The future of group buying

There are industry insiders, is so summary of domestic group buying website Growth four: financing-burning money-expansion-layoffs.

This Internet business model, once the scenery is infinite, but now suddenly came to a difficult choice junction: The network is all kinds of experts on the group buying model of the crusade, consumers on the purchase experience, but also very disappointed, cooperative businesses are reflected in the low profit, lack of precision users, The expectations of the previous cooperation commitments have not been met.

Whether it is the United States Regiment, handle, 24 coupons, litters Group of these financing a huge independent platform, or a review group, glutinous Rice net these backed by large internet group subordinate business, are facing such a problem.

　　In the end Where does the problem appear? Group buying industry model what will it be like in the future?

"Mutant" group buying

For most domestic group buying sites, although the "Shanzhai" Groupon (the largest group buying site in the United States, known as the originator of group buying) started, but after the business really landed, as a successor, they quickly opened up a very different development path than the former.

One of the performance is the purchase of goods from behind. As is known to all, Groupon's discount is aimed at the service type, however, the domestic group buys the product to expand to the physical goods, the latter account for the growth momentum is rose.

Take the first line group buy brand handle network for example. "China Business newspaper" reporter observed its nearly one months of group buy product type distribution, of which group purchase accounted for the total number of 80%. such as on September 21, the site group purchase items, the number of merchandise is 512, and the Life Service category only 110.

Group Buy Navigation site group 800 of the data can be more to show that this is not a group buying site individual situation. In the Regiment 800 daily collection of thousands of group purchase site of more than 10,000 kinds of group purchase items, of which more than 8,000 kinds of items are group buying.

"Group buying site more and more like the", in the Internet Senior Observer Wei-Wu, this will focus on the development of goods to buy the development model, for group buying site, it is likely to be unsustainable.

"In the group buying site to do merchandise sales business, is directed at two purposes: promotional and sale." "Promotions tend to be small, while sale items tend to be more or less defective in product styles or quality." "That means the main section of sugarcane is not in group buying."

There is also a very important point, whether the business want to sell or want to promote a premise, that is fast. The quick premise is precision.

However, today's group buying sites are mostly relying on high advertising to drive their own traffic, with huge but very rough traffic to form their own business value. "This value, in the Web1.0 era also has its significance, but today, the value of garbage flow will only be less and less." ”

On the basis of group purchase, some group buying websites also derive a kind of group buying method called C2B. The process is as follows: The first step, the head of the mission to find the goods, to determine the number of shopping requirements, commodity brands, models and the price of commodity group purchase; The second step is to summon the league members. Publish information on the Internet to find League members, and in order to better determine the number of members, some heads will also ask for a deposit; the third step, the number of members to meet the requirements of the number, the head of the organization will be organized to the Merchants Unified purchase, members to the head of the payment, goods, request related bills, buy end; Failed to open a regiment.

However, for this "innovation", many people in the industry are not good-looking. "Before consumer group buying is ' Leackage ', now become a ' table '." Let a kind of perceptual impulse consumption convert into rational decision, such effect will be greatly reduced. "said an industry insider who declined to be named.

And with the fierce competition, many sites now have 75 percent of group buying products, and "Unlimited when, not limited." There is no "group" threshold after the group purchase is still not a buy is debatable.

Confused behind

Group buying site "more and more alike", the site is low degree of differentiation, it means that a certain site is difficult to stand out, it is difficult to improve the stickiness of consumers.

One notable trend is that today, many consumers are no longer browsing fixed group buying sites, but directly browsing the online shopping information navigation site to select activities of interest; On the other hand, because of the group buying sites launched a similar group purchase products, "limited-time group purchase" has been difficult to give consumers a sense of scarcity and urgency, group purchase early Rush to buy "enthusiasm is also gradually falling back.

Mike is such an example, "I rarely participate in the second half of this year," because he found that a lot of "timed activities" to miss is not a pity, sooner or later will appear on other sites. As an editor of a Beijing financial website, Mike says that group buying has faded out of his life.

Another insider's "no involvement" stems from the fear of the group buying experience. He told reporters, now in addition to pay attention to Ctrip Travel Network, the public comment network such large brands of group buy network, has no longer pay attention to independent site group purchase.

"Can you imagine the pain of waiting in line for a two-hour exchange for a movie?" He complained.

The success of Groupon, for its part, relies heavily on several factors: one, can gather purchasing power, and business negotiations can grasp the right to speak; second, because of such chips, you can obtain a high proportion of commission from the merchants, mostly 30%~50%; third, the overall grasp of a large amount of cash flow, can support its rapid expansion.

This success summed up, nothing more than two tips, the first is to aim at the blank and lucrative service industry, the second through the development of the line under the market development team to build core competitiveness. This can not only provide valuable resources for businesses, but also to maximize the aggregation of users.

However, looking at domestic websites, the vast majority of online operating capacity is insufficient, into the vicious competition of price war, and in the website interface, user experience, group purchase products and services, and many other aspects of the homogeneity of serious.

At present, many consumers are running a low discount on the goods, consumption is to leave once, repeat less, they are not the real effective long-term value of the business customers are expected; On the other hand, due to excessive purchase site, resulting in extremely scarce business resources, group purchase site from the destruction of the Great Wall to its own role from the party to become party B.

As a result of buying network for businesses and consumers to create a limited long-term value, so in cooperation on the body showed more short-term behavior color. If you do not change this short-term model, the group purchase site can not really long-term retention of business, businesses will not be able to provide truly valuable services to customers, the entire supply chain will form a vicious circle.

99% extinction?

In fact, even in the United States, group buying website Development also has many problems. Groupon's recent independent user visit to the US market has fallen by nearly 50% from its peak in the second week of June, compared with the total number of independent user visits to the United States, according to the latest data from the US Internet traffic monitoring agency Hiwise 25%.

Since Groupon's listing application, it ushered in a barrage of questions, some people think that group buying is "Ponzi scheme", Walking is "Peter Paul," "Empty gloves White Wolf" of the way.

Coincidentally。 Domestic handle network has been repeatedly listed rumors. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which are involved in the IPO, have recently announced their exit, according to anecdotal sources. However, the handle network has no response to the listing message.

Liu Guanguo, chief analyst at Analysys Capital, argues that the US Securities and Exchange Commission's concerns about Groupon are accounting standards and business models, a challenge that will also appear on the handle net. The selling point of the handle net is the Chinese concept, but the Chinese group buys the gross profit margin is far lower than the American colleague, this concept seems to add little. He thinks the handle net will not complete the IPO until Groupon is not listed.

And the news is accompanied by a number of group buying site layoffs and closure rumors. From the beginning of this year to the end of August, North Canton and other first-tier cities in the first-line city of about 150 sites in the operation of stagnant state, high peer network is a close to Qinhuangdao, Yantai, Nanning and other 13 stations, and in 7 cities in south of the country launched a layoff action.

See the Light Group purchase site prospects of a few people in the industry. Innovation Factory chairman and chief executive, former Google Global vice President Lee Kai-Fu Li said, "99% of the purchase site will die."

He said the group purchase site did not give businesses enough value, coupled with consumer complaints, unsustainable brand and user stickiness, as well as the burning of money, group buying sites will only burn less money.

But the big company successively enters lets the independent group buying website's situation even worse. "In general, when a company in the United States is big, everyone is too bothered to copy it, so the family is alone." But you see now Google and Facebook are jumping out to do group deals. ”

In the Internet sector, there have been independent blog sites burned a few years ago, not looking for the right way to profit from the fall of the case. and the group buying site can be "Duanliang" the eve of the search for their own rise to the road? Will it repeat the mistakes of the independent blog?

In a perilous moment, everything can only be left to time to answer.