The difficult breakthrough of vertical electric business

In the midst of a price war in the integrated electric business platform, the growth space of vertical electric business platform is also threatened, in the lack of effective growth path of the electric business industry, enterprises are in stones, the mode "autonomy" can become the means of enterprise break through and may become the root of enterprise decline.

Can the price war be avoided?

Suning easy to buy, Jingdong price war smoke has dispersed, easy news, Gome and provoked a new round of price war, this means in the short term will still be used by the electric business enterprise, for the vertical type of electric business, the cost of the price war is higher than the comprehensive category of electric dealers (General Electric dealers often take the "short, tapping the Long" method), How to avoid falling into the mire of price war is the key to the growth of enterprises; As far as the products are concerned, the vertical electric dealers general products are relatively single, and to a large extent to achieve product differentiation, the price war is the core of the product homogeneity, so the vertical class if you can avoid the homogeneity of products will be easier to avoid price war, If the product can not be differentiated, that own brand will be to achieve the effective means of breakthrough, for example, where the main category of customer goods for clothing, in the style of products with other brands have a lot in common, or is completely replaceable products, the own brand has become and competitor merchandise to achieve the most effective means of differentiation, "where the object" has become a brand awareness, the style and style of the product itself has become a secondary factor; even if the vertical electric power provider cannot participate in the production process, the product differentiation can be realized through the form of exclusive agency. In short, differentiation can be realized on the product itself and on the brand, And this is precisely the vertical type of electric business enterprise of a large gene;

After the product differentiation is clear, to solve is the price war most direct embodiment factor-price, according to the statistics of Baidu, the current network of users of the user group of about 82% of users under the age of 40 years old, and more than a network of important groups, this part of the consumer has a common sense is familiar with the operation mechanism of the electric operator, Able to use all the preferential way to buy products, such as rebate coupons promotional discounts and other activities of the combination, any one of the sites to take the preferential activities through their careful filtering and screening, so want to really get consumer recognition must let consumers feel the real benefits, That is to say, prices really hit the consumer's psychological bottom line, especially for the newly established electric business enterprises, in the absence of traffic and brand recognition, product, Price is the most critical factor to attract consumers; the understanding of price war should not be confined to competitors, the price war between enterprises and consumers is the essence of sale. , in the profit and loss level that the enterprise can support, the bottom line of the consumer's shopping price is the most effective price warfare means;

As a result, vertical electric dealers can avoid the price war between the peers, but the price war with consumers will continue.

How to sell?

The two key problems of doing electrical business are drainage and transformation, that is, to attract consumers to the Web site to achieve the purchase, the current network marketing channels are mainly: SEO, SEM, website Alliance, portal Cooperation, vertical Media, SNS (blog, community forum, micro Blog, streaming media), buy, lbs and so on The key to the drainage is the user attribute, that is, the main consumer group of the website; take the age, for example, if a major user of a power provider concentrated in between 20-30 years old, then this part of the user has a very obvious feature, that is, office white-collar and college students, they face the computer every day, the Internet is the most direct marketing channel This kind of people focus on the site is often a variety of forums, shopping parity sites, video sites, etc., so in the network marketing these channels is the focus of the enterprise, such as the application of more QQ, Video software window, page advertising, parity site, that is, to the main push SEO, website Alliance, SNS and other promotional methods So, the correct analysis of the user community, in order to achieve accurate advertising delivery, and customers come to the site, whether the purchase will be to see the overall style of the site and product attributes, to male and female consumers as an example, if a site of the main consumer groups for women, then the site needs more visual, women are sensory consumers, The degree of beautification of the page, can give female consumer the most direct stimulation, for example, fashion shopping web site Dream Bazaar page, with a large number of pictures, and the boundaries are clear, so that female consumers can see the overall effect of clothing, social networking, the beauty of the site said the style is also so, especially mobile client is basically a picture composed of If the site's consumers are predominantly male, then in the product parameter introduction will be more detailed, male shopping behavior more rational, before shopping will have a comprehensive understanding of the product, the more detailed product introduction will be able to attract male consumers, such as Jingdong 3C products have very detailed specification parameters introduced, Supplemented by a partial picture and consumer evaluation.

The other key element of the transformation is the product, in the current online shopping consumers, mainly to office white-collar, students mainly, this part of consumers to buy products in favor of low-end and necessities of life (female consumers in the consumption of luxury goods is impulsive consumption or peer consumption, can not be considered as the mainstream consumption characteristics), Higher-priced goods, especially those outside the necessities of life, can hardly be included in the shopping list of the online shoppers, and the stickiness of the customers will be very low; so even the high-end sites need to configure low-end products, even in the low-end of the product SKU number more than high-end goods, Through the training of low-end customers to drive the contingency consumption of high-end products, such as the site in the consumer has begun to enter in the price of the consumer to discourage, then the probability of a return visit is almost zero; from another point of view, the user who buys high-end products favors the older user group, This part of the user's awareness of the Internet is relatively low, online shopping habits are basically not set up, to attract this part of users on the Internet to consume the possibility of low and the cost will be very high, their behavior patterns tend to be under the line, often access to office buildings, high-end venues, or even on the road, then for such users, Offline marketing means more targeted, such as outdoor advertising and so on, so the vertical type of electricity dealers through customer positioning to determine the means of marketing, through page optimization and product optimization to achieve user transformation.

How should the business system be established?

Compared to the traditional retail industry, the main feature is to "virtualize" all the links between the product and the consumer, from the choice of goods to payment to logistics, customers do not see the real goods, optimization of these intermediate links has become an important battlefield for consumers, the future can also evolve into a major source of profit, But the upfront investment in the entire industry chain is not an enterprise that can support, to logistics, the current major electrical business enterprises such as Beijing-east, where guests, when, excellence and so have their own logistics, and in addition to Jingdong Mall, other enterprises in the self-built logistics is basically in the shrinking state, If every guest announced the abolition of 26 cities in the country at the end of last year to 6, mainly because in this aspect of the investment has become an important burden of enterprises, Jingdong Mall in recent years the main reason for the loss is the expansion of logistics, resulting in losses in more than 1 billion; therefore, the investment in supply chain construction is not measurable, Need to have strong capital support to be able; The advantage of perfecting the industrial chain is that it can be digested by large scale operation, and it may become the means of cost saving, but for vertical electric dealers, the scale operation is impractical, and the investment in supply chain is not billions of of the annual sales can be covered, Even if you can get the support of the capital, in the future will not be able to become a way to reduce costs, so too much input to the supply chain or follow the example of integrated electric business enterprises will bring long-term difficult to digest the burden of enterprises, or even the enterprise;

One of the major advantages of vertical electric dealers is product segmentation and market segmentation, that is, a relatively single user group, relatively concentrated sales area, grasp this feature, enterprises can well define the type and manner of service, in the important areas of the use of third-party differentiated services to achieve the goal of the self-built supply chain, such as logistics, In the main first-tier cities, the day Tatsu can be achieved, enterprises through the rationalization of the layout of the warehouse into a significant cost savings in time, to bring consumers a better shopping experience; Therefore, vertical electric power companies should not be decentralized, in the product and marketing outside the supply chain management can basically use a third party services, Focus on improving sales, gross margin, and increased sales will become an important bargaining chip with third-party service providers for lower service costs.

Loss & Profit?

All the domestic electric business enterprises to achieve overall profitability of the basic no, since the birth of the first consumer electronics company in 1998, the electric dealer is in the state of burning money, the BoE has set the Internet industry a single largest financing of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars of history, burning money is a major feature of the electricity industry, whether it is integrated platform or vertical class platform, Loss is unavoidable at this stage; In particular, in the context of increasing the entry threshold, the human cost, marketing costs are increasing, the early establishment of the enterprise is too concentrated on the profit target can only be tied to their hands and feet, the industry's basic operating mechanism has been established, to obtain customers and realize the transformation must have a high input, The conservatism of the break-even point will result in the single and ineffective marketing means, from the industry life cycle theory, in the growth period of the enterprise loss is very normal, even the high margin of the industry is also the case; At the beginning of the enterprise needs to have a reasonable estimate of the loss and affordability of the set, of course, this should be based on the overall development of the industry, in this scope to provide enterprises with sufficient operating space, both to improve efficiency can also be faster to achieve the desired goal.

In short, "in the gap between the survival" of the vertical type of electric business enterprises, to achieve the breakthrough will be with the consumer price war, through the precise positioning of users to achieve the flow and conversion capabilities to improve, simplifying the internal process, shorten the length and depth of supply chain, open hands and feet to long-term profitability and short-term sales promotion as the goal of the enterprise , and finally a firm foothold in the subdivision area.