product, one is to go to a different industry. Product line, or around the core needs of eating and drinking, which reviews are to help make consumer decisions, booking, takeout, buy is related services. This is the core industry, which has a relatively high frequency of consumption and relatively fast decision-making. It is also an industry that we are most concerned about.

The other is a different kind of industry. Such as marriage, is a relatively different industry, decision-making is not so fast, the frequency is not that high. We have done this for a while, and last year we opened it up separately and made major structural adjustments. We used to go according to the line of functions, but it did not always feel fast enough. Now that the division division (marriage division) has suddenly changed from double-digit to triple-digit growth.

The hotel is a tripadvisor mode, UGC reviews help you make the hotel choice, and then to the OTA diversion. However, the current level of consumption in China may not yet reach this piece. We will do this as a medium-and long-term project.

All these industries, a class of how to do is a type of advertising model, the other is how to do all transactions commissioned. This and the industry, if it is more low-frequency advertising model better. For example, getting married, I can trade, but it is easy to escape. And the deal is heavy, you guide the customer down the line, whether the transaction is successful or not, and offline services.

So we say that the lower the frequency of consumption of the industry, the more an advertising model. Of course, we also hope that advertising can form a closed loop, you can see the effect. Decoration, parenting, marriage and promotion department, how to do is advertising. The other is like booking, takeout, buy, in fact, the transaction commission. Anyway, these two modes. Revenue, advertising and transactions are basically half and half.

Trading is not necessarily better than advertising

Trading and advertising depends on the industry, some industries should be advertising, there are various problems directly connected with the transaction, such as marriage. I think the real estate is the same, drainage to the offline users do not buy, the platform is difficult to control, and ultimately depends on offline services.

Trading is not necessarily better than advertising. We used to do the same. Married first make an appointment, and then the user goes offline to pay. It feels as if it is a step closer to the transaction. However, this nature is still an advertisement, with a low consumption frequency and a large amount of money, and the merchant can easily escape the bill. Just like a car website giving you a lead, the charging mode is not a deduction point, so it is an advertisement. Of course, we still hope that advertising more accurate, but not necessarily every transaction must be commissioned.

We are split now, doing advertising while advertising. These two things may not be the same for the attributes of the company's DNA.

Advertising may be "slow is fast," requiring brands need to accumulate. Trading must be fast, the general advertising gross margin is relatively high, while the transaction money is a point out of the two models do a very split. China currently does not have a company that deals and advertises together. Jingdong is doing their own transactions, Ali is actually rent, nature or advertising.

Corporate DNA conversion

We now have to incorporate one DNA into another. We demolished the division so that we can make more flexible decisions. In addition there is a change in rewards and punishments system, the most previous employee year-end bonus is three and a half months, the lowest one and a half months. Now the lowest is 0, up to 16 months. The third one is the change of personnel. Some people are not motivated to start their undertakings. Some people do not have the ability to adapt. Therefore, some personnel are also adjusted.

All three add up to a change in company culture that used to be more like a media company and more liberal. Now we will be more spell, a little more wolf, decision-making faster. We are now WeChat group, I often jump to two or three lower than my level product group to solve one thing. Decisions will be faster, more managerial and less bureaucratic.

The public comment on the opportunities for horizontal expansion

The expansion of new industries, we will probably do so a few this year.

There are many opportunities for Beauty (the beauty salon category for the public to comment on). Recently, several O2O start-up companies have been there and there are many home-based O2O start-ups there.

KTV, this category is not small. But now a lot of KTV systems are bad. So there are some start-ups in the re-do KTV backstage system. At the moment, we are looking at one too. They do well.

Of course, the film is also a movie buy market appears entirely because of the Chinese movie market price abnormalities. (Movie buy) make money. But in itself is a good way to attract customers flow, equivalent to the explosion of the store.

There are cultural performances, especially in Shanghai, Beijing, we see this type of demand is constantly rising, the consumer groups with the comments of users are more a little closer.

We will look at more industries with the upgrading of consumption. The more consumers value the pursuit of quality later. Purely cheap, discounted this concept, we think it will go down, slowly become less mainstream, we are also the industry mainly to see the above several industries.

Takeaway market how to do

Our takeaway positioning is a platform, the more companies take the takeout the better. Takeaway The market is generally divided into four categories:

A type of takeaway is a large chain of restaurants, like KFC, McDonald's, a tea sitting, the company generally tend to do takeaway, there may be a third-party company to help them to do the system or even the call center. We also cast a third-party company, "Zhilong", who have a stick John in the hand.

There is a class that is hungry mode, take-away students. Students born is a takeaway market, characterized by low profit margins. Charge mode is not through the commission, like what is hungry service fee. The future if you want to produce business model may take some time. Students are a little further away from us, and our core user base is white collar. The public comments and what the hungry cooperation is a win-win for everyone, we do not have to spend too much energy to these businesses circle in.

The third category is the dinner takeout, home food, point me is all this type of mode, we pick up the platform me, the data is not bad. In fact, this distribution is still very complicated, more complicated than the distribution of electricity suppliers. High demands on time, significant peak and off-peak hours, and increased staff efficiency are all complexities.

The fourth category is the white-collar take-away, high-end fast food, about 30-50 dollars, the general store itself has take-away capability, own delivery team, but also and our user groups are also more matches. We intend to do this first by ourselves, for the piece is profitable, the deduction point is not bad, nor is there any other person in Shanghai. We ourselves are still doing this profitable business more.

Therefore, take-away we are more or do platform to connect more businesses, so that consumers feel very rich. We take the lead in the take-away or white-collar takeover of this profitable business, do not intend to expand too much.

(Tencent Note: In 2012, the public comment on the discovery of the takeaway market opportunities, but due to shortage of resources had to cut into the relatively light of the scheduled business.Last year, the public comment on the "takeaway" first launched in Shanghai in May this year, the public Comments 80 million US dollars take-out take-out order platform, "hungry Mody," reached a strategic cooperation with the then 50 million yuan investment APP "big mouth." At the same time, the public comments through the platform to further improve the take-away business, but self Still dominated by white-collar take-outs that make money.)

Still exploring the form of integration with WeChat

One of the strategies we put forward this year is to "pick up the traffic". In fact, traffic received elsewhere, we think this traffic will remain there, and we do not expect this traffic to become our own traffic. But this docking is mainly to meet the needs of light scenes or long tail, for example, you are on the map, you have to find, you can see the nearby restaurants and hotels, directly on the map to use these services. First of all, the map is still looking for places to find food and drink or long tail needs.

We think a company can only have a core position, such as Taobao is shopping, WeChat is doing social, Baidu is the search. But this platform can also have skittles service. But this can not compete directly with eating and drinking, this platform is not good big platform, nor is the user's core brand positioning.

The main purpose of our cooperation with Tencent is to socialize. Like now wechat, sign there there is a cooperation, after the circle of friends will have a business link. After that, there will be a cooperation in the "discovery" entrance, but now it is also looking at the specific form. Jingdong put a "shopping" entrance, but it still feels hard, and we still see whether there is any better integration with social interaction. the way.

In fact, traffic is not the most important. Short-term traffic is likely to rise by 20% to 30%. However, we look forward to more long-term and medium-term development. Like a circle of friends to add more business links, this logical sense is Shun, we will continue to do some social links up next.

Our social elements have always been absent, but we can not do this ourselves, and socializing is also a very important part of eating and drinking. So we can have a docking with WeChat. In addition, I do not think WeChat can complete all O2O, he is mainly social, O2O may be subsidiary attributes, if the future can make money, that is, how to split the money. When we communicated with Tencent, we found that they also wanted to understand that not everything should be done by ourselves.

This is also a fairly obvious trend nowadays. Everyone becomes a community of interests through cooperation and capital.