"Thousand Regiment War" Square Xing has not already, and the line and cherish

1. Group buying site only spent five years on the completion of a great sadness of reincarnation, excessive blind expansion, and lack of differentiated competition is a lot of group buying site will fail the key;

2. And for the buy platform, in fact, buy platform and offline business interests are symbiotic. If it is too dependent on preferential discounts, so completely disregard of the practice of live and death, in fact, in the end also destroyed their own;

3. The use of offline businesses to attract new customers, group buying is only a start. And the follow-up user management, in-depth marketing is the ultimate retention of the key users.

Order group Buy These five years

At the end of 2008, Groupon's founder discovered the business opportunities in group buying and decided to join the market decisively. In the following year, Groupon's group-buying business quickly expanded to the United States;

In 2010, the group buying mode expanded finally to China. And in the capital market catalytic, the new player's unceasing influx then set off the domestic internet history on an unprecedented scale battle;

In 2012, "Thousand Regiment War" after the whole industry reshuffle, the overall market into a slump;

In the second half of 2013, with the entry and layout of several big Chinese internet giants, the group buying industry regain capital and attention, and the remaining several group buying websites began to wrestle again.

What makes group buying rise?

Group buying is a new business model created by Groupon, but its nature is not new until 2008. Groupon's name means "coupons," which are essentially a part of the profits of the business, and will be spread through the internet to attract customers into the shop. Back in 2007, the public comments in the domestic has been online coupons service, and the subsequent group buying mode is only one step away.

The difference between a coupon and a buy is the last part of the deal-paying. Although electronic coupons are also businesses through the Internet to provide discounts to attract consumers, but due to the lack of trading links, service providers are difficult to and business Accounting final use effect-how many people to the store using coupons. Group buying mode is a good solution to this problem, the user first paid online to buy the site, and then into the store consumption. Merchants need to be based on the actual shop to buy customers, with the group purchase site to settle and split.

This mode of "superiority", let group buying in the domestic rapid outbreak, and triggered the capital and entrepreneurial crazy follow-up.

Four lessons from two group buying for internet companies

It seems hard to expect the group buying market to be the next Internet giant, and the fact is that the lesson is far more profound than the achievement of this area of recklessness, madness and fierce fighting.

From the rise to the outbreak, then to the downturn and recovery, a short span of five years, group buying has gone through a cycle. Regardless of the group buying site or business, in this "reincarnation" process, has brought a lot of surprises to the whole market, but also brought a lot of reflection. Now O2O has become a hot topic, review the way the group, what lessons are worth our research and learn from it?

1. The sacrifice of business practices, doomed to not be long

With Groupon 2011 on the market, some of the operating data from the group buying model were exposed. Because of the low user retention rate, "two-time to shop" is hard to guarantee, Groupon has been ruthlessly known as the "Ponzi scheme."

For businesses, the purpose of group buying is to attract new consumers from the line. Originally 100 yuan of food, now 40 yuan can buy, this let the concessions can attract a large number of guests in a short time. But whether this part of the guests are old customers or new guests, it is not known. A common situation is that guests to the store, and then use mobile phone to find out whether there is a group purchase, which has become a habit of consumers almost. It is hard to say whether this part of the customer is directly imported from the line to the line, or they originally have to come to the restaurant's wishes.

Businesses could have done the normal price of sales, now directly reduced profits, but also a lot of marketing costs, and look forward to the new source is far less than expected. This excessive sacrifice of supplier behavior, doomed to be unable to long.

From the development process of group buying, the early kind of 30 percent-40 percent discount has also been uncommon, low discount to buy the way to become the industry's normal.

2. Blind expansion, sacrificing quality for speed

To ensure that the quality of service provided by the business is one of the important work platform. In the short term, after a rapid expansion of the scale, group purchase revenue can indeed rise in a straight line, but ultimately facing customers, the platform is still to rely on the provision of services to speak.

Group buying Site "thousand Regiment War" period, everyone crazy burning money, a large number of ads under the line, and even the emphasis on "affordable low-cost" group buy ads hit the airport. At the same time, the number of cities competing to serve the city is rushing to recruit businesses around the world, trying to win by scale.

At that time, many group buying site for the development of speed, the use of Agent mode, in some areas of business directly to the regional agent to do. Although this model is fast, but the purchase platform can not guarantee the quality of goods and services. From the end result, this kind of sacrifice quality for the speed of the game, let group buying site suffered a serious reputation hit.

3. No difference, no moat

Single group buying site to complete the transaction, need to start from scratch to find businesses, to buy user traffic, the need to spend huge market costs (online + offline). Especially in the early stage of group purchase, the major group purchase site expenditure of the marketing cost is amazing--groupon marketing costs for a while accounted for more than half of the total revenue.

In comparison, originally in the catering content services on the accumulation of a very deep public comment, do a group purchase more logical. It is easier to import this part of the user into the transaction because it has nurtured a large number of users who are in need of consumption and are looking for consumer sites. This not only saves the additional marketing expense, at the same time a large number of own users produce UGC content after consumption (dining evaluation, etc.), and then form the interactive relationship between users, and further improve the platform stickiness.

4. Mobile end of the natural advantage, had to seize

As most of the consumer scenarios occur online, this consumer environment and the mobile end is natural fit. Coupled with the popularity of smartphones and mobile internet, using mobile phones to find group buying has been a very common user behavior.

The United States group currently in the group buying market first, its current dominance and mobile end of the layout is inseparable. The United States group in the domestic group buying market earliest start layout mobile end, and for different consumer needs, launched the United States Regiment, Cat's eye film, the United States and other different niche app. U.S. Mission Network CEO Wang recently revealed that the platform currently has 90 million active mobile users, mobile applications for the platform to contribute about 70% of the turnover.

Three group buy three lessons for offline merchants

1. Price drop service also reduced, short-sighted destroyed a group of brands

Group buying 5 years, although a large number of businessmen tried this line of marketing means, but the real positive gains, but very little.

Some businesses, due to short-sighted, different treatment of group buying customers, price decline, the provision of services and quality of food products also decreased. The result of this short-sighted behavior is that a large amount of marketing costs are spent, and a large number of customers are coming, but often the "bad reviews" are harvested.

Any business will use the original promotional means of price reduction, but there are only a few good brands and Word-of-mouth. Some have a small reputation under the line business because of excessive use of group buying, the result of the loss of customers more and more high, customer unit price lower, and finally destroyed its own brand.

Regardless of the way to attract customers, the quality of service provided by the business is still the core. This is the most direct purchase to the business of the lesson.

2. Keep customers, no amount of promotion are not diligent

For businesses, the aim is to attract new customers and keep them. For how to retain group buying users, a lot of business matching action is missing. Because of the lack of user management system, group buy in the customers who are new customers or old customers, these are not known, subsequent user management and operations can not talk about.

A more intelligent approach is that a customer into the store a few times, what his consumption habits, can be data analysis, and then spread the differential marketing. Group buying is only the first step to obtain users, the management of good user resources is the core of deep marketing.

3. Technology can't keep up with the mishap.

Weak hardware and software levels, but also hindered the process of a part of the business to the online transfer. At present, most businesses through group buying feel the real benefits of the Internet, but in the basis of technical conditions and hardware environment, small and medium-sized offline businesses are still not keep up with the development of the industry. This also becomes the difficulty that buys the website and various kinds of O2O platform pushes.

Conclusion Group buying teaches us what?

Today to talk about group buying, more important is to see the development process of group buying, the whole catering O2O field brought some enlightenment.

We from the group buying platform and the merchant's angle, has counted the group purchase to bring some valuable experience and the lesson separately. Whether it is an independent entrepreneurial team or a veteran player who has accumulated years of experience in the industry chain, it cannot be divorced from the core of O2O-the quality of service below the line. Only in order to ensure the quality of service on the basis of continuous optimization of operational efficiency, so that businesses and consumers to get what they want, this line to the offline process can be healthy circulation.

Relying on "Let the user take advantage" to win is only a moment. The internet is free, but O2O is the engine that pushes consumerism into a new era.

"Thousand-Regiment war" as if just yesterday, but has become a history. Nevermore is, O2O now in the ascendant, whether you are the Internet platform or offline business, and the line and cherish.