The O2O of the glasses shop

Said 2014 is High-frequency products, service O2O year, door-to-door delivery, door-to-door nail, door-to-door laundry and other projects in full swing, a time door-to-door service has become a synonym for O2O. And there's just a few years of venture capital in China that has been frantically smashing money, as if it had found jobs and Mark Zuckerberg in China in the O2O tide. Such a strong typhoon really let some pigs get stoned!

So in 2015, the typhoon will be stronger? Or will it be over? Will the Flying pig fall to death? Obviously, it's impossible! Because this is unscientific: Have you ever seen a typhoon that suddenly sprang up and stopped suddenly? There's always a process! What about the O2O typhoon of 2015? Bigger? smaller?

From the author many years of observation of entrepreneurship, and from the recent annual report of VC, it seems that 2015 may be low-frequency products and services O2O year, such as jewelry, glasses, home, insurance, real estate, tourism and so on. Today we say that glasses this has been "profiteering" in the industry criticized for many years.

Before writing, the author deeply studied several O2O start-up companies in the glasses industry at present. Some of these startups, with optometry car door-to-door with glasses for service characteristics, with the so-called more than the industry standard professional services to slow simmer to impress users, domestic glasses O2O originator-type brand Yi (legend has the richest man to invest in it); second, to the next, the glasses shop transferred to office, And then in a variety of internet media crazy to throw money advertising, to the customer diversion to decorate rather B office shop loho (legend has completed 100 million of the financing), but also have a first day cat shop, and then do their own platform, and then follow the door to the nail, to let the optometrist carrying optometry equipment, shuttle in the streets, For customers to visit the Eye optometry (legend has been invested nearly million); another brand dream, with Cross-border design thinking of the spectacle frame design of the Ox (QI) (xing) Flash (guai) Flash (Zhuang) of the Tapole (legend founder was a mobile phone before). In addition, the author also visited the U.S. glasses O2O brand Warby Parker, because the brand has been included in China, including the world's optical retailers copied countless times.

So after these investigations and research, which enterprises can laugh to the end, I do not dare to say. However, through with Sequoia Capital Hujodi, IDG Changhao, Morningside Capital Liang Weihong, Revival kun zhong Liao Haibo, Jingwei capital Wu Yunlong, CICC capital Wang Yonghui, June Lian Capital Dai, light speed An Zhen Hanyan, serious fund Wu Dan and so on more than 10 VC investors formal, informal chat found, Most of these capitalists who invest in real money think the following models are dead.

Holed up, the glasses shop in the building.

In fact, many optical retailers have been most afraid of the word "profiteering", because they have been for China's real estate for many years to take the blame. The rising high store rents, property, personnel wages and so on traditional glasses retailers complain, pure interest rate has been low to only about 5%.

From the late 80, many traditional shop optometrists rely on years of accumulated old customers and personal reputation, from the inefficient state-owned glasses shop Laid-off, resigned, holed up in their home to the old customers to do the main group of optometry glasses. With the accumulation of time, business is not a slow down to starve people to death, and some through Word-of-mouth business more do better, and some even "home shop" to some of the rent is not high office. Take open in Shanghai Yangpu District, 20 floor of a shop for example, because the old man to do glasses nearly more than 20 years, accumulated nearly thousand old guest, rely on him a person optometry, sales, now each month the highest can also be achieved nearly 200,000 of the turnover. You know, it's almost beyond the average turnover of Formosa glasses to those shops that open in residential areas. If the net profit is compared, the old gentleman because rents and artificial cheap, without any marketing cost, so the net profit of the shop may be 5~6 times of Treasure Island. And such shops in the Beijing-Shanghai widely such a first-line city abound.

Perhaps it is such a special case, by many entrepreneurial gold miners see in the eyes, are ready to stir. In addition to the Warby Parker's home try on mode, which was chased by the wind, it started opening office stores all over the United States after entering the bottleneck. As a result, China's aspiring entrepreneurs seem to have seized on the industry's pigtail: Both China's "success stories" and the "entrepreneurial story" of the US, which is not the style that VCs like? So the glasses office shop is springing up everywhere in China.

The so-called Chinese success story is built on the basis of 10-20 years of word-of-mouth accumulation, and the actual situation of the American Entrepreneurial Stories is Warby Parker Office shops are all empty (I was in 2014, one by one visit Warby Parker opened in the United States every store, And for the statistics of the camping. However, the Chinese entrepreneurs are overheating, some immature capital quotient many people silly, so created many office shop glasses start-up companies have access to huge capital, and some seem to keep pace with the times, the actual but unknown traditional retailers are following up. The consequences are unimaginable.

From a commercial point of view, in fact, office glasses shop did not do real innovation, after all, is a kind of "forced helpless", or even the industry holed up to escape. If we call such helplessness also called innovation, then it is too easy to innovate?!

Stragglers, optometrist's door-to-door service.

Since carving the door of the nail was his own fire outside the coke, the small glasses retail business partners can not sit still. To say craftsmen, what is more valuable than "optometrist"? Nail can pull a box to the door, why not the optometrist?

At this time, the Internet came a lot of "escape Taobao, Cat" speech. Glasses, one of the most unsuitable non-standard products for online shopping, are naturally the first to flee. Some are Taobao, cat, Jingdong, a store keyword bidding, brush praise, brush rankings, brush sales and the extraordinary high rate of return to the pain of the suffering of the eyes of the network business as if caught a lifeline, and before valiantly Bayang to do glasses online shopping platform entrepreneurs are also in drubbing and return as if saw a glimmer of hope.

Customers through the Web online virtual test and buy glasses racks, and then open in the vicinity of university libraries, canteens, shopping-mall, cinema, Optometry point to receive optometry, or can be scheduled to visit the Optometrist home optometry, that is, the optometrist dragged a large box, carrying a laptop computer, Insert Miriam and other simple optometry equipment to customers at home services. At the same time, the optometrist may drag another large box with a frame of the door to sell the mirror frame ... How does that sound so hard to feel? Did the old equipment and optometry darkroom in ophthalmic hospitals and eyeglasses shops be a bluff? Is it possible to get the optometry done casually anywhere or through any simple equipment?

It is said that in the March 1, 2015 Shanghai International Glasses Exhibition, the Pegasus Brigade Yue and a newly set up less than 1 years of the glasses retail brand also specially organized a core content of the special meeting, claiming to use such a way to kill the entire glasses industry. As always concerned about the destruction of all walks of life, the author of innovation, all of a sudden blood boiling, can't wait to go to explore.

Of course, as a media veteran, he first did a series of homework before going to the optician, the manufacturer, and the retailer who created the industry in exactly the same way. I was speechless with the result.

First, the author through the telephone to visit one of the world's most famous optometry equipment manufacturers. The head of the business told the author that, on a global scale, they are the only manufacturers of hand-held optometry equipment, but sales have not been good since they are usually used only by hospitals. And the use of the object is also a few very small mobility and need optometry patients. In theory, the function and function of the handheld optometry device is not different from the fixed desktop optometry equipment produced by the company (i.e., the general computer refractometer of the traditional optical shop), but the device is more professional and usually only used by a professional eye doctor. In use, the patient's head is required to remain stationary, and the device itself must be absolutely stationary. In general, the hospital to make the equipment at absolute static, will be paired with the purchase of a stent, and this way, the use will be more complex than the desktop optometry instrument. Therefore, the equipment company does not recommend that ordinary optometrists use the equipment to provide home optometry services to customers, the reason is that most optometrists do not have a medical background, do not have matching medical equipment, are not an eye professional, and because no stent relies entirely on people to hold the device, the accuracy of optometry will backfire.

Secondly, the author visited a large spectacle frame factory in Wenzhou. Factory production director told the author, glasses in recent years can not be like clothing, marked with size, there will not be any wholesalers, retailers to bear the geometric number of the inventory cost. So, online try to wear glasses, is completely a kind of entertainment, whether it is beautiful, comfort can not meet customer demand, even if done fine, again intelligent can not guarantee the customer finally wear on the face of satisfaction.

Finally, the author through the spectacle frame manufacturer to find an entrepreneur named Steven. He was said to have started his career as an "optometrist's home matching mirror" Model a few years ago. Just stick it out for two years and give up. Steven is a senior optometrist from a Shanghai state-owned chain glasses retailer, with a national two grade certified technician. During the conversation, he pulled the author down a darkroom, through a flashlight size tool for my optometry, out of the data although with my actual wear degrees slightly different, but also almost close. This can not help but let the author to the optometrist home with the mirror heart a glimmer of dawn. But the ensuing conversation soon made me disheartened again.

Steven told me that the reason he gave up after two years of "door-to-door matching mirrors" was because he couldn't break through the fundamentals of business. Such stragglers-style door-to-door service, the user experience is too bad. You know, optometry is a very rigorous knowledge, such as he demonstrated for the author of this hand-held equipment optometry technology, the experience of the optometrist and environmental light factors are too big, simply can not to McDonald's, KFC services that standardization. So how can services that cannot be standardized expand?

In addition, every time Steven gives a customer a door-to-door service, the customer is always looking at him as a thief, which is something he can never accept as a professional. And if you want to about in the customer's company, customers are afraid of leadership and colleagues gossip, there are some foreign companies, you can not even enter the door, not to mention services. He also tried and clients about in the university library, canteen, Shopping-mall, cinemas, cafes, beauty salons or student teachers, dormitories and other places, because the environment is different, plus optometry equipment is not as complete as eye hospital, glasses shop, so for the accuracy of optometry greatly reduced discount. 10,000 steps back, even with his superb clinical experience, even for customers, customers will not think it is a rigorous and beautiful experience of optometry. You know, since ancient times, with glasses are fastidious word-of-mouth. If the customer experience is less than perfect, then you need to continue to spend more money to get more new customers, so what also make money? What kind of business? Even if the Liu will not allow Beijing east has been losing money to obtain new customers, so will be expensive to do rapid logistics to form Word-of-mouth and repurchase is not? So after two years of persistence, , Steven gave up the stragglers-style door-to-door service. When the author told him that there will be subsequent entrepreneurs to follow up, he just smiled, with a Shanghai dialect told me: "Layman's head, cheat and cheat the same layman's wind cast also line, engaged in professional?" some medicine for them to eat "!

Pretending to be tall, designer brand strategy, dead

Looking at the LV, Gucci and other European luxury brands in China, to earn huge profits, the domestic industry has long been unable to resist, have pulled tiger skin, big flag. To be China's LV, GUCCI. But over the years, has China ever seen a local luxury brand? Please let me know.

Coincidentally, the glasses industry in recent years has emerged a group of so-called designer brands, light luxury brands. Have to follow the cosmetics to open the mall in the island shop and claimed to sell only the mirror frame does not match the lenses, with the help of Taobao cat to make the cost of manufacturing only more than 10 yuan or even a few yuan of low-end products through photographic technology and later PS packaging into light luxury brands, and some have done fashion design or industrial design with fashionable self-styled designer to design the glasses of the Ox (QI) force (Xing) Flash (guai) Flash (Zhuang) to do glasses industry millet. So are these "new brand glasses retailers" in the end?

NetEase recently released a research report on the optical industry retail, found that 88% of the user's mirror is just needed, 52.9% of the users look at the reputation of the retailer (colleagues, friends), 38.6% of the customers fancy the quality of the glasses themselves (firmness and durability), 25.7% of the user with the mirror when considering the convenience of the mirror (Near the glasses shop) ... In the consumer's Mirror, the first 10 factors of concern, but did not see the "brand" trail. So are these brand-focused glasses retail entrepreneurs once again blind?

The author in order to prove that NetEase's investigation is wrong, so in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, and other travel, Random grabbed some glasses of samples asked whether they know the brand of glasses they wear? But the result disappointed me: In addition to individual tyrants wearing international brand glasses from abroad or Hong Kong and Taiwan, People over 90% do not know what brand they are fitted with. And in the style of the requirements, even some dressed in the white-collar, most will choose a relatively safe style.

In this way, are the so-called designer brand, light luxury brand entrepreneurs are alone in the fantasy, pretending to be tall?

Apply mechanically, try to wear five at home.

Since the launch of Warby Parker in September 2010, the home try on model has been copied around the world after five pairs of frames have been sent to the door for testing, even though the model's pioneer Pupa Warby Parker himself has started to put most of the frame style home While the try on feature was removed, there were still a lot of Chinese online spectacle retailers following suit. Can not help but let the author shout: money is capricious ah!

As a media worker, it is curious about what is happening in the global business world. 2014, was fortunate to follow a well-known domestic VC visit some of the famous U.S. start-up companies. It also includes Warby Parker. A public relations article from the company's local media learned that the start-up, which is the main source of supply in Wenzhou, China, has beaten the traditional American spectacle retailer to become the new boss of the American glasses retailing industry. But Zenni Optical, an online retailer for North American glasses, said he was the boss in the same tone. So with my superficial cognition and judgment, I felt both of them lying. Every year, the new NYSE-listed companies, the world's traditional spectacle giant Luxottica, seem to disdain to compete with them.

However, the author was intrigued by Warby Parker's cancellation of many styles of home try on. Through a lot of media friends in the United States, I zigzag to find Bruno, who once served in Warby Parker, told me: 5 choose X's home try on is simply a disaster of inventory, when a large number of orders concurrency, need to use a huge amount of invalid inventory to greet, and have to bear the rear of the mirror frame wear, long-term storage of the mirror frame deformation and scrap a series of problems. No one is willing to accept a frame that has been tried by others, isn't it?

Hearing here, I seem to understand a lot. Then China's wayward Warby Parker model of the entrepreneur is also holding what kind of mentality? is China VC really money many people silly?