Customers Encounter A Crisis Of Confidence &Nbsp; Fierce Expansion Of Category Sales Model Has Been Questioned.

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At the end of November, there was a sudden increase in micro-blog's doubts about anyone.

Li Chengdong, an e-commerce analyst, asked, "do you think that many veterans should leave their posts in the middle of the year? Should they reflect on the old age?" soon after Li Chengdong issued the document, Wu vice-president of the vice-president and Wu Sheng, who was the "target of everything", announced that he had resigned for personal reasons.

At the beginning of December, Sina micro-blog failed to authenticate users' "Vancl thing" and published four blogs.

The original IPO plan was blocked.

There are many indications that the planned IPO plan was postponed in November when the plan submitted a listing application document to the securities and Exchange Commission of the United States.

"I have worked for 11 years in the electricity supplier, and this problem has been humiliating for people I have worked for so many years. I have done nothing in the past 11 years. I can not evaluate others' work. I can evaluate my work. What else is more valuable than creating value for customers?" in December 15th, the founder of micro-blog, who was at the cusp of the wind, appeared in an e-commerce forum, and publicly responded to questions that had been encountered by customers all the time.

Everyone originally planned to submit a listing application document to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November, but there are indications that this process has been postponed.

Even if the plan didn't change, it was much earlier than the date that Chen had planned to go on the market.

At a forum at the end of 2010, Chen gave out a plan for customers: sales in 2011 reached 10 billion yuan, in 2012, 30 billion yuan in sales, and then ready to go on the market in the second half of 2012 or 2013.

When the guest was questioned most sharply, there was a message in the investment circle. The actual sales of the customers in 2010 were 1 billion 700 million yuan, and the sales in 2011 were about 3 billion 500 million yuan, far away from the target of 10 billion yuan.

The source reportedly received the IPO document of van guest. The documents showed that the loss of the customer in the first three quarters of 2011 was 700 million yuan, and the sales cost accounted for 52% of the total revenue, of which only 700 million of the market cost accounted for 28%. Other warehousing, distribution and customer service accounted for the remaining 24% of the expenditure.

Based on this calculation, customers in 2011 only spend more than 1 billion yuan on the market cost.

"Excessive development" dragged everyone away

In order to achieve the sales target, all customers vigorously expand the category, known as grocery sales.

However, Chen said, "to say that the difficulties or challenges faced by customers this year is to expand the category too aggressively, and there will be some mistakes."

Under heavy sales targets, customers expanded their product lines, and everything that increased revenue seemed to be included in the online counters.

Once in the past, he went to the warehouse for inspection, and found that all customers began to sell mops. The super long mop could not be put on shelves with other commodities, so they had to pile up in a corner.

"How do we send the delivery staff?" Chen recalled afterwards: "to say that the difficulties or challenges faced by customers this year is to expand the category too aggressively, and there will be some mistakes.

For example, rice cookers, panels, kitchen knives and so on.

Participants in the Tencent's online forum on e-commerce, micro-blog, are much more critical of the issue.

Qi Yajun, an e-commerce insider in Shanghai, said, "customers should not be too fast to expand. When the main products are not completely stable, they will be able to kill other products, and they will be able to pull eggs into the market. Every day is the feeling of clearing up the warehouse. Customers may not dare to say they are customers if they buy them.

Customers should cut off other categories besides clothing category. "

Lv Bowang, founder of micro-blog consulting, is recommending that customers should improve their brands.

The development of apparel market under the line has been developing for 20 years, and new brands continue to emerge.

Lu Zhenwang, an e-commerce observer and a project manager of Sinopharm holding electronic commerce, also said that indeed, the brand channel has been channelized in the past. It is thought that the high profit margin of the brand can be obtained through the operation channel. As a result, the brand is worthless, the user is not loyal, and the sales promotion and monthly turnover rate has finally become an annual turnover rate, which is the source of the pain of customers.

The mode of customer service must be changed. The way of grocery store is not sustainable. We should realize pformation to boutique.

"High-rise cleaning" forced many senior executives?

Van top executives have left this year.

The principle of "old people doing new things and new people doing old things" is widely regarded as one of the reasons why senior managers leave.

Observers also questioned the idea of "high level cleaning".

Since this year, the senior staff of van guest has changed frequently. Assistant president Xu Xiaohui (micro-blog) has resigned and set up a web site with similar nature. The vice president Zhang Xiaojun and vice president Li Gangjun of the finance department left this year.

The principle of "old people doing new things and new people doing old things" is one of the reasons why these people left.

Observers also questioned the idea of "high level cleaning".

In the first half of December, the media responded with a formal response to this problem.

For example, he said that the current general manager Li Hongyi, such as Feng Da, was once the warehouse manager of all customers. Because of the theft of Shanghai warehouse, the old age was held accountable. Eventually, Li Hongyi was pferred to the new business, and Li Hongyi turned white.

Chen recalled that it took only 2 minutes to tune the posts.

When Li Hongyi started to do like Feng Da, the start-up capital was only 100 thousand yuan, and even after three months, he paid his employees out of pocket.

But three years later, such as Feng Da has grown into a benchmarking enterprise in the logistics industry, both in terms of logistics quality and after sales, have established their own standards.

Chen disclosed that the culture of the management staff of Vic is that if problems arise, they will adjust posts to allow new people to adjust their old businesses.

Under this management idea, a number of managers such as Li Hongyi were born, while others chose to leave.

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Low price dumping leads to brand depreciation?

It is questioned by the outside world that the price dumping of all customers leads to the depreciation of the brand. The calculation of everyone's own is: for example, 29 yuan T-shirt, about 8 yuan per piece, 8 yuan to get a user in the long run is cost-effective.

Expansion is too fierce, sales are not up to expectations, and the listing is blocked. Will customers become another PPG? A fan investor said that the two companies are totally different: PPG is essentially a telemarketing company, and everyone is a Internet Co.

The investor said that every customer's internal problems were also noticed. For example, some employees were "playing the means in the supplier's link" for personal gain.

This also causes problems in the variety and quality control of the products inside the van.

However, this person is optimistic about the prospects of everyone. The reason is that everyone has completed the preliminary control of the industrial chain.

In the future, there will be a "X" department that allows partners to design and provide products for customers.

In this respect, it is much better than Jingdong (micro-blog) in the B2C field and Taobao, which is undergoing painful pformation.

In terms of the capital chain, despite the fact that the listing of passengers was blocked and the marketing cost remained high, in May, because of the $230 million financing, there were still hundreds of millions of yuan in cash in hand.

For low price dumping, which leads to external questions, the brand depreciates, and customers have their own calculations: for example, the T-shirt of 29 yuan, the cost of products such as warehousing, logistics and so on, about 8 yuan per piece.

However, from the perspective of user acquisition cost, 8 yuan is quite worthwhile to get a user. In, the cost of acquiring a user was 25 yuan.

After obtaining the user, the customer consumption per customer (i.e. customer price) is about 100 yuan, which is cost-effective in the long run.

This is also the real meaning of "spending money enclosure" that e-commerce has always said.

Snowball mode needs turning.

Online website - advertising marketing, expanding recruitment, burning hard - increasing paction scale - attracting investors to invest - continue burning - expanding further - attracting more investment...

This "snowball" mode is almost the epitome of the development of all Chinese electric business enterprises.

Many of the projects used by entrepreneurs to attract VC are idealized, and they are difficult to form mature businesses, especially in the field of e-commerce.

When the development of electricity providers is not as good as expected, investors spend time and money in vain. Investors are gradually calm down and find that the rate of return on investment brought by e-commerce is gradually decreasing. At the same time, the merger and IPO performance of these e-business is not ideal, including Dangdang (micro-blog) and its listing performance, which can not satisfy investors.

This year, the first-class benchmarking enterprises such as fan and handshake net (micro-blog) also encountered many obstacles, which will make the venture capital more and more cautious about the business enterprises.

In the end, the more money the electricity suppliers are burning, the less profitable the profit model is, so that a lot of people close down.

There is a common feature of "bankrupt companies", that is, their marketing costs exceed their sales.

For example, it cost 20 million yuan to advertise and only sold 10 million yuan.

Jingdong mall CEO Liu Qiangdong (micro-blog) pointed out.

"The common problem in this industry is that the resources invested in the marketing side are much more resources than those devoted to improving user experience."

Chen Shousong, an e-commerce analyst at Analysys International (micro-blog), said most of the e-business spent money on advertising and price competition, but there was no substantial change in the logistics and shopping experience that users really felt.

Chen Shousong believes that the current mode of China's electricity providers are almost all "capital driven", and this growth mode is not healthy. No matter whether the capital market will improve in the future, this mode needs to be radically changed.

From capital driven to business efficiency, revenue from electricity providers is not from investors, but from users. It comes from how much value it provides and how to control costs internally.