Traffic becomes hard to bear for independent clients: the cost of new customers doubles for half a year

and the emergence of a wave of progress, but they are suffering from rising high

2011, nearly 40 independent companies for traffic forced into Taobao Mall (now renamed as "The Day Cat"), "Independent of the Dead" voice is rife. Two years later, independent companies are not dead and appear on a wave-by-wave, but they are suffering from the increasingly high flow costs of the difficult load.

Flow！ Flow！

In the 2012 "annual Conference", the guest speaker discussed the question of whether independent Business-to-consumer could survive. At the 2013 "annual conference" held yesterday, independent consumer is still one of the three Oita forums, but the issues discussed by the guests were more specific and refined than the previous year: high flow costs and how to get new users became the focus of discussion. This change reflects the changing competitive environment faced by independent Business-to-consumer.

2011, including red children, Bowser nets, Poly-Mei excellent products, a shop, such as the nearly 40 independent of the flow of traffic forced into Taobao mall. At that time, the weakness of the independent consumer to the platform of the general class was the voice of the former, and the view of "the independence of the dead" was rife. Two years later, by Suning easy to buy, Gome separately acquired red children and Bowser net has already removed the cat flagship store, the United States makeup Vertical electric quotient of excellent products also in the days of the cat disappeared.

For two years, The independent man was not dead, and was still appearing on a wave. But the new players still have to face the old problems experienced by their predecessors: rising traffic costs are becoming harder to load.

According to the online statistics of the electric business marketing agency billion MA, since 2011, the polarization of domestic electricity business has become increasingly serious, the top ten of the number of electric network traffic accounted for the overall flow of 40%, of which the top three of the three electric dealers occupy the first 10 of the overall flow of nearly 50%.

The Matthew effect became increasingly apparent. "Zhu Qigong, vice president of the online business, believes that this trend has led to the increasing cost and difficulty of developing small and medium-sized independent users of the traffic and new customers." Take a cosmetics website for example, the site in the fourth quarter of last year, each new customer acquisition cost of about 200 yuan, and this year two quarter is close to 450 yuan.

Good to the flow of large

In the same way as red children, Bowser nets to find willing to buy their own "Godfather" before, independent of the consumer still have to Taobao, Jingdong, such as large flow of the big show good.

Jiuxian Network CEO Shang will be summed up as a good "do not make enemies" business strategy. As a vertical electric dealer, Jiuxian Network has now settled into the cat, Jingdong, suning easy to buy, Amazon and other domestic mainstream electric business platform. Sales from outside the Jiuxian website accounted for 40% of overall sales.

"The 40% input-output ratio is very high. No such idea to cooperate, means to lose 40% of the sales, there are a lot of competitors and I PK price per day. Shang said. In the line with the Giants, Jiuxian network at the same time with the line of the wine entity chain cooperation, in order to seize the line under the "flow of people."

Another one to the flow of large consumers to show a good independent consumer is organic agricultural products electric business Tuo tuo workers. Tuo Tuo workers at present and almost all the flow platform has cooperation, "on the one hand these platforms can bring traffic and orders, on the one hand, the brand also has propaganda role." "In Tuo Tuo the CEO Dufei view, with flow large business reason simple and real."

Acquiring new users at the lowest possible cost has become an essential skill for independent consumers to survive, but having this skill does not mean that you can rest easy. According to the data of the online statistics of Yili, the problem that the electric trader obtains the new user still has the transformation difficulty. In the electric quotient flow structure, the new flow rate is about 62%, but its contribution rate to sales is only 32%. How to retain new users, improve the frequency of new users and customer unit price is another problem that the electric trader needs to solve.

The struggle between scale and "small and beautiful"

Size and profitability are still difficult choices for the electricity business. Before 2013, "No Future without scale" was almost schooled by group buying, vertical electricity dealers and comprehensive electric dealers. 2013 years later, some group buying and Fank, including the United States and the U.S. group, began to focus on profitability.

Through the burning of money and capital of the winter of the electricity dealers no longer superstitious scale, but "scale theory" still has the market. Tang Tanji, senior vice president of the Product Council, is a staunch supporter of scale theory. "Do scale is the law of commerce, Wal-Mart does not do scale?" Does Jingdong not scale? To do the electrical business must speak scale, only the scale of the future! ”

Taking the logistics cost of Tang Tanji as an example, the paper tries to show the importance of scale effect to electric quotient. According to him, only the goods will be in the early 2012 when the logistics cost accounted for 18.9%, now down to 12%. The decline stems from the enlargement of the order scale and the increase of bargaining power for logistics enterprises.

But Tang Tanji's point of view by the military Electric Power network CEO Len Lei the confrontation. Blood NET is a typical "small but beautiful" company, this household electrical appliance business annual sales in billion around the site, from 2008 into the beginning of the electricity business began to profit. "A small industry is profitable if it has a high margin." "Blood net gross margin in about 40%, in order to improve gross profit margin, the network has launched its own brand merchandise."

Also has the high Maori Tuo Tuo The work society also to have tasted the blind expansion scale the lesson. Tuo Tuo was founded in 2010 in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen at the same time to carry out business, but the huge cold chain distribution costs to the company later had to stop the Shenzhen and Shanghai business. This adjustment let Tuo tuo industry in 2012 to achieve a phased profit, and straighten out its own operating system.

"From the market point of view, the big platform to pursue must be the scale, vertical electric business is to take the subdivision demand." "Great Park Net CEO, the original Bowser net founder Zhiquan thinks, the electricity merchant to the choice of the scale key lies in own nature." The dilemma of the independent vertical electric distributor in China is to do the vertical electric quotient with the thinking of the platform, and to pay too much attention to the scale and do too badly in the fine service.