The design of the two ends of the connection design Chinese practice of fab flash purchase

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Following the footsteps of Fab.com predecessor of the United States, the domestic design of creative product flash mode electric business can also be in China to achieve a business myth?

Wen/World Network business reporter Qi Yu

What is a fab myth?

June 2011 ago, who did not think of the fabulis.com as the domain name of the United States and social networking site in the first Test water SNS, shopping reviews, group buying business, suddenly changed direction, began to try to design creative products for the public flash mode, and renamed to Fab.com.

According to public information and media reports, the number of fab.com users after the transition to the dazzling pace of accumulation, half a year to add nearly millions of users, and completed a, b two rounds of financing a total of 47 million of dollars. July 19 This year, the acquisition of the C round of 105 million dollars to raise the news of the Fab wave to the unprecedented heat.

In the increasingly cold electricity business financing environment, it has become a myth, but also fried the design of the type of flash purchase model of the concept.

Both ends of the connection design

On the eve of the Fab eruption, entrepreneurs began to try to capture the opportunity for designer creative products to come online in China. At the beginning of 2011, Tan Kai, the offline channel merchant, began to prepare the designer products for the pre-order model of the Business-to-consumer website (51yugou.com).

and hobby design Guo Zhelin and Yang Guoying frequently visit the domestic designer shops, and from May 2011 onwards, the design of their own discovery and creative record in the dot net blog blog.nuandao.com, this is the following flash mode of the website of the Web Warm Island (nuandao.com) The birth of the foreshadowing.

Before starting a business, Tan Kai in curtains, women's apparel industry, multinational companies, during which contact with a number of foreign designer brands. She found that many of the designer brands who had come to watch "China opportunities" continued to lose money because they were unfamiliar with the Chinese market.

For the brand to expand the offline channel of professional experience, so that Tan Kai to the plight of these designer brands more empathy. At the same time she realizes that a blank spot in the market means opportunity. She has been brewing the starting point: for foreign designers to set up testing the domestic market temperature of the network platform, polymer designers and creative products, "such success rate will be higher than singles alone."

Tan Kai billion to explore creative products, "B-side" demand, Guo Zhelin and Yang Guoying feel the "C-end" strong call. They have attracted more than 300,000 readers by blogging and sharing designers ' results. How can more people come into contact with the outstanding but unknown local design brand? The two girls ' answers coincide with Tan Kai billion.

At the end of 2011, Warm Island Network in Beijing online, slogan is "Every day for you to bring low to 30 percent creative design boutique", the main selling home decoration and small ornaments. At this time Tan Kai is in Shanghai to form a team, set up a company.

April 2012, the online operation of dilute goods, slogan is "Every 10 o'clock in the morning, design boutique Rush", the same main push home and family products.

Still in the initial stage of the warm Island Network and dilute product network in the silent accumulation of strength, the other side of the Fab has entered a new round of outbreaks. After the acquisition of FashionStake, Casacanda and other European and American Electric dealers, fab access to hundreds of thousands of U.S. users outside the United States, add fab.de, uk.fab.com two sites. As of May, Fab Tentacles have reached 16 countries and the number of users has exceeded 4 million.

Fab's rapid growth has also allowed the industry, entrepreneurs and investors to create more confidence in the designer's creative product Flash site. In China, the network of rare and warm islands, similar to fab mode, has been invested by angels.

Reference Fab

Although the starting point and entrepreneurial background of both the warm Island network and the dilute product network are different, they are soon attracted by Fab's strong style, which is close to fab.

Warm Island Network now every day 10 o'clock in the morning online sales 6 new products, customer snapping time lasted 7 days. and the dilute product net also at 10 o'clock in the morning every day new, snapping up period lasts 3 days. During the purchase period, the goods sold out will no longer be replenishment, the end of the sale of goods is the next shelf.

The page design of the website insists on simple and sprightly style. Emphasis on design, inspiration and brand stories of creative products, focus on the home page of the "field" character square booth display; New pre-sale is placed in the vertical row of the two columns of the large booth, the products are being sold are placed in the vertical row of the three columns of small booth. Dilute product Network "dynamic Wall" channel and Warm Island network "Everyone like" channel is a class Pinterest waterfall streaming picture pattern display products. Both of the Web page design and domestic web site of the mainstream of the main style has a significant difference, are engraved with fab.com brand.

"We are going to be the fab.com of China." "Tan Kai told the World Network business Manager", in the dilute product network groping path process, fab Success gives a reference, all sorts of details in the hint "How to do things better", so the short-term goal of dilute product network is to establish a fab-type clear model.

Guo Zhelin, founder of the Warm Island network, observed that many of Fab's products come from the blending of cultural symbols, materials, and design concepts. Mixing two common things, usually can create new things, "the customer feels in the familiar surprise, thus sends out the knowing a Smile", Fab's another slogan "Smile, you" the re designed to (your smile, the design dictates) "Just explained this realm."

"Fab is a great success because it understands the lifestyle and appeal of customers well." "Guo Zhelin found that people usually like good food, like to share new discoveries, like incentive mechanisms, like the value of things." This is true for both fab and Warm island customers. As a result, the warm Island network and Fab also employ viral marketing that invites friends to win rewards, as well as a price presentation that emphasizes discounts for customers.

Whether in "Hardware" or "software", Fab's UI experience is unified and distinct, combined with the "Everyday Design" (Day to night) discount mode, a strong impact on a designer product Flash site. However, the growth of China's local warm island network and the sparse goods network does not stop at the simple replication of fab.com.

World Factory VS native design

Design of creative goods and Chinese consumers "intimate contact" time is still short, but the potential consumption capacity of the Chinese market gives entrepreneurs a lot of imagination space. The exploration of the Warm Island network reveals some of the realities of this emerging industry.

In the warm Island network, the relationship between customer and design is similar and different from Fab. Guo Zhelin For example, as Fab, the customers of the warm island network see the familiar things, they will quickly understand the source, the desire for freedom and difference is closely linked to the design. Compared with western customers, the design and design products of local customer consciousness are still relatively new concepts. In addition to the "World Factory" footnote, the needs of local consumers are full of unknown. Warm Island Network is still in the exploration and learning of the characteristics of the local market stage. Therefore, the warm Island network to explore the relationship between customers and design condensed into the brand slogan "to start a design adventure." The website is named "Warm Island", which aims to arouse the customers ' identity and provide a friendly and safe environment for them to explore new things.

The unknown and freshness also exist in the designer. Currently, there are more than 500 designer brands, from Taiwan's local brands, as well as new design communities from other Asian countries and European and American designer brands, of which the number of independent designers accounts for about 70%.

Guo Zhelin introduced that there are two types of design for consumers on the platform of Warm Island network, one is the behavior of creative expression, or art, and the other is the act of making a work to gain the approval of others. "Some people think China, as a world factory, is better suited to the latter." Guo Zhelin also believes that creating art is easier than creating a good design that everyone wants, "we hope that the warm island will become a bridge connecting two development directions."

Because of the values the founders uphold, the Warm Island Network team also embodies a unique tone, and does not mind being seen as hippies, but Guo Zhelin insists that the members of the Warm Island network are "hippies with commercial acumen". Most of the members of the product team have E-commerce experience, the customer needs have a keen sense of touch.

"People who are used to thinking displayed will like to work on warm islands," he said. "Guo Zhelin that the model of the Warm Island Network is the reason for the team to gather: on the one hand, the search for good design, tell the story behind, is a need for a lot of creative work; On the other hand, the warm Island network is also engaged in the sales business, so the team value data analysis.

Through testing and statistics of all content on the site, the warm Island network based on users on the site like and share the behavior of products to determine the next sales, but also found that the most customers of the warm Island network are living in China's first-line city, "creative young people."

In addition, by counting the flow of all marketing channels, participation and sales, warm Island Network in addition to adhere to focus on dot net, Micro bo, watercress, Beautiful said, and so on SNS Community market promotion, but also from last November to try to hold the offline design market activities, through the offline temporary subject to limit the store, Let the customer have the opportunity to contact the designer directly.

The difference between fab play is also reflected in the site's front-end Warm island network launched a sales period of up to one months of the subject-limited store. For example, in the midsummer season on the line of "Midsummer Dream" Warm Island color Tite selling theme stores, through the home page more than a dozens of display bit, show the sale does not plug the Electric ice cream machine, ice-cream popsicle molds, ice cream raw materials, such as summer ice products around the creative surrounding.

Late in the warm Island Online network, in early 2011, the search for suppliers to start the preparatory work. Unlike the warm Island network, most of the suppliers of dilute products are from overseas, which determines the unique time difference for the procurement of the dilute products network.

When the company first expanded its overseas suppliers, some designer brands may have made a decision to enter China in 3 days, while some of the designer's brand determination process dragged on for more than 1 years. "The independent designers team is usually 35 people, and entering the Chinese market is a very big step for them, and there are a lot of considerations." Tan Kai said, in order to give these designers confidence, they need to clean up the pattern of 1.1 points to the designers clear, such as through the market into China, to gain the recognition of high-end consumers, and dilute product network to purchase the model can help designers in order to obtain orders without production and storage burden, to focus on product optimization. Dilute product network also stressed that can help designers test the Chinese market water temperature, to find in line with the Chinese market environment and characteristics of marketing promotion strategy.

At the same time, dilute product network to suppliers also have a high threshold, and strive to purchase products have rich content, attractive brand stories, as well as additional value, such as product functionality. Dilute product network in contact with designer brand suppliers, expressly for exclusive agency rights or China's total agent. At present, the supplier of dilute goods net distributes in Europe, Asia, and China's Taiwan.

Tan Kai Introduction, most of the suppliers are designers team, design products have been mass production. This is because the flash-purchase model needs to meet the customer's demand for goods in a short period of time, which conflicts with the long cycle of design concepts and mass production. As a result, the Flash-purchase mode of the dilute product net is only for the mass production. In order to support the design concept of independent designers, dilute product network set up a "vote support" channel, through the C2B mode reverse drive excellent design concept to achieve mass production. To synthesize these requirements, there are several dimension references in the procurement process of the dilute product network: Buyers in foreign countries collect supplier information, the team consider whether to cooperate according to the customer vote and the match degree of their own budget, product plan, and then cooperate with supply to discuss and divide. The Dilute product NET strives for many is the discount between 30 percent-50 percent. And for freight, high tariffs of goods, dilute product network has a more favorable policy.

Now Tan Kai has a lot of energy to spend on communication with suppliers. In order to connect with suppliers in different countries and regions and different time zones on the internet, Tan KAI billion usually surf the internet from 9:30 A.M. to the wee hours every day.

"The most interesting thing about this job is that it's not so much about business as it is about cultural exchange," he said. "For foreign designers who don't understand China, they need more running-in," says Tan Kai. When discussing pricing strategies with European suppliers, the other said: "The Chinese people are very rich, you see they are in Gucci, LV shopping, why can not sell our design more expensive?" Tan Kai can only through a careful communication, so that each other bit by bit to understand China's national conditions and market environment.

New local situation

Settled in Dilute product network designer creative products, quickly attracted to the unexpected orders have enterprises find Tan KAI billion, I hope a large number of custom-made creative products as gifts. Designers are also happy to receive such orders. However, Tan Kai did not make the gift size customization as a product of the main business, because the practice proved that such orders take a long time, low return, can not butt the main product network flash mode.

Fab exploits the rapid accumulation of user implementations, and user growth is equally important for dilute products. But the dilute product net insists to filter the user at the initial stage: The customer wants to see the price of the commodity of the thin net display, need to register, and registration needs to queue up. Tan Kai explained that this is based on the first consideration: if the customer is willing to register to see the product and price of dilute products, in fact, has produced a certain interest in dilute products network. Focus on attracting such users, so that the precipitation of users viscous very high. Practice also confirms this: dilute product network has one or two days do not need to register, Web site traffic although very high, but the number of registered relatively low. Tan Kai regrets: "The product still needs to retain certain mystique." ”

In order to retain the acquisition of users, dilute product network to try "more graphics, more text" mode, its strategy is to focus on copywriting and pictures, to each product to tell a "good story." Unlike similar sites, the content of the dilute product network copy includes the "advantages, disadvantages, specifications, source of goods, troubleshooting," and so on, almost comparable to Taobao's most dedicated sellers, this makes the dilute product network from the UI interface and similar sites to distinguish.

The most eye-catching localized logo on the home page of the dilute product net, which is distinguished from fab, is a string of 400 phone numbers. Tan Kai Introduction, the current number of orders generated by telephone is still very small, telephone customer service is the main work in each product delivery 3 days after a call back.

As the accumulation of users increased, Tan Kai found a new situation. Dilute product net target customer is the consumer ability strong crowd, Tan Kai originally thought this kind of crowd concentrates in the first-tier city, but later discovered many orders from the two or three line city. The logic behind the scrutiny phenomenon Tan Kai found the answer is simple: Shanghai, a love of creative products customers, to Tianzifang to buy the corresponding products is a very convenient thing, but in the three-tier city customers, on the Internet to see the local not to see the creative products, and even willing to spend a little more money to buy, " So the two or three-line city is a good market for us. The growth of orders from these cities accounted for the bulk of the growth in the number of orders for dilute commodities.

After each flash purchase, the remainder of the product is usually distributed through the physical store, rather than the previous flash purchase. At the same time, Tan Kai began to consider expanding online distribution channels. She realized that the market environment and FAB are not the same, "Taobao department has accounted for a large part of the, can not miss." In April this year, the dilute goods network began to prepare the cat shop. Tan KAI billion team focused on independent, ready to find the right operators to take care of the cat shop.

Although the designer creative product Flash purchase site in the domestic just started, such as dilute goods network, warm island nets such "small fish" are along their respective channels, to swim to a wider range of water scarcity network to fight for foreign designers, warm island nets first to fight for local designers. And in the future that can be expected, the growing number of "predators" will affect more and more intersecting waters, and the supply of designer products will create more possibilities. SOURCE "World Network business • Manager")