The logic of the portal

Absrtact: March 2010, Ding heard of Groupon's group purchase, when he was in Sohu Focus network, since think that do is also group buying netizens online spontaneous aggregation, together to the merchant orders, Sohu provides information platform. Groupon's group buying model is exactly the focus of Sohu

March 2010, Ding heard of Groupon's group purchase, when he was in Sohu Focus network, since think do is also "buy"-netizens online spontaneous aggregation, together to the merchant orders, Sohu provides information platform. And Groupon's group buying mode is exactly what Sohu focus has been looking for: a portal site, only the output of information more and more thin, need to provide users with more real value. June 2010, "Love Family group" on-line.

In the words of Ding, the spring of 2010, the group buying market "Loess began to show the bud." The same year February, glutinous Rice Network CEO Shenboyang came to Thousand Oak International, also did a group purchase, preparation three months, glutinous rice net with in June on-line. Before and after this, Sina or Tencent has also arranged to buy, the portal, community camp quickly became an important participant in group buying.

Simple tasks

Submit plans to the boss, apply for budget and personal belongings resources, ding "Love family group" to do things, defined clearly simple, will buy as Sohu "three-dimensional marketing" system part.

Why should group buying be defined in the marketing function? Ding explained that the traditional portal, began the main diversion of traditional media advertising, complete brand promotion, in the 2.0 era, access to forums, blogs and micro-blog, do some interactive marketing, the use of group buying mode, "We put the user specific consumption experience or purchase behavior also included in, group buying intervention, Let Sohu complete from battalion to sell the complete path, formed the concept of three-dimensional marketing. ”

Love the Family Regiment 2010 years 6 months of water to do about 50 million, the proportion of the domestic workers in 10%-15%, even if the high, but in the 7.5 million yuan sales. "Here the head is not 10% or 15% commission issue, to Sohu overall marketing value of the pry, can be 100% or even several times magnification." Ding For example, the Love Group has been released for the Nokia N8 to do a group purchase, the results for the N8 brought nearly 800 sales.

Shenboyang joined the Thousand Oak International, with China's largest sns--Renren, Renren was also doing some business attempts, hope to be able to convert huge users into actual revenue sources, the reason to select Groupon Group buying mode, the fancy is this model "more lightweight, the trouble is to build a local sales team , but do not need to be like jingdong or when the same as the establishment of a large, expensive logistics system, which is hard and tired in China. "and the group buying mode is equal to" rental users ", is a moderate investment, effective also fast, the most important is a good cash flow.

Conversely, regardless of the portal or the community, its user resources on its purchase business benefits self-evident. About 1/3 of the traffic in the Love family group comes from Sohu's own platform. Marketing promotion, in addition to providing their own advertising, Sohu will be a large number of exchange of advertising resources will also be used for Love group network. Portal brand value, also conducive to the development of business resources, at least the merchant feel that this is a reliable site, and users are assured that dozens of or even hundreds of of the advance to a portal.

Huge user resources, basic is the portal or community into the group buying market for the length of the basis. So what can be seen is that Sina Life channel online group buying business, Tencent QQ is also a number of layout group purchase, "QQ to try to take this industry watertight accounted for, with the agent mode to do the QQ Regiment, and then in search for a group buy navigation, and Groupon cooperation with high peer nets, what all try, three models are all layout." Shenboyang commented.

Robust expansion

2011, Ding set the following goals: Water hope to do 500 million-1 billion, growth of about 10 times times, can be set up in 30-50 cities, "an average of 10 people", in order to calculate the end of the team the largest and only four hundred or five hundred people. Glutinous rice nets are also somewhat similar, the 2011 Shenboyang goal is to cover about 80 cities. Compared to the size of the independent group purchase site, these data in the industry "Great Leap Forward", appears to be a bit of a match.

"Our demand is to have a certain voice in the market, in the three-dimensional marketing to provide value, not impatient, the pace of expansion is not so radical, at this stage, we do not pursue in the local station for rapid occupation." In the promotion of local stations, there are many operating risks, such as market environment, many of the city, three horizontal four vertical, the city is very small, where there are restaurants everyone will know very quickly, buy the marketing value of how to reflect? Ding explained.

Coincidentally, Shenboyang also has a bit of vigilance over the rapid expansion, "I am willing to control the sales team size of the United States, handle 1/2 to 1/3, so as to ensure that my sales staff have a higher income." ”

And these portals or community background group buying, its relative "calmly" and its maternal value has been recognized. In Ding view, many independent group purchase site for a short period of time to market share, is the last resort, "a lot of the first round of financing the site, spending almost, to prove their value in order to carry out the next round of financing."

Of course, the advantage of having a first-group purchase in advance, a portal or a community background in financial resources may not be obvious. "The cash flow of group purchase itself is good. Group buying sites are hard to shut down because there is always cash on the roll, and if the money rolls away, the problem is big. "Shenboyang said,

In addition to the portal's user resources, Ding believes that it can also benefit from the advantages of an existing organizational system in setting up a substation. Portals have already landed networks in various regions.

If the group will be divided into three groups: independent web sites, portal sites and reviews of class sites, everyone has their own survival: independent of the first time to seize the commanding heights of the market; The basic of the class is the original business extension or transformation: The Portal class is mainly the innovation of marketing system. However, the market pattern seems to have gradually become a "mid", "Independent site, there are new sites want to follow up will be very difficult, rice, reviews nets, 58 such sites are basically to maintain this state, the portal class is also relatively stable, there will not be too many new participants, in the Bureau is not too easy to be out. "Ding said.